Fabric stash and coin purse

These are the wonderful cottons I got at the Cotton Loft recently. I love these, but there were so many great patterns it was hard to choose. I find that the fabric is a bit thicker than the Cia's Palette fabrics I bought. It was easy to use their site and it's quite affordable. Most of the fabric was under $6 US/yard and they mailed all of the above for $7.50. I found out about it, along with Cia's Palette which I mentioned in an earlier post, from dioramarama's blog. She has great crafts links in her sidebar, along with posts about fabric and the fabulous things she's sewn, such as a Denyse Schmidt quilt and oven mitt.

I think this is all the room I have now for fabric, but I have to show off how organized I am now thanks to a great tip from splityarn. She has tutorials listed in her sidebar, the fabric organizing tip is on this page. I bought comic backing boards from a comic shop - they cost less than $10 for 100 acid free boards. Then you fold the fabric so it's the same width as the board is tall, and wind it around the board and pin the ends down. It's kind of like a miniature bolt of fabric such as the ones in fabric stores. Very handy for storage but also easier to cut pieces off the end without having to open up the whole piece of fabric.


While I'm mentioned splityarn, I also used her coin purse tutorial to make this little purse (in a different size/shape). The best part was learning how easy it is to add snaps - I bought a little snap kit in the fabric district on Queen West on Friday. This little coin purse was my first one, and I'm including it with the matching tote I have up on etsy now. As you might have noticed by now, I usually don't use patterns. I guess I've been knitting and sewing so long I can kind of figure out how to make something just by looking at it. That's part of it, but mostly I'm just too lazy to follow a pattern. And finally I am a creative person so I always want to do things my own way. But whenever I do figure out some semblance of a pattern I love to share it. And I really appreciate it when crafters share their ideas and techniques - so thanks splityarn!