Fabric Storage Bins

Now that my closets are in order, I can focus on "decorating" them. I've come across several tutorials on sewing fabric storage bins, including the few pictured below, with more styles and tutorials listed on this blog.

JCaroline Creative

Pink Penguin's fabric bin tutorial

I am deciding between some combination of Amy Butler's LOVE fabric and the numerous options from Echino. Any votes?

Amy Butler, LOVE

Echino "perch" in grape

Tie One On!

An apron, that is.

Several of my nieces are into American Girl dolls so I made them each an apron with a matching one for their doll. Inspired by Kit's apron, I used this vintage apron pattern and dug into my stash of fabric (the orange dots and pink lace are Amy Bulter, the pears are from Superbuzzy.com). Thanks to Mumsy who sent me oodles of bias tape and trimmings!

My oldest niece got an apron from this pattern.

Onsie for My Onsie

I thought Elijah needed a special shirt to wear to school to celebrate his first birthday, so I cut a "1" out of fabric from Amy Butler's Lotus line and his name out of brown corduroy and sewed them to a plain onesie. Ta da!

Baby Swing - Before and After

I updated our hand-me-down Fisher Price "ocean wonders aquarium" baby swing using fabric I bought ages ago from Superbuzzy and Amy Bulter's cherry full moon polka dot from her Lotus line. Although relatively simple, creating a pattern from the existing seat cover nearly contorted my 9-month-pregnant brain into a pretzel. The fish on the mobile don't really go with the fabric, I don't think the baby will notice.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Pack Your Bags

Here's Elana and her new weekender bag! For my second attempt (see first version here), I used Etsuko Furuya's Echino Balance bird meduim-weight fabric. The matching toiletry bag was made from Amy Butler's stash & dash pattern (interior is the cheerful full moon polka dot in cherry from Amy Butler's Lotus line).

Loungetastic

Nothing compliments lazy weekends at the cabin quite like a comfy pair of lounge pants! The pattern for the wide leg, drawstring pant is from Amy Butler's In Stitches book, of course! You may recognize the flower print from a previous project (those bedspreads give you oodles of fabric!) and the trim is a tangerine polka dot from Amy Butler's Lotus line. Duke scored her citrus jammies as a mother's day bonus.

Kimono Robe

The pattern for this kimono style robe came from Amy Butler's In Stitches book and is made out of a red asian flower bedspread from Urban Outfitters - a fabric tip from Mrs. Butler herself. It's the perfect cover-up and those of you who live in cold weather climates (ahem...) could line it for additional warmth!

Patchwork Bag with Zipper Charm

This patchwork bag was my first attempt at a quilting project as well as installing a zipper. I made the bag from a pattern in Amy Butler's In Stitches book and used fabric scraps from previous projects. It turned out to be the perfect size for my knitting supplies and extra yarn! This lined bag was VERY time consuming, however (a good weekend project for the cabin), and the instructions were difficult to interpret at some points. It sort of resembles a Vera Bradley bag, which wasn't my intention...the fabric combinations in the book were way cuter!

The Weekender Bag!

Yea for the Amy Butler weekender bag! This is a time consuming adventure but it's well worth the effort! I'm very happy with the way it turned out. The exterior fabric is from Amy Butler's Sunbloom line. The most time consuming parts were cutting out the fabric pieces (figuring out how to cut the pieces so that the pattern lined up appropriately nearly twisted my brain) and sewing the bag together so that the cording was flush with the seam. After ripping it out numerous times (ugh!), I finally got it to work. I would recommend stitching a few seams across the handles at the top for stability. Next time I might add an interior pocket...It's the perfect weekend or gym bag!

Here comes swing!

The Amy Butler swing bag was super fun to make...perhaps too much fun. I detailed a few of the bags with a fabric flower from Amy Bulter's Madison bag pattern. I used Micheal Miller's shopping girl fabric for the middle bag and Amy Butler's Coriander fabric from her Belle 'sun glow' line for the one on the right.

The s-WING bag

Hello craftatertots,

I'm hopefully going to manage to post a photo of the Amy Butler Swing Bag that I made last month. The fabrics I chose turned out to be a bit light, so it really seems like more of a summer bag. I had been planning on using Amy Butler fabrics for both the exterior and lining, but the patterns on the fabric ended up 1) bigger and 2) more intense than I expected. So, I had to cool the whole thing down with a solid, and could only find beige muslin to match (yawn). I also wish I had chosen a cool textured ribbon (e.g. velvet/grosgrain) to sew in as a closure to the bag and to complement and break up the pattern a bit. I'm still planning on adding one, but am somewhat limited due to my geographical location (although I admire Norway for its universal healthcare system, this country has a PALTRY selection of ribbons dispersed in 12 eensy weensy sewing shops country-wide).

It was fun making the bag! The end was definitely just a process of forging forward on blind faith in not having made a critical error. Two minutes from finishing, the bag was inside out, straps were pointing in all directions (and it was unclear which side was outside strap, which inside...whaa happened? basically) and there was a tiny whole left un-sewn through which one was meant to tease the outside (one had to hope) away from the inside (??). But it worked, and then one could just whip stitch like nobuddy's business and it was finished!

Now I can't wait to use it, but shall have to hold off until I am no longer being regularly splashed by slush from passing cars on a twice daily basis, normally to and from work.

Amy Butler's Cabo Halter

Elana gave me Amy Butler's Cabo Halter pattern for the holidays and I finally got around to making it from the Belle Collection pine/coriander fabric. I'm really happy with the way it turned out but I had to make slight modifications to the top to get it to lay flat (which is nearly impossible to do by yourself, by the way...thanks, Duke!). It was the first time I installed an invisible zipper, which requires a special presser foot. (Who knew?! I found out the hard way that the ~$3 Coats and Clark invisible zipper foot doesn't work on my Husqvarna, so I ended up purchasing the "Fashion Fun" kit which was only about $10 more than buying the zipper foot by itself and includes an additional foot, seam ripper and some other goodies.) Now I just have to wait for summer!

Sweetest Pressie

Sharon surprised me on my birthday with this craftastic creation.