Sewing for Haiti–tenatively

Randi at i have to say is thinking about organizing a Sewing Seeds project to sew skirts for girls in Haiti. In her words:

***Sewing Seeds is a project that I occasionally organize here on my blog to collect and distribute handmade skirts to little girls in areas where there is need…***

She’s looking for interested people to respond; with 90 comments and counting, I’m thinking this will be a “go!”  I wanted to get the word out here as well, so if you’re interested in joining in, read her whole post and go on and let her know!

I know I’ll be excited if this happens!

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WFMW: Reusable Snack Bags

So, one of my friends got these really cute reusable lunch bags for Christmas; I thought about them a bit, admired them, probably even remarked that I’d like to make some someday.

Then, I hopped on one of my favorite craft blogs, and looked to the sidebar…and there, right there, was a step-by-step reusable snack bag tutorial!

And oh, how I LOVE photo, step-by-step tutorials. I’m a slow sewer who usually makes multiple mistakes, but this was foolproof even for me. I did both in probably 2 hours, with the second only taking about 20 minutes. They’re lined, with velcro at the top, and ended up measuring about 6″ across and 5″ deep.

Now, I have to admit I think I like my friend’s type of bag better for 2 reasons (both on my end):
1) she just has a better fabric–more home decor weight, which eliminated the need for a lining, while I used scraps of muslin for the lining, and leftover cotton for the exteriors.
2) I like the thinner velcro strip. This one that I used is just bulky.

But for quick & easy…these take the cake. Now I just have to figure out what type of dry food I’d actually put in them…I think slices of bread are on the docket for tomorrow. However much I use them though, I’m glad to think of saving plastic baggies…one of my frugal peeves. I’m the type that washes them out to reuse them, so having some cloth, washable ones, I’m hoping will save me at least one box of baggies a year…maybe I should keep count. Or not.

And that’s what Works For Me.

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One Yard Wonders: Collapsible Tote

For Christmas, my mom got me the perfect-for-my-life-right-now book One Yard Wonders. I’d seen it on Inside Storey–Storey Publishing’s Blog (my all-time favorite publisher-blog, btw), and had wanted it for a while. I kept WAITING for it to arrive at B&N so I could leaf through it, or at least see some samples at Amazon, but no such luck–I put it on my wishlist sight-unseen and I’m so glad I did.

Being so busy, I only have time for short projects…and I mean REALLY short projects. Skirts would be a stretch. But this book has ton of super-quick ideas, and one of the fastest has to be the collapsible tote. I went to Jo-Anns and found some fabric to match my new CVS Green Bag Tag, and set to work!

Here it is looking all yellow-y, but it shows how small it is all tied up.

And unfolded (and back to normal colors!):

And the glamour shot:

VERY easy to make, and I say that as a relatively novice sewer who always messes up somewhere; my one issue was that I apparently misread the bolt info–I could have SWORN it said 44″/45″ but apparently it was only 40″/45″…or something. Anyways, I was 3″ short on the length. So, I’ve got an extra seam on the back where I, uh, “created” a fold…but apart from that issue on my end, it was extremely easy and very fun. What a great way to try out new fabrics!

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