Some of you know that I’ve been working quietly for several months in preparation for opening a small side business. This week saw the culmination of those efforts and HappenstanceHandmade is now up and running! It’s still a little small, but it will grow!

I have several goals in opening this shop; the first and foremost being a way to improve my sewing skills, because nothing hones an ability quite like putting it to work. And thinking ahead to the time when Ryan and I decide that what the world really needs is one or two little Burrells to shake things up (still a long ways off, so don’t get too excited!), I want to be prepared for us losing my part of our regular income during the months of my maternity leave, which at my job is unpaid.

I started off with checkbook covers and zipper pouches, because, well, they’re easy to make. I plan to add small jewelry pouches to the product list fairly soon, and I’m considering Matthew‘s suggestion that I sell my “Shoe Fix” as well (let me know in the comments if you think this is something I should add to the shop, or if you have any other suggestions). I want to expand into handbags and clothing as well, but that’s a little further down the road.

So head on over to the shop and take a look around… and if you like what you see, well, you know what to do!

I love these shoes.

I never wear these shoes, though.

When I walk, this is what happens.

Bummer.

But all is not lost! Here is my inspiration:

(Forever 21)

And here is the end result:

Here’s how I did it:

1. Take two pieces of fabric (I used navy blue), 25″ x 3″. I didn’t use any interfacing or padding, because I wanted to keep it light and airy. Fold one piece of fabric in half longways with right sides together, pin, and stitch a seam using 1/2″ seam allowance down the long ends.

2. Trim the seam allowance.

3. Turn the tube right side out and press.

4. Topstitch 1/8″ from each edge.

5. Fold the raw ends under 1/4″, then fold under again. This is where my photography skills went on vacation.

6. Topstitch two seams to secure the end.

7. Sew down a piece of velcro on one end, flip the strap (this is important!), and sew the other piece on the other end. Oh look, the photography came back!

8. Repeat for the other strap.

That’s it! Slide on the shoe, slip the strap underneath, twine around your ankle, and velcro shut. I am debating stitching the crossover together and/or hotgluing the strap to the underside of the shoe, but for now I am leaving it at is so I can keep experimenting with other ideas.

I’ve been super busy at work, but have still made time to work on more birthday gift purses and sneak in one for me – I really like it! Mom helped me pick out the fabrics.

And now for photos of Jessica! The first one is one of my favorite pictures of her, ever.

Also, I recently got to take “my” boys out for birthday ice cream, each by themselves! We went to Coldstone, and both boys, oddly enough, picked bright blue cotton candy ice cream with gummy bears. You’d think they were related, or something.

And last but not least, we have some gorgeous flowers growing in our backyard! They have faded somewhat since I took these, so I’m glad I have them to remember how pretty it will be here every spring.

Aaaaaand that’s it for now. The next group of photos I post  will be of my awesome father-in-law’s band, the Sock Monkeys.

Yes, you read that right.

The Sock Monkeys.

Intrigued? You should be! Check back later for more…

Photos

Thoughts

1. If you sew this pattern, I recommend moving the markings for zipper in the pocket on piece 11 down by at least 1/4″. As marked, I’ve had trouble fitting the zipper, magentic snap, and top seam allowance into the space allotted, resulting in the sides snapping a tiny bit crookedly and requiring me to hand stitch the final topstitching (not a pretty sight).

2. If you can, add about 1/4″ of length to the patchwork pieces that become the outer sides. Some of this is me being relatively novice at this, but my patchwork didn’t come out even across the top, making cutting the side pieces out of the patchwork a tiny bit tricky.

3. When attaching the sides/bottom (piece 10) to the outsides or to the lining (pieces 9), match the ends up to the notches before pinning along the bottom. At first, I tried to pin from one end to the other, and I ran out of fabric; it’s designed to give a little structure to the bag, so if you pin the notches first, then work to the bottom, it’ll come together more easily.

4. I bought double the amounts of fabric and notions listed on the pattern; the goal was  to make two purses and two makeup bags. I had enough fabric left over to make two more purses (conveniently enough, I have two May birthdays to plan gifts for!), though I did have to purchase 1 and 1/4 yd of heavyweight fusible interfacing for the last bag.

5. I used variegated embroidery thread on the blue/green bag, and I kind of liked the effect, but I really prefer the solid embroidery on the pink/brown one. Yes, I hand-embroidered it. Yes, I am crazy; each side took a full hour to embroider.

6. I really love this pattern.

Questions?

Don’t hesitate to ask. I’m in the process of making two more of Bag B, and I’ve purchased stuff for Bag A, so I’m in purse-making mode!

I made as many Christmas gifts as I could this year. In the header image and below are the tote bags I made for Ryan’s mother, aunt, and grandmothers. I’ll be making one for Mom’s birthday in May, I think!  These are made using Simplicity pattern 2676 and cotton quilting fabrics; you may remember these prints from an earlier post. These were a big hit, and I learned a lot from making them.

For Keegan and Kadence, my I-wish-these-kids-were-my-nephews, I made Lumpysaurs!

These are based on the Unforgettable Elephant pattern in Sew Everything Workshop, by Diana Rupp; I added the head, neck, and tail to the elephant body. These are made of stash fabrics and stuffed with scraps, so they’re good for bopping brothers over the head, which is what they do with stuffed animals. I hear the boys loved them.

On an unrelated note, I saw Avatar today and loved it… Who knew ten-foot-tall blue people with tails could be so interesting, and so very, very badass? Incidentally, I will probably go see every movie Sam Worthington makes from here on out, because the eye candy factor is through the roof. The rest of the movie is pretty eye-catching, too.

Next up: The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus and Sherlock Holmes.

Later dudes.

I haven’t done a ton of sewing, in part because I’m about to sit down and make a whole bunch of Christmas gifts. As a teaser, though, the image above is of a section of a prototype for something I’m pretty pleased with. Expect a tutorial after it’s all finished.

I took myself fabric shopping last night to stock up on supplies to make Christmas gifts. I was so excited to find this fabric, that I may just keep everything I make from it:

I didn’t sew at all to make my Halloween costume for this year; a last-minute thrift-store trip with my Lea Ann turned up nearly all of this (I already had the hat, boots, and beige shirt), for about $10. A little chopping made it properly piratey…

… to go trick-or-treating with my favorite dragon, pirate, and witch:

Jessica looked pretty awesome.

Next year I plan to put a little more effort into a Halloween costume. his year, though, I was kinda busy in the days leading up to Halloween. Anyway, I have lots of projects to work on, so expect more sewing posts in the near future!

Whew. It’s been a craaaazy couple of weeks. Luckily, I took pictures.

Ryan and I split Labor Day weekend between his family’s cabin in Forsyth and Kansas City visiting my awesome sister. in Forsyth, we sat around, watched TV, and went out for Barbecue.

And we visited the docks where Ryan’s relatives were fishing.

In Kansas City, we ate Italian food, went to a bookstore, and then Mom taught us to knit. Yes, I’m doin’ it wrong (FAIL). I fixed it later.

There has been a monumental amount of wedding stuff getting done (less than a month to go!). We’ve been meeting with vendors, paying pills, nailing down details, and for me, having hair and makeup run-throughs and sewing my veil to my tiara. I really am as tired as I look here.

I’m making table runners for our reception tables, and have 5 of the 20 done. I’m going to give 5 pieces of fabric to my mom and 5 to Ryan’s, and I’ll finish the other 5 and they’ll be DONE.

Lea Ann and I attended Scrap-A-Palooza, where I worked on the guest book. I wanted to show how much I enjoy scrapbooking, and leave plenty of room for guests to write messages if they desire. My favorite spread so far:

Got to have some fun at work the other day. I’m in a leadership development program called University Staff Ambassadors, and September’s event was a campus tour. We got to go up into the carillon tower and see how the carillon is played. I even got to get up close to the bells:

and snap a photo of the JQH fountain from on high:

We toured all the property on the Springfield campus and then had a scavenger hunt that wore me out.

My souvenir for the day: my own hard hat.

I know, I look ridiculous. But, it was fun. Now, it’s bed time. Later, d00ds.

Our wedding party includes two adorable ring bearers, the young sons of my bridesmaid Lea Ann and her husband, Kyle, who will be escorting me down the aisle. Rather than spending $20-$30 a pop on ring bearer pillows, I decided to try my hand at making them.

Materials

1 yd chocolate brown satin (I had a yard on hand; could probably get by with 1/2 to 3/4 yd)
1/2 yd ivory satin
1 roll of skinny chocolate brown ribbon
ivory thread
lots of plastic grocery bags (for realz! of course, you can use polyfill or an 8″ x 8″ pillow form)
sewing machine and needles for lightweight fabrics
shears, etc

Notes

Seam allowances:

1/8″ for edgestitching the ivory piece
1″ for constructing the pillow

Finished dimensions: 8″ x 8″

Needles: Be sure to use needles for lightweight fabrics. Even using them, I did notice some pinching of the fibers, but it’s not noticeable unless you look really close.

Making the pillows

The fabric is a satiny chantung in chocolate brown and ivory. I started by cutting out four 10″ x 10″ squares of the brown and two 5″ x 10″ rectangles in ivory.

I wanted to use the ivory piece as an embellishment like I had seen on some of the for-purchase pillows (my idea was to have the pillow look like the one from this set). So I played around with scrunching it into a bow shape.

Once I had the idea fixed in my mind, I un-scrunched it and hemmed the long edges; I didn’t bother with the short edges, because I planned to sew them into the seams of the pillow.

After hemming the long edges, I folded them under and ironed them so the stitching wouldn’t show.

Then I hand-sewed some gathers into the middle of the piece. I tried to keep the size of the stitches varied so it wouldn’t look like an accordion.

Next I marked the center of the top pillow piece by folding it into quarters and marking the corner. The invisible ink soaked through the fabric and left a good, easy-to-see spot.

I unfolded the pillow piece and with the right (shiny) side up, I sewed the center of the bow to the marked center just like I would sew a button.

Once the center was secured, I pinned the edges  as close to the edge of the pillow pieces as possible. Since the center is sewn, the outer edges will make a curve; I fanned the edges as much as possible to give it a good bow shape, and then topstitched the curve as close to the edge as possible. The plan was to sew this seam into the seam allowance of the seams I would sew to construct the pillow.

Once the top pillow piece was constructed, I flipped it over and aligned it with the bottom piece, right sides together. I sewed a seam all the way around, leaving a few inches to stuff the pillow. You can see here how I sewed the seam so that the topstitching from the previous step would be “hidden” when I turned the pillow right side out.

Before I turned it right side out,I trimmed the seam allowance with pinking shears and ironed the open section to make it easier to hand-stitch closed.

Now the pillow is right side out!

I stuffed the pillow with plastic grocery bags (they crinkle!) and hand-stitched the seam closed.

Next, I cut three long pieces of narrow chocolate brown ribbon, slide the pieces under the bow as close to the sewn center as possible, and tied a bow.

For the Big Day, I’ll untie the bow, secure the rings, and re-tie the bow so that the rings won’t get lost, but they’ll be easy to untie during the ceremony.

The two pillows took roughly six hours over two evenings and cost less than $10. They’re not as polished as a purchased pillow, but I’m pretty pleased at how they turned out.

Next project: 20 table runners for the reception tables. Wheee!

My first foray into the thrift store stash involves a curtain and a pillowcase that happened to coordinate fairly well. I’d been wanting an apron, because when I wash dishes, I generally end up washing the floor and myself along the way. So I took the pillowcase apart, made trim from the curtain, and voila!

I didn’t really use a pattern; I just sort of cut pieces at whim to see what would happen. Both pieces of fabric were really worn, so my machine had a tough time (even lightweight needles tended to pinch the fabric rather than sew it) but it’s really soft and turned out pretty comfortable. If I make another apron, there are some things I will do differently, but, for your viewing pleasure, I present…

Check out all the cool things you get in this photo: the unbrushed hair, the glasses, my pjs, my gigantic antique digital camera, a partial view of my messy sewing space… You had no idea what you were in for on this one! I promise not to inflict such terrors upon you again. At least for a few days.

Anyone who has ever been in a fabric store can tell you fabric is not cheap. So how could a budding seamstress like myself stock up on fabrics and not break the bank?

Thrift stores, baby.

Ryan’s mother stopped by on Saturday and mentioned that our local D.A.V. was having a one-day-only $0.98 sale. I’m not normally a huge fan of thrift stores (if I spend too much time in them, my allergies kick into high gear), but we thought it would be worth stopping in. Ryan wanted to see if he could find some more T-shirts, and I figured I could pick up some clothes to refashion. No shirts for Ryan (found one for me!), but we wandered down several aisles before leaving and found ourselves in front of the jackpot: a whole aisle of clean, although lightly faded, sheets, bedskirts, pillowcases, and curtains.

We took most of it.

This is the haul, and along with my shirt and three dresses and skirts to repurpose, it cost me less than $22 and 15 minutes in the D.A.V. This should keep me busy for a while!

Check this awesomeness out:

Flat sheets:

Fitted sheets:

Pillowcases and a bedskirt:

Curtains:

I think I was extraordinarily lucky to get in on this when I did, but even had it not been marked way down, thrift stores are a good source of lots of used fabric for experimenting on the cheap. Check your out today, and let me know if you find any super deals!