Purses which speak for themselves!

Animal keyrings

These are such fun, but so intricate to set up in terms of thread colours that these are the only ones I have managed.

I may have to return to them when I have more patience!

Black and white owls again

This seems to be becoming a recurring theme.  These black and white owls have a certain formality to them which I love.

I do enjoy playing with fabrics - I feel so blessed that I have this opportunity to do it.

Bibs restock

More of my embroidered bibs - another popular line.  Actually, these ones are not so much a restock as a finishing off of some which got abandoned part way!

There are such a lot of lovely embroidery designs out there - it has given me real pleasure to create these.

Slytherin purse

Those in the Slytherin house are often among the more wealthy families.  So perhaps they will have particular need of a purse bearing their crest!

Folk on the green

Rather belatedly I am catching up on posts about the various fairs I have been at recently.  There have been rather a lot of them - so much for my intentions last year to do one fair each month!

At the start of June I had a stall, for the first time, at Stony Stratford's Folk on the Green.  It was such a fabulous day that I really hope to be invited back again next year. 
From arrival to departure, everything was organised so efficiently.  We arrived to find our market stall erected ready for us, in a brilliant position.  It was easy to unload the car and get everything set up, and I was really pleased with the final appearance of the stall.

 We were on the street, near the end of the row but with a great view of the stage.  It was a real pleasure to sit and listen to great music all day, with a steady glow of customers.

Nearly £300 raised on the day - a fantastic total!  Thank you to all who helped organise it, as well as those who bought!

Spotty owls

These came from the second pack of fabric I treated myself to at Hobbycraft.  I couldn't help myself - the colours are just such fun!

Aren't they gorgeous?!

Hogwards pencil case

I know I will need to make more of these than I have already.  Unfortunately I had a bit of a disaster with the zip insertions, meaning that I need to go back and do a lot of tedious unpicking. 

I also want to make a variety of sizes of these pencil cases.  For now, the five I have will have to do.

More corded purses from pockets

Another amendment in the design.  It is always fun playing with variations.

These are boxed purses, but with a buttoned flap rather than a zip.

Keyrings

It has been interesting to see just how unbalanced the sale of keyrings has been.  I never expected to sell many of the x keyrings (!) but to find that A and S sold out so much more quickly than the other letters was a surprise.  Hence a restock.

Pocket bags

These little zipped purses didn't turn out as nicely as I hoped - but it may be that I was spoilt by the success of the boxed purses.  These are nice enough, but I think I made a mistake in putting pockets on both sides of the purse, as this produced a very bulky set of layers.

Still, hopefully some customers will find they are just what they are looking for!

Owl phone cases - stripes

I treated myself to these fabrics on the opening of our new Hobbycraft store. While, somewhat sadly, they don't sell a lot of fat quarters, they did have some lovely themed packs.  These owls come from one of those packs (I treated myself to two!).

So cute!

Teardrop bag

I am so pleased to have made this design.  It began as the offcuts from various denim strips.  They were too short to use, but I could not bring myself to throw them away.  So, using an idea I found in a book, I sewed them into strips then sewed the strips together to make a piece of fabric.
Having pressed the fabric, it sat over the banister for some time while I waited for the "right" project to come along.  Then, in another book, I found this bag design and decided I had to make it.  My fabric produced three (and a half!) bags. I decided these had to have "significant" linings, and they also have interior pockets and a key hook.  Only two are complete at the moment - I still have to make the strap for the final one.

Boxy pocket bag tutorial

As promised a few days ago, here is the tutorial for these little bags:

You will need: two pockets cut from jeans (I usually cut mine 6" or so wide and 8 inches deep; children's jeans work really well for these); two pieces of lining the same size; a zip to fit the short edge of the fabric and a piece of piping cord or similar for the strap.

 Sandwich the zip between one piece of denim and one piece of lining and stitch along the top.

 

Open up the pieces and repeat with the other piece of denim and lining.
Open the zip! (very important!)

Open them out and pin the linings together and the denim pieces together, with the cord sandwiched between the two pieces of denim, next to the zip.

Sew around the edge, leaving a gap along the base of the lining.

Cut a small square out of each corner. I usually make mine about 1cm long.

  

Pinch the cut edges together and sew along the straight edges to make the boxed base.

 Turn right side out.

 Stitch along the open edge of the lining and slip it inside the bag.

 It's a simple little bag; making them in batches I have found them very quick to complete.  I'd love to see any you make.

Griffindor purse

This design sewed up much better with grey thread than with the silver metallic I used for the phone cases.  I was really pleased with the result; the design came up so much more clearly.

Day 1 of Milton Keynes Handmade and vintage fair

What a fantastic day!  This is my first time at this event, held in the centre of a huge shopping area (I think in American terms it would be called a mall).  There were 120 stalls full of handmade and vintage items, and thanks to having help from Debbie and Paul, I did manage to get round and have a look!  Tomorrow I hope I may even manage to take photos of some of the other stalls too.  For today I only managed to photograph mine, and some in my aisle:

 My stall, set up for business...

 The new "Harry Potter" range.  This was much depleted by the end of the day!

 The table full of smaller items.

 Looking one way down the row...

....and in the other direction.

It was a very long day - I arrived at 8am and left at 7pm.  But I made over £200 worth of sales, and had some fantastic conversations with people.  Hoping for an equally good day tomorrow.

Wash bags

These bags strike me as an ideal present opportunity.  The bags themselves are novel, and can easily be filled with little treats to make a thoughtful gift.

There is a tutorial for these available - look on the tutorials page if you are interested.

Boxy pocket purses

These were a pleasure to make and I am so pleased with the results.  An invented design, I hope to make a tutorial for them at some future point.

I foresee these being popular with teenagers - they are just large enough to fit a mobile phone and other essentials in!

More owls

An ever-popular line, I seem to be constantly restocking these.  I'm not really complaining, and I do enjoy choosing colours for the wings.

Photographing them in the garden was quite fun too!

More postcards

The fabric postcards I made as an experiment were amazingly popular, so in the interval between sales I restocked them.  People at the previous sales were amazed to hear that they can be sent through the mail (they can; I have done it myself).  I hope these will sell equally quickly, and bring pleasure to both senders and recipients.

Straight sided pocket purses

Another variation on the theme to fill the empty shelf.
I had some lovely pockets in this batch - the embroidery on the third one down was particularly lovely, but didn't photograph so well.

RSPB fair

What gorgeous weather we had.  I have to say I was a little worried - this week has been cold and wet.  But today I woke to bright sunshine, and that continued all day.  So much so that my obligatory photo of my stall is a little substandard....

Set in beautiful surroundings, the crowds were not massive but people came, and they bought.  I sold many more bags than I have lately, and had some great conversations as well.

The sun shone all day - and a bonus was that opposite me was a stall selling home made cider.  Those who know me will be able to predict that resistance was futile!!

Looking forward to that treat tonight, and to my next sale - all weekend next weekend, at Milton Keynes.  I'm told it is going to be fabulous....

Button-flap bags

These were a made up design, though inspired by some I saw online.  I cut round the pockets, leaving a little more than a seam allowance, and then cut a flap piece which was slightly less wide than the pockets.  I cut the linings using these as a template, and simply stitched them up.  Having recently mastered the button hole tool on my new sewing machine, I rummaged through my collection of buttons till I found those which pleased me and matched the bags, and simply added them.  The strap is made from thick piping cord (which was too thick for the purpose I originally bought it for!) and the result is, I think, very pleasing.  I have since made further variations on the theme, which will appear here in due course.