Finished the second Amy Butler Handbag

I finished the second Amy Butler purse today, this one is for me! I have found that I can last about and hour to an hour and half max in the sewing room before I need to get the leg up and put some ice on the knee. This was all the time I needed to get the purse finished. Although, I will have to wait a bit to use it since it is not quite conducive to crutches!

 Sewing with my healing leg. I still am not aloud to place any weight on the leg but got the OK to use the sewing machine.

I did remember to bring my camera into the sewing room so I could document the last steps in finishing this project. (only took me 4 months to complete!!) 

The lining over the outside of the bag.

An opening left in the lining bottom to turn the bag right side out. Needed to be almost the entire length of the bottom since this bag has so much structure.

Pulled the bag right side out through the opening in the lining.

edgestiched the opening closed. I thought about doing this by hand as I would have with a garment. But with so many layers (6) to go through this option was the best and seeing that it is the inside bottom of the purse it is not likely to be noticed by anyone!

Holes for the handle insertion were left unstitched. I pressed them under by a half inch then inserted the handles.

Close up of handles pinned in place.

Prior to stitching the handles in place and edgestitching along the entire top of the purse I use pliers to squish down any bulky areas. This really helps to make the sewing machine run smoother over these areas. 

The final product!!

And of course I needed to make a tissue holder to match. Tissues are a staple in my purses... allergies!

So in a final review of this Amy Butler pattern and fabrics... I LOVE it. There is also a larger tote version that I plan on making for my daughter. It was fun to make this in Amy Butler's signature fabrics. The patterns and colors are bright and happy and of very good quality. I could also see myself making this purse in more traditional fabrics.

There are a lot of pieces, and the cutting and prep work is long and tedious. However, well worth the work! The final product is beautiful. I just need to decide on whether or not to spray it with scotch guard. Any thoughts on the scotch guarding?

I made it into the sewing room!

 And HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my MOM!


Saturday I ventured into my sewing room! I had an Amy Butler purse to finish for my mom's birthday gift and it was leaving with my daughter on a 7am flight to NYC on Sunday morning.


In retrospect, I may have over done it a bit on Saturday... Sunday was exhausting and no fun. With this in mind, when I ventured back into the sewing room this morning I gave myself a time limit and stuck to it. I set my ipod on a playlist of 15 songs and once it was done then so was I. 


I think that was a much wiser move on my part.


Back to Saturday... I played on a few scraps to get the feel of sewing with my broken, now healing, leg. It took a few minutes to get the feel but then I was off and sewing. The hardest part is that my quadriceps muscle on my right leg is still not functioning very well. So I had to really concentrate on controlling the pedal. Probably good therapy as long as I keep it in limited doses!


One of the purses is done and from the phone call I get from my Mom yesterday, she LOVED it! Yay!

The finished purse 

and a matching tissue holder to go in it.

A quick project: Sneeze Catchers

This was a super quick, fun and easy project. and one that I was not intending on doing last night!

My goal was to straighten up my sewing room, get ready for my next project and to organize my shelf of cotton quilting fabrics. I am not a huge quilter... but I like to dabble, especially in art quilts. I have some idea drawings for several art quilts hanging on my sewing room wall and I wanted to organize my quilting fabrics by color schemes so I would be able to better locate and use my stash. Almost all of these fabrics are in 1 yard or less cuts. some 1/2 yard and even some fat quarters. Most are a yard and this is because if I like a fabric I should buy at least a yard!!

And this is the reason why I always have so much scrap fabric left over from quilting projects... I buy an entire yard for a 5 inch square piece... hmmm, I know I am not the only person that does this!

So as I was straightening up I came across the directions for a 'sneeze catcher' on a 5x7 piece of paper. It was a free handout from QuiltTricks that I picked up when I attended the Chicago sewing and quilt expo in November.

I placed on my sewing desk next to one of the machines to hang on one of my bulletin boards. And it made me think of the 2 full cases of pocket tissue packs that I have in the laundry room that I got for free last winter. I thought 'hmmmmm.... sneeze catchers and I have about 100 packs of pocket tissues downstairs...

So then I was organizing my quilt fabrics and came across these 2 remnant pieces that I must have used in a dozen projects over the years and went 'ohhhhhhhhhh, I could finally get these fabrics used up and out of here!!! I am frankly a little tired of looking at them!'

So, in the space of 30 minutes I whipped up 6 'sneeze catchers'. One for me and the other 5 for girlfriends that I will be seeing this Saturday evening.

Thanks for the handout QuiltTricks! It was a nice, easy, quick and useful project that will make my GF's smile.

Outer fabric is a stained glass look, the lining fabric is a pretty yellow print.

The ends, serged and cornered.

All stuffed!

Tied in pretty packages with extra tissues.

Now I am in Boston on a work trip for a couple days... Hope everyone has a great week!