I bought some Pentel Aquash Water Brush Pens before vacation and spent time at the beach trying to learn how they handle. I really don’t know what I’m doing with watercolors — just going with the flow. I like taking pictures along the way. The final piece never turns out how I envision it. Hoping to practice letterforms with these pens soon.
Remember the San Diego t-shirt refashion? It was a success!
Isn’t it an awesome feeling when your child loves your crafty work?
In my creative space today, I spent the last day of my vacation crocheting squares at the beach. I’m cruising along on these, although it took way too long for me to memorize the pattern. Of course, now that I’m all relaxed and on a roll, it’s time to go home.
Make sure you pop on over to Kirsty’s blog for more creative spaces.
I’ve got another beach wedding to attend. It isn’t directly on the beach, but it’s outside and you can see the ocean. That reason enough to make another beach blanket, don’t you think?
I picked up the print fabric at the textile sale. The wool tweed is from my stash. I washed both in hot and was surprised that the wool didn’t felt. The texture is slightly softer, but that’s it. No shrinkage at all. Interesting!
I haven’t decided on a bias trim yet. I was actually thinking about skipping that step. Would that be so terrible? I’d still do the ties for sure. We’ll see.
pattern info: Why do I not own this book yet? Pattern inspiration from Amanda Soule’s Handmade Home.
I bought this dress because I thought it would be nice for the beach. After taking it in at the waist (sorry, you can’t really tell in the photos) and shortening the hem to knee length, it’s not really doing anything for me.
My husband says it looks good, but it makes me feel kind of blah. I’m still keeping it for vacation, but it will probably get donated after that!
I wrote about this blanket last year and I’m so glad it is finally in the hands of the married couple! I had hoped to take it to their wedding, but it was heavy. With the weight limits put on luggage — and extra fees — I figured it would make more sense to send it flat rate priority mail.
Then it got cold. We got a blizzard. My beach blanket mojo was kind of low. I figured they wouldn’t use it until next summer anyway.
Then all of the sudden it was warm. I had to finish it up and send it off before beach season!
I think everyone who gets married on a beach should have a personalized beach blanket, don’t you? You can find fabric and pattern details about this project in my original post.
I’ve started making some things for my shop again. There is some thrifted fabric in my stash that needs to be repurposed before I can go garage sailing again this year. I used a little bit of this tablecloth to make a small sock knitting basket a few years ago. Now I’ve gone in the opposite direction and made a big beach bag tote.
When I washed the table cloth, it lost a lot of the canvas-like stiffness that I liked, so I had to line it with something sturdy. I chose some heavy duty upholstery fabric to do the job.
I also tried something a little different with the gusset and added these vintage buttons on the side. Aren’t they cute? I love them!
I’ve got the rest of this tablecloth cut and ready for more totes. Not sure if I am going to make something different or make more of the same.
What do you think?
recycle: Tablecloth from the thrift store, lining from a garage sale, thrifted buttons. More photos in my shop.
These are great balls for playing indoors. I’ve made one for my daughter and a few for her friends. Everyone seems to love them. This one was a bit of a challenge when I realized that I didn’t have a lot of eight-year-old-boy-ish fabric in my stash. I grabbed a few men’s shirt sleeves that I had in my upcycle bin and I really like how the colors and patterns work together.
recycle: Remember all of the pillows I was making with men’s shirts? This was a great way to use the sleeves! Pattern is from the Purl Bee.
During the past week, this bag has carried my laptop through the airport, been my purse to a wedding, and toted stuff to the beach. That’s a lot of jobs for one bag. I’m happy to say it performed all of its required duties wonderfully. And it looked pretty darn cute, too. Here’s how I planned the design:
Size
Most importantly, this bag needed to be large enough to fit my laptop, but small enough to meet airline carry-on luggage guidelines. I checked the FAA and NWA website and both set my limit at 45 linear inches. Mine turned out to be 13.5 x 16.5 x 4 inches, or 34 linear inches. Part of me wished I had made it a little bigger, but there’s less room for your bag under an aisle seat, so in the end, this size worked great.
Inside
I wanted a separate sections for my laptop and my other things. I created two pockets and added a tie to the laptop side. When I used this as a purse, the laptop side was filled with fun things for distracting my daughter, like coloring books, story books, stickers, etc. At the beach, it held my book and knitting project.
Outside
A zipper closure was essential. I didn’t want anything to fall out during airport screening and I didn’t want any sand getting inside. Durability was important, also. The outside is an upholstery fabric and the inside is a cotton canvas.
How-to
This bag is basically an oversized zipper pouch with handles and two inside large pockets. It seems silly to write up a tutorial when there are so many great ones already out there. For this project, I referenced the following:
Adding the handles was easy. I just sandwiched them between the outside fabric and zipper when I was sewing it all together. I reinforced the handles with a few rows of extra stitching.
stash: Fabric came from this remnant sale. Zipper was thrifted.
Today I’ll be at the beach relaxing and renewing my creative spirit. I’m planning to finish knitting a wool hat for my husband. There’s also a cute yarn and fabric store that I spied last night on the way to dinner. I’m going back today to take a little look around. I might even come home with something. After all, if I finish the hat, I’ll need a project for the plane ride back, right?
What’s in your creative space today?
Visit more creative spaces over at Kirsty’s blog.
