This week's sewing club = Aprons!! and a little sewing on my own.

This Saturday, our little sewing club met for its second class. This time after spending some time oohing and aaahing over the one gal's brand spanking new Janome (an early Christmas present from her parents), we spent some time learning how to wind a bobbin, insert it, and thread our machines. Then we chopped up some Mens cotton dress shirts (from Goodwill) and repurposed them into : Aprons !! We almost got done. Just the pocket to go, so we'll add that to next class. Then we took a road trip to the fabric store. Each girl chose her favourite bolt of flannel for pyjama pants. Once everyone was hugging a bolt - literally- we went to the cutting table, then chose thread, then they got to go home. We're meeting again this weekend to get back on schedule. The topic this week is zippers. We'll make a zippered pouch. This way they each have time to prewash and dry their flannel fabric in time for the next class which will be reading a pattern, and starting on our flannel pants.


My sewing time this week was spent finishing up the banners for the church. I also brought my first 3 purses to RedBird Designs for sale. I figured I'd better bring some in to see if the styles were what she was looking for before I had 5 or 6 done. She loved them so that felt good :)
Tonight I worked on a new bag pattern and made the first prototype. Of course, I forgot to get a longer zipper, so I improvised and used two small ones head to head. I kind of like it!
This purse is fully lined with one interior pocket. The front and back are upholstery weight fabric and the piping is made from another swatch of similar colour. Once I had the bag made I felt it needed a more substantial handle than a single webbing strap so I stitched two together. Once I added the strap, I then wrapped the joining area with another piece of webbing (to disguise a few boo boos). Then got out the FrayCheck and dabbed any remaining frayables.
I like this one. I think I'll have to use this pattern again = but I have to do some tweaking on the ends of the zipper where it meets the handle. We won't discuss how many needles I broke attaching the handle.