My cousin graduated from teachers college last weekend. When I need a gift, what do I do?? I sew :) I picked out a fabric that screamed her name and then added the flower to the band. She told me she loved it. I hope so :).



This is the process of making that flower. Fire = Danger. Just remember that.

And then I had to make myself one (can you belive it...I don't have one yet! Yikes!)


And that took one Saturday afternoon. Got to love Saturdays <3


Flowers make me happy. Pretty gardens make me happy. Blue skies make me happy :)

These pictures...can you guess??...makes me happy! :)

I love rope. I don't know why but I do. When I saw a picture on pinterest of this awesome rope bracelet I had to do it.

There is an awesome tutorial here and it is so easy! I am usually a person who needs someone to show me how it's done...but the instructions were so awesome that I could even do it. Did I say awesome?? Good.

Super cute.

 Go forth and be crafty :)

Right now I am working on about 35 clutches. I have 60 cut out but only had enough materials to start working on 35 until I can get back out to fabricland (side rant: it's rather annoying having to travel all the way to the other side of the city when you run out of thread because they closed the fabric store near you...sigh...  :)

Anyways! I took some pictures of my progress...documentation of sorts. I thought, when I'm old and grey, I want to remember what I did 60 summers ago.

These are my sewing adventures:



The planning process. I have all this awesome vintage material, I just needed to figure out what I wanted! 

 


Cats are wonderful, unless they are all over your fabric! This guy loves it.



Sewing Sewing Sewing!! It's getting there.

Little straps.

I think a messy floor means I've had a good day!


And that is all that has been completed thus far! I think I sewed every day last week besides Monday when I planned everything out. It's been fun. I can't wait to see how they all these vintage clutches turn out! 

How do I feel about custom orders? Well. I don't know.

I love creating things and I love making this for people that make them happy. It's just very hard to be creative when you have a bunch of specifications but overall, I think all of the custom pieces I have done have been awesome.

This is an example of awesomeness :D. A friend of a friend contacted me and wondered if I would make a bag out of some material that she had. I accepted and even though I was slow on the design process...I got both the bag and the wallet done. She gave me general dimensions and ideas but that was it. That is how I like to work. Tell me you want a big bag, I will make you a big bag.

This is my second wallet. My first was a long time coming. I knew I wanted to create an awesome pocketbook wallet. I had the idea in my head...but the dimensions were a little wonky and my zipper wasn't working. I came across this tutorial here and as you can see, the wallets aren't exactly the same. The author of the blog, Liz, had an awesome zipper tutorial that really helped me out. The zipper pocket is on the outside because I always like to have fast access to change. On the inside, it opens like a book so you can see all your credit/bank/club cards. In behind the card slots are bill slots for the big bucks ;) I don't know how long it took me to figure out the dimensions and the order of things that had to be assembled.

Custom Order for Jessica

Better picture of the inside of the wallet.

The world of blogging. It all started for me with livejournal. I was only in grade 9 when I started that journal and then I moved on to xanga. For the past couple years I've just been reading various blogs using bloglovin and have been so inspired to create a blog of my own. In the past, my blog posts were infrequent and only happened when something exciting happened. This time I hope it's different.

It all started in 2009. I wanted to make myself a bag. Something slouchy. Something boho. Something large that I could tote around to school and work. I saw a picture of a bag I liked and thought that I could make that and maybe even improve on it (Please note: I hadn't sewn for a very very long time). At the time, I was working as a summer student in a government office and when I brought in that first bag, I was pushed into the photocopy room where some cute ladies oooohhh and awww'd over what I had made. And the bag lady was born. During the course of the summer, a local photographer saw my pictures and offered up an exchange. She suggested a bag for photos. Who know that girl would become one of my closest friends and an awesome encouragement. the bag Lady grew and more people started wanting bags. All summer I would come home from work and head straight down to the basement where I created bag after bag (this of course was before I had a boyfriend ;).

My first custom bag order for one cute girl!

Since then, I've grown in my crafty-ness. Clutches, pencil cases and wallets have been added to the mix and so I thought it was time for a name change. I have a lot of freckles and owls are cute and wise (wise being something I would aspire to be) and while chatting with one of my good friends late last year, the name Freckled Owl came about.

My very first wallet.

Now here I sit, making bags for the summer before my last year of University. I opted to not look for a summer job this year (scary to be sure) and wait and see what the Lord can do with my little business. My vision for this blog is to document my crafty ways for the next three months. I've never had this much time to just craft and I am so looking forward to sitting in my cool (temperature wise of course...the walls or lack thereof are much to be desired ;) basement sewing room just creating whatever I like.

So who am I? I'm a 20 something University student who loves Jesus, enjoys sewing, has an uncanny knack for spending too much money on fabric and wool and who adores crafting.

I'll leave you with my most recent project.

Some nursing students from the class of 2012 are taking a trip to Belize on a Medical Mission Trip in 2012. I was asked to donate a bag for their raffle and this is what I came up with. Enjoy.



Clutch for Belize

 P.S. To view more of my work, become a fan of Freckled Owl on facebook by going to www.facebook.com/freckledowl . :) As soon as I have stock in my Etsy site, I will provide a like for that also!