More Sewing to Sell Book Review & Giveaway

The new book More Sewing to Sell by Virginia Lindsay (of Gingercake Patterns) is out and ready to satisfy your maker curiosity about all things handmade business. It's the companion book to Sewing to Sell Virginia wrote a few years ago. Our husbands are college friends and she is one of the few sewists I've known since before I started sewing for the internet. Way back before SweetKM was a thing, I went on a beach trip with Virginia and her family and she told me all about her Etsy pattern business (this was back when you had to manually email the PDF to the customer, remember that!). Less than a year later I started selling my own knitting patterns on Etsy. She was so generous with her experience then, and it makes perfect sense that she should share it in this book series now. 

Virginia is giving away a copy of her book to 5 lucky winners. Be sure to enter the at the bottom of this post!

Every so often I wonder if I should try doing a craft fair, or maybe beef up my Etsy shop. Selling your handmade wares is a logical way to expand your hobby into a small business. I always end up wondering, but what would I make? Virginia's beautiful book has 16 open license patterns that you can use to start or expand your handmade shop offerings (examples are above). They are quick simple designs with lots of of fabric mixing (or not) possibilities to let you match your brand aesthetic. Each pattern gives you guidelines for sewing multiples. 

My favorite part about the book is the interviews with 8 women who run their own handmade businesses. When you're working from home it can sometimes feel isolating and you may be wondering what the heck everyone else is doing behind those glossy websites and pristine instagram feeds. Now you'll know. 

I made the Market Bag from More Sewing to Sell. It's big, boxy and lightweight. I could see using it as a tote bag or stuffing it inside you purse to use when out shopping. I usually throw my wallet into my reusable shopping bag for the walk to the grocery store, and this is certainly an upgrade from that ratty old thing.

I made it totally from stashed fabric in a single evening. The exterior is Robert Kaufman herringbone linen from Fabric.com*.  It looks like they don't make that fabric anymore but the Essex Yarn Dyed Linen would have a similar effect. The interior is a Liberty London fabric I've been hoarding for a few years. I love the soft blue with the purples of the print, and the ribbon closure makes it almost too sweet for any self respecting city girl to carry through urban grit. But I will. My SIL just got an embroidery machine and I'm tempted to send it to her for a quick monogram for the front. 

Because I made it completely from stash supplies I had to change one tiny detail. The original design has an elastic gather at the short ends. I didn't have the right kind of elastic so I adapted it to be a drawstring. I just added two buttonholes in the middle of the short sides, then inserted and sewed ribbed exactly like I would have done the elastic, except that I cut two pieces and the ends are sticking through the buttonholes. It's a small change but I think it's kind of cute and adds a little something to my plain exterior fabric. 

Details:

Bag Pattern: Market Bag from More Sewing to Sell by Virginia Lindsay (Gingercake Patterns)

Bag Fabric Main: Robert Kaufman Herringbone Linen (similar) from Fabric .com*

Bag Fabric Lining: Liberty London from my stash

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*Fabric.com links are affiliate links.

More Sewing to Sell GIVEAWAY

Five winners will get a copy of Virginia's new book More Sewing to Sell! U.S winners will receive a physical copy of the book, international winners will receive a digital copy of the book. Visit the other makers on the book tour for more chances to win!

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Gingercake Patterns Day Off Backpack + GIVEAWAY!

Welcome to the SweetKM stop on the Gingercake Patterns Holiday Gift Sewing Tour! The tour includes 5 weeks, 5 giveaways, and enough handmade gift inspiration to fill up all that space under the Christmas tree. Today I'm sharing the Day Off Backpack from Gingercake Patterns. We have a few other well loved Gingercake projects (Lola Owl Bag, Lola Owl Ornament/Gift Card Holder, Love Your Lunch Box), and I can't wait to add this one to our collection.

I've lost my kid sewing mojo lately, they grow out of everything so fast, and I would rather sew for myself. Making this bag has brought it back in a new way. Handmade bags offer all the fun of playful kid's fabrics and details, but will be useful a whole lot longer!

Scooters are our main mode of transportation around town. Each kid carries their stuff in one of those drawstring backpacks you get for free at fairs. They are great to carry a sweater when the day gets warm, or a water bottle, but if we're out for the whole day the skinny little straps start to get uncomfortable, and aren't up to being filled with a kid's share of the groceries, or splash park gear. I chose this backpack pattern so I could make a more substantial, and versatile pack for the kids to carry all day. The straps of this pack are thick enough that they can even carry their own library books (a huge relief to their bag toting mama!).

The Day Off Backpack pattern comes with adult or child sizes. Both sizes have a snap closure for the main opening, a flap over the opening, and adjustable straps. The adult version has a front zip pocket that could easily be adapted for the kid size.

I made a few small changes to the pattern adding 1" in each direction of the body, and modifying the straps for 1 1/2" hardware (because I couldn't find 1" hardware locally). I used the back piece for the front and the back, and used the top back piece on the front too, to make the casing for the added drawstring.

The fabric is a super cute, orange cat cotton print from Ikea. Most Ikea fabrics are a light weight canvas that is perfect for bags and pouches. Both denims are scraps from other projects. The dark denim has some stretch in one direction. I used a layer of interfacing to stabilize it and used it so the weight of the load was in the non-stretch direction. I modified the shape of the flap to fit a blown up copy of the cat face that I cut out of wool felt and topstitched to plain white canvas. Now that I have a good understanding of the construction I'd like to make a zip top version using the dog print from the upcoming Maker Maker fabric line. (get it...cats and dogs:)

I top stitched the word Meow along the base of the backpack. It was one of the first, impatient things I did, and I wish I had taken the time to get orange thread. I used doubled all purpose thread, but the color doesn't pop enough to do it justice.

L found one of the spare print outs of the cat face that I left in the printer. Based on her reaction she will be thrilled with this backpack, and so am I!

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Gingercake is offering a different giveaway for each week of the blog tour! Enter below, and keep an eye out for more giveaways.

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Check out the rest of the Gingercake Holiday Blog tour for more great gift ideas!

fabric mutt / made-by-Sara/ sweet KM/ Gingercake/ Jedi Craft Girl/ Sew can she/ LBG studio/ cafenohut/ Welcome to the Mousehouse/ Blue Robin Cottage/ sewpony

Pretty, Pretty Birds

When I am sewing something that isn't clothing chances are good the pattern came from Virginia Lindsay of Gingercake Patterns. She is one of the few sewists that I know in real life, and she got me hooked on Etsy when Etsy was still a good and pure place for makers. I've sewn her Love Your Lunch Box, and Lola the Owl twice (here, and here). Her projects can be characterized as user friendly, adorable, and relatively fast. The last Archer I made took me a week. I made these little pretties from Virginia's new book Pretty Birds in an afternoon (coincidently, from scraps of that Archer).

I am a bit of a backyard bird watcher, I had my little heart set on sewing a pair of cardinals. We have a pair that nests in the lot next door, and perches on our patio fence from time to time. Every single project in Pretty Birds can be made with the scraps of whatever garment you've sewn lately. Unfortunately, I rarely wear red, so I rarely sew with red, so I don't have any scraps of red hanging around.  I do have a ton of blue...plan changed to a pair of robins. These guys are doing their natural cousins one better with Liberty of London Tana Lawn breasts. I don't think I've ever thrown away anything but the tiniest shred of Liberty. Hoarding comes in handy (and is completely justified) at times like these. These little robins only took a few square inches of left over chambray, and light wash denim for the bodies, and the tiniest patch of print for the breast.

Pertinent Info:
Robin Pattern: Pretty Birds by Virginia Lindsay
Light Blue Body Fabric: Robert Kaufman Denim in Washed Bleach Indigo
Dark Body Fabric: Indigo Chambray (similar)
Light Blue Bird Print: Liberty London Betsy in Light Blue
Dark Blue Bird Print: Liberty London Thrope in Blue
Beaks: Wool Felt

Now, run along and enter the giveaway where 5 winners will receive a FREE copy of Virginia's beautiful new book Pretty Birds and a bird sewing kit!  If you sew a lot of red, I expect cardinals.

ENTER THE GIVEAWAY

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Stop by the sites below for even more projects from Pretty Birds.

2/25 You Go Girl!

2/26 Erica B. DIY Style

2/27 CraftSanity

2/28 Recycled Crafts

3/1 Sew Mama Sew

3/2 Lorelei’s Blog

3/3 FaveCrafts

3/4 S is for Sewing

3/5 Lori Greenberg

3/6 Killing It As A Grown Up

3/10 Sweet KM

3/11 Boy, Oh Boy, Oh Boy Crafts

3/12 Buzzmills

3/13 Girl Like the Sea

3/15 Cut Out + Keep

Gingercake Love Your Lunch Box & GIVEAWAY

This lovely specimen is the Love Your Lunch Box pattern by Gingercake. Virginia gave me this pattern to help celebrate her Lunch Bag Sale month. She has 3 lovely lunch bag designs that are all $5 for the month of July. I chose this one because I’m feeling a bit guilty about the last 47 things I’ve made for L when J gets bupkis. This design would be great for a boy or a girl, and since I have both, I try to choose patterns that will do double duty.

PATTERN: The Love Your Lunch Box is an uber expansion on a simple lined bag. It has a handle, 2 exterior pockets (I only used 1), and a flap. The instructions are visual, and clear. The pattern pieces only required 3 pieces of tape to assemble (a serious departure from the Archer I just cut out). I was a little worried about sewing all the layers of lining/interfacing/fabric around those rounded corners, but it worked like a dream. The only semi tricky part is sewing the lining into the bag because there are a lot of layers. 

FABRIC: The body of the bag is my standard Joann denim that I keep going on about. I was having trouble finding a light denim in a particular shade, so I thought I’d try bleaching it myself. That way I can have any shade of blue I want (I want them all!). After a whole lot of experimentation yardage (you’ll be seeing a lot of bleached denim here in the future) it didn’t work as hoped. It always comes out looking tie dyed, which won’t work for the project I had in mind, but works great for a lot of other things. This test denim was the jumping off point for the lunch box. The green is a plain-jane piece of quilting cotton, of abominable quality, also from Joann. I originally purchased what in my mind was the perfect tiny accent fabric from a lovely local sewing shop. I washed it, dried it, and lost it! I bought the smallest piece possible, and that is my penance for being cheap. So there I am at Joann for the second time in one day, trying to find something just as perfect, or at least not so horrible, the store is closing, and I have a vague notion that all of these prints suck and I should just get a solid, and sew something onto it. After cutting out those pattern pieces I sewed lines of contrasting stitching 3/8" apart. These patches of quilting are the result, and I am just thrilled with them.

OTHER MATERIALS: This is not the kind of thing I would normally sew, and well…I should have read the directions before I went to Joann the first time, or I wouldn’t have ended up there the second time. Geesh! To maintain the structure of the bag each layer has interfacing, and the middle is a quilting type thing, you might put in a soft cooler, called Insul-Bright. I couldn’t find Insul-Bright the first time around, so I bought an interfacing that looks like quilting, but has a fusible side, and is about the thickness as Insul-Bright. This quilting substitute worked out just fine. Its amazing how a few floppy  layers sewn together makes one very substantial layer. I also grabbed self adhesive Velcro by mistake. DO NOT DO THIS. I’m pretty sure they use this stuff to stick fighter jets to air craft carriers. It totally gummed up my machine, and ruined a needle. Grrr, won’t make that mistake again.

ALTERATIONS: As mentioned earlier, I only used one exterior side pocket. I also cut a corner off of the flap to make my little decorative quilted patch. That’s it.

SNACK POUCH: This pattern includes a bonus snack pouch pattern, which my family uses a ton of. I added the thick interfacing to the exterior fabric so I could do my quilting move. I also added pull taps to the top, and I extended the Velcro the full width of the bag. I will be making at least 10 more of these.

Even in second grade my son takes lunch and a snack to school each day, so this bag might be a bit of a squeeze. No problem. As part of Lunch Bag Sale Month Virginia has a bunch of tutorials on her blog showing tons of ways to customize her patterns. One shows how to make a bigger Love Your Lunch Box, and add a zipper pocket. That is the beauty of a pattern like this - it has a ton of customization potential. J loves his lunch bag, and L has already requested one of her own. I’m thinking more bleached denim…

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All Gingercake lunch bag patterns are only $5 each for the month of July. 

GET YOURS HERE!

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Gingercake has generously offered one of her lunch bag patterns to a SweetKM reader. Her designs are great for adults and kids. Check out the selection then use the form below to enter. Giveaway closes next Thursday (7/24) at midnight.

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