posting a project I did for luv in the mommyhood:

Hello Mommyhood readers, Meg from elsiemarley here! I was absolutely thrilled when Shannon asked me to be a part of her fabulous crafty boxing match. It was a little hard to pick teams, I have to say. I learned how to crochet last year and very quickly fell in love with it. My winter was spent sitting on the couch, cranking out whatever cool crochet patterns my little fingers desired, as my poor sewing machine sat dusty and unloved in the corner.  But sewing has always been my true favorite: the instant gratification of sewing wins out over the sitting on your butt part of crochet (or knitting) almost every time.  And with that in mind, let’s crank out a bag that will go with everything in a few measly hours. Take that Cozy Knits! Kapow!

Every spring I get the urge to buy a completely new, bright, flirty, floral wardrobe replete with matching bags and strappy sandals, but it never happens. Even if I did have the cash for a springtime shopping spree (ha!) all those accessories wouldn’t fit in our little house. So I came up with a bag that can be many different bags all in one. It is completely reversible, so it will match all the springy outfits you already have and make them look fresh and new. It is also adjustable, so it can be a very ladylike shoulder bag or if you need to jump on your bike and go, it can become more of a messenger bag. Awesome, right? So without further ado, I give you…

materials

• 1/2 yard fabric A
• 1/2 yard fabric B
• 1/2 yard lining fabric, I prefer to use canvas or a home dec weight fabric rather than interfacing
• 20 buttons, yes 20! all the same, or 10 of one kind 10 of another, but they all should be about the same size
• sewing machine, buttonhole attachment (you can do it!)
• iron

directions

1. Out of each 1/2 yard of fabric cut two 14 inch wide by 15 inch tall pieces and one 2 inch wide by 41 inch long piece. You should have plenty of fabric to work with, but I want you to mark all the piece on your fabric first to see how it will fit. The strap will go along the top (the long side will be perpendicular to the salvage) and the two main piece of the bag should fit below it (the short side going with the salvage).

2. On the bottom of each piece cut a 1 1/4 inch square out of both corners. This is going to make a boxed bottom for the bag.

3. Now you need to sew all the pieces together.

• Start with fabric A: before you sew, mark a 4 inch wide space in the middle of the bottom edge, sew the bottom of the bag together, right sides facing, but in between the marks use a basting stitch (just a very long stitch). Take it to your ironing board and press the seam open. Then sew up both sides,right side facing. Don’t sew around the notches we cut out! the easiest way to press the side seams open is to lay your bag flat and fold down one side of the seam, iron it (see above), then flip it over and fold the other side of the seam down and iron.
• fabric B and lining: Sew the bottom seam first (no basting) right sides together and press the seam open. Sew the side seams and iron as above.  Again don’t sew the notches!

4. At on of the square notches, fold the bag so that the bottom seam and the side seam line up. Iron it flat and sew closed. Do this on both notches for fabric A, fabric B, and the lining.

5. Take fabric A where we did that bit of basting and rip out all those basting stitches. This will be the hole where we turn the bag right side out, which is the next step…

6. Turn the fabric A bag right side out and put it on your hand (really!). Then take the fabric B bag, inside out, and pull it on top of fabric A. It’s important that that the right side of these two bags are facing each other. Then lastly, fit the lining (inside out or right side out, it doesn’t matter) on top. You should have a big oven mitt like thing on your hand now. Poke your fingers into the boxy corners and try to get them all to match up.

7. Line up the raw edges at the top of the bag. If all the fabrics don’t line up (mine never do) trim them so they do. Now sew all around the top of the bag.

8. Stick your hand through the hole we made in fabric A and pull out fabric B and the lining. Then stuff fabric B and the lining into fabric A. This is a little confusing to explain and weird the first time you do it, but it works I promise!

9. Iron the top edge.

10. Hand sew the hole in fabric B closed. It should be easy to make it straight and pretty much invisible because you can just follow where the basting stitches were. The best stitch to use for this is the ladder stitch.

11. Now for the strap. You should have three strap pieces–42inch by 2inches–one from each fabric. Stack them all on top on one another making sure the right sides of fabric A and fabric B are touching.

12. Lay the strap out flat. On the left side, on the bottom measure in one inch and cut from there to the end of the top edge. This just makes a pretty angled end to the strap. Do the right side, except measure in one inch from top and cut down to the end of the bottom edge.

13. Sew all around the strap, leaving about a foot wide opening in the middle of one side, so we can turn it out easily. You could also do the basting stitch trick here if you like. Turn that sucker out! You can use a chopstick, a pencil, a tweezers, whatever works, but be sure to poke the corners at the ends of the strap out. Iron it well after it’s all right side out.

14. To sew the opening closed you can topstitch all around or hand sew it–it’s up to you. If you want to topstitch it and want to match your thread to your fabrics, just put the one that matches fabric B in the bobbin and the one that matches fabric A on top. Then be sure to sew with fabric A side on top and you’re good to go.

15. Now we’re going to attach the strap to the bag! Place the strap so the pointed part is at the bottom edge and it is centered over the side seam.

16.  Starting about an inch from the top of the bag lay 5 buttons along the strap all the way to the bottom (about an inch before the angled bit begins). My buttons are 1 1/2 apart, but your bag might have turned out a little bigger or smaller, so just make sure they are evenly spaced.

17. Mark where all the buttons go. Then do a test run with your buttonhole attachment on your sewing machine.

18. You can see above I have my test buttonhole next to my strap (with the mark on it), so I know about where to start the buttonhole. When you hold your awesome bag all full up with awesome stuff the button will slide down to the bottom of the buttonhole, so keep this in mind for where you place the buttonhole in relation to the button. I hope this isn’t horribly confusing–I’m trying to be extra clear so you don’t have to rip out any buttonholes, because that’s no fun.

19. Mark the buttonholes in the same way on the other side of the strap as well. Sew those buttonholes! You should have 5 on one end and 5 on the other. Carefully cut the buttonholes open. Pin the strap onto the bag and make marks through the buttonhole for where the buttons go. All the marks should all be on the side seam.

20. It’s time to sew all those buttons on. Settle in on the couch with a needle and thread (and a podcast or two). You are going to sew two buttons at a time: they will be in the same place, but one will be on one side and one on the other. The awesome bag is reversible, remember? Start at the top and attach the first button with one stitch, then when you go through the fabric attach the button on the other side. This is a little fiddly, but it will cut your sewing time in half. When you are finished you should have 20 buttons sewn on!

21. Button your strap up however you like, on whichever side goes with the very cute outfit you have on today. Ta Da! you made The Awesome Bag. You are awesome!

posting a guest post I did for Katy:

When Katy asked me to be a part of Once Upon a Thread, I immediately said yes! yes! and then I drew a complete blank. I could not think of a single book that made me want to make something, which is silly because I love children’s books and I love making things.  You would think this project would be easy peasy. And that’s what I thought, but suddenly nothing was inspiring me to sew.

I looked through my kids’ books, I looked through some of my friend’s collections, I looked in the library, but the more I looked the worse it got. I had maker’s block. The more I tried to force myself to think creatively the worse my ideas became.  The horrible ideas made me feel like I wasn’t creative enough or clever enough or much of a seamstress or all of those at once.

My big crabby, self defeatist attitude reminded me of a little children’s book we’ve picked up from the library a few times called The Dot by Peter Reynolds. It’s a simple story about a little girl who is frustrated because she can’t draw. Her teacher asks if she will at least make a mark on the page. So the girl slams her marker down and makes a dot.

“Now sign it,” the teacher says.

So she signs it, Vasha. And the next day her dot is hanging, framed, in the front of the room.  Seeing it, Vasha thinks, “Well I can make a better dot than that.” And she does and much crazy dot painting ensues: big dot, small dots, dots made of dots, dots made from the absence of dots. It’s a beautifully illustration (literally) of the lesson I often try to teach my children: stop saying I can’t and just try. A lesson I obviously hadn’t learned myself.

For a while now, I have been dreaming of making my own fabric. The hand dyed and hand printed fabrics (and the beautiful projects made from them ) always appeal to me, but I am rather terrified of dying  my own fabric–my bathtub still shows the signs of a botched dip dying experiment. I will try dying again, but the book made me think that there might be other ways to make a mark.  Down in the basement, I scrounged some spray paint and an old white sheet. Then on my snow covered picnic table I drew some dots.

So there. I did it. Made fabric. It wasn’t perfect, it was scratchy and pilled a bit in the dryer, but hey! I made it. Then I made something out of it: a little peasant top.  And it looked better than the fabric did–I made a better dot! And now I want to make more, with fabric paint this time or maybe even dye.

It is so easy not to do something new. It’s cliche that we get stuck in our old ways, but we do! And then constantly tell our children to get off the couch! stop whining! try it! you might like it! Listen to your mother, go try it. Go make your dot. Do whatever ridiculous thing pops in your head–you’re children always do.

-a wooden serving tray with a lovely yellow cottage on it. My daughter said, “Is that where Laura [of Little House in the Prarie] lives?”

-a fantastic wool blanket. I got this a while back, but hey! it’s 50 degrees, so we’re still using it! I’m not complaining–this is my kind of summer. Awesome things to do everywhere, but none of that hot ass weather that goes a long with it.

-a ridiculously analog computer. It’s hilarious, how could I pass it up?

-and this bad boy came off the curb. A metal basket for who know what, but it fits our books perfectly. And it’s awesome.

Get anything good from the thrift store recently?

The old blog has been pretty quiet this week. And it might have to stay that way a bit longer. I’m spending every minute of my day painting our house. The outside! It’s raining today, so I’m here with you, but tomorrow it’s back to covering myself and the house in paint.

I think it might have been raining when I made this May Day crown too. It definitely was a very chilly May Day, which was too bad because my friend had a fantastic party with a may pole and everything. The day before the party my kids helped me cut out some petals out of felt, then in the evening I sewed them all up into flowers. I put some on a crown for my son and made my daughter and myself these flower crowns. They were super excited to wear them and the crowns have found a permanent place in the dress up box. I was pretty happy with how they turned out too. I didn’t really use any patterns, but I did look at this, this, and this photo for inspiration. With some scraps and a stitch here and there, you can pretty much make any flower. Sounds like a good rainy day project…

Meg from Sew Liberated asked if I would kick off the book tour for her new book, Growing Up Sew Liberated. How could I say no to a fellow Meg, especially one as talented as Meg McElwee? I loved her first book, so I knew this one, which is devoted to the littles, would be fantastic too.  And it is! Not only is it full of beautiful things to sew, but the projects are organized around a child’s day: waking up, eating, playing inside, going out to play and getting ready for bed.

This shirt I made from the book, the crossover top, is in the “greeting the morning” chapter. It is meant to be a simple top, but is so perfect for jammies that I couldn’t resist. I had some super soft knit squirreled away for something and this was just the something.

This is a very quick and easy project. There was one step that tripped me a up, but I still finished the whole shirt in about an hour and a half. Next time it’ll be under an hour for sure. And there will be a next time, because the boys need summer jammies too. Obviously my heart fabric makes the shirt a little girly, but the pattern itself works for boys as well. And really all the projects in the book are refreshingly unisex.

And quite simple to customize as well. Like these shorts: the pattern was for sleeping johns (what a great name!) but seeing as it’s suddenly 90 degrees here shorts were in order. I added the ribbing detail on the bottom because I had the ribbing out for the shirt–and because it’s cute. Meg has designed clothes and accessories with simple details that are lovely on their own, but also would look fabulous all embellished up!

Many of the projects are just right for gifts as well. We are pretty much past the bib stage in our house, but the all-by-myself bib, which is cleverly based on an envelope style shirt (there’s a pattern for those in the book too!), looks pretty much like the perfect bib. I’m big on giving useful gifts–for babies and older kids–but I want something that is awesome as well as practical. Honestly, pretty much every project in the book fits this description. It’s nice to sew a pretty gift, but unless it’s going to get played with it, it’s not doing anyone any good. A play cape, an art satchel, a sleep sack, a cloth doll, an adjustable messenger bag, I would enjoy making all of them and I know they would all be well received and loved.

Growing up Sew Liberated is a fantastic book, simple as that. Please follow the book tour to see other sneak peeks and beautiful projects from Meg’s new book!

Growing Up Sew Liberated Blog Tour

Join Interweave Books in a celebration of the launch of Meg McElwee’s new book, Growing Up Sew Liberated. The launch kicks off with a 15-day blog tour visiting education blogs, sewing blogs, parenting blogs, personal blogs, eco-living blogs, and some that are simply a combination of all of the above.  You’ll meet some extraordinary women, see stunning photography, hear inspirational stories from Meg and many of her friends, and of course learn more about the book. Perhaps you’ll find some new favorite bloggers to follow along the way? Join us each day as we visit with:

6/6         Elsie Marley

6/7         Made By Rae

6/8         The Artful Parent

6/9         Rhythm of the Home Blog

6/10       Uncommon Grace

6/13      Simple Homeschool

6/14       Burda Style

6/15       Maya Made

6/16       Wise Craft

6/17       JC Handmade

6/20      Frontier Dreams

6/21       Made