Purse, Bag, and Nook Cover

This week has kicked my butt. It started on Monday, our last lovely day of vacation, when my luck ran out and I finally caught the same bug that Jose had been fighting for several days. It started with a tickly throat and morphed into a runny nose but the worst part is just that it has TOTALLY wiped me out. I skipped work on Tuesday and laid on the couch in and out of consciousness the entire day. I slept in on Wednesday and only worked the afternoon. I came to work yesterday and felt pretty good, but today I am just so, so tired. I’ve spent every night this week completely sedentary on the couch, and despite 9+ hours of sleep per night every night, I just feel EXHAUSTED.

I really hope I can kick this to the curb by Monday. But on to more fun topics…

I sewed three Christmas gifts for people this year, and I can post them now that it won’t ruin any surprises! (I got them all “real gifts” too — these were just bonuses! My sewing skills aren’t good enough for me to feel like these are high quality gifts…yet. Maybe next year!)

I made a second fat quarter bag for my sister, who had said she liked the first one but didn’t like the colors as much. She didn’t know what fabric I had picked out, but she knew I’d made her one — in fact, she was so confident that she didn’t even bring a purse with her from Seattle. I hope this one lived up to her expectations!

For my mom, I used this tutorial from Cicada Daydream to make a “half tote.” This bag gave me some trouble, but that was primarily because I measured wrong and the outer lining turned out an inch wider than the inner lining! I didn’t discover my mistake until I was about to sew them together and couldn’t figure out why it didn’t fit. Fortunately I was able to fix the problem with some seam ripping, trimming, and resewing. As you can see, I made the straps myself from the same fabric as the outer lining, instead of buying webbed cotton straps.

I also suspect there is a mistake in the tutorial in the measurements given for the gusseted corners — either that, or I just did it wrong, but I don’t think I did. My bag appears to be shorter and deeper/wider than the bag shown in the tutorial. When making the gusset, I measured 2.5 inches down from the corner like the instructions said, which results in a 5″ deep corner. Maybe it’s only supposed to be 2.5″ wide, which would mean only measuring 1.25″ down from the corner?  (Or am I misunderstanding something here?) Dimensions aside, the bag still turned out well. I really like the fabrics I chose for this one, and think they were well-suited for my mom.

And finally, I knew my brother was getting a Nook tablet, so I decided to make him a case so that he’d have one to tide him over until he buys a better one. I followed this tutorial from Little Birdie Secrets and it worked great. I used a heavier-weight fusible interfacing than what the tutorial called for since I wanted the case to feel nice and sturdy. The heavy duty interfacing makes it hard to turn inside out (since you sew on the wrong side), but I think the end result was worth it. The case feels soft but structured, instead of shapeless.

(I gave it a “test run” with my Kindle, of course)

Also, can I just add how difficult it was to find a fabric that wasn’t too girly for this case? I didn’t think my brother would appreciate flowers or loud patterns, but I wanted something more than plain black. In my head, I had pictured some sort of black pinstripe but I couldn’t find anything like that at Joann and didn’t have time to order online, so this black fabric with tiny circles was the next best thing. The inside is royal blue fleece, so it’s nice and soft against the Nook itself. This is the first time I’ve sewn anything other than basic cotton broadcloth, and the fleece was a bit challenging since it had a lot of stretch to it. Good thing I only had to sew it in a rectangle!

There was one more project I was hoping to get done for my sister-in-law, but I ran out of time. I’m not going to post it yet because I’m hoping to finish it this weekend!