Wool Flower Bouquet Bag

Hello everyone! I am so excited for the chance to work with beautiful wool by Penny Rose Fabric. I made them into wool felt first, then I was ready to make something fun with them...

Look at these beauties!

Here are the supplies to make the wool flower bouquet bag:

{You will need}

Print out the flower petals and leaves from the pdf file.

Blue Wool 36" (width of the wool) x 16" long after felting process(remember, when you do the felting process, wool shrinks)
Cream, pink, red,Brown, green, dark green Wool
Cotton fabric for lining if you decided to do so
Matching thread for the blue wool for your sewing machine
DMC floss -- Cream, green

{How to make the bag}

1. Fold the blue wool in half and trim off the top and the bottom to make it 15" long. Then, cut 3" wide strips on the side to make handles later.

2. To make the honeycomb smocking, take the bigger blue wool piece and measure 2" from the bottom and draw a line all the way across. Fold the fabric exactly on the line and sew 1/8" from the folded line. Then, draw 7 lines 1" apart parallel to the first sewn line. Fold the fabric on the lines, sew and repeat the process to make 8 sewn lines.

3. Measure 1/2" from both sides: that will be your seam to sew them together later. From that line measure and mark every 2"on the very bottom sewn line. Where you marked the bottom line, sew the bottom line to the sewn line above it. Do the same with the 2nd and 3rd line but offset them from the bottom line by an inch. Repeat this pattern as you move up doing the 3rd and 4th line, then the 4th and 5th line and so on until all eight lines are connected.

4.Pin one side of the wool onto the ironing board then stretch the wool a bit. Press with the iron to set the texture you made: make sure your iron is set to wool.

5. Fold the wool right sides together and sew on the side and the bottom with 1/2" seam. Make sure all the sewn lines on the bottom match up. Open and press the seams. Sew the lines together on the seam to repeat the honeycomb smocking pattern on the side.

6. Fold the bottom corners to make a boxed bottom. Make sure the seams line up perfectly for a nice finish. The line measures 1" from both ends to the middle, so it is 2" long when it's finished. Do the same to the other bottom corner.

7. Fold 3" x 15" strips. Bring both long edges to the middle, press with the iron and fold it in half, then press with the iron again. Sew the seam with 1/8" to 1/4" seam.

8. I will not go over the steps to make the liner, but if you decide to do so, make the same size bag with cotton fabric. Make a boxed bottom too, so it will line up and fit nicely with the wool bag.

9. Put together the wool bag and the liner right sides together. Measure 3 1/2" from both edges and slide in the handle up side down and pin all around. Leave 4" opening for turning; sew all the way around. Turn the fabric inside out and fold the opening edges and pin.

10. Sew all around it with 1/8" seam.

{How to make the flowers}

* Cream flower

1.Cut 10 cream petals, 1--- 1 1/4" Brown circle (clip all around it), 1--- 1/2" dark green circle

2. Pinch the bottom and sew.

3. Sew 5 petals together. Make one more of this and layer them together. Make sure the bottom layer flower petals are showing from between the flower petals on the top layer.

4. Add Brown and dark green circles on top of the flower and stitch some french knots in the middle. Make two flowers.

*Red flower

1. Cut 4 1/2" circle.

2. Start cutting from the middle in a continuous arch pattern.

3. Start rolling from the middle and keep rolling to make a nice flower shape. Stitch the back so it won't come undone. Make three flowers.

*Pink flower

1. Cut 1 1/2" x 4" strips. Fold it in half and make cuts from one side to the other side.

2. Start rolling it from one side to the end. Stitch the back so it doesn't come undone.

*Leaves

Cut out 19 leaves from green and 5 leaves from dark green.

{Assembly}

1. Cut 1--- 1/4" x 2 1/2" stem and 2--- 1/4"x 4" stems and lay them out with the green leaves. Stitch them up to the bag with DMC floss.

2. Sew cream flowers to the bag. These will be the main focus, it is important to find the right balance.

3. Stitch the dark green leaves.

4. Sew red flowers on to the bag.

5. Sew pink flowers to the bag. This helps to balance things out or to hide odd openings too. With cream color DMC floss stitch groups of french knots in a few places.

Then all you need to do is to enjoy the bag!

I can't get enough of the honeycomb smocking!

I hope you enjoyed my tutorial today! :)

Watercolor Flower

I have been spending a lot of time with family and friends lately. My sewing/crafting had to take a back seat for a few days, but I remembered that I haven't shared this painting that I have done, on my blog.

Ever since I was little I was always drawing. My favorite tool is simply pencil or colored pencils. I tried oil painting in high school and didn't like it much, I think it's the texture that I didn't care for. I like acrylic paint, leather paint is great to paint my shoes with. I have been wanting to get back in to more drawing and decided to try watercolor.

I Love how I can mix colors and water on my palette.

I love how colors move and bleed into each other on the paper and create unexpected beauty.

The transparency and delicateness is something I adore very much.

I think I found a medium I love other than colored pencils!

I just started to learn to paint with watercolor and experimenting with it. My goal is to be good at it so I can draw something beautiful to hang in our home.

A Chinese proverb says:

Learning is a treasure that will follow its owner everywhere

I think learning something new can be intimidating, but fun. Whatever we learn: whether knowledge or skill it becomes part of us. Who knows, if I keep drawing I might get better at it and be able to draw something really pretty for my wall!

I will start posting pictures of my watercolor here and there. I feel like I gained one more thing I can enjoy in the cold winter days at home... I just need a cup of hot chocolate as company. :)

Maxi Knit Dress Fun

Hello everyone! Spring break started for my kids this week and I am in full gear of "what can we do together?" I don't believe in entertaining them all the time, I would love to spend time and have fun with them. I know I won't be spending much time in front of my sewing machine this week, but I wanted to share some pictures of the knit maxi dress I made a couple weeks ago.

I found the knit fabric at Joann's and I was so excited! I don't really find pretty knit fabric where I live, so an encounter like that is a sweet surprise. Ah! How I wish I could go to the fabric district anytime I pleased. Of course that could create some problems too.

Here is the dress,

and the side view...

I created a very simple style dress. I always loved this style; it gives me the illusion that I have longer legs...

Besides this is made out of knit, there is an elastic in the waist line. I love clothing that looks nice, but is also comfortable. If it's too restrictive I don't want to wear it. I would love to sew a couple more dresses with solid fabrics.

With cardigans and some accessories, I know I can dress this up or down. This dress will be one of the most worn clothing this spring. :)

Shoes Refashion ~ Plain Black MaryJane to Anna Bond Inspired Shoes

I bought these flat black Mary Janes 10+ years ago. They are comfortable, but I hardly ever wear black clothes or shoes. They have been sitting in my closet collecting dust.

I have been drawing lately and was inspired by Anna Bond... My love for floral designs started when I was very young and I have never gotten tired of them. When I was organizing my closet last week I found the black shoes and was going to give them to DI, but decided to give it a make over just like I did a while ago with these shoes. After all, they are very comfortable shoes...

This time I kind of wanted to do a Swedish fork art style floral design and decided to just dive in to it. The only challenge was, I don't have that many different colors of leather paint. I had to work with what I have and I made my own colors by mixing them up.

Yay! They are done! It is time to try them on.

I am so glad I organized my closet, I found this blue cardigan that goes perfectly with my new shoes!

I love how they turned out, they look pretty much like what I had in mind. I know those one of a kind painted shoes cost a pretty penny, mine just cost me my time and some paints. Better yet, I enjoyed the creative process so much!

I should go 'shopping' in my closet more often. :)

Tutorial ~Eclectic Flower Bouquet Wreath~

I LOVE THIS WREATH... at first, it was more like, "ok, let's play around and see what I can come up with." kind of project, but the end result is so much more than I had imagined. When I am excited, I can't contain myself!

I will show you what I did...

{You will need}


10" Wreath foam (I picked this up at a dollar store)

1 yd of 100% cotton fabric (I used what I had, this fabric looks like muslin, but has more of a rough texture)

Cotton Lace

Flowers (I used flowers I made from my past project leftovers. You can use silk flowers too)

Sewing Pins (Lots of them)

Ribbon to make a loop to hang the wreath.

{How to}

1. With 1 yd of fabric make bias tape. To see how to make bias tape go here. Cut three 7" wide bias fabrics.


2. Connect two bias fabrics together to make a big loop. Cut the third bias fabric in half to make 3 1/2" strips.


3. Wrap the bias strip from step 2 around the foam wreath. When you come to the end, simply use the sewing pin to stablize the fabric.(make sure to stab all the way in!)



4. On the one side of the big loop, sew on the lace all the way around. For the ohter side, stretch and move the fabric around roughly, so that it will fray a little bit and give it some character.


5. Fold the fabric 3" to the middle part all the way around.


6. Place the folded fabric on top of the wrapped wreath, and start making pleats and secure it with sewing pins. Keep going all the way around.


7. Here is the fun part. You get to decorate the wreath with flowers! I used sewing pins to secure the flowers. The pins are more then 1" long, mine are very stable, unless I try to yank it out, it doesn't come out!(Just in case you are worried about falling flowers).

The flowers I used came from all of my past project leftovers. There are some tutorials to make flowers; I show you in my ruffle shirt tutorial and my fabric flower tutorial.

If you are not up to making flowers, you can use silk flowers too! Just take out the plastic parts in the middle and pin them on to the wreath.



8. I also added individual pearls too...



9. I cut about 3" of ribbon to make a loop so that I can hang the wreath. Seal the edge with your favorite method, and pin it onto the back of the wreath. If you want to make it extra secure, you can use a glue gun and then pin.


10. I had so much fun trying to figure out where and how to place the flowers.



Then I came up with this:


I am absolutely in love with this wreath. Not to mention that I was able to use all the flowers I had made before. I haven't quite figured out the place for it, but just looking at the wreath gives me a sense of Spring and Summer. :)