New Bag for STITCH Winter 2014

I have been wanting to learn to sew with leather for some time now, and purchased and watched Kenneth King's Leather 101 video from PatternReview.com in anticipation of finding a project. I then proposed a leather bag for the Stitch Winter 2014 issue, and when they accepted my proposal I had to step up and do it. Like how I cornered myself into trying something new?

Here it is in the magazine spread. And if any of you are contemplating sewing with leather, definitely give it a try. There are some specific techniques you will need to learn, but once you know them, the actual sewing isn't hard. Not sewing-with-chiffon hard anyway.

My favorite tips:

• Use a walking foot (this worked better for me than a Teflon foot)
• Tie thread ends instead of back stitching at the beginning/ends of seams
• Long stitch length
• Glue is your friend!!
• Consider overlapping seams instead of sewing RST

I'm still learning how to topstitch over uneven areas - tricky!

I really want to highlight the gorgeous hardware on this bag as it didn't come out very well in the magazine shots. In full disclosure, I got this hardware for free since it would appear in a magazine article. But I plan to purchase some for my next version of this bag (mustard denim & burgundy leather, yeah baby). It's everything I like in bag hardware: beautiful finish, lots of size/shape options, and solid (nothing flimsy about these - they will outlive the bag and get used again, I'm sure!). You can find them at Buckleguy.com. Here's what I used:

1.5" Antique Brass Double Loop Slider

1.5" Antique Brass Swivel Bolt Snap and 3/4" Antique Brass O-Ring

The denim is from Indygo Junction's Crossroads Denim Collection. They have a whole bunch of delicious colors!

Photo source

And it still makes me giddy to see my name in print!

I have a couple more completed leather bag projects that I can't reveal yet. Can you tell I'm now hooked on sewing with leather?

What about you? Have you ever cornered yourself into learning something new? And have you been bitten by the leather bug yet?

STITCH Magazine, Spring 2014

Hey, I'm in a magazine!

Stitch Spring 2014 - see here

Here I am!  

Can you see the "Designed By Lisa Polderman"?

Well, not ME - that's a model.  But she's wearing my skirt!

The hardest part of this knit/jersey skirt was cutting and sewing the chevron fabric so that the chevrons matched up across the pleats (especially when the print wasn't quite on grain):

There's a number of lovely projects in this magazine.  The one I'm most excited about making (apart from my own!) is this interesting chevron pencil skirt designed by Tina Lewis:

If you want to buy a copy, Stitch is available at Joann's Fabrics and some independent sewing stores (but not my local Hancock Fabrics, grr-blah) as well as online.

A Few Morsels From the Past Week(s)

I get to teach kids in the summertime and I've been looking forward to this for a few months.  I'm teaching a couple of week-long camps later in the summer, but for now I am teaching 4-6 students on Friday afternoons.  Most of the girls are around 8-9 years-old (and yes, all girls - I keep waiting for a boy!) and for the first class we sewed pillow cases.  They were all keen to sew stuffed animals (I thought they might be too old for this, but I was wrong wrong wrong), so in our last class they got started on stuffed owls.  Here they are with their owl "heads":

There's one girl hiding under the table to avoid having her picture taken.

I finished my next Stitch project (due out in the fall) but I can't show you that.  Cora is very happy because I used leftovers from the project to embellish one of her dresses.  She hates clothes that are only one color, so she's very happy with her new look!

I've been doing a lot of alterations lately but I've got some new garment work coming up.  I also finally kicked myself out of my procrastination loop with my own garment project.  I've been working on this for at least a month and it's not a quickie.  I've had trouble finding longer amounts of time on the weekend to make progress with it, but I did finally complete a step.  I'm following the steps from Susan Khalje's Couture Dress class on Craftsy, but using a different pattern.  So far I've fitted the muslin and cut out the underlining and fashion fabric from the muslin pieces.  Here's the organza (for the bodice) and batiste (for the skirt) underlining pieces laid on the backside of my fashion fabric.  Can anyone guess the pattern?  I'm hoping to hand baste the underlining to the fabric while I'm on vacation next week.

And up last in my show-and-tell is a dress I actually finished about a month ago.  I was almost too embarrassed to post it because I've made this dress (Simplicity 2580) so many times.  But I love the fabric - Groovy Bricks ITY Jersey from GorgeousFabrics.com so much that I just had to give you a peek.  One of my upcoming custom garments came after I wore this dress to book club.  Maybe I'll actually get photos of me in the dress sometime soon.

If off with the girls to rural PA for a week.  Cheerio!