A bag for Paula

My husbands cousin is currently living in Sydney. He and his family are out from Germany for a working holiday and they came down to Melbourne for Christmas. It was nice to have more family around than our usual place setting for six. It was our biggest Christmas celebration so far!

They have a little girl, Paula, who is about 5 years old. So I decided to make her a bag for Christmas, something unique. The base fabric I had was "crafty" in theme (scissors, measuring tape, etc), but I did find it hard to decide on the colours of the complimentary fabrics. If I was sewing for an older person, I would have gone for a more "classic" look, but as it was a little girl I decided to stick to bright fun colours. The bag had nice long arm straps so that she could put it over her head.

I embroidered her name on the outside of the bag and I sewed on some fun buttons to make the bag a bit more dimensional. If I had had some more time I would have done some hand embroidery over the print design as well (silver thread on the scissors and pins).


On the outside there is a nice big pocket either side to put things in, and the inside of the bag had a pocket and the Konstant Kaos logo. You can see some of the buttons as well!

More Crafty Christmas Gifts

Now that Christmas Day has passed I can blog about the other gifts that I made!

The first is a money belt for my father in law who runs an opal and meteorite business called Rocks on Fire. Both my in-laws sell their rocks online and also markets around Victoria. My father in law was impressed with my money bag that I made for Northcote Kris Kringle Market so I decided to make one for him for Christmas.
I used my Janome 350e to embroider the name of his business onto cotton heading tape and then I sewed it onto the pouch. The back of the pouch has two belt loops and the side of the pouch has D-rings that can connect to a strap if you don't wear a belt.

Inside the pouch I put the flame fabric that he liked and I made a secret compartment closed with velcro at the back to put the larger notes. There is also a pouch inside the money bag for smaller change.
Hopefully he will get some use out of it! I have put a custom pouch for sale on my etsy shop with the hope that I might get some business from it!

I also knocked up a little pencil case/costmetic bag for my mum for Christmas and I put some hand cream into it. I might make some for my etsy shop in the next few days.

Pouches on Etsy

I am trying to upload at least two items a day to my etsy shop. I have lots of things left over from the Northcote Kris Kringle Night Market that Jellibat and I did leading upto Christmas. Angelica does the most gorgeous soft toys! It took me three weeks to make the sign! Every night of the market I would sit there and sew the letters on - sad huh? Black Velvet piece of fabric and letters in felt which are then applied with double sided interfacing and then I stitched around each letter to give it a "sewn" look.

Anyway, I have uploaded some of my cute little pouches onto etsy ... the Ume Komachi Pouch with a black velvet back and a green spotted interior.

Japanese "crests" fabric inspired by the crests on the roofs of medieval japanese buildings. I love this fabric!

I am trying to think of another creative thing to make with the crests fabric ...

Merry Christmas

Wishing all that visit this blog a very Merry Christmas. May you spend time with the people you love and enjoy some good food and wine.

This is a picture of my gorgeous daughter and her cat Natasha. And although this is not her first Christmas, it will be the first Christmas that she is more aware of.

Boomerang Gift Set

A few weeks back I was asked to do a gift set for a little girl. The client picked the fabric and we embroidered her name on the bag. The thought was if she went to childcare, this could be a good sized bag to put all the essentials in.
I was given quite a bit of freedom with the components of the gift set. The client wanted a bag and the shoes and whatever else was upto me. She had fallen in love with the Boomerang fabric as it looked quite "Australian" in design. I decided to do a little changing mat with a toweling backing. I use one of these with my daughter and it is very useful for both changing, eating and general moping up of baby mess. Once I did the embroidery on the bag, it was quite easy to do the embroidery on the face washer (the finished gift set had a red and black face washer). The embroidery machine required both back interfacing and also "ultra solvy" to prevent the needle pulling the toweling back through. Ultra Solvy then rinses out under some warm water


The bag was lined with the same fabric and there were some pockets sewn into the inside of the bag, along with the pockets on the outside of the bag.
The size of the shoes were 6 - 12 months. Hopefully little Elisa will be cruising by then!

Kokka Bat Shoes

About 6 months ago I went to the Quilting and Beading show at the Melbourne Exhibition Building (Jeff Shed) and Patchwork on Central had a stand with lovely Japanese Linen's. A friend had told me about working with Japanese linens and cottons and I thought that they were gorgeous, but not my colours. Very pastel and flippy colours. I like stronger colours!

Anyway, the Patchwork on Central stand had a basket with some lovely Kokka fabrics in them and I fell in love! I had previously attempted to make my daughter Tori a pair of skull and crossbone shoes, she was slowly wearing those out and I was on the search for different fabric for her next pair.
This was when I fell in love with the Kokka Bat fabric. I first spotted the black design and I bought a fat quarter worth of it. Then on my second take I saw the red design and I grabbed some of that as well.

I love working with the medium weight cottons that Kokka makes. They are durable and lovely to handle. The "Bat" design is absolutely gorgeous. To date I have made shoes and pencil cases with the fabric and I am fortunate enough to have a bolt of the black bat design sitting in my workroom. I want to do some special things with it and I haven't unwrapped it just yet.

I uploaded these to my Konstant Kaos etsy shop last night, I hope people fall in love with them as much as I did!

Japanese Coin Purse and Pouch

Earlier on in the year I went off to the Australian Quilt Market and I got 4 metres of this gorgeous fabric. It has been sitting on my sewing desk and I thought I would at least start using it and I made these!

I just uploaded these to my etsy shop. The material is 100% Japanese cotton and the lining is cream homespun. I love the origami pouch, I might make myself one!

Crafty Christmas Goodness

I finished one of my gifts last night for my brother who is travelling overseas in April. I noticed that at the bottom of his backpack he generally had his addressbook and other important things kicking around. So I made this pouch out of hardy 310gsm cottom drill, the lining is Japanese 100% cotton "World Map Allover".


I machine embroidered the longitude/latitude of his destination next year.


I do hope that he likes it, do you think I should make some for my etsy shop? I could put random longitude/latitude destinations on the front!

Etsy Shop Update

I have just uploaded some more items to my etsy shop! Including some really cute pouches that you can use for a pencil case, cosmetic case or to carry first aid items.

Entering the Blogspot world

Well I have decided to enter the blogspot world. There are so many other crafty people in the blogspot world, and I want to connect with these people and create my own crafty community. So lets see how this goes!