A Scarf, A Bag, and A Graduation.

Oh the grand blogging plans I had!   Me-Made-May wrapup and brilliant philosophical recap; book reviews of Overdressed and Balenciaga, all of the fabulous ideas that were to be sewn and reviewed between then and now.....

And then Life happened.  It does that.   It's a good thing :)

I have been sewing (a bit); so I'll sneak in a quick show & tell of the gifts I sewed last month, which will (hopefully) get my blogging fingers back in motion and I'll catch up and carry on....

It's graduation season, and I'm one of the lucky ones who has a Special Person graduating from college this year - her ceremony was last weekend, and of course, some hand-made items from me were in order.  First up, another Wabi-Sabi scarf (Method described here).  This one was all hand-dyed by me, in turquoise colors that I know the recipient wears a lot of:

Dyed Scraps of Silk:

Ripped in strips and woven

(laid on top of dissolvable plastic):

Close-up:

After Sewing the Strips Together,

and Trimming the Edges:

I also made a bag for The Graduate, using Kayla Kenington's "K-Bag", or "Kangaroo Bag".  

REALLY fun to make!   And I loved the results :)

It's a simple tie closure at the top, with 4 large pockets on the outside:

Fully lined, with one pocket on the inside:

Close-up showing the decorative stitching I added to the straps,

and the piping along the top edge of each outside pocket:

Materials Used:  Raw Silk from a never-worn dress given to me by a good friend who figured I might use the fabric :), cotton from stash, buttons and beads from my beading days.

Construction Notes:  There are two options for the bottom of the bag; a "paper bag" method, or the addition of an oval.   I used the oval option, and added some thick Pellon interfacing that is, I guess, designed for this sort of thing.  (I've had it in stash forever, and this is my first time using this sort of stabilizer, so I don't know exactly what it was I used)

The instructions are clear IF you read them VERY carefully.  I stitched both handles on through both thicknesses (the bag and the lining) before realizing that there was no way to add the oval bottom to the bag and lining separately once they'd been stitched together.  It took a careful RE-reading of the instructions to realize that you were only supposed to sew the handles on to the OUTSIDE bag, not the lining.

Unpick.

Redo.

Sewing the bottom piece on to the bag and lining separately leaves it being very prone to "wander" off center, so I stitched through all thicknesses (both oval pieces plus the interfacing) to stabilize it.   This is clearly meant to be a very casual, floppy sort of bag, but I wanted SOME structure and stability.   

All in all, a very fun piece, with lots of room for creativity!

Presents were opened at the tail end of the day, and I have no pictures of The Graduate with her gifts, but here's one of her and her Proud Auntie: