Crafting with Courtney - NEWS!

Wow, it’s been a long time since I’ve done a “Crafting with Courtney” post! Like ten years?!?! How can that be??? She was just a baby when I started this blog, and now she’s 18 and a high school senior, and that blows my mind!

Even though I haven’t posted about her crafts lately, she’s still been busy. She has been crocheting for several years. I’ve been the lucky recipient of some of the things she’s made, one for each of the last three Christmases. I got this adorable caterpillar first:

The next year I got a sea turtle:

This past Christmas I received a panda:

I love them all! They snuggle together on my bed every day.

The “NEWS” part of this post is that Courtney has opened an Etsy shop to sell her crocheted creations! 

It’s called ByCourtneyCrochets, and you can check it out here. I think her little animals are all so adorable - I’d like one of each! She’s working on more, building up her inventory; now she just needs buyers. They’d make awfully nice gifts, so if you know someone who’d love one (or like me would just like one for yourself), how about grabbing one of these handmade cuties? 

Courtney is a very talented entrepreneur, and I’m so proud of her! Please help spread the word about her little shop! You can also follow her on Instagram - @bycourtneycrochets.

And I am a great procrastinator (okay, you already knew that)! I’m rather behind on posting my latest sewing makes. They’re on Instagram, and I will probably eventually stop blogging and just stick with that, but for now… I’ll keep hangin’ in here and hopefully catch up. Soon. Hopefully. 

Monarch Mini Crossbody Bag #2

 How’s this for a different look to start my post?

So adorable, right?! 💕  This is Waffles, and she belongs to Courtney and her boyfriend. I took that photo on the day they brought her home, because I was lucky enough that they stopped by our place on the way (at my request). She’s just the sweetest little thing! She’s a Cavapoo - a cross between a Cavalier Spaniel and a Poodle. She seems to have gotten more of the cava part and not so much poo, because it appears her hair isn’t going to be very curly. 

Then I got the idea that her “parents” (their word, not mine!🥴) need a dog-walking bag to carry all the necessities. Since I’d made a Monarch Mini Crossbody Bag before (see it here) and enjoyed that, I decided to make another. Courtney chose the fabrics, and here is the completed bag:

I think she made great choices, and I love how it turned out! It can be used as a crossbody bag or, as shown below, the strap can be attached to the triangle rings on the back to be made into a waist bag.

The mesh pocket holds a small water bottle, and the pocket on the other end holds a roll of poop bags that can be fed through to access one at a time.

I happened to have zippers that matched perfectly…

… and even the lining fabric from Jess’s Typography fabric line matched nicely. (And I remembered my label - yay!)

Here’s Miss C and the “baby”, modeling the bag. I wonder if she gets carried more or walks more. Ha! She’s not very heavy to carry. She’d almost fit inside the bag! ☺️

The pattern, by Dog Under My Desk, can be purchased here.

Cross My Body Bag

I guess I’d better quit procrastinating on finishing this post (I uploaded the photos over a week ago), since I already have another project completed. I definitely enjoy the sewing more than I do fighting with Blogger and writing about it. Ha.

This is the Cross My Body Bag from the pattern by ChrisW Designs. It’s the first pattern of hers that I’ve sewn, and it was great; well-written and easy to follow.

The pattern called for quilting the exterior fabric to foam. Now, any of you who know me know I’m not a quilter. I’ve quilted a few pieces before, but mainly as parts of a bag. I really didn’t want to do just straight-line designs, and I know I’d make a mess of free motion quilting, so after thinking a bit and remembering my Catch All Caddy, I decided I could quilt on the designs that were already on the fabric. BUT, the question was would I go nuts doing all that on the fabric I’d chosen from Jess’s barkcloth collection.

So I started with just a gusset piece, which wasn’t very big. It went okay, so then I did the other one. Before I knew it, I’d done all the pieces and found it not to be that bad a job. It went faster as I got a sort of rhythm to it. I was quite pleased with how the quilting looked.

Here’s a nice view with the light showing off the quilting:

I wanted a sturdier fabric for the bottom of the bag, so I chose a solid canvas. I couldn’t figure out how to easily transfer the same design as the rest of the bag, so I just made up my own design. I appreciated the curved rulers I’d bought awhile back in creating this design.

For most of the sewing I used my old Kenmore machine, but the Sailrite LSZ-1 did all the topstitching, beautifully, as always.

The main reason I chose this pattern was that it had a recessed zipper at the top that was closed at both ends. If you’re familiar with recessed zippers, they usually have an open space at either end of the zipper, and if your bag happened to tip over, things could spill out. So I wanted to learn how this new technique was done.

It really wasn’t hard to do, and I like the security it gives the bag. Because of the thicker fabrics I used (lining is waterproof canvas), I wasn’t able to topstitch all the way around the ends at the top edge of the bag, so I stitched as far as I could and then added a couple of rivets at each end. That worked out well.

Here are a few more progress photos. There’s a zipper pocket inside.

Here’s a bit of a view of the backside of the quilting, plus the padded phone pocket that’s on the exterior back:

The interior and exterior were sewn together and then turned through a pocket.

A lot of sewers like to staple a lot of their more challenging seams together to hold them until sewn. I haven’t really liked doing this and prefer to baste them by machine, but these thick ends made it too hard to do without the fabric slipping, so I gave up and stapled them, which helped a ton. Of course then the staples had to be removed after sewing the seam.

In one of my sewing groups, this stapler puller was recommended. It’s one slick little tool, and I love it! It works like a charm, and it’s also magnetized so the staples stay right there instead of flying all over. I got mine from Amazon. It of course works with paper and everything else you might put staples into.

Here are a few more photos (tap on pic to enlarge). There’s a hidden zipper pocket on the front of the bag behind that accent piece, and there’s the padded phone slip pocket that I previously mentioned on the back.

It’s a nice size that will hold a lot of stuff.

The one thing I notice about this type of zipper opening is that it limits your access to the bag, where the other type of recessed zippers allows for a much wider opening. Just something to keep in mind if you consider making this bag… so it’s easy access vs security.

Like I said, I have another project completed. I just need to get a modeling photo before can post. So I’ll be back… sometime.

Just the Ticket Luggage Tags #2

Over eight(!) years ago, I wrote this post about some Just the Ticket Luggage Tags I’d sewn from the pattern by Uniquely Michelle. I had occasion to make some more recently, so here they are.

I started out by making that center one out of waterproof canvas, thinking it’d be nice if the tags were waterproof in case of being out in the rain. However, that fabric was a little too thick which made turning them right side out extremely hard, so I knew I didn’t want to make four more of those! I then remembered some laminated cotton fabrics I was given by a friend who was cleaning out her stash, so I decided to try one of those, and that worked much better. The remaining four are made from those fabrics, making them still pretty waterproof.

I once again used the printable PDF file Jess made for the ID cards, and it is still available here.

I enjoyed making these, and I may have done a bit of print matching… because that’s how I roll.

These were still a little more challenging to turn than quilting cotton would’ve been, but still doable.

So these pieces…

… became these:

They ended up going with Courtney and her mom (as chaperone) on a school Culture Club trip to Europe in June… Italy, Greece, and a cruise to the Greek Isles! Here is one of the many pics she sent.

Yeah… where have the years gone?! She’s officially a senior now! She’s still a kitty-lover, though, and she said cats were plentiful over there.

What a great traveling experience they had!

In going back to the post about the first luggage tags I made and reading through the comments, I realized I forgot two things. First, I forgot to add my little label to these new ones. It’s not the first time I’ve forgotten that! Ha! The second thing is that I totally forgot about the request for a couple of luggage tags. That was a long time ago, but if you see this, Kristin, and still want them, I’d be happy to make them. Just contact me.

Now I’m about to get back to a sewing project I’ve already put on hold twice, once for the luggage tags and once for a pattern test that for now has to remain a secret… until October!! I sure wish I could show you now, because it turned out very cool, and I love it. But I’m sure there will be several other projects in the meantime that I will be able to show you.

Leather Double Zipper Waist Bag

WARNING: Long post and lots of photos! But this is something new… for me, at least. So I want to include all the details.

Last Christmas, Jess and Alex gifted me with some real leather for bag making! Look!

Isn’t it beautiful? I love the colors! The green has a bit of a teal tint to it… right up my alley. It’s pretty firm, but no problem for my Sailrite machine to handle. The fuchsia (wow, I can never remember how to spell that word!) piece is much thinner and nicely drapey.

So I’ve had my eye out for patterns for something special to sew with either one of them. Looking through Etsy one day, I came across a pattern for a really cute waist bag that I thought would look great made out of the green leather. Best of all, it was on sale for only $3.25! I figured I couldn’t go wrong at that price, even if the pattern wasn’t so great, so I bought it.

Much to my surprise, I discovered that the pattern was meant for HAND sewing leather! And the way it was put together, it couldn’t be sewn on a machine. Hmm. I did a little researching into the process and decided I’d give it a try, just for something fun and new to do. It turns out I had quite a bit of learning to do, but thankfully there are lots of YouTube videos showing how it’s done. I watched quite a few of them.

Also, that inexpensive pattern turned out to be ONLY the pattern pieces. The instructions were given on another YouTube video. It had no words, just demonstrations of how-to. However, it was very clear and easy to follow.

The pattern pieces had marks for every stitch hole that needed to be punched. That seemed like it would be a very tedious process, so instead I ended up getting a set of these punches, so I could punch up to four holes at a time. From the videos I watched, it seemed like most people used these punches, anyway.

There was a “slight” problem with using them, though. Although they worked really well, they were 4mm apart, where the pattern marks were 5mm apart. That meant I had to be extra careful when punching so that my holes lined up right with their corresponding holes on the adjoining piece. The trickiest part was on the gusset, because it had to go around curves, and each side of the gusset attached to a different piece (front/back). I got the one side sewn on, which turned out to be a stitch off when fitting to the front. I then needed it to also be one stitch off on the other side so it would fit the back the same way. I actually counted the number of stitches on both pieces just to make sure! Fortunately they came out the same. And the ‘off’ stitches made the gusset a stitch too long, which was no problem. If it had been too short, I don’t know what I’d have done!

Besides those stitch holes, I had other holes to make. Thankfully I’d bought a set of lots of different shapes of punches a couple years or so ago, and I had just what I needed. Here’s one of them, and the crisp, clean hole it made in my belt:

With all the raw edges of leather that would be visible, I needed to finish them somehow. I considered edge painting them black, but the inner color was such a pretty teal. I decided to just seal them with several coats of clear edge finish and let that teal show through.

My stove made a good place to lay the pieces as their edges dried.

The inside of the leather seemed kind of “fuzzy”, and I could’ve just left it raw, but I decided to try that edge coating on all the insides, too. It went on quickly and easily, just spreading it with my finger, and I was pleased with how it turned out. It sealed down the fuzziness and made it much smoother.

The first part of the actual sewing was also the hardest - stitching the zipper in place. My holes looked a little messy around the curves, but that got covered up by the thread. The hard part was sewing through the zipper tape. It didn’t work to punch holes, so I had to push a blunt needle (hand sewing leather needles are intentionally blunt) through that tape. It was a workout for these old hands!

I did it! They weren’t perfect stitches, but I was okay with them, considering it was my first-ever hand sewing job.

Then I sewed that pocket onto the front of the bag. That was kind of a breeze compared to doing the zipper. Alas, then I remembered I had a second, even longer, zipper to sew into the gusset! Yes, it was just as much of a challenge. But again, I made it. Needless to say, the zippers took a long time.

If you know nothing about hand sewing leather, as I did, I’ll just briefly say that you use one long piece of thread with a needled knotted onto each end, then you go back and forth through the holes, switching needles back and forth. I enjoyed it, once I finished the zippers. It’s pretty slow going (like a good pace for me was 2 stitches per minute), but it’s rather relaxing.

I had to be careful attaching my D-ring tabs to the back. They are two layers, and the holes of course had to match with holes on the back piece. So I glued the tabs together, punched the holes in them, then lined them up and held them on with double sided tape so they couldn’t slide, and punched through their holes and through the back piece. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be!

So here’s the finished bag, the Leather Double Zipper Waist Bag.

It has a belt to hold it on your waist.

Here’s how it looks on me:

After finishing it, I thought the zipper pulls need something to make them a little easier to grab ahold of. None of the little leather pulls I had on hand seemed right, but I used them as inspiration to make my own out of matching leather.

The rivets I used to hold them together were some rhinestone ones I had recently gotten (on a whim, to bring my order total high enough to get free shipping). They were perfect!

My bag is far from perfect, but I’m still very pleased with it. I’d very happily hand sew another bag sometime, as I really enjoyed learning something new and going through the process. Of course that process was a slow one, taking a couple of months or so. But that’s the beauty of being retired… I can take as long as I want!

Besides the punch set, I also had to purchase some waxed thread to sew with and of course the hand sewing needles. Everything else I had on hand, so not much extra expense. Oh, and the $3.25 pattern! It’s still on sale until May 24th (but at $3.85 now… still a great price), and it can be found here. He has lots of other bag patterns that tempt me, too! Someday…….