Handmade Monday 158

Hello! Welcome to Handmade Monday!  Click the link for more info and how to join in.

What a week!  This week saw my digital stamps in Digital Crafting Essentials, my Easter cards in Craftseller magazine...

and one of my Thank You cards (which was in a previous issue of Craftseller) has apparently found a new lease of life in Wedding Invites magazine!  It's rather nice when that happens (not least because they pay you again!).

I've also been sewing this week.  Sewing World liked the scissor keeper heart I made a few months back, so I made them a new one, which will feature in an upcoming issue.  There's a sneak peek of it above.

I also made an applique bag for my sister's 60th birthday (I can't quite believe she's 60 - where did all that time go?).  The gorgeous patterned fabric (from Wholeport) in my scissor keeper (above) also featured in the bag - I love the bright colours and I still have some left over so it might even resurface in another project too!

can you tell there's a duck in there somewhere?

The duck applique is going to form part of a pattern for another Sewing World project (it seems everything is being recycled this week - magazine articles, fabric, applique patterns!).

I've had a lovely day sewing the bag today.  Well, it's always lovely until the seam ripper comes out!

What's been happening in your world?

An InLinkz Link-up

Winter Sewing

I think sewing is one of the best things to do when the weather is bad.  Perhaps if I could knit or crochet, I would choose one of those as a cold-weather craft (if only for the curling-up-on-the-sofa factor) but for me sewing wins every time.  It helps that my sewing room is one of the warmest rooms in the house - although I tend to flit between the sewing room and living room as then I can have a full-size ironing board out and do my cutting on the dining table!  I do use a mini ironing table in the sewing room too (really very handy depending on the size of the project).

Let loose with the iron...

Keira (my 10-year-old sewing apprentice/granddaughter, above) has been making a tote bag with the fabric I got recently from Abakhan.  She loved the butterflies print (as I knew she would) although my favourite was the retro turquoise cotton print.

Keira was really proud of her first-ever handmade bag!

She even helped design it.

The photos are pretty dreadful - sorry! - it was an after-school project and the daylight had gone by the time we got to the photo stage.

I used some of the leftovers in a tiny project...

I wanted to leave the edges unfinished - I'm after an informal look - so I feel like it needs a wash to fray the edges before it gets its ta-dah kind of moment.  I'm thinking maybe I'll do it as a tutorial soon.