Weddingbee Blog

I wasn’t sure—I really wasn’t. The last time I remember sewing anything it was some ridiculous pillow thing that I made on my mom’s sewing machine with leftover scrap fabric she had from making quilts for my sister and me. Yeah—my mom makes quilts, I play with leftover scraps. It’s fun!

BUT—I really wanted to give it a try, specifically because I really wanted to make part of the gifts that I plan to give to my girls. (So girls, if y’all are reading any of this, well, feel free to keep reading, but just know that you’re likely to see something similar to one or both of these projects prior to the wedding!)

Now that that’s out of the way—let me show you what I made. (And we’ll just keep quiet about how long it took me to make these, m’kay? Thanks!)

The first project I took on was this clutch that Mrs. Peep Toe blogged about here. Now, first off, I should note that I’ve had my sewing machine since I was in college. And I graduated from college in 2004. And I had yet to ever take it out of the box. It was still sealed and everything. Oops. And yes, I have lived in multiple places and carted this thing around with me the whole time. Anyway. Finally decided it was time to break it out. I don’t have tutorials here because I’m linking to the tutorials that I used (and also because I didn’t want photographic evidence if I messed it up royally). But I’ll take pictures of the process next time, I promise! (And all of these photos are taken by moi. I’m working on getting better with my d5000—I love the camera, but need to play with it more!)

And I thought it turned out pretty well:

And this picture shows the lining:

Now, if you go and look at Mrs. Peep Toe’s clutches, they look more like clutches. Mine ended up taller and not quite as wide as I wanted. Whoops. However, it makes quite a nice makeup bag! So score one for me. And I know to make the dimensions different next time. Or just tell my girls that they’re makeup bags.

The next project I took on was way more challenging (at least for me). It involved cutting out a pattern and keeping track of cutting out the right pieces. And yes, making this bag did take me most of a Sunday when I probably should have been working on other things. But that’s OK because I’m really happy with how it turned out (though of course I’d make other changes). But on to pictures of the bag!

Here it is before I attached the handles. (I was liking the bag at this point, so I was OK with taking an in-between shot.):

And here it is after I put the handles on. (Oh yeah, that’s our wine rack behind the chair. Mmm, wine!):

I really like how this came out—yeah there are some issues with my stitching (um, like the fact that I didn’t leave enough room between where the snaps are and the top so I couldn’t stitch the last seam all the way around…but now I know for next time!). But I really like the pleats of the bag, and I’m super amazed that all the stripes ended up lining up! And the piping around the edge looks really nice, if I do say so myself! I found the tutorial for the bag here, after Joy from How Joyful posted a link to it on her blog.

Now, I have no idea if I will actually have time to make these for my girls. (There are five girls standing up on my side, plus Mr. Eggs’s sister on his side.) So, I’d have to figure out a more efficient way to make six of these. I’m thinking at the very least a rotary cutter and cutting mat need to be in my future because wow did it take a long time to cut out all the pieces with scissors!. But that’s the goal, anyway!