Back to school

So, its been a busy few weeks. I have been missing my crafting recently as I've been overloaded with work, not to mention entertaining two children during the summer holidays. But having almost beaten an errant baritone saxophone into submission, and Wilbsy off to school for the first time this week, normal service has been resumed.
I have been able to fit in a few little things though. Still loving those little felt top hat fascinators I mentioned in my last post and I'm starting to line them up on my shelf now.

Find the pattern at www.fleecefun.com

Further along the shelf I found this pair swept in by a tornado.

The pattern for this was from the new 'Everything Oz' book. I have quite an extensive list of things I want to make from this one more so than the previous book 'Everything Alice'. Still full of quirky and ingenious makes and bakes, I have been itching to get started on this one.

Now, a while back I make a red polka dot satchel from Lisa Lam's book 'A Bag For All Reasons'.

It is gorgeous and striking, but at a price. The hardware and interfacing made it an expensive bag to make which is fine if I was keeping it for myself, but not so great for sale. Sometimes the cost of the bits mounts up more than we expect, so if you want to sell something and make a bit of profit out of it too, you need to start thinking a bit more ingeniously. I regularly trawl eBay for less expensive parts, but never forget your local craft shop either, eBay isn't always the cheapest place.

So this is my version, a little more purse friendly.

I used different sliders and rectangular O rings for the strap, and replaced the lovely metal catches with leather straps and buckles.

Instead of the double sided fusible interfacing of the original which weighs in at a hefty £5 per 1/2 metre, I used an extra heavy iron on interfacing which has done the job nicely. And the lovely sage green polka dot fabric, well that was eBay and slightly less expensive than the red.
So this version looks just as smart as the expensive one but cost about half as much to make.
Hurrah for thriftyness!