Fabrics with my own printed designs

If you really want to do something, you will find a way!
I keep telling this to myself, whenever it seems to me that I want something unrealistic or when I am about to give up something difficult to complete.

Having fabrics with my own printed designs is an old dream.This dream began to come true, slowly, very slowly, gathering small bits of active breaks taken to reorder my thoughts by drawing. Between job and other activities, between something and something else, or while I drink a coffee, or before bedtime...
One day, when the good planets were probably lined up, I decided to choose a few drawings and send them to a  fabric printing company.
Because both the domain and the printing company were new for me, I was cautious. Instead of printing yards of fabrics with flowing design I chose to design panels as they might have at least two uses: as bandanas, neckerchiefs, handkerchiefs or whatever you want to call them, and as pieces of fabric for sewing home accessories (pillow covers, for example).

Long story short, I introduce to you My First Collection of Bandanas!

Each of them measures 48.5 cm x 48, 5 cm (19" x 19").

More about them I will tell you soon.

Have a beautiful day, my dears!

Tips and tricks for sewing beautiful bags by spending clever your money -1

One of my dearest activities is sewing bags. All kind of bags: large, small, handbags, totes, shopping bags (oooh, how I love them!) and of course, pouches.
Even though it is impossible to find here where I live the perfect combination of fabric-lining-interfacing-batting-hardware for bag making, I try to gather the best ones from all kind o places: our local shops or online shops and overseas online shops. The last source I just mentioned would be my first choice if the transport prices would not have increased so much, that doubles the cost of the order.

But when you really want something, you find a way to do it. In my case this "something" is making bags. In order to get good quality materials at a reasonable price I spend a great amount of time finding the places that fit to my budget. I know from my own experience that you won't get a high quality product using low quality materials. No matter how much you want or do, you won't get a really beautiful and durable bag in time. If the fabric colors will bleed, the interfacing will detach or the thread will break after the bag will be worn only a few times, the feeling of working in vain will be overwhelming.
That's why a constant of my work is that all the time I look for methods to keep the quality as high as possible thinking at the same time on what I can spend less.

One of my tricks to do this is buying cotton curtains from thrift shops. These shops are treasure boxes where, with a bit of patience, I find beautiful curtains that may be use for the exterior bags, lining or shopping bags. One piece of curtain means a few yards of home decor fabric at a good price with the color wash out test already done.
I use them after I wash them (for hygienic purpose) especially for my mock-up while I'm working on a bag pattern, as I need a lot of tests and I want to preserve the new good fabrics for the final bag.
Sometimes I use them too when I want to make a bag "now", I don't have the matching new fabrics in my stash but I have a piece of a thrift shop curtain just good for it.  

Look at this bag.

It is the bag whose pattern I'm working now.

It is its first mock-up for which I used a piece of fabric from a cotton curtain bought from a thrift shop a long time ago, only because I loved the print and it was in a very good condition.

For straps I used leather - a premiere for me. On this occasion I learned to set rivets. I really liked this because this way I finished the bag much faster than if I had to make them from fabric and sew them on the bag. Not to mention how it looks a bag with leather straps!
No, my budget wasn't hurt by them. I will tell you why in the next episode of "Tips and tricks for sewing beautiful bags by spending clever your money".

Have a beautiful day, my dears!