Here it goes!
I love to write, its late and pardon me if I blabber as I do...OFTEN...
So, I follow Terri from Sew-Fantastic on Blogspot and I admire her works on her Etsy Shop.. I possess a few of her items and have been unknowingly by her inspired to sew again thus..I've been sewing for a few months now.....(again)
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| One of my Elephant Pin Cushions |
I usually create simple little things I put in my Etsy shop.. which had begun with custom recipe boxes/photo boxes...then I had gotten slightly bored doing them and wanted to do something else for a while. I was taught how to sew by my father at the age of about 7. At 7 I was making random "kid" things and about the age of 11 I made my first pair of PJ's... those turned out a little kaddywaumpus but.. hey.. I was 11... then my 11th Christmas my dad bought me my first sewing machine.. I still have it.. its out of commission currently and those bad boys are spendy to fix! I began sewing pillows... totally funny right?! you you bet everyone in my household had one of my lavender glittery snake print fleece pillows stuffed with pillows that had been in need of a trash can.. they were pretty ugly and well..everyone was really nice about not saying otherwise..I thought they were COOL! .. SOO .... Terrie was selected to partake in a Zakka Style Sew-along and I though "welp, that must be fun!" but then she had posted a blog about the tote she had finished for Week 1.. and I couldn't resist! I had to get my hands on the book that was to be used. Zakka Style 24 Projects Stitched with Ease to Give, Use & Enjoy Compiled by Rashida Coleman-Hale. I live in the great state of Oregon and decided Powell's Books was the way to go! I hopped online (figure of speech ;-) and found the book, only 1 was available in there warehouse and I had to order it and wait for it to be sent to the Hawthorne store... that took 2 days.. I was totally bummed out! .... patience was not my virtue at this point! But when I got my book I was EXCITED! ... I was going to do something I hadn't done before and was encouraged to just dive head first and DO IT! .... Thus.. I went to JoAnn Fabrics whom was out of neutral or "cream" colored linen... (I know right?) and my other fabric store does not carry linen (again..I know!) so, I had to choose colored linen (which was also on sale!).. I chose Blue and yellow for my tote..(I only used blue) I purchased Machine Embroidery threads in the primary colors, my fabrics and picked up some more fusible fleece.....
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| Front of the Zakka ZigZag tote |
I began sewing on Saturday the 7th after work and didn't stop cutting, slicing and dicing until 2AM when then, I had made a quick decision to go see my family in Goldendale,Washington ( a huge leap threw The Columbia River Gorge) for Easter Sunday. So, in short, I went to bed, woke up with 4 hours of sleep, got ready, hopped in the car and went to see my family for most of Sunday. I hadn't made very much progress on my tote other than making the "face" of the bag. Using quilting methods and techniques i've never used before, this was very much a learning experience for me! So at 9:45PM tonight I had just gotten done adding the "echos" to the front of the bag..
I continued to sew until about 10:45Pm and was finally done with the tote. I added a coordinating in colors, interior fabric that had birds and blossoms on a cream background. My zigzag did not turn out as it should have-the lack of my experience in doing cuts like this. (its all learning) So................................ this is what I got for my first quilted item EVER!>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I am pretty happy with it. I am a big of a perfectionist so it is really hard to breath when I look at the zig zag but I thing the effects of the "smoothed" peaks is "different" so i'll just keep telling myself that! The bag was really fun to make and I was totally excited to finish this and even begin it.. I didn't know what I was getting myself into but knew I just really wanted to do something different. So... Week 2 project is next ... starts tomorrow... totally stoked! I'm going to use one of my fun new zippers from zipit.etsy.com.................................. :)
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