Sewing Inspirations

She may not realise how inspiring she is to me, but this girl (or should I say woman?) has taken to sewing like a natural and has come such a long way, in such a short time. I am truly inspired and in awe of her natural ability to choose fabric which suits each of her projects and always enjoy watching her blog as her sewing continues to blossom and grow as she shares her beautiful work. Every day her keen eye is out there sourcing a new pattern or idea, she gathers' her fabric and then there is no stopping her creative flair, wit and design!! This special girl has given me the inspiration to sew something very special for a special person, and I hope she realises how inspiring she is! ~ * ~ THANK YOU ~ * ~

As soon as I saw this beautiful fabric, it took me back to reminiscent days of early literature, and I knew that somewhere along my own sewing journey, I would "need" some of this fabric! It was just by chance that I was in my local fabric store, in my little country town, buying interfacing when I happened to come across the last 1.5metres of this fabric on a roll. I knew then, I was meant to have it.

But I can't take any credit for the original idea, it was already HERE on the delectable Vik's blog :) I can only take credit for the sewing, which I'm very pleased with. The things that I wanted to do next time from the EB Bag Swap, I have accomplished this time around. I think its' only now I can say, Yes I can sew a bag!

So who were the delightful Dick and Jane characters?

Dick and Jane were the main characters in popular basal readers written by William S. Gray and published by Scott Foresman, that were used to teach children to read from the 1930s through to the 1970s in the United States. The main characters, Dick and Jane, were a little boy and girl. Supporting characters included Baby (or Sally), Mother, Father, Spot the dog, Puff the cat, and Tim the teddy bear.

The simple but distinctive illustrations for the books were done by artists Eleanor Campbell and Keith Ward. Robert Childress did the illustrations during the 1950s.

I have been fortunate enough in my childhood years to have read many of the early readers, which no doubt launched my own phoneme awareness and addiction and love of reading :)

My Dick and Jane Journey ...

Bag pieces cut out and ready to be measured up on a medium grade interfacing
(I used medium so that the pleat could still take place,
I found when I handled many of the interfacings
that forming pleats would be useless!)



Interfacing ironed on pieces,
I was lucky I had some very heavy red material left over
from making santa sacks last christmas! LOL



The bag coming together, exterior / interfacing






Ready to sew interior/exterior together






**Jaxon was my little helper yesterday**
he has a fascination with unthreading the needle on the
sewing machine!



Finished product inside and out :)

I made 2 handles, but decided that
I liked just one in this case (lol)

Here's hoping that there may be just "enough" fabric left over to create a Dick and Jane skirt for Jaida (well that will have to be a weekender seeing its' back to work tomorrow for the next 2 days!)

Till next time ...