Indigo Hand Bag

For A Friday Finish I have completed my Indigo Hand Bag. I just love it. 

It goes so well with my new Spring Jacket. 

I used the basic MoJo Pattern from Sew Like a Rock Star. I made the same width as the pattern but made this one taller 13". 

Shibori indigo hand dyed fabric was used on the inside. With the metal frame in place, the bag opens up so nice a wide. 

I have added pockets on both sides. 

You can see the hand stitching I did on the close up shot. Made a post about the hand stitching Here and picking out my fabric back Here. 

One half with the handles before I started the bag assembly. 

I used Chicago screws to attach the leather hands. You can also see the bottom of the bag is reused jean fabric. 

Here is the back side of the out fabric, you can see I also added a small rectangle of thicker interfacing to add more firmness to the handle area. The screws are 1/4" but needed something more to feel right.  

The bag just before I placed the 

metal frame inside. Not a bad looking bag but it is so much nicer with the metal frame inside. 

The cute Red print with flowers was used for my zipper tabs. 

The other side. On Sew Like a Rock Star, Sally has the best ever video of how to do the zipper tabs. How to fussy cut and sew this just perfect. I do not think I will ever mess these up and they are just a great detail.  

I have linked up with Crazy Mom Quilts and Confessions of a Fabric Addict.

Hand Stitches Indigo

I got the hand stitching done on my 2 indigo patches. The plan from the beginning is to make a bag for me. So nice to finish the first step. I just love the feel and texture of the hand stitching.

side one

side two

Here is the stitching on the backside. You can see how much texture there is. 

I bought this needle case last June at the Edmonton Quilt Show. One of the members buys beautiful fabrics on line and then has made needle cases and scissor cases. The workmanship is wow! I had to use my needle case and have it with me as I stitched on my Japanese patches.  

The thread I used on my patches is the crochet cord, a good fine one. 

Here is the inside of the needle case. A vinyl pocket in the front and another one in the back were I had scissors and a small ruler. 

I have added this post to the linky page on Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching. 

Happy Easter and Happy April Fools. 

Spring Jacket

One week to get my new Spring jean jacket done. I love how the Tim Holtz fabrics went with denim. I really liked the Blue Tailor fabric as it is so close to denim. 

Look what I did for a hem, I used the waist of the old jeans. I was able to match up the button and button whole. Love how the belt loops come up and attach to the patchwork. It was so worth it to use old jeans. 

I finished the jacket off with old Brass buttons. The top one is a horse head button I got in Huston in 1999. The others are all a little different. 

Picking out buttons for the jacket was a big deal. I got out many different buttons, here is my black and white glass buttons. I did not like the all black ones, too dark. Also white was not great either. 

I got laying out the different styles on the front. I was starting to think the blue grey shell ones where a winner. How ever.

The brass one won out. Sorry kind of a dark photos, the sunlight was fading. 

Details

For the back of the jacket, I used 2 legs of old Levi jeans. The sleeves were cut from one leg of a second pair of jeans. The old recycled jean fabric is so soft.  See how the waist runs around to the back of the jacket too. 

The lining of the front part is a indigo shibori dyed fabric I made some years ago. I like to put a surprise inside my jackets. 

Now if it would warm up for spring I could wear my Jacket. 

I have added this post to Crazy Mom Quilts and Confessions of a Fabric Addict and Busy Hands Quilt Finished or Not Friday Link Up

Stitching Olympics

I have some special fabrics that are from Japan or inspired by Japanese culture. The blue indigo fabrics are dyed by me in a vat. I hand stitched a resist pattern in them and dyed them. The red print was from Japan, I won a pack at the Edmonton guild years ago. Well I needed to stop saving them and make good use of them.  

I like watching the Olympics each evening with my husband. I like to keep my hand busy with something, so hand stitching it is for now. I plan to use my new stitched fabric to make a bag. I think I might put a handle on the bag and use it as a hand bag. 

I have linked up to Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching.

Dip and Dye

In the Shibori dying class I also had time to do some fold and dip and dye pieces. 

I would fold in some kind of accordion fold and then fold again into a triangle. 

Then each corner of side was dipped into dye. I think this pink and yellow one looks like pink pineapples, king of like Hawaiian applique.  

Sometimes I dip the side not just the corner in to the dye. 

I started with fabric that had been presoaked in soda ash solution 

I know the sides were dipped on this one, there is a line jointing it all up. 

Shibori Dyed Fabric

After the 3 day class on dyeing cotton fabric, I also took the class on Shibori dyeing fabric, so 4th day. I was using cotton again but some people in the class were using wool for rug hooking. We had to bring our own dyes and all kinds of crazy bits to help with the shibouri. 

We I have done some of this before and I just love pole wrapping. When the teacher was not watching me I would wrap another piece of fabric on a pole and dye it. This was a 1/2 m dyed twice and folded like a fat quarter and then rolled. 

Blue water fabric, dyed twice

Darker blue water, dyed twice. 

This one has been dyed a few times (3 I think) and it was wrapped on a large nylon rope. The folds are smaller then the folds on the pole wrapped fabrics. 

Pole wrapped with shades of green. This has been dyed twice. 

These were also done twice and in the same dye bath both times, Yet they are a little different. Must have been how they were wrapped and the one on the right has more of the middle got some extra dye on it. 

I had to sometimes finish these at home at have the time to get the second dye bath done. So not all done in class time. All of these are fat quarter sized fabric. I just do not get dye to the inside of the fabric roll if I go bigger.