Category: bags and purses

bags and purses, Free patterns, tutorials
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Tissue case tutorial

I’ve used my new sewing machine to make these very simple tissue cases from scrap of linen fabrics. They are basically a lined fabric rectangle folded to meet at the center. I make the outer fabric longer than the lining fabric so it automatically folded inside, because I don’t like the lining fabric showing at the edge. It also eliminates the need of topstitching. The tutorial is only two pages, but please tell me if something is not clear in it. Disclaimer: You may use the finished products for both personal and commercial use (craft shops or markets only – no […]

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bags and purses, tutorials
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Makeup pouch – upcycled placemat

This is a makeup pouch that I use everyday. The outer fabric is blue Japanese cotton with pretty white floral pattern on it, and the lining is blue cotton. But I didn’t sew the lining myself because this pouch was actually a rectangle placemat with lining already attached. I found a set of pretty placemats in a thrift store, still new and unused. Since I don’t have a dining table to put these placemats on, I turned them into soft pouches. All I did was sewing the pompom trimming on one short side, fold the placemat, and then topstitching both […]

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bags and purses
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Colorful small things

A few days ago I went to Cottonfield, a fabric store in Kichijoji, and found this pretty fabric. I’m sure that this Echino prints by Etsuko Furuya is quite famous already. The fabric featured retro-inspired airplane images, stripes and polka dot patterns in pretty colours combined together . I turned the fabric into into several mini wallets and a zippered pencil pouch for the shop. Actually there were two pouches, but I had to keep one of them for my colored pens. And this one is mine ^.^

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bags and purses
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Scrap bucket

This month is Scrap buster month in Sew, Mama, Sew! blog, and they have so many great projects for fabric scraps. After browsing on those wonderful projects, I got inspired by this bucket and made my own version. The bucket uses scraps of Ikea fabrics that seemed to have never stopped overflowing my sewing room. I sewed several strips together, the lines are not straight because the strips are in different widths. Then I ironed fusible interfacing on the back and cut them into 35×80 cm rectangle. I wanted a circle for the bottom of the bucket, so the diameter […]

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bags and purses, Free patterns, tutorials
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Wallet tutorial

Here’s the tutorial for these wallets! The tutorial includes two variation of the closure, one with tab and velcro and the other with fabric loop and button. For the tutorial, I made a pair of wallets from pink Japanese cotton fabrics, one in polkadot and the other one in floral pattern. The beige linings are Indian cotton fabrics. I hope the colours of the fabrics are not too muted in the pictures. The tutorial can be downloaded below, it’s a 7 pages of PDF file. Please contact me if you have any difficulty downloading it, or if anything is not […]

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bags and purses
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Boxy pouch – Fuchsia and yellow

After teaching my friends how to make some boxy pouches, I got inspired and made one myself. This is such a nice little project, the fabric is IKEA scraps I had in my stash with yellow lining inside, yellow zipper, and yellow cotton webbing for the handle. I still have like tons of fabric scraps that I accumulated in one and a half year in Japan and whatever I do with them, they still keep growing (and I still keep buying *sigh*). I don’t know how people can have such a nice and neat sewing room, mine is a mess!

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bags and purses, Free patterns, tutorials
43 Comments

Mini wallet tutorial

Yay I finished it! This is the tutorial for the mini wallet in this post. For the tutorial, I made a pair of mini wallets in Japanese cotton with colorful houses pattern on it. I really enjoyed making them and the tutorial. The tutorial for the bigger wallets is still in progress, and it will be posted soon when it’s ready! As it would be too long as a blog post, the tutorial is made it into a pdf file that can be downloaded here. Please contact me if you have any difficulty downloading it. This is also my first […]

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bags and purses
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Wallets!

Several friends of mine wanted to learn to make these linen wallets, but since I’ve never taken notes while making things, I had forgotten how to make them. Duh! So I made another wallet to remind myself back, taking proper notes this time. This one is pretty much the same as my previous wallet, the same fabric with velcro closure on the tab. Once I had a decent note, I made two more wallets with more variations. I sewed a piece of cotton lace on the green one and change the closure to thin fabric tubes with elastic inside and […]

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bags and purses, womenswear
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An apron, another bag, and a pinch pouch

A few days ago, I joined a cooking class in the neighbourhood. And just a day before the class, my friend told me that I had to bring an apron. I guess it wasn’t too unusual since almost every housewife in Japan has an apron that they wear everyday. Well, I do some cooking at home and had thought about using an apron, but somehow always postponed making it. I immediately turned to my scrap bag and found that I still had some leftover from my IKEA bags. This one was just enough for a small apron without pockets. Maybe […]

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bags and purses
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Pig and polkadot bag (and pencil pouch)

When my husband saw these oilcloth bags, he said that he’d be very happy to have an oilcloth bag in a more, uh, manly pattern. I’ve been eyeing this oilcloth fabrics from Echino line by Etsuko Furuya, so I was happy to find the opportunity to sew them. I pick this interesting black oilcloth with white rings and grey pigs on it. For some reason, some of the pigs have black spiderwebs on their back. The orange polkadot is also from Echino, but it’s thick cotton instead of oilcloth. Both fabrics have purple selvedge that I incorporated on the pockets […]

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