daisyjanie

grommet love

I don't know if I like the grommets better or the little circles that pop out of each one. Aren't they adorable? Saved those buggers!

TV work and zipper tape

If you use a lot of zippers in  your sewing, a looooong length of zipper tape can be your best friend - both where your sanity and your pocketbook are concerned. Plus, there's barely any waste at all b/c you only use exactly what you need in each application. [Less waste = many smiley faces]

The sanity part comes into play b/c, in most instances, you would NOT have to add your pull until you have the zipper installed and topstitched - thereby having one less obstacle to fight with. Even with a zipper foot, the pull can be a pisser to maneuver around. Without the pull, I have gotten away without changing my presser foot - depending upon the width of fabric adjacent to the teeth (usually wider on tape than on fixed lengths).

Most of my customers have told me they want a zipper so I have learned to incorporate them without grumbling. Changing thread and feet is par for the course. As Peanut Man says, "Deal with it, gal." Last night while watching a few shows and enjoying an adult beverage, I loaded 50 pulls onto this length of tape b/c I'm trying out a new installation method. These nickel pulls where only 5 cents more than the standard type - aren't they great? I never bothered to ask b/c I assumed they were $1 more or something. Duh. Anyway, I will photograph the steps so I can post a tute here for you.

What kind of work do you save for evening TV?

pillows and teatowels

These babies are slowly but surely getting finished. These are my samples (there are more where these came from). I am head-over-heels with the pillow design I devised. Don't you love the zipper? What's that you say, you don't see a zipper? Ah, now you're catching on! You're not supposed to silly - that's what makes it so fabu. And the teatowels....LOVE them. Turned out yummier than I imagined. Things are going a-okay here (for a change!!).

What you also can't see (behind me) are the piles and piles of cut purse pieces for this week's fiesta of sewing. I promised myself I would make handbags I personally liked alot (so I could brag wildly about them when I got stopped on the street) and that didn't have a too many parts - to ease the construction burden. Alas, alack, I couldn't help myself. They are definitely bags I will carry with a zip in my step and a grin ear-to-ear, but the parts and construction steps are not lacking in number! Oh well. They'll be better than anything I've done before and that's a real motivator right now!

me 1, brown pants 0

[All fabric and handbag designs copyright 2008 Daisy Janie. Copying is not cool!]
Get outta my face brown pants - I took you down (to the washing machine). I was very motivated last week, and the brown pants are folded and put away! Here's one of my victories. Stress doesn't touch what I felt as I cut (ack!) my new, most favorite collection of beautiful fabrics with an actual goal (not just to ship an order). There were some other cold-sweat firsts for a Daisy Janie product: darts, topstitching in a mondo contrasting color (in a non-random place), and big, fat grommets (hooray, the press got here yesterday...very fast!). My heart rate was through the roof as I progressed through each step of making this bag, esp. the grommets b/c if they get screwed up, the whole bag is scrapped. I had to swallow hard on the little voice that was telling me, "it's too zany, it's too non-traditional, it's too imperfect." That's when it hit me that this handbag design couldn't be more spot-on for me! Since I know there are more me(s) out there who will like it, too, I forged on! I am in love with this one! The fabrics look better than I imagined, and the frayed edges & frayed knots are totally hip. (Do you know the 'frayed knot' joke - not you Beaner...I know you know it!)

As always, necessity played a big part in the final design. I had to get a handbag done for a charity auction this coming weekend for the Children's Alopecia Project, and I was NOT going to give them any of my clunkers. They've been peddled a-plenty around here. So the debut of the bag will have me excited and jangled, I'm sure. Testing the waters with a new design is always nerve-wracking. I have another one of these to make tomorrow for my sister's fundraiser with her Hadassah group. Then, back to getting my samples D.O.N.E. (Hello? Brownpants? Is that you? Gotta a job for you.)

Using the new grommet press was freakin' awesome! I had to put it on the floor and kneel to get enough leverage so the dies would cut through the fabric layers and the grommets would magically seal. Being on me knees to do this part was a challenge b/c I fell down the steps leaving my day job today!!! What a dork! My shoe got caught in my pant cuff and down I went. My shoe came off, some workers thought their tarp caused the freakish tumble...nope, just me being me! This lady nearby helped me up and put my shoe back on! No playing that one off either, like I meant to do that or that I tripped on something. What in the Sam Hill is my problem - Matt used to call me "AWTH" (accident waiting to happen). Totally bruised ego...and nobody around to laugh hysterically with.

Couldn't get a good scale shot whether I took it or Matt took it. He was laughing too hard at how blurry each one was, after about 25 attempts. (Where was he when I fell down the steps?) Oh brother.

new bag style

Hope you had a great weekend! I was wildly productive, making headway on new handbag styles, ordering raw materials, fine-tuning my to-do list (super short-term business plan) from now until August. Feels great. Try it out, why dontcha?!

About this bag: Not sure what to call it yet. It's 18" across, 10" tall, 3" deep and handles have an 8" drop. It's a soft-bottomed bag (no jokes now), and handles are sturdy and tubular. Nice shape and a big flouncy flap with a magnetic snap. No pockets on the inside, just wide-open space. Hooray for that!

Made from carefully pieced together strips of fabric in all sorts of colors (i.e. will go with everything). Flap is a quad patchwork of the same fabrics. There are 4 altogether, with the arrangement of the fabric strips slightly different on each one.

Price: $65

They're not on the website yet (later this week). Email me at info AT daisyjanie DOT com if you'd like to reserve one.

how to: quick and dirty curtains

When you have too many deadlines, errands and all-around-too-much-to-do, why not add 'make new curtains' to the list?! That was me recently, out of my ever-loving mind, but unable to resist the temptation to whip up some new curtains. The old ones were from Ikea and were only supposed to be placeholders until I had time to do something "real." That was 5 years ago! Ack. As the title suggests, these are truly quick and dirty. What does that mean: no pinning, ironing & measuring only when necessary, lots of swearing, no tabs, no buttonholes, no rod pockets, no pleats, gathers or other bunching. Two 84-inch long rectangles were my only goals - width would be whatever was eeked out of the fabrics when all was said and done. Did I mention the swearing part - waaay too much static for one person! So here we go:
What I used:
- 2 chocolate brown, satin 84-inch curtains from Target
- two 2.5 yd-pieces of a pretty Asian-inspired satin brocade.
- white, rain-no-stain lining fabric

1) The materials.
2) Take apart one chocolate curtain, do a once-over ironing (not unlike an egg). Cut into four equal strips - these are about 7" wide or so.
3) Sandwich your brocade between 2 chocolate strips. Sew right sides together. Trim all ends so chocolate is flush with brocade.
4) Press seam. I use a teflon plate on my iron. This enables me to use high-heat and full-steam at all times (sorry to make you gasp!).
5) Topstitch the length of each chocolate seam- about an 1/8" from the seam. Measure the size of your rectangles. Think about your finished length, and back up from your known measurements to determine your seam allowances and sizes of finished hems.
5.5) [Not pictured] Fold your bottom edge under. I folded mine 2" and then another 2". Sew once close to the edge of the bottom and once about 2" up from the bottom where your "top edge" of your fold would be.
6) Cut the amount of lining fabric you'll need to back your rectangles, keeping seam allowances in mind. Fold over twice on the bottom edge, sew. I didn't measure!
7) Sew right sides of lining and rectangle together along sides only!
8) Pet your doggie...he's cute, but he's mistaken and confused and doesn't know he's too big for the room, the static and the voluminous fabric you're swearing at!!
9) Press all seams (ugh). Staystitch top edge.
10) Fold over top edge twice (I eyeballed this) about 3/4" and 3/4". Press.
10.25) Sew along top edge and along each side as well for a nice, finished look.
11) Hang with pinch clips on a sturdy cafe rod.

Hard to gauge from these before & after images if it really looks better or not...but I'm pretty happy with it! I should have adjusted my thread tension to avoid the puckering, but that was not in the cards. The 2nd brown curtain was mounted in front of our closet. When we moved in, we thought we'd put a real closet door there, but there's a brick wall behind the drywall...that ended that idea. George was wiped out after all this action! Me too!!

how to: bandana shirt/dress for girls

This bandana shirt is one of the easiest-peasiest and cutest things to make! The daughter of one of the Bunco Babes in my bunco group had this on just before Christmas. Hers was a combo of 1 green and 1 red bandana and ribbons with a Christmas-y motif, like trees or something. She had a white turtleneck under it and black tights on the bottom. I don't have a daughter, but if I did, she'd be in that outfit! So I made one for my niece instead, who likes dresses and pink and maybe even pink dresses.
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Here's the deal:
2 standard-bandanas and 6 yds. of 1/2" cotton twill tape. I found both of these items at Michael's. The twill tape was on a 9-yd spool, Wrights brand.
(1) Line up the top and side edges of both bandanas. Mark 9" down from top edge on both sides to leave room for armholes.
(2) Sew bandanas together on sides from your mark to the bottom edge.
(3) Fold down top edges 2" (toward wrong side) and finger press. I honestly didn't measure this; I just eyeballed it and made both bandanas match. Just make sure you have a enough room to thread your ribbon and a sufficient seam allowance (mine are always 3/8").
(4) Sew across your folded edges as pictured. Don't sew the 2 pieces together - pull one out of the way while you're sewing the other (don' t think I needed to mention this, but you never know!).
(5) Not pictured, but finish the edges of your tape/ribbon somehow so they don't fray excessively when washed. I wanted a little smidge of a fray, so I just staystitched the twill tape about 1/4" from the edge on each of the 4 ends.
(6) Thread the tape/ribbon through the channels at the top. Tie ends in a bow. The bows and gather can be adjusted as necessary when it's on.
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I'm such a hippie at heart that I really thought I could get away with wearing this shirt with jeans and a white fitted long-sleever. It fit, but then I *really* look like I'm 38 going on 12 - which I pretty much do regardless of what I'm wearing...but there are certainly worse things in the world!

cross it off the list!

Waaaaaay back in August, I rec'd a wonderfully generous order from the Girl Scouts of Swift Water Council; they serve New Hampshire and part of Vermont. They were looking for cool items to put into a giftset for girls who sell over 500 boxes of Girl Scout cookies! Over 500 boxes! Wow. I couldn't even imagine 25 girls selling 100 boxes, let alone 500 boxes. So guess how many wristlets they ordered? 350!! That's unbelievable to me! I think some may be used in their store, but evenso, that's a lot of cookies no matter how you slice it!

So, I just rec'd all 29 lbs-worth of these wristlets from my sewing contractor in Washington State. And I'm wearing a big dunce cap right now. Why? B/c I have to turnaround and ship all 29  lbs-worth to NH. Why, why, why wasn't I thinking straight?! A colossal waste of my financial resources, and the natural resources to ship them twice. Don't repeat this mistake! If you have a contractor, make sure they do good work (mine does!) so that you can have them ship directly to the retailer. If necessary, have smaller orders shipped back to you for inspection until you've established your contractor's quality level. I've been working with Patty for over a year now; she knows I like things consistently perfect and perfectly consistent. She always comes through!

raffle item for reunion

For my 20th, I sewed up a gorgeous handbag to donate to the raffle. There were about 20 other items, one of which was a handbag from this biz (a lady who makes my zoey mirrors also reps this line). Although the bag she donated was lovely, I was kicking my heels up that the Daisy Janie bag was selected before the other one. (Note: I've seen their bags in person, and they are very pretty and well-sewn...just a bit pricey.)
So here you have it:
1) I knew I wanted to use my own custom-designed fabrics for this event, but I had no idea what kind of bag I wanted to end up with. Crunched for time, I gathered up all my scraps from my Bridge Collection, cut as many 4-inch squares as I could, and put them in a quick, patchwork layout.
2) I did 2 of these layouts (one for the back & one for the front) as well as a smaller version for the flap.
3) Topstitched the h**l out of the seams. Not bad.
4 & 5) Matched up the bodies and flap with some yummy microsuede.
6) At this point, I started giving a little thought about the final shape of the bag, and I tapered the flap and bodies in a bit so it wouldn't be a completely plain bucket bag.
7) My mom told me once that to create sharp corners, you turn the corner on a diagonal rather than a right angle. First time I tried it, and it definitely worked! Thanks Mumsy.
8 & 9) I skipped a few pics in the process, but if you're still reading - you probably know how I got from step 7 to step 8. It turned out great! Every freaking seam lined up, the flap lined up, the strap was flawless. I love the strap, too! I put one of the fabrics on one side and the microsuede on the the other.
10) The magnetic snap was just so, too. Yahooooo!
11) A signature interior for my bigger bags: black kona cotton, 2-inch facing (thanks for those tips, too, Mom!), and a clear vinyl, full-width pocket (divided in 2). The original pocket in my Big Mama bags was intended to fit a Huggies wipes pack b/c it was marketed toward moms with toddlers. But women of all ages & stages who just loved the size were buying it, and it stuck. When you have a black interior, the clear vinyl helps you see exactly what's in the bottom.
12) Done. Magnifique. Wish I could have kept it. I was very proud to take it along as a representation of my 24/7 obsession designing fabrics and handbags.