Do you have foggy days or weeks? This week was that way for me for some reason. When I look back, I can see that I was productive. But somehow I don’t feel productive. Perhaps it’s the mess in my studio. Perhaps it is a number of different avenues I want to be exploring with my creations. Nevertheless, Fridays tend to be a good day to catch my breath, organize my room and my thoughts and prepare for the next week. And weekend sewing is just a bonus!
My customer, Amy, who commissioned the Air Force duffel bag, this T Shirt Tote, as well as two T Shirt Quilts over the past couple years asked if I could squeeze a T shirt pillow case into my busy schedule. (Do you think Amy has a “problem” throwing things away? Amy, I love you and I take care of your problems!) And, I am DEEPLY grateful for loyal customers like Amy!
She asked that it be kind-sized and with a fleece backing. I googled the size of a king size pillow case and they are big! I put a small black fleece border at the edge. It takes a bit of laying out and math, but I think it is fun. And I have it as a custom item to purchase in my Etsy shop.
I was also wrangling with coffee sacks this week. I am attending a wine fundraiser for Cystic Fibrosis this weekend. In addition to live and silent auctions, they have a marketplace. I love the marketplace because if you’re not a gambler, you always get to walk away with something! I made these wine totes out of the coffee sacks. I love, love, love how they look. I am still finding the best way to deal with the dust created by the burlap. so working on them in small doses seems to be a good approach. Additionally, I placed a layer of cotton under the burlap and serged all four edges before I constructed the bag. I had my Vacuflo handy to stay on top of the mess. Then I constructed the bags as I normally would. I used braided belts as the handles. I really love how that looks, but it was too thick at the side seams – especially since I used sweatshirt fleece as the lining.
I also completed the Hong Kong blanket! My customer was living in Hong Kong and competing in Dragon Boat racing. These must be very colorful events. The shirts are mainly poly and some of the dragon graphics were large, so I wanted to preserve as much of the shirt as possible. I didn’t have enough to make 25 squares, so I played around with the design and decided that four columns of shirts would give me a good blanket size.
I determined the width that would get the most of the shirt, and that was about 18″. I then created rectangles and stitched them together in columns. I backed the blanket with blue sweatshirt fleece and created a self-bound edge.
I hope you have a great weekend!
