Monday, December 13, 2010

Man Child




Hilarious man child, cracking me up!

xoxoxo
Jennette


Monday, December 6, 2010

Carpet Bag

Finally finished the carpet bag!

I found this rug piece in Tucson last spring and hauled it home with me.  I also found a full size rug, perfectly worn, that I hauled home too.  Thank you Southwest Airlines for letting us each check two bags for free!  I was able to bring home a massive ton of loot!  Anyhow, here is the rug piece, as found:

Here is the piece, as found, layed out on my floor.

Here is a closer-up detail.

I used dark brown linen, from an old dress, to line the inside side.  Its hard to see but I made a pocket too.

This photo shows how I just guesstimate about where and what size I want a messenger style bag to be.  I line the entire piece first then play with bag/flap size until it looks just right to me.  Then I pin in the side/strap piece.  This time I used the brown linen for one side of the strap and some army green linen from and old pair of shorts I picked up at the Lopez Transfer Station, Take It or Leave It, over the summer. 

Here is the strap before I began pinning it to the bag.


In these two photos I am trying to show the pinning of the strap to the bag in a way that you can see how I construct it.  But these photos don't do it justice.  I basically pin the bottom of the strap to what I want to be the bottom of the bag and then sew it up the sides to the top.  In this case, I made the strap too long so I need to go back and shorten it.




So with the carpet bag finished I can move on to other projects that have been left unfinished and half started.  Still working on my jacket from a vintage pattern.  Still working on a few other bags in progress.  Still have a few dolls being embroidered.  Still have mending and tweaking on several garments to finish.  Still, still, still.  And most of it will have to wait until I am back from vacation because that is fast approaching and I have many little ends to tie up before we fly off.  I plan to show you many of the finds I have discovered in the past couple weeks.  Stay tuned.  Normal programming will resume in the New Year. 

xoxox
Jennette


Thursday, December 2, 2010

Turkey

Jasper embroidered his turkey design for his Grandma.  Every year he gives her some kind of turkey art project near Thanksgiving.  This year he decided to draw his own design and "sew" it on muslin for Grandma.

Jasper drew his turkey on paper with pencil.  Then he traced it with a Sharpie so the lines were dark.  Then he taped the picture up on the window and then we taped the muslin piece over it.  I helped him with the tracing of the design onto the muslin with pencil.
Hard at work, concentrating.

The back side.

Jasper asked me to finish the edges for him.  He did not want it to have tabs or any particular way to hang.  He wanted his Grandma to lay it flat on the table for his other clay turkeys to sit on.  He signed the bottom corner with a Sharpie.
And the minute he was done:

he picked up his knitting!

Turkey!

xoxox
Jennette