Back to being a bag lady

It's a long, long time since I made a bag. Too long. I forgot how much fun they are, and how challenging the fact that they are 3-dimensional can be.

A couple of weeks ago, I was catching up on my blog reading and came across Heidi's tutorial for the Ellie travel case. It was one of those tutes that just jumped out at me - super cute and I felt like I just HAD to try it.

So on Saturday, I had a moment where I actually had nothing to do - the house was tidy, everyone was fed - those moments come along very rarely these days. (Well, honestly, the basics were done. There was, obviously, plenty I could have been doing, if I was the sort of person who didn't avoid housework like the plague.) So I jumped at the chance and decided to make something quick and fun - and this was the obvious project. There were no fabric choices to be made - as soon as I thought of the bag, I knew I wanted to use the black Nordika print FQ I'd been hoarding for a special project, and I knew I wanted the pink for contrast.

So I grabbed my stuff, got cutting, interfacing and sewing and in a few hours, hey presto I had a bag!

It's small, but beautiful.  I love how the Nordika plays together. The top pic is the front..the back is equally nice, the fabric is just placed slightly differently.

I used some leftover hexie print poplin for the lining which works great in it.

The long zipper makes this a very practical little bag to pack stuff in and out of. My zip ends definitely need a bit of work. I haven't done a zip insertion in so long, its a little bit on the messy side, but no one will be looking at it anyways.

I'd definitely recommend trying this, the tute is great and its a lovely make. Thanks Heidi for the inspiration - I had the most sewing fun in ages making this!

 

Celebrating 3 Years - a big giveaway!

 It's hard to believe that 3 years have passed by since I nervously started blogging about my sewing.

It's been a fantastic, fun journey where I have made lots of new friends (you know they're proper friends when your husband starts referring to them by name instead of calling them the internet people) learned about a million new things and discovered a lot of stuff about myself along my way.


I made lots of beautiful things - these are some of my favourites:

Most importantly, it has made me happy :-)

So, to celebrate and say thank you to my lovely friends and readers, I'm having a giveaway. This is not a sponsored one, everything I'm giving away is from my own stash and I hope you like what I picked!

Firstly, 3 beautiful FQs of Nordika in the Alpine Valley colourway:

Next, from my (if I do say so myself) scrap bin of loveliness, 100 die cut hexies (sides measure 1.5" unfinished). I fussy cut quite a few of these to make them even more fun. There are loads of gorgeous fabrics in here.

A copy of the Modern Baby book:

And lastly, I couldn't resist putting a little handmade something in there, so I've included a phone/camera cozy.

I think its a lovely bundle, and I hope you do too. Here they are, all together:

One lucky person will win it all! To enter, its very simple, all you need to do is leave a comment telling me where you follow me - whether its Bloglovin, Feedly, Facebook, Instagram etc. New followers are more than welcome :-)  You can find the links to follow me in various places up on the top right of my sidebar. For a bonus entry, share this giveaway on your blog, Facebook page, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest etc and let me know in a second comment where you shared it.

I will post worldwide. The giveaway will close on Monday evening 19th August. I will choose a winner randomly shortly afterards and will announce the winner by editing this post. Please leave your email address in your comments, if I cannot contact the winner within a reasonable time frame I will redraw.

**Giveaway now closed. Winner will be announced on this post shortly**

Edited Tuesday 20th August.

Thank you everyone for your lovely, lovely comments on the giveaway. I loved reading them all. There can be only one winner however, and that was no 147,

 who is Jan. Congratulations Jan, I have emailed you!!