little cloth bags...

I have been a member of a craft group in my neighborhood for a few months now. I found these gals on Meetup and have had a great time meeting with them for knitting and sewing nights.  When I first started going to the She's Crafty Knit Nights, I would pull my work out of its handy clear plastic zipper bag, while some of my knitting pals would pull out some beautifully hand made fabric project bags. I was immediately jealous, and a bit intimidated. Not by their knitting skills (I was in awe of that), and not because they had the bags, but I did want to make one or two for myself and I had never sewn a zipper in my life...was I up to the challenge? I really felt that zipper sewing was "the next level" of sewing. I also was pretty much unaware of the existence of interfacing. What was I getting myself into?

I did a search for pattens for box bags and settled on a great tutorial for a project. I picked up a couple of fat quarters and a zipper and I got busy. Then I went out and bought some more zippers and more fat quarters and some interfacing...I'm nearly an expert now! These make great gifts for the other crafters in my life!

a couple of boxy bags and a pyramid and large folder

I've been spending much more time reading about crafts lately, too. I really enjoy seeing what others are up to!

Some dear friends of mine in Seattle spend time together for crafting pretty regularly (why do I have to live so far from them?). Anyway, they blog about it, here.  In a recent blog post, Sadie wrote about Click it Bags. I've been wanting to learn how to make one, since seeing my sister use the one that I got her at the Fremont Sunday Market when we were all at my dad's house recently. After exchanging a few Facebook comments with Sadie, I got myself hooked up with the pattern and the secret ingredient to these click it bags- the "click-it! closure"  The real deal can be found on Etsy doing a quick search for "flex frames," but the Seattle Crafty Girls Gone Mild are a recycly bunch, so they use portions of  measuring tapes to get the proper "click" in the bags. I whipped a couple of these up the other night, and I'm loving them! I think a few of my friends can expect one or two of these to come their way!

scrappy click it bags

where have I been...

too busy crafting to blog...

I wish I had a good excuse for where I've been...but I don't. I just haven't been writing much. I've been crafting up a storm lately and just haven't taken the time to post. I've been reading a ton of craft blogs and trying out some new ideas...but I haven't written about any of them either. I've been checking many knitting and sewing books out of the library and working on projects from them, but like I said...lots of craftiness, zero blogging.  I'm sorry, I've been bad. (there, that's done with)

I will tell you about some of my recent finished projects, by way of apology for my long absence!

I've been using my old hand me down sewing machine a lot lately and have made some flannel pajama pants, just in time for the 80 degree weather. I've also made a couple of faux pillow case dresses, which are much more seasonable.  The pattern can be found in the book, Small Stash Sewing, which I checked out of the library. The book has some very cute ideas and since its intended for use with fat quarters, you don't need too much laying around your fabric stash to make the projects. Grace's dress is made with left over table toppers from my Vermont Wedding.  It turns out I don't actually need 6 table topper squares of purple paisley in my real married life.

my first faux pillow case dress

Grace's new dress

I've finished one of my mega projects, a baby blanket inspired by the Hudson Bay Blankets from long ago. I used a pattern found here for the inspiration and I almost followed the whole pattern too. I didn't use the suggested yarn, instead opting for an acrylic that would be soft against baby's skin (it was a lot cheaper too). Because I used a different yarn, my gauge was way off, but I thought it didn't really matter since I was only knitting a rectangle.  I knew ahead of time that I would get a larger than crib-width blanket. I thought that would make it extra snuggly for a bigger kid too, however the blanket seemed to take forever to knit. I happen to have a short attention span for knitting and start cruising Ravelry for my next project when I reach the half way point of any project I'm working on.  I love getting onto that next project...but I stuck with this blanket, determined to finish it before baby's June arrival, and keeping in mind that I had 6 other newborn's to craft for before their May, June and July births. Its in the mail now!

Hudson Bay Inspired Blanket for baby Belgrade

...with a matching baby hat!

I've also been working on some knitting project bags. Photos of those o