Black Tie Boogie - Blog Hop

Welcome to my stop on the Blog Hop, and Happy Thanksgiving if you are reading this in the US.

If you are new here welcome, take your time and have a look around I am delighted to have you visit my little corner of blogland.

As ever, thanks to Madame Samm, the Blog Hop supremo and Vickie, our very patient cheerleader, we would have been lost without you!

Here are the other creative Blog Hoppers sharing their projects today. 

November 28

Celtic Thistle Stitches (you are here!)

Crafting 365 Days

Hill Valley Quilter

Thimblemouse & Spouse

When Madame Samm announced that the subject of this Blog Hop was Roosters, well I was hooked! It was only when I started planning my project for this Blog Hop that I realised just quite how many Roosters I have around the house :)


There are cross-stitched Roosters,

stuffed and painted Roosters

more painted Roosters and a quilted Rooster!

The quilted Rooster cushion was my first ever attempt at hand-quilting and was completed as part of an evening class in Patchwork and Quilting that I went to about 7 years ago. I am delighted to see that my tentative hand quilting has stood the test of time (so far, anyway!).

After tossing ideas back and forth, always the hardest bit of the Blog Hop as far as I am concerned. I eventually decided to make another Rooster cushion. This time, however, I wanted to try something a bit different.

And here he is, my latest Rooster cushion!

The main cushion fabric is called Postcard and was another fabric from the lovely people at Terry's Fabrics

I downloaded the Rooster image from the Graphics Fairy website. If you haven't come across the website it is definitely worth a look, there are over 4,000 free vintage images available for download, as well as lots of hints and tips on how to use the images in crafting. It is a real treasure trove.

The original image was a bit too colourful for the background fabric, and for the effect I wanted to achieve,  so I toned down the colours before reversing the image and printing it out on Transfer Artist Paper. The printed image transferred perfectly to the Postcard fabric, and produced exactly the effect that I had hoped for, which definitely makes a pleasant change :)

For the back I found a card of black embossed buttons bought at the haberdashery stall in a French market this summer. Some black and cream checkerboard fabric piping was the finishing touch.
 
I have enough of the background fabric left to make another cushion, so I might just be on the lookout for a hen image to give my Rooster some female company :)

Thanks for dropping by today it has been nice to "meet" you.

Kennedy Bag

Recently the lovely and very talented Sara at Sew Sweetness put out a call for pattern testers for her latest bag pattern, which she had named the Kennedy Bag. Even although I had plenty of other projects on my to-do list, I was so taken with the photo of the bag that came with the call that I couldn't resist volunteering to be a tester.

At the same time I received a shipment of great home dec fabric from the nice people at Terrys Fabrics so it seemed only natural to put the two together and come up with this!

My version of the Kennedy Bag.

Because of an impending visit to something called Quilt Market (???) the turnaround time for testing this pattern was relatively tight, to give Sara time to co-ordinate the feedback before she jetted off to tease us all with new fabric lines and quilting heroines and heroes on Instagram!

Unfortunately I didn't pay a lot of attention to the hardware requirements for this bag until I actually came to put it together. I then discovered that despite having more bag hardware than I will probably ever need, I didn't have the correct size buckles for this pattern. A trawl round every haberdasher within a 10 mile radius failed to find them either. They were available, however, on the MacCulloch and Wallis website, so a few clicks later and I was ready to start sewing. I have visited MacCulloch and Wallis' bricks and mortar shop in London and it is a real treasure trove, so I wasn't surprised that they had the buckles listed that I needed, when nowhere else seemed to stock them.

Whilst the bag was fairly straightforward to do, there are a lot of layers at times to wrestle through the sewing machine. I counted 10 layers at one point and I could tell that my sewing machine was not very happy with it :) Still we both gritted our teeth and hoped for the best and, fortunately, it all worked out.

Which is more than can be said for my buckles order, unfortunately, one of the items in the order was out of stock and although the lovely lady who rang to tell me this could not have been more helpful in finding an appropriate substitution it meant that I wouldn't get the order in time for the deadline date for feedback to Sara.

Clearly drastic action was required!

A frantic rummage through my store of handbags unearthed this bag, which has seen better days.

Those buckles were exactly the size I needed, so some quick cutting and I was back on track.

You would think they were meant for that bag strap wouldn't you??

The pattern of the main fabric was perfect for some outline quilting, which was an optional step in the process. I did debate about whether to do it or not, given the time constraints but I was glad in the end that I did. I think it makes for a more sturdy bag and given that this is fairly large bag, I think a bit of extra sturdiness will be useful. Sara recommends using Soft and Stable for the interfacing, which I think would make this bag even sturdier but I have not yet tried this.

As you can see from the photo above the buckle straps are decorative, the bag flap is actually closed with a magnetic snap. I like the look of buckle closures but find in practise that they are slow and cumbersome to open and close, so I think this is a great compromise.

I forgot to take a photo of them but the bag also has a zipped external pocket on the back and a divided pocket in the interior. Sara has thought of everything!

If you would like to make your own version of the Kennedy bag the pattern will be available as a free download at Sew Mama Sew later today. The pattern is now available for download here

Details;

Exterior fabric - Verve in Linen from Terrys Fabrics
Lining fabric    - Happy go Lucky by Bonnie and Camille for Moda
Accent fabric    - Quilters Basic Dusty Style by Stof

I am delighted with my new bag and look forward to getting lots of use out of it on our upcoming trip to France.


If you are looking for more bag inspiration check out the great bags being linked up at Sew Sweetness' Purse Palooza

 

The link up is open till November 11th, so you have plenty of time to get your own version of the Kennedy bag made and linked up to be in with a chance of winning a great prize.

Linking up to