I feel so.... Domestic!

This summer while visiting my mother and father-in-law in Michigan, I discovered how enjoyable it is to use a laundry line for drying our laundry.  It was not only enjoyable to hang my laundry on the line, I also really liked the idea of saving money by not using the dryer.  So I got my husband to install a line in our back yard.  At this point we have one line installed from the house to the back fence, and I am loving it!  I find myself searching the house for dirty laundry every morning just so I can run a load to hang up.  I love being out in the cool morning air, feeling the breeze, and taking the time to hang each piece individually.  Everything is so clean and fresh feeling, and it is wonderful to crawl into crisp bedsheets!   One caveat to the laundry line is that I do not hang my bath towels or jeans because they tend to get very scratchy and stiff.  I understand that some people like the scratchy and stiff towels and jeans, but  I do not prefer to be exfoliated when I step out of the shower.  I highly recommend the laundry line, and I would encourage you to try it too... it is very refreshingly domestic!  And for those of you who were paying attention, yes, those are jeans on the line.  They belong to my husband, and he doesn't mind the scratchy and stiff...

So I make Bags...

People ask what I do, and I say "I have a home business making bags, and purses, and baby items, and sometimes other things..."  Ya, that pretty much sums it up.  Mostly I focus on making bags of all shapes and sizes. I get inspired and I create the design in my head and just go for it.  Lest you think that this is something I just stumbled upon, it is actually a skill that I have been developing over the last three or more years.  It is a process that is continually refined and improved upon.  I've been using the same basic design for a while now, and most of my bags are created fairly easily.  This new bag design worked really well, and I loved the result:

Not every bag works out that easily for me, and every once in a while I will have a bag that just doesn't want to cooperate...  Today I had one of those bags.  It was a special order for a friend who wanted a school bag.  Easy enough, but not a design that I have yet mastered.  Creating this bag gave me nothing but grief, but I persevered and finally turned out the final product this afternoon.  It is a huge bag, but it fits the dimensions I discussed with my client, so I hope she is happy with it! 

If you like this fabric, stay tuned... I have enough left for another bag, and will have it on my Etsy site in the near future...

 Also Stay tuned for the step by step process of Bag Making....

 

Fabric

Over the years I have come to LOVE fabric, the textures, colors, and designs.  The possibilities are endless as to what one can create with fabric.  My love of fabric began when I was given a sewing machine, and decided a good first "test" project would be to make a quilt.  I picked out a bunch of fabric that I thought would look good together and began to start cutting out squares and rectangles with scissors and measuring tape.  With no apparent rhyme or reason I began to sew the pieces together one by one. I soon discovered that I had a lot of corners to contend with.  I had no clue how to sew the fourth corner of four pieces fabric.  Somehow I managed to piece together the entire quilt top.  I used polyester batting and a coordinating backing.  For the binding I simply folded a long strip of fabric over the edges and proceeded to sew along the top, securing both top and bottom together.  (Missing much of the lower binding entirely)  I decided to tie the quilt (I had seen this somewhere, and thought it was a great alternative to actually quilting it).  Tada, my first quilt!  And thus my love affair with fabric began.

My next few quilts got progressively better, though they do reveal that I was still trying to master the ary of quilting on my own.  Over the years, I have learned from skilled quilters and friends the proper way to quilt. Since I have never been very good at following the rules entirely, I will admit to sometimes still making it up as I go.
*I will also note that the above quilt was the "inspiration" for a good friend of mine to start quilting again.  She has since then far surpassed my quilting abilities and is a wonderful inspiration to me.  She claims there is a pattern to the design in this quilt, but I (the quilt's creator) have never been able to figure it out...

Welcome to My Creative Threads!!


I am writing this blog for many reasons.  Firstly I want to provide little glimpses into the life of my business, My Creative Threads.  I want to write about the process of design and the creation of my bags, purses, and baby items.  Secondly, I want to share my creative experiences, tricks of the trade, and tips I have learned in other areas such as quiting, knitting, and crocheting. Finally I want to promote the lost domestic arts...or rather the daily tasks of life that I once found mundane, but am learning to find much pleasure and fulfillment in.

I hope my readers will be inspired to create, learn and try new things, and find pleasure in the simple tasks of life.
Thank you for joining me on this journey.  I welcome your comments and insights along the way.

To learn more about My Creative Threads, please click on the logo on the left.