Monday, October 19, 2009

Peter's Pumpkin Bag

A few months ago I went searching for craft ideas that use orange fleece. I have extra from a previous halloween costume that I want to use up. I found this pattern/tutorial for a pumpkin bag online, but the link doesn't work anymore. Thank goodness I printed it out. :)


Basically it said to find a picture of a pumpkin that you like and blow it up to get your pattern. I printed out half of the pumpkin onto a regular piece of paper and jut put it on the fold to cut the fabric.

I used the shape of this pumpkin.

And I used the mouth of this pumpkin.

The bag is the orange fleece and the lining is halloween cotton fabric. The tutorial said that you needed cotton batting but wasn't specific on where it went so I sandwiched it between the fleece and the cotton. I also lined the cotton with interfacing so that it would be stiffer and stand up & stay open on its own. The eyes and mouth are felt and I used some craft spray adhesive to put them on and then I used a satin stitch to keep them in place. I also used a satin stitch to make the pumpkin lines.

The handle is one strand of fleece braided together with two strands of cotton. I used large grommets to reinforce around the holes for the handle.

The original tutorial made a bag that was just a front & back but no bottom. I made my own "pattern" for the bottom & just winged it. It also had bats & leaves and such decorating the top of the bag, but I'm not sure I'm going to add those.

Here's the finished product.




There are a few things that I would do differently:
  • I would choose a rounder pumpkin picture.
  • I would attach the interfacing to the fleece and leave out the batting.
  • I would sew on the pumpkin lines on just the fleece.
  • I would sew on the face BEFORE I sew the bag together.
  • I would try not to break 3 needles.

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Old Dress, New Dress

I made this dress in high school and I decided that since it doesn't fit anymore, I would take the fabric and make a new dress out of it... So I did. :)

The original dress.

Me wearing the dress at EFY

Again me wearing the dress at EFY

I followed this pattern and this is how it turned out:

It looks better on the hanger.

It's doing a weird bubble thing at the neckline and it has a bit of a moo moo feel to it.

It still needs some work/tailoring but otherwise it's done. I'm not totally happy with the way it looks on me but in general I think it looks alright. I am happy with the length and the way the sleeves look. The neckline is higher than I was expecting so I'm going to do some adjusting there which should also fix the bubble that's going on. I need more definition in the waist but I'm not sure how I'm going to do that. I'm thinking of some sort of a white band or a scarf that ties to cinch it in at the waist. A scarf would be easier but I'm not sure how it would look. The skirt has too much volume so I'm going to take it in at the sides to fix that.

So what do you think? Any suggestions? Kim?