Make a Note of It

I'm a list-maker and a note-taker. I have yet to advance to any electronic organizer. For me, post-it notes and the backs of empty envelopes do the job most of the time.
Recently, K and I sat down to make something out of the growing pile of used gift cards and hotel room swipe keys I originally collected to be used as pretend credit cards for kids playing house. We made tiny notebooks...a whole bunch of them. Let me know if you need one.

Assistant

My daughter, K, loves to help out. Partly, it's her age; she loves being able to do the same things I do. Part of it is also her temperament. K calls herself my "Sewing Assistant", and she routinely selects beads for zipper pulls, inserts business cards in completed items or fetches the right color of zipper from my stash. In her spare time she cuts fabric from my scrap bowl into smaller bits, or tapes them down to paper in a collage.
Around dinnertime, K is anxious to help my husband put dinner together. Generally, I shop for the food and put the menu together, but M cooks the food while I sew.
For Christmas, I made K an apron for her "Kitchen Assistant" duties. She wears it with pride.

Fabric of the Month

The vast majority of my pouch and purse sales take place in the parking lot of Lincoln Square. Since my husband is technology-oriented, he has encouraged me to consider that a web site is also important for letting people buy fabric pouches at their convenience. He helped me set up the site and taught me how to maintain it (more or less). It's called www.inmyvastsparetime.com.
To my immense entertainment, people I don't know have begun ordering from the site. I have mailed orders to California, Missouri, New Hampshire, and cities in Illinois.
I have decided to market a "fabric of the month" on my web site. January's fabric is this lovely Japanese frog print. It will be available on my web site with free shipping all month long.

New Year, New Fabric

Even though I don't need a reason to buy new fabric, I see the new year as a good opportunity to refresh my craft supplies. The Holiday Market is over, but the Market at the Square is still months away. Now is the time to experiment with new patterns and make a few things for around the house.
In the possession of some Christmas money, I went on a spree. I still love robots on fabric, so I bought a new piece of cotton-linen from Japan and a blue cotton fabric from closer to home. The gray and pink floral fabrics are organic cotton. The brown florals I've been wanting. The black Pac Man fabric dates me. The green trees were on sale.
I bought other fabric, but only so much can fit in one photo.

Ho-Ho-Ho

I have a craft friend, a lady I met at the Farmers' Market this summer who makes a variety of lovely crafts: photo notecards, shopping bags crocheted from strips of plastic grocery bags, lap blankets, and other things. From time to time she mails me something she made. I do the same. This small Santa wall hanging has been mailed off to G. I hope she isn't expecting it, and will enjoy receiving something unexpected in the mail the way I have enjoyed opening things from her.

Holiday Workshop

I am pleasantly busy sewing special-order pouches for holiday gifts. K and I made a run to the post office Monday to send some of these pouches to a lady in California. They are not liquid, fragile or potentially hazardous...just an excuse to buy more fabric. But, I don't think the post office cares about that.

In the Paper

Shared Space, an artist and crafter cooperative store in downtown Urbana, was featured in yesterday's News Gazette as a place to buy locally-made gifts. What a kick it is to see my pouches in one of the article's photos! I've pinned the paper to the design board in my sewing room. It's my version of a stuffed trophy fish up on the office wall.

Kindle Cover

My husband tells me the new Kindle will be a hot gift for people this Christmas. He's the type who follows (and reports) technology trends even if he doesn't have a personal interest in acquiring the new gadget. So, we don't have a Kindle, but I was moved to make a cover for one anyway. It's padded and has an elastic closure to keep the Kindle from sliding out if the case is tipped upside down. I sold a couple at the last Lincoln Square Holiday Market.
Is it wrong to want a Kindle only so I could make a pouch for it?

Diaper Bag

This special order canvas bag is meant as a diaper bag for Illini fans. With a zippered top, a baby's unmentionables will be secure. I added large side pockets to the inside for organizing fresh diapers, teethers and newborn whatnots. The shoulder strap is adjustable and can be unhooked all together for that day in the future when the bag is no longer for diapers, but maybe carries groceries or library books.

Holiday Market

I'm almost ready for the Lincoln Square Holiday Market, in Urbana this Saturday from 8-1. Meet me behind the huge Christmas tree to browse through pouches, larger organizing bags, mail baskets, messenger bags, pencil pouches, key fobs, tissue covers, knitting needle pouches and these cute little whatnot baskets.
I still love Japanese fabric, and when the temptation builds up, I acquire another fantastic fairy tale or bicycle or owl fabric and start sewing!

Cloned Purses

Someone who bought a few of my pouches at Shared Space in downtown Urbana contacted me about making copies of a well-loved purse. The original bag is a casual shoulder tote made from Indian fabric and finished with covered cording in the seam between the lining and outer fabric.
I took the bag apart to make a pattern and then googled how to make covered cording. I send thanks once again to crafters out there who not only share construction secrets (and even patterns), but carefully document each step with photos so folks like me can attempt things step-by-step.
The online lesson took, and here are the two (reversible) purses that result.

Buckle Bag

My friend G wanted a smaller messenger bag in black with a buckle closure instead of a magnetic snap. I measured and fussed and finally got the webbing of the handle snipped the right length to feed through each side of the buckle and back to the seam without straining or sagging.
More advanced hardware like buckles is very appealing, but comes with a learning curve. Even tracking down a source for the right size and sheen of a piece of hardware can be a hunt. When I feel like meandering through a project instead of making sure tracks, a new gadget or technique is a must.