Work in progress and I need your opinion, please

Hi. There's this shoulder bag I'm working on. It's realy nice upholstery fabric from KA International.

I was thinking about leather strap. But I can't decide should I use black or red leather. What do you think?

Black

Black stripe is shorter, but thicker.

or red?

Red stripe is a bit wider, longer, but not the same shade of red as on the flower.

My first frame purse

I found some time and finally made my first frame purse. It's the Fortune Cookie Clutch Purse from U-Handbag Here it is!

If you think it look great, maybe you should take another, CLOSER look or get your vision checked (just joking ;)).

The sewing was easy. Putting the bag into the frame was a nightmare. I started on the edges and continued towards the middle. But when I was on the middle, on the sides purse went out of the frame. So, once again I pushed the purse on the edges and the purse went out of the frame in the middle. And so on and on and on. That's why the fabric on the edges is a bit damaged. That did'n dicourage me though. I'll be making more of frame purses. Just wait and see! But not with cotton fabric anymore. I'll be using upholstery fabric which I prefer.

Any tips of advice on putting the purse into the frame and not killing someone alog the way? Katy, yours look so much better! 

Update on Flora

Thank you all for your lovely comments. Flora is doing very well. Actually she thinks, she is just fine and wants to run, jump, play and all that. Unfortunately, she is not allowed. All she does is sleep and eat. We started clicking a bit otherwise she would go insane. Just some static tricks, like give me five and similar. It's like if she was a puppy all over again: a lot of short walks, four meals a day and a lot of sleep.

She is wearing two Tshirts so she can't get near her stitches. She is such a darling, doesn't complain when I have to dress her nor when she has to take her medicine.

The god thing is, stitches are comming out on Wednesday. This is how she looks without the Tshirt. The hair has started to grow although you can't see it on the photo.

Have a nice evening and stay tuned, I promise next post will be sewing related!

The longest night

Hi everyone! Did you have a great time with family and friends on the new years eve?

For me it was one of the longest nights ever - quite literally. My Irish Setter Flora had an urgent operation. She was restless and without success tried to vomint on the evening of the 31th of  December. I know all about bloat, so when she had the symptoms (read more about bloat and the symptoms here), I rushed her to the animal hospital and a few hours later she went through very much needed operation. It was a long night siting on the steps in front of the surgery waiting and praying all goes well. And it did. She spent the following day and two nights in their care, but she is home now. She was relieved into my care this morning with a lot of medications (antibiotics, pain killers etc.). She had something to eat, because she wouldn't eat at all in the hospital and is now sleeping. Thanx God I live close to the animal hospital (10 minutes drive), thanx God the veterinarian on duty was a surgeon and thanx God all the rest of the team rushed into the hospital quickly. Certainly not a night I would ever like to repeat.

I wish you all a very happy, creative and above all healthy year 2012!

Nicholas Fair

You are most welcome to the Nicholas Fair which will be held tomorrow from 2 PM until 7 PM in Logatec. There will be a lot of lovely handmade things, my unique bags included.

This is what it looked like last year - heavy snow storm. This years weather forecast is supposed to be sunny.

photo credit here

And the winner is....

Good morning! I hope you're having a pleasant weekend. Thank you all for your comments, I'm still not sure what sewing machine to get, but I don't have the time fot that at the moment, because it's LIFFe - film festival here in Ljubljana. I saw Elena yesterday, Russian film by Andrej Zvjagincev and I highly recommend it.

Back to the Blackbird bags blog. The Random.org decided comment no.2 is the winner - so Michell congratulations! I'll email you soon regarding address info, so I can send you your little bag. Thank you all and have a great day!

A little giveaway

Hi, what's up? I know long time no blogging. I think my blogging has a lot to do with my sewing and I haven' t been doing that lately as well. My old sewing machine (my mothers sewing machine that is) is finnay ready for retirement. I need to get me a new machine. One that will be able to sew cotton as well as upholstary fabric and leather if possible. I have no idea which brand or model to buy.... All those machines are for hobby and home sewing. I'm not getting another one like that or else it won't last a year. It's going to be a difficult decision.

I'm leaving you with a little giveaway. I like giveaways, don't you? This is a small (23 cm high x 17cm wide/ 9 inches x 6,7 inches) cotton bag. My first thought when I made this was "oh, it's a lovely bag for storing tea." Not really for tea bags, but rather for collecting it in the nature - like rose-berries or elderberries. You can use it for storing crafty iteams or whatever you like.

The rules are simple. Leave a comment under this post until November the 12th. If you're a sewist yourself, tell me which sewing machine do you use and if love it and would recomend it or do you wanna get rid of it and buy another one. If you're not sewing, no problem, you can write what are would you do with a giveaway: keep it or give it to someone special. I'll draw a winner randomly on November the 13th and annouce it the same day. Please, with your comment leave an email address as well, so I'll be able to contact you in case you win! Oh, and I better not forget: the giveaway is open to anyone worldwide. Good luck!

Sudoku quilting

Have you ever heard of Sudoku quilting? If you like solving sudoku and quilting, this is the thing for you and it's very fun! You need 81 pieces of quilting fabric, 9 different prints. I bought Central Park by Kate Spain for Moda. First you solve the sudoku, then you number your fabric pack from 1 - 9.

And you make a block regarding you fabric number and sudoku block. The best thing about sudoku quilting is that the pattern is never the same, just like the numbers on sudoku. But you do need to double or triple check before sewing.

This is my sudoku quilt.

 

This was the easy and the fun part, now comes the hard part: making a quilt sandwich and free moting quilting.