Monday, January 26, 2015

Working with leather...




Today's post is the second installment of 2014 Christmas gift sewing.  A Christmas idea came my way for a handmade tool holder/bag.  Girls are easy to sew for, but for guys it gets a bit tricky.  When this idea came, I jumped on it right away.  My local fabric store has a great selection of leather remnants.  The piece I wanted was huge (uh... yes, cows are big!) and they kindly cut it down to the size I needed.  Here is the finished project...


My first all-leather project was a tool holder.  Leather takes a bit of practice to work with.  I used my regular sewing machine and a needle designed for sewing with leather, but it can be tough going!    
There is something great about leather, though!  The smell, the feel -- I just love it.
The pattern for this is a "one of a kind."  I had some outer dimensions to work with and just went from there.

Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Snow Day posting... The City Slicker bag

It has been two months since my last posting on this blog!  2014 sewing for me was definitely on a slower pace.  In 2013 I completed 70 projects and posted about most of them, whereas in 2014 only 42 projects were completed.  I say "only," but really, 42 sewing projects while teaching full-time is nothing to sneeze at! So -- on to some of those projects that never made it to a blog post.  My sewing goal for this year (...just so I remember!) is to sew at least 52 projects, use fabric from my stash and stockpile a few small items for ready gifts.

The City Slicker bag has been my most challenging bag project ever.  It really was not super difficult, but more time consuming than I anticipated.  Of course, the fact that I gave myself about 2 weeks to work on it before Christmas (yep, it was a Christmas gift) didn't help.  It was, however, a challenge well worthwhile!  I love how the bag turned out, and the recipient -- a horse lover for many years -- was delighted!

Project Resources:
Pattern:  The City Slicker - Intermediate
Fabric:
 Band of Horses Collage
 Kauffman Essex Wide Line linen
Zippers, lining, hardware, foam, interfacing were all bought at local quilt shops


Roomy front pocket has a magnet snap closure.

Back slip pocket -- I love using Kauffman Essex linen.  I would be completely happy with a bolt of this on hand to work with! :)

A harp comes in handy for purse photography! 

My first time to use a purse zipper with double pulls.  I added a bit of leather strips to pulls.

Inside slip pockets on both sides.  One of them was supposed to be a zipper pocket, but in the interest of time I opted for the easier method.