My Favorite Things

One of my favorite things is learning new techniques,.

Be it by a Class, Book, Magazine, Internet, or with another person,

learning a new way of doing something adds to your mental toolbox.

Last year I picked up "mixed and stitched" by Jen Osborn

Great Book!  I have been following her work on Flickr for a while and was excited to see what she would share with us.  She did not disappoint!  She has a playful style that I really enjoy.

I have a Love for Bags, satchels to be specific, and Jen included a tutorial for a bag in her book that will help anyone use up some of the saved pieces of fabric in our stash.  You know, those pieces that are to big to toss, but not big enough for anything on its own.  Then again, why not find some fabrics you just enjoy seeing together and make it happen.

I tend to get fabric handed to me by co-workers (at the day job) and friends, and this is a playful way to put some of them together.  

 Bag #1 - using fabric given to me by my friend Lynn with a couple from my stash, So Koi =)

When I got up the next morning I found Fergus had decided it would make a nice sleeping bag.

Plushies will get into almost anything around this house and then claim it for themselves.

Bag #2 - I loved these fabric, had to get some, but haven't found a use for them yet, here is a start for them.

Bag #3 - Vintage Holly Hobbie

Bag #4 - Vintage Fairy, with a bell.

I didn't take a picture of the inside pocket, but that is one of my favorite techniques in this project, along with how the body of the bag is folded to reduce how much lining up is needed.  I'm not telling you the tricks, check out her book for yourself  ;-)