Not Exactly Sewing

We've been busy this weekend - very busy!

1.  We are making a guest bedroom.  About a week ago, we bought and installed a mattress set and frame.  Later plans are to add a headboard and sheet set:  Meanwhile, I have many boxes which I moved from other parts of the house (such as my husband's office) into the guest room.  These boxes cover the guest bed and part of the floor:

2.  We bought and built a desk where I could put my PC in the guest room.  Here is my old desk in my husband's office:

Here is my new desk:

Here is the updated view of my old desk, including the spot under the window where my bookcase used to reside:

3. In the spirit of cleaning and rearranging, hubby decided to remove all the old tech manuals from the bookcase in the living room.  I'm not sure what to do with them though, since the box from my desk has rendered the trash can totally stuffed.

4. Since the cabinets below the bookcase became readily accessible, having had the chairs removed from this space, the boxes of fabrics and projects were cleaned out a bit. The storage space in the cutting table had some fabric clean-out, too.  Now, all my projects are in plastic containers, with the most current projects in queue under the cutting table.  All other projects.are in the bookcase cabinets.

5. The fabric clean-out caused a temporary encumbrance of the couch. These items were donated to various people and organizations:

6. Meanwhile, The fabric box and blue bin of fabrics that were in the sewing room are now in my office..  They used to be here, on the left side of the room:

7. My pattern stash resides under the book shelves in the living room.  I cleaned that out a bit, too. These patterns have been scanned and added to my for-sale page (above):

8. But wait, there's more!  We also managed to work on cutting down the tree limbs that had been cut down last week. Dog tired, we are. The pile on the left should be removed by the trash service, so we can make another pile next week:

9. I even worked a bit on filing so I would have somewhere to put some of the papers. I have been very lax at filing, and hope to improve from this:

10.  Just gotta have a number ten! I even got some laundry and dishes done!

Runaround Bag

Yep, that's the name of this pattern, and it's nice to have something small and quick to make.

I really need a new purse, and I've been seriously considering making one.  I have two patterns in mind, and - believe me - I've researched them a lot, mostly on PatternReview.

I needed a quick project to boost my sew-jo, aka. Sewing Mojo, and this bag is it.

 Here's the link to the Lazy Girl Runaround Bag pattern.

The pattern is actually an instruction sheet, with line drawings to show you what to do.

The outstanding feature of this pattern is that it shows you a unique method to install a featured (not hidden) zipper in a bag, or any other project that features a zipper.  I had never seen this method before, even though I've had this pattern for a while.  No, I cannot tell you why I had not read this pattern's instructions before today!

At first, I was quite bothered that no cutting layout was shown.  I finally wrapped that around my head by making pattern pieces from recycled paper.  I tested the layout by placing my pattern pieces on the fabric:

I also figured out that lining up one edge would make the cutting easier:

I kept the pattern pieces with the cut fabric, which made assembly much easier:

The pattern calls for batting as a stiffener, but I decided to use iron-on woven fusible interfacing, instead.

For the most part, I followed the instructions.  However, I did not sew the final seam in one fell swoop, as instructed.  I left the strap loose while I stitched up the side where the zipper was closed, across the top, and almost to the other end of the zipper.  After that, I pulled the strap out through the zipper opening to stitch the remainder of the seam.

I trimmed the corners and reinforced the corner stitching.  After trimming off the excess zipper coil, I turned the bag right side out.

Here are pictures of the front and back of my bag:

I wasn't sure how I would be using this bag until I discovered that two kindles will fit inside just fine, and make it easier to take our "books" to the beach!

Another Little Jacket

Heh, heh.  What can I say?  Simplicity 4552 again.  I figured out that the sleeves are a good idea in the air-conditioned office where I work.  More Bee-Itch-y, very thin fabric.  Size 60 universal needle, stretching the fabric as I sewed:

 

So, what did I do after completing this jacket?  I bought more thin fabric. Of course!