pouchies

i've been sitting in a sewing storm and i feel like i'm completely sucked in. i started with those little snack baggies...now i got me some zippers and i'm ready to get to perfecting these little zippers box pouches. they are pretty small, but oh-so-cute! i can always adjust the dimensions of the fabric and make them bigger. but for now, these little things are perfectly trial-sized! the one i posted her is the last one i did with a laminated cotton lining and canvas exterior. i'm pretty sure that my sewing machine hates me for it. the laminate is way too sticky and the canvas and laminated cotton proved to be way too thick for my standard home-use sewing machine, even with a large needle. i'll just have to stick to interfacing.

snack baggies - trials & tribulations

oh man, who knew sewing would be this hard! i never even imagined that i would have a hard time sewing STRAIGHT! i can't even sew straight for pete's sakes! so i got the fantastic idea that making reusable snack baggies would be a great started project. i purchased all this cute material and got all psyched up for it. it looked easy enough, right? HA! i've produced 3...the first one was the most epic fails of all fails...no joke. it turned out not even being a bag. it was just a big rectangle. i wasted my cute dr. seuss material for that too. so for the next one, i got smart. i knew it wasn't going to turn out the way i wanted it ...for a while...so i used old material that i had lying around that probably wouldn't use for anything. unfortunately, the nylon had to be wasted, but that's pretty inexpensive. in any case...this time at least it ended up being a baggie! lines were not straight AT ALL..didn't even close my stitches..but the fact that it resembled a baggie was thrilling! #3, unfortunately, ended up looking alot like #2, even though i thought i was supposed to improve with each one. *shrug* so after talking to yuko about my struggles with sewing straight, we came to the conclusion that i wasn't trusting my sewing machine. the more i tug and pull, the less straight it will be. which leads me to last night's start on baggie #4. i had 5 minutes while cooper was poo'ing to get the velcros sewed on, so i took a deep breath and trusted my machine...it worked! well, of course it's not totally perfect, and it did go crooked a little bit and i forgot to close my stitches..but it was MUCH straighter! can't wait to get a few more minutes so i can work more on baggie #4!

wire-rimmed flowers

for some reason, i have a newfound love for flowers....ribbon flowers, tissue paper flowers, fabric flowers, you name it, i love it. so naturally, i also fell in love with the wire-rimmed flowers. i was especially attracted to these because i had all the materials..and no sewing was required! that's always a plus for me. in any case, i started making these with the intention of making them for the teachers for flower day of teacher appreciation week. i was going to make each of them a mini bouquet, but when it came down to it, i just didn't have enough time. these were somewhat time consuming only because you have to wait 24 hours for the glue to dry...and on top of that, it's super messy. perhaps i used the wrong glue. the original instructions that i found suggested i use tacky glue. but i had modge podge at home, so no point in buying more glue. to this day, i don't know if that would have made it any less messy. i also used regular wire but i'm fairly certain that using floral wire (white wrapped ones) might have been even better. ohwell, maybe next time. i ended up giving each teacher one, and made my mom a bouquet for mother's day.