French seams and such

I must apologize (again, I know) for my last blog. It was very poorly written, boring, and it didn't show how I did anything. I'm making the excuse that it was very late in the evening after I got a very fussy Ava to sleep, finally.

Anyhoo, I'd like to show you what I meant by "french seams" and give the step by step of my Christmas bag making. Of which, I'm still incredibly proud. My birthday books are coming in quite useful!

So here's the play by play:

I started with a hunk of fabric. Obviously.

First thing I did was sew the corners in for the drawstring hole openings.

Then I made dinner and forgot I was taking pictures of the play by play. Heh. Anyhow, the next step was to make the casing. Look at me, using technical terms! I might have called it a tube before my handy dandy sewing books.

Then, I clipped the fabric that was not part of the casing away from...the...casing. I don't know how to describe what I did, that's why I took pictures!

Then, with right sides out, I folded the fabric in half, matching up the casings, and sewed up both sides. Yes. Right side out. That's the whole secret of a french seam.

Then, I turned the whole shebang inside out...

...and sewed right next to the seams that were sewn while it was right side out. So now the side seams look finished inside AND out!

Next came the gussets.

With the bag still inside out, I spread the corner open (how to describe this...), measured in an inch on my nifty cutting mat...

marked a line...

and viola! A gusset! Should I be trimming the excess fabric? I haven't been because that would create some raw edges in the bag, and I don't want that.

Here's what it looks like once you flip it right side out.

Here's a lovely shot of the inside french seam at the casing opening.

Next came the drawstring. I used a safety pin on my b-e-a-youtiful gold ropey stuff, guiding in through the casing.

Bada-bing...

Bada-boom.
Tie 'er in a knot, and it's all finished!

So pretty!

The obligatory candle-lit photos...

So there. I feel much better now. I hope to write better blogs in the future, really documenting my plights.

And HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!! I hope you have some quality time with loved ones. :)

Christmas is coming!

I made a trip to JoAnn yesterday, and I spent way too much time there. Therefore, I spent way too much money there. But hopefully the things I got will be purchased before too long! One thing I don't want purchased, though, is this fantastic cutting mat. This has already made a huge difference in my measuring and preciseness. It definitely speeds up the process. I got a small one because they're expensive! Whoa!

I also got this white webbing to make my grocery bags quicker and easier to make. This bag was made for my mom - she wanted longer straps and somewhat different dimensions. This is the best bag I've made yet! Well, until you see what I made next...

A Christmas bag! I saw this fabric and just had to have it. It's so pretty! You might not be able to tell so well from the photo, but some of the snowflakes are gold.

After washing the material, I ironed it and set to work making a reusable drawstring Christmas bag. It's super simple, and very satisfying. I decided to try my hand at a french seam, which closes off all raw edges, and I was successful! I was afraid I would screw it up and have some edges showing, but that didn't happen!  I'm pretty proud of this bag. So proud, I made two!

Cody wanted to get fancy with the camera, so I let him have at it. These pictures are what he ended up with. He even went outside and found some freshly fallen leaves from our front yard. We put one of Ava's stuffed animals in the bag. :)

Well, I must say, I took the last photo. I wanted to show the detail of the gusset (I didn't know what a gusset was a week ago). Isn't it pretty?

I went to JoAnn again today. Heh. I got more drawstring material, this time a gold rope instead of the satiny one I used on this bag. And three more yards of fabric. Different ones, but I have the same plans for them. Christmas bags! They're eco-friendly, as they're reusable, and they make Christmas wrapping super quick and easy. I plan on making some different sizes, too.

Maybe I should try to make something other than bags...

I did it!

Welp! I opened my Etsy shop! I'm excited, scared, happy, scared, hopeful....scared.

Scared that I won't sell anything.

Scared that I'll sell too much and won't be able to keep up with the demand (ha!).

Scared that I need a business license and I don't know how to do that. Do I? Do you have an Etsy shop? Do you have a business license? How do you do that? Is it bad that I already opened my shop without a business license? What about a seller permit?

Ugh. I haven't had heartburn since I was nine months pregnant. And now. NOW I have it, thinking about all of the yucky parts of selling my little craftinesses.

But I'm excited to learn about this new venture, all the ins and outs of it. Happy to maybe make a contribution to the household income. Hopeful to make a significant chunk of change.

Oh! Almost forgot: here's the link!

Bags bags bags!

My apologies for being MIA for a couple of weeks, I've been busy! Cody and I both had birthdays, and then the in-laws from Oooooooooklahoma were staying with us for four days. Ergo, the blog was definitely on the back burner. As a consolation, here's a picture of the world's cutest zebra.

But dudes! Check out the spoils from my birthday!

First of all, I woke up to this:

Good job, my man.

Then I was surprised with a visit to the Oakland Zoo, then dinner at P.F. Chang's while my sister watched Ava. What a lovely day!

All of my gifts were sewing related, woohoo! Check it out:

This ArtBin holds so much! My sister, Erin, got this for me. Mom and Dad got me most of the toys and tools you see in it, including some elastic, velcro, pins, a tape measure, a fabric marker, some tracing paper, and a tracing tool.

Cody got me One Yard Wonders, which, I want to make everything in it. SOOooo many cute things. Erin got me Sewing 101. This book looks like it's going to help me a lot with technical terms and doing things correctly. Heh.

Mom and Dad also got me this cute pincushion from China Town in San Francisco.

Okay, and these Gingher dressmaker's shears and embroidery scissors. I mean, I don't know what planet these things are from, but they cut through fabric and thread like a hot knife through butter. And they're so pretty. And sharp. So sharp, that they come with sheaths! I'm a little bit afraid of them. But I know what I'm grabbing if someone breaks into my house!

So before the in-laws arrived, I was able to crack out a few bags. When I went to JoAnn, I found two other patterns in this crazy weird fabric that's perfect for grocery bags. So of course, I had to buy two yards of each. Plus two more yards of the original pattern. (Sorry Cody.) This fabric, by the way, is called olefin. From what I gathered from Wikipedia, it's a polymer that's used to make wallpaper, rope, and vehicle interiors. You can put it in the washer and line dry it, apparently, but I haven't tried that yet. It's also supposed to be recyclable, bonus!

Anyhow, look how cute this little zebra print tote is! It's currently holding some of Ava's toys, but I also used it to carry my Bible study stuff last week. Perfect!

The next two bags were made for my very first customer! (Thanks monkey mamma!) They're both about twice as wide as my previous grocery bags. I made the handles a bit wider, and on the brown one, I put some velcro tabs on the top corners of the side panels to help tame the extra fabric. Overall, I'm getting pretty good at making these bags, I think. I think I'd like to get some different material for the handles, though. Some flat rope of some sort, maybe. I'm thinking white would work best with all of these patterns, BUT, who wants white handles on a bag to get all grubby? Hm...

In other news, I registered on Etsy. I haven't posted a listing yet, though. There are still a few things I need to figure out. Like how to rotate the picture of the item. And what picture to put as my banner. And how elaborate a description of me I want on there. Things like that. But hopefully I'll have some thing listed in the next week or two. I need to make some more things, too, so I don't have just one thing in my store. Right? Or can I have just one thing in my store? I dunno.