Free Sewing Class and Shoe Fabric!

I know a lot of people are really getting into sewing these days.  One of my daughters is teaching herself quite a lot with her new (to her, anyway) sewing machine (I'm impressed with her creative skills so far).  And my 10-year-old granddaughter Keira is really excited about learning to sew.  She's made lots of cushions and a snuggle bag already but wants to move on to making bags.

I mention this because I just found a brilliant free video class on Craftsy that teaches you how to make a tote bag.  I've downloaded the video and I'm going to get my daughter and granddaughter to watch it.  Maybe they can even have a bit of auntie/niece bonding over it!

On the bag theme, Keira has plans to make a shoe bag - with a shoe print fabric (above and below)  The fabric is just amazing, and one metre gets you enough to make a few bags.

the fabric is wide, and the print is sideways on to the selvedge

 (in the image above, the selvedges are top and bottom) so there's plenty 

(there's a 12" ruler at the side of the fabric to help scale the photo)

But I like the idea of a hanging panel too - the wording on the fabric just lends itself to something you could put on a wall!

welcome to my house!

You may remember my dotty denim from this post - it's from Wholeport like the shoe print fabric.  I have more plans for this denim - I want some oven mitts from it and also a cushion.  Unfortunately, I did waste some of it when I got my photo frame wrong when I was experimenting with a design, so I don't have as much as I'd like.  I may have to order some more, or maybe I'll back the cushion with something else.  Either way, I do officially love my dotty denim!  It's quite soft for a denim fabric, and I can imagine it would work for all sorts of things - including bags.  I can imagine it with a brilliant red or bright floral print lining.

the gorgeous dotty denim

It's busy here so all these plans will be put into action sometime in 2013, which isn't too far away...