The Lion Purse

Surely there’s nothing better than seeing a lion-shaped purse with a zip for its mouth?No, I thought not. Presented to you by the June 2011 edition of Sew Hip magazine, this little feline was an absolute treat to sink my own (zip-free) teeth into.

The lion’s face is made up of a circular, interfacing-backed piece of ‘lion-coloured’ material, complete with contrasting snout and felt eyes and nose, which I attached using iron-on bondaweb. Easy. I then folded a long strip of contrasting, lion-coloured material in half and created little gathers in it for the mane. I made the ears, sandwiched all the layers together and sewed all the way around the edges to create the end result.

The zip mouth was slightly trickier to pull off. A rectangular hole was cut in the main fabric, the zip was placed behind and then stitched in place. I used a contrasting colour to make it stand out (and also because I didn’t have a short white zip!). In the pattern, the face is sewn onto a back piece to create a purse with the mouth-zip as the opening. Instead I stitched my design onto a blank pencil case using the same pattern I used previously, which I think looks just as cute!

Overall a roaring success. Sorry, couldn’t resist that one.

Pencil Full of Lead

Today is my day off. I have at least a million other things I should be doing (writing about Disney and job hunting spring to mind) but it’s been so long since I did some good and proper sewing… I decided I’d begin a new project. And here it is: an applique pencil case. At first glance it’s possibly one of the most professional looking things I’ve ever made (except perhaps my Union Jack cushion or even the oven gloves I whipped up for my sister).

The pattern I used came from Sew Hip! magazine (Nov 2010, issue 22) and was super easy to follow – 2 rectangular lining pieces, 2 linen pieces, 1 zip and 3 applique pencils. I used bondaweb (for the first time) to do the applique and was surprised by how easy it was! It saves a lot of time being able to literally glue the pieces of fabric together. Saying that, I then went over each picture with several rows of straight stitch to give the pencils that ‘drawn myself’ look.

I used a mixture of pink and floral material for both the lining and the applique to give it that country-cottage feel. The overall result is quite impressive, even if I do say so myself. Oh and if your birthday’s coming up soon then consider yourself very lucky…

Check out my other applique attempts – including birds and flowers – here!

Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger

This, my friends, is my new sewing machine. My parents bought me it for Christmas, but because I’ve been so busy I’ve only just managed to plug it in this weekend! I know, I don’t call myself much of a hardcore seamstress either. It’s a Toyota 15JSPB Sewing Machine and runs like an absolute DREAM. It has one of those satisfying hums that makes it sound like the job is getting done properly (and not one of those clunky rattles that my mum’s old sewing machine has).

Here’s some more info and praise for it over at Argos – http://reviews.argos.co.uk/1493-en_gb/4602136/reviews.htm

Obviously I couldn’t just unpack it and do nothing… so I whipped out another gift I received for my birthday (a lovely book of small sewing projects, to be reviewed later). I picked a simple pattern for a little pencil case/ make up bag. It took me about 10minutes to put together. This new sewing machine is BRILLIANT. It even has a zip. Still not satsified with the result however, I then decided to attach an applique motif – comprising of some cross stitch I’d done previously and some pink cotton that I used for the back of the pencil case. The finished product is now on it’s way to my friend in Scotland for her birthday. Let’s hope she doesn’t get to this blog before the post arrives!