agilejack

I mentioned the other night that I was thinking of making a knitting caddy for a friend of mine. I’ve looked at a few patterns and tutorials and struck out tonight to figure it out for myself because I find noodling out a pattern entertaining. My brain gets a kick out of figuring out how something is made.

I had some basic measurements for the size I wanted to make, so I hit my sewing room, grabbed some rulers, and started cyphering.

The really beautiful thing about my notes is that they are incredibly detailed and specific so when I want to make another one of these it will be so easy. NOT!

But truthfully, this was a pretty easy little thing to make.

My friend that I’ve made this for wanted it to be pink and green. So the first thing I did was dig out some blocks that a friend gave me and sorted out a few that were mostly pink and green. Then I cut those blocks into smaller pieces and reassembled them with some crumb piecing.

Here’s some of the crumbs in process.

Here’s the crumb pieces with the fabric used for the background and lining.

I made these crumb blocks into a little strip that was sewn into the front and back panels, trimmed out the gussets and quilted each piece. The panels measured 17 x 10 inches. I cut out 3 inch squares for the gussets. I quilted with vertical lines because I thought it would be easier to keep the shorter lines straight. I like the look of this too.

I used fusible fleece on the panels but didn’t use a backing fabric on the quilt sandwich. I figured this didn’t need that extra structure and stability.

I made the handles out of the same background fabric and used some fusible fleece to give them some body. Since it’s not in my very detailed notes, I’m noting here that the handles are 13 inches long. If I was to make another one of these, I might just use some fusible interfacing in the handles. These are a little hefty for this caddy.

Then I assembled the lining, including some medium weight fusible interfacing, and sewed the whole thing together and ran a line of top stitching around the top of the caddy.

This measures about 10 inches wide, 6 inches deep and 6 inches tall.

The lining is simple… no pockets in this baby.

It’s the exact size I wanted it to be, but it feels bigger than I thought it would. And it holds a lot!

These photos don’t represent the true color of these fabrics. That’s one of the downsides of being a late night sewer… it’s really hard to get good photos of your project. I will take some photos tomorrow to get a better representation of the colors.

I have no idea if I’ll ever make another one of these. But I really like being able to figure out how to make something for a specific purpose. I’m thinking I should make a few fabric baskets of some kind to organize some of the piles of stuff in my sewing room. Might be a good idea to make some baskets to hold all the scraps I’m generating.

I finished up my Ice Storm left over Frankenbag tonight at about 11:30. I almost put it down before finishing, and then decided to push forward and sew the lining into the bag, do the top stitching at the top of the bag, and stitch down the zipper plackets. I even took a minute to sew on my tag.

I really like this bag. It couldn’t be further away from my normal color palette. A friend of mine said there’s something really soothing about it. And it’s probably true that most of the stuff I make is far from soothing! But I’m ok with that. It’s been fun to make something so different.

And at the rate I’m making bags, I am averaging about two per week. I doubt I’ll keep that up for long. But that is a leisurely pace for me. I don’t feel like I’m spending every spare minute in my sewing room obsessively producing.

Here’s the other side of the bag.

And the finishing touch I love.

The lining and pockets feel absolutely creamy to me. I love the lighter batiks I used there.

This probably won’t be a terribly practical bag with all those light fabrics. It’s not one you’d want to put on the floor of the bus!

I tried using some fusible webbing instead of pins to attach the zipper to the pocket opening while I sewed it all together. I like the way it held the zipper in place nicely and I didn’t get the puckering you get with pins. I only had the webbing in a big sheet. I’ve already ordered some of the kind that comes in a roll that you stick to your fabric and then peel the paper off.

And I’m happy that after doing about 8 of these zipper pockets, I’m getting better and better at them.

Look at that beautiful opening!

For me, the best way to learn is to do. And the more I do something, the better I get at it. I like that!

I love this view of the lining all in one flat piece. It’s somewhat complicated and the placket always feels so wrong, but it’s so right!

I’ve made quite a few changes to how I make these bags since I made the tutorial. I’m giving some thought to how to share those improvements. I don’t want to make another tutorial, but I like the idea of sharing how my design has morphed over time. I might just make one post with the changes, and then link to it from the original tutorial.

So what’s different:

1. I now use a fusible interfacing on the lining. I like the way it adds body to the lining and makes the bag feel more substantial. I also think it will be more durable and the pockets won’t stress the fabric as much.
2. I’ve increased the size of the slip pocket and I’ve made it into a divided pocket. I also use fusible interfacing on the slip pocket. Again, it’s more substantial and should be more durable.
3. I’ve added the zipper pocket and would like to provide a link to the tutorial I used, as well as info on how I place the pocket on my lining.
4. I’ve changed how I put the placket in place. Rather than measuring awkwardly to place it, I draw a line on the lining once it’s fused that will later be used to position the plackets. So much easier to do it this way! And the drawn line is hidden when you stitch the placket down at the very end.

I think that’s all the changes I’ve made. But I’ll give it some thought to be sure.

It was another cold day here in Portland on Wednesday, but we didn’t have the wind that we had yesterday. I don’t mind the cold when we have the sunshine. Here I am after our walk tonight. Bundled up like I was last night, but not nearly as cold on our walk.

You know it’s cold if I’m wearing a knit hat. I’ve made many, many, many knit hats over the years. But I tend to run warm and it’s rarely cold enough for me to be comfortable in a knit hat.

I got a call from Bender’s neurologist this afternoon. She wants me to give it a little more time before we increase Bender’s Potassium Bromide. So we will move forward and hope he doesn’t have another seizure. If he does have another one, she will likely increase his dosage. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that he’s done with seizures for a good long time. But I’m guessing he’ll have another one in a week or two. Damn.

After the record breaking warm weather we’ve been having, today it all turned and although the sun was out, it was much cooler with a little wind. I actually wore a parka and gloves for our afternoon walk. I haven’t worn more than a fleece or light jacket for weeks.

Getting bundled up for our walk in the dark tonight felt like I was getting ready to make an assault on Mount Everest! My long parka. A fleece hat. A fleece neck gator. Fleece gloves. All I needed was a Sherpa!

After our cold walk I hit the sewing room to quilt the panels from the Ice Storm bag I started last night. I just love how the quilting transforms these pieces. I always wait to pass judgement on a panel I’ve made until I see it quilted.

Here’s both panels quilted with the gusset corners cut out.

Once the panels were quilted I whipped up a couple of handles and got the body of the bag constructed. If the quilting transforms the panels, this step really makes it feel different. Now it looks like something!

And the other side…

This bag is just so crazy different from the stuff I usually make. But I’m loving these soft and romantic colors.

Here’s the bag with the fabric that I’ll use for the lining. I think it’s a good fit.

I should get a good start on finishing the up tomorrow night.

A friend of mine who is an avid knitter sent me a photo of a little project caddy she liked. It’s basically a little quilted box with some handles that you can keep on your coffee table to hold your current knitting project. I’ve been checking out Pinterest to find a pattern and found this one that would work… but I would do two handles, rather than the one basket type handle. This will at least give me a base for the size. I can figure out how to construct it once I understand the proportions. That might be my next quick project.

We’ve got a few cold days and nights coming up. We’re going to be down in the teens a couple of nights this week. That happens at least once each winter here. But it’s usually short lived.

It was a year ago that the Portland area was hit by a huge ice storm. You can see a post I did about the storm here.

At the time of the storm I was working on a light toned scrappy trip quilt. Someone commented that the quilt looked like the ice storm. So I named it my Ice Storm quilt. This quilt is really not a color palette that I would normally get excited about but I love the way it turned out. And it does feel like ice!

So this one year anniversary of that storm feels like the perfect time to dig out the strip tubes that are left over and do something with them. So I fashioned them into two panels for a Frankenbag this evening.

I basically followed the same piecing as on the indigo batik bag I finished last week. Here are some of the pieces on my cutting table.

Then I added strips to each of these pieces, measured, trimmed, and sewed them into two panels. One turned out darker…

And the other one turned our lighter. . .

I think I actually prefer the top darker one. But it will be cool that the two sides of the bag have very different feels.

I will make the quilt sandwiches and get these quilted tomorrow night.

I had today off for the Presidents Day holiday. So the first thing I did was sleep in. then, after breakfast, I ran off to my roofing contractor to sign paperwork, make a down payment, and get them on their way to my place to tarp my roof. they are so busy, they can’t actually put my new room on for a couple months. So they were planning on coming by on Wednesday to put up tarps to keep the rain out of my living room. Then I got a call that they had a team available today and they hightailed it over and got the job done.

They put a section on the front of the house and a section on the back. It looks terrible, but it makes me feel so much better!

After the workers were well on their way, I confirmed that they didn’t need me for anything and hopped in the car to run to a local fabric store that I love that just got a new shipment of Australian Aboriginal fabrics. A little snow squall came through while I was driving. I was so surprised to see snow! Snow is usually a really big deal here.

I have four wheel drive and a lot of experience driving in snow, so I feel pretty confident on slick roads. But I do worry about the drivers in Portland who have very little experience with it. Luckily, the roads weren’t much more than just wet.

And now to the good part… Fabric! I bought a ridiculous amount of Aboriginal fabric… all half yard cuts.

That’s 28 half yards of fabric! I even bought two half yards of the same one. Hmmm. I wonder how that happened. It’s all so gorgeous!

The store posted a photo of all these fabrics on Instagram a few weeks ago and I’ve been thinking about them ever since. So it was inevitable that I’d get my butt out there at some point in time. Look at how gorgeous they are stacked up on my ironing board!!!

I also bought a yard of gray batik to use for the lining for the ice storm bag.

Back to work tomorrow. Luckily, it will be a short week.

I didn’t have any plans today except to meet some friend for some dog agility training at 1:30. Rico had a wonderful time! You can tell by all the tongue spray all over his head!

But before that, After breakfast I took the dogs for a nice 4 mile walk. We had threats of rain all day but it didn’t materialize into much. It was actually a gorgeous day with a lot of this stuff going on.

When I got home from our agility training with friends, I got the boys leashed up again and off we went for a 2 mile walk while the sun was still lighting the sky and there wasn’t any rain going on.

When I got home I fed the dogs and myself, and then hit the sewing room. All I had to do on this bag was cut and fuse the interfacing to the lining, make a slip pocket and a zipper pocket, and construct the zipper plackets. I probably spent around two hours on finishing this up this evening.

That’s what I’m considering the front of the bag. And look! I sewed the tag on the correct side of the bag! This is the back of the bag.

Here’s the tag just because I love the though and finish it gives my bags.

And here’s some photos of the lining pockets and zipper placket. Click on each image for a larger picture.

I just love these rich batiks on this bag. I want to make more using batiks!

I now have six of the more involved bags finished. Three of these will be gifts. The rest… I don’t know what I’m going to do with them. Maybe just feel them and look at them every now and again.

A friend of mine asked me this evening how many bags I’ve made. I’m pretty sure this puts me over 37. It’s entirely possible that I’ve missed one or two! But that number should be close.

And I’m not the only one making these bags. I’ve received photos of some more Frankenbags this week. First up is this bag made by Gail Brady. She made this as a gift for her sister and said that it was fun and challenging to make. Well, I love this bag! I love the bright colors on the outer bag and her quilting looks fantastic! Very nicely made Gail!

The next bag tonight was made by Lorna Clark. And I just love the muted and mossy colors of this bag! And like the bag above, it looks really well made and the quilting is so nice! She made this for herself and said she will enjoy using it.

The last bag tonight was made by Tina Hadden. Tina is pretty new to making Frankenbags but I think she’s hooked. She’s made a number of them and I’m pretty sure she’s making more! I love this bag. First off, I like the handle on the side. I may do that on the menagerie animal panels bag I’m making for myself. And I LOVE that pop of color that the spiral shells fabric at the top brings to this bag. Tina also made a zipper placket but she made it narrower! I love it when people customize my design!! It also look as though Tina may have finished her inside seams with binding. That’s a lovely affect!

I’m thinking I may take the boys for a nice hike tomorrow. I need to look at the weather report in the morning, before I decide for sure.

I also have to contact the roofing company about replacing my roof. That will be fun little project!

I took an earlier evening walk tonight before it got dark, so hit the sewing room a little early and got the panels to my second succulent Frankenbag quilted and got the bag body constructed.

I’m pretty happy with how this is turning out. I just love those fabrics! Those pops of yellow and orange are everything.

Here’s the other side of the bag.

I’m considering this the front of the bag. I really like that bigger and darker border on that succulent block.

Here’s more of a view with the fabric I’ll use for the lining.

I will probably try to get the lining done and finish the bag tomorrow. I’m meeting some friends for some dog training so my time will be limited.

Here’s a view of the quilted panel… just because I love it!

Someone asked me the other night what color thread I use for quilting. She wondered if I used colors that match the bags I’m making. I actually almost always use a light gray thread for my quilting. I find that it almost disappears once it’s on the fabric. Which I love! So for now, I’ll stick with the gray.

I took Rico to his herding lesson early this afternoon. he really did a good job. I’m working on training on my whistles. Initially, I’ll need a whistle for a lie down, walk up, Away to me, Come by. Away to me it to move in a counter clockwise direction. Come by is to move in a clockwise motion. So far, I’m only working on the down and the walk up. I have to learn the other whistles first… before I start trying to train the dog on each whistle.

The whistles are hard!

After our herding lesson, I stopped by a fabric store up in that area that has a good selection of KFC fabrics. I wanted a piece of the black Roman glass and figured they would have it. So I bought a yard of that, and a few other pieces.

It’s the one between the two greens. Three of those are out of print. So I usually invest in some I know may be hard to find in the future.

After the shopping spree, I took the dogs to the field with the creek I usually hit on Saturdays. They had a blast. I walked about 1.5 miles but they probably ran five miles or more!

I took some Advil PM about an hour ago in anticipation of a good night’s sleep. I am doing all I can to keep my eyes open.

Time to sign off the get a pill into Bender and then fall asleep on the sofa!

Another stressful week, accentuated with the stress of needing a new roof and a good dog with health issues, and THANK GOD IT’S FRIDAY!!!

A friend of mine messaged me earlier today and asked if she could join us for our evening walk. She owns Ernie the border terrier, who I just LOVE!

I almost always talk to someone on the phone during our evening walks. It was fun to have someone along for company and for live conversation. And Ernie and my boys thought it was incredibly fun to be out there walking together. Ernie definitely thinks he’s one of the big boys! He’s so freaking cute and totally a boy!

I’ve been thinking I wanted to make a bag using some of those Timna Tarr animal panels, so last night I cut a couple of them out and started playing with some fabrics to go with them.

I decided I’m going to make this bag for myself with two animals I love. The sheep are obvious. But for years, I collected pigs. There were a good number of years where I didn’t get a gift that wasn’t some kind of pig item. I really loved realistic pigs, but I got a lot of cutesy, cartoonish pigs. I had to put a stop to the insanity and stopped collecting. when I moved to Portland I saved only my most favorite pigs. You can still find a few of them around my house. There are several on my mantel.

I haven’t quite gotten the fabrics I want and need to make this bag, so I’m going to ruminate on this for a few days. I also might drop by a fabric store tomorrow to pick up a few pieces I know I don’t have but want for this. There is a store near where I take Rico for sheep herding that carries a lot of Kaffe fabrics.

So, with that project on the back burner, I decided that I would start working on the panels for another bag featuring a succulent panel. I selected one of the succulents and dug into my batik fabrics and here’s my initial fabric pull.

Gah! I just love those batiks!!! The colors and variation are so good!

Here’s the two featured blocks for each side of the bag.

… and a few pieces on the design wall as stuff starts to come together.

And two finished panels! I really was productive! It only took me about two hours to get these made.

I’m guessing I’ll get these quilted tomorrow and get the bag body put together. And then start working on the lining if I feel up to it. I will include a double slip pocket, a zipper pocket and a zipper placket. I wonder if I’ll ever make another Frankenbag without a zipper placket.

It was another beautiful day today. Bender was sleeping on a raised bed on the patio when Rico climbed onto the bed and curled up next to him. They were definitely enjoying the warmth of the sun.

We have Rico’s regular sheep herding lesson tomorrow, then we’ll have a nice field run. Sunday we’ll meet some friends for some dog agility training. And the best news… Monday is Presidents Day so I get an extra long weekend! Yay!!! I’m thinking of a forest hike on Monday. Will have to keep an eye on the weather. It’s supposed to rain Monday, but it doesn’t look too bad.

Weekend!!!

Thanks to everyone who commented on last night’s post about what lining I was loving for my indigo batik and KFC scraps bag.

And the reveal… I decided I should have a beer before I let you all know my decision… mmmmm. Delicious!

Many more people guessed that I would use the yellow jumble. And, interestingly, I originally bought all these indigo batiks with the intent of combining them in a quilt with yellow Kaffe Fassett Collective prints. So it’s a bit ironic that I didn’t select the yellow. Even the color wheel tells me that yellow was the choice to make.

The other jumble never had a chance.

So, why did I choose Brandon’s Bang? I have to say that I just had a reaction to it when I put it next to the bag panels. Take a look at this photo and then I’ll describe what I see…

First, I really like the exciting feel of the pattern of this fabric. The jumble fabrics felt more like solids to me.

Second, this fabric just made the blues in the indigo feel almost electric to me. The KFC fabrics already popped off the indigo, but I felt like this vibrant fabric made the indigo more of a star in this bag, rather than supporting cast.

Third, I love the way this fabric pulls the blues out of all the other KFC fabrics. The blues just feel electric and exciting… and I don’t normally get that feeling from blues. Not my favorite color.

All this came to me in one moment when I put this fabric next to the panels. It’s not logical. It doesn’t make sense. It just feels so right to me!

I managed to finish up this bag tonight. Here’s some photos of the finished product.

And here’s a view of that lining in the bag. I love it!

I really do love a fun and unexpected lining! It’s really not the place to scrimp!

I did go ahead and add a zipper pocket, a double slip pocket and a zipper placket.

And I sewed my little tag to the correct side of the bag!

I got a call from my regular vet this afternoon because the results from Bender’s blood test had come back. The last time I had his blood tested to check the level of Potassium Bromide (one of the epilepsy drugs Bender is on) was in June of 2020. At that time, it was at 2.8. This is in the range that is considered safe and effective. The test today came back at 1.7. this is still considered safe and effective, but it seems like a pretty significant drop to me.

Every epileptic dog is different in how they react to medications, in how much medication it takes to control seizures. For Bender, that 2.8 level was pretty magical.

The test results have been sent to Bender’s neurologist and we should receive a call from her in the next day or so. Bender is already on a pretty high dose of the drug, but I’m betting she’s going to want to increase his Potassium Bromide dose. And if she does, I’m hopeful that we’ll get back to a seizure free streak.

I also found out today that I have to have my roof replaced. I figured this was coming. And now I just want it to be done so I can stop worrying about it. Luckily, we have a pretty good streak of dry-ish weather coming up.

It was a pretty normal day today. Here’s the view I had during our afternoon walk…

There are no sidewalks in my neighborhood. So I’m very attentive to traffic and make sure all three of us don’t get hit. For our evening walks, the dogs wear lighted collars and I wear a reflective vest. A woman stopped her car the other night as she passed us and thanked me effusively for being so visible!!!

Now I have to decide what I’m going to make next. Thinking I might pull out those fun Timna Tarr animals panels and whip up a bag for myself. It might involve a sheep and a pig.

Another average day here at the old ranch in Portland. I worked. We walked. I worked some more. And we walked again.

And after that, something completely different… I HIT MY SEWING ROOM!!!

I managed to make the quilt sandwiches for my indigo batik and KFC panels and got them quilted, cut some faux leather and made the handles, and constructed the bag body. Here’s what I’m considering the front of the bag.

Oh man! I just love this!!! This is my favorite part of making a bag… when I finally see it in its three-dimensional form. If the quilting makes a panel look like an actual thing, getting the pieces into bag form transforms the whole thing to an amazing place! Love it!

Here’s what I’m considering the back of the bag.

The two sides of the bag are almost exactly the same. I just like the color combos a little better on the one I’m calling the front. Now we’ll have to see if I can manage to sew my tag on the correct side.

Here’s some lovely close ups of the quilting because I love it so much.

And one more…

I took a quick break from work this afternoon to try out some fabrics for the lining of this bag. I was originally thinking I’d use some indigo batik for the lining, but decided I wanted to go with a bright KFC print instead. And I felt like I wanted one of Brandon Mably’s graphic designs, rather than a floral.

So here’s three that I liked as options.

One of those is definitely a stand out for me. I’m not going to tell you which one I decided on, but I’m curious if you agree with my choice. Which one do you like, or which one do you think I like?

As I was looking at these fabrics for the lining I gave a little thought to how I choose a piece of fabric like this. And it really comes down to selecting a fabric that gives me the best reaction. One of these pieces made me feel a little spark in my brain. It was clear to me which one was right the minute I put it up on the design wall. I didn’t think about it for more than a second, didn’t go back and forth on my decision. It just felt right… immediately.

And I love a lining that makes me feel like that every time I open the bag!

I took Bender in to his vet today so they could do a blood draw to check the levels of his potassium bromide medication. Potassium bromide works as it builds up in the dog’s blood. It can take several months for the levels to build up when you add the medication or increase the dose. It should take a couple days to come back, and then we’ll have another consult with his neurologist. It will be interesting to see if the levels have changed since his last blood test in 2020.

Ever since I made that indigo batik and hand dyed fabric bag a couple of weeks ago, I’ve been thinking about those batiks and how they would make some KFC prints sing. So I’ve been noodling on the idea of combining them with some strip tubes that were left over after making this quilt.

I cut the strips for this quilt from 136 different KFC fabrics! So there’s a lot of variety in there. I like a quilt that isn’t too matchy-matchy.

So after our evening walk tonight I dug in and started cutting some of the tubes, playing with combos and shapes, and combining with strips of various indigo batiks. Here’s some of the pieces in progress.

And see! I was right! Those batiks really make those KFC prints pop!!! I’m really happy with where this is going.

When I make these bag panels, I think of them in elements. I almost always have a square block in the upper left. Then a vertical panel down the right side. And some kind of block to fill the space at the lower left.

As I’m making them I’m measuring and seeing how these pieces will come together, and if I need to add strips for width or height, and sometimes I need to trim a little. The lighter indigo vertical strip on the right and at the bottom of the square block were both put there to add width and height to make the panel 17 inches wide and tall, but they also serve a really nice design function. It makes the panel more interesting and dynamic.

This approach of building with elements really works well in my brain. I do vary it up sometimes and sometimes the back of the bag is much simpler. But as you can see, these two bag panels are almost identical. And that’s ok! No one will ever see both sides of the bag at the same time.

Here’s the two panels that I was able to get done tonight.

Holy cow! Look at how those KFC prints just pop off of that indigo! Gah! I bought all these indigo batiks with the intent of making a hexagon quilt using KFC yellows and these blues as background. But now I’m thinking it would be a shame to limit it to just yellow! But I do think a quilt like this will be in my future. I will definitely keep my eyes open for more indigo batiks when I’m out and about and visiting fabric stores again.

Here’s both panels in the same photo, just because I love looking at them!!!

I plan to get these panels sandwiched and quilted tomorrow night. Might even get the bag body put together. I have decided that I will go all out with pockets and a zipper placket.

A friend of mine messaged me tonight to ask if my succulent bag was available. She has bought things from me in the past and wanted this bag for a gift. As I was looking over the bag to make sure there weren’t any stray threads or other linty objects, I realized that I hadn’t added the fabric tab on the end of the zipper. It’s not necessary and doesn’t really serve any function, it’s just a nice finish. So that’s the first thing I did tonight.

Now it’s all ready to go to its new home.

I met my friend yesterday to do some dog training and have some lunch. It was great to see her and we had a really lovely lunch sitting out in the warm sun on her deck with a nice view of her property and the neighboring properties while her dogs played around us.

When we finished training our dogs we were standing outside the training barn and I heard the sound of birds screeching. I looked up and saw two bald eagles high up in a Douglas fir tree.

That’s not much of a photo, but you can definitely tell what it is! It’s really fun to get to see eagles every now and again.

We had a little rain over night and this morning. It didn’t amount to much. It was supposed to be dry when we took our afternoon walk, but we got just a little wet.

I’m really sorry to report that Bender had another seizure Sunday morning. I called his neurologist today and we’re going to do a blood test to check the levels of his meds. It’s possible that his body has changed how he’s metabolizing the medications. The neuro is having me double up on his evening medication as an immediate remedy. Once we get the results of his blood test, we’ll see if his other med needs to be increased.

The good thing about all of this is that Bender bounces back really quickly and doesn’t seem to suffer any lasting effects. He was perfectly fine and able keep a close watch on me as I ate some popcorn last night.

We’re keeping our fingers crossed that increasing his evening meds will do the trick for now.