Weaving AND Sewing!

Everybody has to leave,

everybody has to leave their home and come back

so they can love it again for all new reasons.

~ Donald Miller

Well, I've completed three more key fobs AND I even snuck in some sewing over the weekend!  

First, the fobs:

I tried to go for a fancy, "comb" pattern with my second fob:

I like the colors, but the pattern just didn't work for me - it feels static - kind of like a ladder...  

So, for my third fob, I pretty much copied a pattern from someone else participating in the weave-along (WAL):  

And I LOVE it!  I think it came our really, really cool!  :)

Finally, for my fourth fob, I decided to focus on my weaving technique, rather than the color pattern.  I just did a series of stripes, with each narrower than the one to its left.  

I didn't love it at first, but it is growing on me...  ;)

The key fobs were a blast - each one only takes a couple of hours, I learned a lot about design and I was able to practice my technique!    

That being said, I've decided to move on from the WAL - I owe a friend a guitar strap and, of course, I have two more of those major panels to do, in order to make a cover for the cushion on my weaving bench.  

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As for the sewing, remember when my 10-year-old friend and I made a tote bag (here)?  

Not surprisingly, many of her friends and her mother's friends clamored for one of their own.  One such friend, Mayra, actually made arrangements to come over so that I could help her sew one to carry her workout clothes and shoes to the gym each week.  

We started with a quick trip to Joann's for some fabric.  She liked lots of the fabrics as we wandered up and down the aisles of bolts, but I kept waiting for that moment when she fell in love...  ;)

Then it happened - she was totally smitten by a brown cotton with multi-colored Spirograph-like flowers and designs. 

I've seen that look in the eyes of so many people - I love it when it happens and I can SO relate to it!  

I walked her through the steps of sewing up this tote bag - she used a green canvas to reinforce (& decorate) the bottom and to make the straps.  

We lined it with a cream-colored canvas.  

And she loves it!   

She told me that she kept touching it, because she couldn't believe that it was real and that she had made it herself!  :)

The whole morning made me miss sewing, and I browsed through my waiting projects and picked out two fabrics to make two versions of the same, A-Line skirt (a TNT for me).  

I finished one and got half-way through the other. I'll post pictures later this week.  It felt so good to be back on my sewing machine!  Like coming home...  :)

I hope everyone had a good sewing weekend!  :)