The Deborah Tote Bag - And how to make it

I made some tote bags for the last show that I did, but my friend Deborah suggested some changes that she would like to see in the next bag and not only that she gave me an early Christmas present - labels so that I can try and spot them out on The Broadway.


Am also featuring this on Wendy's Handmade Monday Blog


Preparation is everything when you are making anything, if you get everything together before you start, it makes your life so much easier, so you will need to gather up the following:

• Fabric for outer and lining
• Webbing (1.5" wide)
• Cutting equipment, shears, scissors, mat etc
• Sewing machine
• Cotton
• Iron and ironing board (your new best friend for any sewing project)

  

Your fabric - both outer and lining - heavy cotton 

works really well



Your cutting kit, including rotary cutters, mat, ruler, 
pinking shears and small scissors



Remove the selvedge and cut the bag to size, for a 
medium bag,  you need a outer and lining measuring 
14"(width)  x 28" (length) and for a larger bag 
16" x 32"



Fold the fabric in half (should measure 14" for the small 
and 16" for the large, with the printed sides together, 
seam both sides with a seam allowance of 5/8"



Press open the seams of your fabric so that it will lay flat,
now remember in school when they told you that knowing
about angles will come in useful - today is that day!

You need to create a right angle (the corner of a square
and get the seam to bisect it at 45' (which should be slap
bang in the middle, just like this picture).  Fold the top of 
the seam down to make a little triangle.



Measuring 5/8" sew across the seam as above.  Do this for
both sides.



Now trim off the triangle with your pinking shears - you
have now made the base of your bag, so that it will sit
properly.



Now repeat these steps with your lining fabric to exactly 

the same dimensions



Cut out a piece of fabric which matches your bag to
make an internal patch pocket, it can be the same fabric
or a contrasting pattern, you will need a piece 8" x  6".

Fold over the top of the fabric 5/8" and seam it.
Now place the pocket with your seam at the top,
4" below the top of your lining and equidistant from the
sides of your bag.  



Stitch around the left, bottom and right hand side 
of the pocket.  Then top stitch another seam 

3" from either of the side seams to make a pocket for

your phone.




Now fold together the lining - making sure that the 
pocket is on the inside.  Sew a 3/4" seam - I know this 
is a bigger seam than the outside fabric but it means 
your lining will fit snugly.




Seam the sides and go to the top of the maths class and 
do the triangle work again - Thank you Miss O'Reardon 
who taught me the joy of angles, so useful in piecing 
patchwork...



I then stitch a label on mine over the side seam
























Your bag is now ready to go!

So there you go, a tote bag, a maths lesson and you are
now ready to shop!

Last Five Taken

Last week a legend in jazz world died, you might not know his name but you will certainly know his work - he was Joe Morello - the man responsible for the driving beat of the drums in the Dave Brubeck Quartet and for the drumming on the one jazz record that everyone knows after a couple of bars, the amazing Take Five.

I went to see the Dave Brubeck when he toured the UK about five years ago.  Onto the stage of the Cliffs Pavilion shuffled several very old men, including Dave, frankly I thought that they had no chance of making it to their instruments let alone the intermission and to be honest I thought it was mean not letting the drummer use a zimmer but then Dave counted them into Caravan and in front of my eyes they rejuvenated and were leaping around like spring chickens.  It was one of the best jazz evenings I have ever been to.

Now the problem with YouTube is that your eye will always wander... and that happened to me when I was looking for the Joe Morello clip and I came across the Gene Krupa Quartet... watch it and watch very closely when Gene starts to play the Double Bass... amazing virtuousity.

So I would like to say a big thank you to all those jazz men and women who keep me going as I whizz down a seam on my sewing machine.

RIP Joe and thanks for a cool classic.

Craftfail.com

I have just found the most wonderful site:

http://craftfail.com

It restores your faith in mankind, there are some real Bobby Dazzler Dreadful mistakes on there.  I cried when I read the Amish Bread tale... artisan bakers throughout the world eat your hearts out!

http://craftfail.com/?p=1418

So go on fess up what is your personal disaster?

Kitchen Table Talents Awards

I used to be a real magazine junkie but I have now got it down to just one or two per month but one of my absolute faves is Country Living Magazine.

Now obviously this is a lifestyle magazine and one to which I so totally aspire, if only I had the time,  money and the expertise to undertake the jam-making, crafting, decorating, enjoying nature, defeating my garden but as there are only 24 hours in a day I have to admit defeat and live it vicariously through the pages of this magazine.  Although one day I might have a beehive and not the one on top of my head!


However this month they have a fab competition Kitchen Table Talents Awards - six separate categories which might win you a prize to change your life and set up a new business doing or making the things that you love.   It costs £5 to enter and the monies are going to Country Living's Charity of the Year, The Princes Countryside Trust.  More details are to be found here:


http://www.allaboutyou.com/craft/Kitchen-Table-Talent-Awards/v1

Now the category I like the look of is the crafts category - I will need to find three items, take pics, explain how they are made and then write a 500 word description of what your do, how you started and your future dreams.  I am now trying to find original designs, decide what I should enter and what my dreams are.


So which category would you enter and what would be your three original makes?

International Women's Day Centenary - 8 March 2011

Tomorrow is International Women's Day.  I am one of the lucky ones, I have so many things that many other women in this world do not have yet - the Pill, access to a no-fault divorce, the ability to say no to sex and to mean it, to be able to adopt a child as a single parent, to live my life without interference and to be happy.


Daniel Craig of 007 fame stars in a specially commissioned video narrated by Dame Judi Dench tells you about some of the things which are still to happen for women and sadder still some of the things that still happen to women - the stats on murder due to domestic abuse are chilling.



So to all my sisters out there, have a wonderful day and, and stay safe and be happy

World Book Day or Me and My Library

Last night in the UK over a million books were given away as we celebrated World Book Day and Night, and yesterday I did what I do most weekends and went to my local library.  I am one of the really lucky ones to never live more than 10 minutes away from a library.


My first library was a brand new one, built in the 1960s at Kent Elms corner.  I still remember having to queue up after school on the day it opened with my two pink junior library tickets and dashing down to the end of the library to find two shelves down on the left hand side the holy grail for me - a shelf of Enid Blyton books: Secret Seven, St Clare's, Mallory Towers, Noddy, The Faraway Tree, The Naughtiest Girl in the School - there were times when my mother thought she would never get me into the Adult Library with its jade coloured tickets.

 Then I moved to Limehouse and the rather imposing Passmore Edwards Library with it fabulous wooden panels and to my shame I did something really awful there.  I lost a book.  It was a copy of Harper Lee's, To Kill a Mocking Bird, which I left behind in the women's common room in the London Hospital Student Union.  As you can tell, many years later I still feel badly about this.

Then it was on to Cable Street in Stepney, which was a pre-fab building, complete with corrugated iron roof which leaked copiously during rain storms so that  librarians and readers ran about with buckets to capture the drips.  Best of all was the fantastic mural of the 1936 Cable Street riots when the East End stood full square against the tyranny of Oswald Moseley's Blackshirts.

Then back to Leigh-on-sea where my library is the old rectory for St Clement's church.  This library serves the whole community from tiny tot to OAP and everybody in between.  With its knowledgeable band of librarians who will recommend books and find you a new and exciting author. And best of all when you have chosen your books, you can slip out in the Spring sunshine and sit in the Library Gardens and read your book, occasionally glancing up to see the tide coming in on the estuary. Life is sometimes very beautiful.

So, if you have time today, pick up your favourite book, read a couple of chapters, thank your lucky stars that you are able to read and escape to another world.  Then when you go to your local library, remember to say thank you to the librarians for being there because for many in the UK our libraries are facing swingeing cuts.  We need libraries, we need books, we need reading to make us the civilised society we need to be.


So do you have a fave book?  Let me know what it is and why I should read it.

I need your help!

OK, I am currently making a fantastic bag from Nicky Epstein's Knitting Block by Block: 150 Blocks for Sweaters, Scarves, Bags, Toys, Afghans, and More and I found a fantastic bag in there.

I bought some great wool on my trip to Bodkins, Sirdar's lovely DK Crofter.  I love this wool, having made some super bed socks as a Christmas prezzie for my friend Sally.

This is a pic of the bag I am making,  I love the cable texturing and the sleek leather handles.

And this is the front or is it the back?


So here is my dilemma, do I go with a plain dusty rose lining or should I go with a witty floral?  You decide...