Bagged, baby!

At long last, the bag I made for our friends from Amy Butler’s new book “Little Stitches for Little Ones” arrived in northern New Mexico and I can now share the photos…

This one is dubbed the “Modern Nappy Bag” and is really something — its absolutely enormous! And it certainly doesn’t look like your run-of-the-mill diaper bag.

I used fabric from Amy Butler’s newish line of home decorator weight cotton sateen, August Fields. Some woodgrain fabric of the same weight from Joel Dewberry’s Ginseng line looked like it was made to match, so I lined the whole thing and made the many, many pockets with that…

I had a lot of fun making this bag, and hope the recipients enjoy it and are able to get some use out of it. What I like about it is that even if it’s a no-go as a diaper bag, it would be great as a tote bag for shopping at the farmers market or for a day trip where you need to pack a few things. It just doesn’t look “diaper-y.”

I also made the accompanying changing pad in a an organic terry cloth that was the same light blue color that was in the woodgrain fabric, and back it with the woodgrain. It’s meant to be quilted in a grid style, but I quickly last my patience with that. I am just sooooo not a quilter In fact, while I respect quilting as an art form, it is one of those things I just don’t have the temperament for at all. I did manage to do some horizontal quilting before I got frustrated, so it looks pretty decent. Needless to say, I can’t imagine I’ll be doing anything remotely quilting related anytime soon.

Funnily enough, this is the first baby gift I’ve ever made. Because I really don’t presume to know what folks want or need, I usually rely on that handy-dandy Target registry for these types of things. And, honestly, there hasn’t been anyone that I’ve been good enough friends with to merit making a baby gift. I hope that doesn’t make me a terrible person…

Which reminds me of an incident from earlier this year. One of my former coworkers was planning a baby shower for another coworker. And the first coworker asked me to “make up one of those nice bags” for this person to put all the other gifts into. She was referring, to the Amy Butler High Street Messenger Bag, of which I’ve made several. I was flabbergasted. Not only was I shocked because of the time and expense a bag like that would take (people really don’t understand how expensive fabric is and how much effort and energy it takes to make something quality–I’ve accepted that), but I was doubly surprised because I wasn’t particularly close to the potential recipient. You have to be pretty high up on the list to get a handmade gift–particularly an elaborate one like a bag that’s, face it, pretty physically tiring to make with all the layers of fabric and whatnot. The friend that I made this bag and changing pad for (actually, the bag is for the friend’s wife, but whatever) was just about my only work friend that I had when I was working at The Job From Hell several years ago. (Seriously, it was bad. You try going to school board meetings that last until 11:00 p.m. and tell me it’s not hell.) And I also know that my friend really appreciates things that are made by real people. So it’s really a two-fold criteria for these things with me: 1.) I gotta like you a lot. 2.) You gotta appreciate stuff that’s handmade.

I’m wondering if I’m the only one who is like this? Are the rest of y’all nicer than me about the handmade gifting thing?

~Sarah

Edited: I forgot to mention that a friend of mine stopped by the house right after I finished this up and mentioned that the bag was big enough and the right shape to use “Paris Hilton Style.” By which she meant that you could carry a small dog around in it. Hilarious! (And very true.)

Not AWOL

Rosanne was the first of you loyal readers to notice that I haven’t been posting much lately and ask what I’ve been up to sewing- and crafting-wise lately. Josh has certainly been making, and posting, a lot more stuff lately. But I promise, I haven’t gone permanently AWOL.

In fact, I started what I think will eventually be a really fabulous dress, the HotPatterns Metropolitan Coat Dress (the shorter, short-sleeved version).

 It’s a great dress, huh? I’m making it in another fabulous fabric from Bolt—this one’s a smoky blue cotton with a bit of stretch (hooray for stretch!). I think it’s European, too, which equals triple bonus points, you know. I hit a few roadblocks (i.e. the yardage requirement on the envelope is very, very wrong—it takes about 3.5 yards of 60″ fabric, not 2). But, it was going along well.

I started this about a month ago.

Then I found out that my position at work is being eliminated. Which means I’m out of a job on June 30. This has been really tough on me because I’ve never been kicked to the curb before, and I work in the public sector, which means it’s even more unusual—although marketing’s always the first hit for cuts pretty much everywhere, so it’s not that surprising. (We’re facing budget cuts—the bad economy’s affecting everyone, apparently.)  Basically, the stress of this whole experience has really gotten me in an awful funk and has left me feeling pretty damn uncreative.

Anyway, I guess it’s a bit weird to write about this in this medium, but I did want to explain what I’d been up to and why I’ve been so absent from Sewer-Sewist lately.  When we started this little site we never in a million years thought so many people would be interested in what we have to say about sewing and crafting, and follow us so closely, so I want to recognize that loyalty by being straight up with y’all. Know what I mean?

Thanks for letting me share, everyone…

~sarah