A week or two ago, I posted a picture on Pinterest (i.e. crafter's crack) of a cute owl purse that I found on Craftster.org. Shortly after posting, I received a comment from one Miss Carmyn Egge that she wanted one. I sort of shrugged it off, not thinking much of it at the time. Cue thrift store trip 2 days ago, while at the store, I begin texting with her, and she again mentions that she wants the purse and asks if I'll make it for her while I'm "finding myself" (i.e. being a bit of a lazy bum and not working!). Since I was already at the store, I agreed and headed for the men's suits.

I found exactly 2 suit coats among probably 200 that were the pattern I wanted, and only one that was the color I was envisioning. So, I bought it, even though it wasn't quite as big as I was wanting (doesn't hurt to have some extra fabric in case you screw up a cut here or there). So, I drew up a pattern with some freezer paper-- if you sew, I highly recommend using freezer paper for patterns, as it is usually quite wide, it is relatively see through, nice and sturdy, and you can iron it right on to your fabric and cut around so no need for pins!

Of course, right as I was getting ready to prep my cut out pieces, my iron decided to stop working, so my sewing was delayed a day. Yesterday I got a new iron, sewed the lining, and began work on the appliqued front. Fortunately, I had all the other materials laying around... lots of felt from some misguided foray into stuffed animal making, tons of embroidery thread from various projects (some dating back to when I was a teenager and decided making friendship bracelets was cool), iron-on stabilizer (from who knows what), and lining fabric (I have kind of an embarrassing habit of buying fabric, whether I need it or not, and also of buying too much.)

Well, the results are quite satisfying, as you can see:

He's very adorable, if you ask me, and the liner fabric worked very well, and was totally "woodland" themed:

Mushrooms! I've already made a shopping bag and an apron out of this fabric, so it's gotten some use! And, it inspired the little applique on the back. I felt like the back of the owlie was a little boring with just the tweed, so I made a little pretty for it:

Another Mushroom! This bag was so fun to make. Now, it's off to the post office to mail to Miss Carmyn!

Craft Swap Goodies!

My awesome craft swap partner, Robin, has officially received her package of goodies from the Trick or Treat bag swap. That means I can post the crafty goodness on here! First off:

The most important part of the swap was to craft a really awesome bag. I happen to be well versed in the bag making, so that was pretty easy. I did have some major fabric-choosing anxiety, though, and walked around JoAnn Fabric with a completely different scheme that I didn't even like, before I went back for the plaid fabric and found the cute little vintage print hidden among the thanksgiving fabrics. This is the first time I've done a trim with a bag, and I think the little pom pom trim turned out really well. I also reinforced the handle with batting, which is my new favorite idea to keep the handle comfy and also to keep it from getting all scrunched up at the top.

Robin has two boys, Jakob and Bailey, so I couldn't leave them out of the craftiness! I made each of them a little bag with their name on it with the left over lining fabric. I free-handed their names with a bleach pen and added a little spookiness to each one.

The boys also got their own candy loot, which was a little more their speed. Skittles, Starburst, and Chocolate eyeballs. Awesome. I think much like a 7-year-old boy, so it was fun to do this for them. :)

Here is all the goodies that went inside Robin's bag all packaged up. I made four napkins out of the plaid linen fabric and used that to package everything. Below is the goodies (sans candy) all laid out:

I made that awesome potholder out of some sparkley cotton yarn I found at Hancock Fabric in Sioux Falls, SD. It was on super sale for 93 cents a skein! I had made it a while ago, not really knowing where it would end up, but it was the perfect addition to Robin's bag loot. Also, you can kind of see the rosette pin I made out of that same plaid fabric I'm obsessed with. I've tried to make rosettes out of fabric before, but haven't had much success. I threw out the rule book and tutorials I had found on-line and just made it the way I thought that it should be made, and it worked perfectly! I get a little obsessed with rules sometimes and forget the instinct part of crafting.

Finally, the piece-de-resistance was the crafted items for Robin and the boys. I purchased a candy-corn hat pattern, as she had listed one on her wist and I was dying to make one. It knit up really quickly, as it's a super thick yarn, and it's totally adorable with the little point on the head. She said she wore it out and got some great responses from people, so that's nice to hear. Also, I found a cute little batty pattern, which I love, and made one for each boy out of the remainder of the sparkley black cotton yarn from SD. I think they turned out great!