Messenger Bag - Homemade

This has been a very busy week.  With the week shortened due to our Thanksgiving weekend, and then  extra work in the evenings with our printing business we operate on the side of our day jobs, there was not a lot of extra time this week.

At long last!  I am so excited to share with you the project that has taken me a month and a half to complete.  My daughter's Messenger Bag!

Yup!  there it is.  You can see one happy teenager with her new messenger bag.   All of these photos were taken with my cell phone, so the quality might not be the best.  

This bag is inspired by a bag found in the Windwaker game in the series The Legend of Zelda video games. 

The colours and the swirl pattern are an exact replica of the one found in the game.  There is a little jewel that goes between the two swirls, and we have to add that.  We painted a button gold, and we are going to attach it to the front, at the bottom, between the swirls.

There was many steps to making this bag.  You MUST be organized if you are going to sew, and this project really maxed out my thinking.  All of the pieces had the same shape of the rounded corners and squared off tops.  Some of the cutting directions were not very clear, which left me not too confident when it came to sewing, if I had all the correct pieces cut out.

 This resulted in many a night where I would sit there and read the directions for about 45 minutes trying to figure out which pieces the directions were telling me to use next, and if I sew them, what will the result be.  

Each piece has fusible fleece on the back of it, which is dreadfully expensive, so I was hesitant to just sew and then rip a seam if it was wrong.  

When you sew a dress or a skirt, it is usually pretty obvious what is the front or back of the garment.  The assembly of clothes for sewing is usually pretty straightforward. 

With this bag, since all the pieces were very similar in size and shape; even with every piece carefully numbered and organized into stacks, it was a very overwhelming project to do.

I eventually had to admit to my daughter that I was stalling on the job because I was overwhelmed.  

At least I was able to push through and now she is enjoying her bag to carry her school books every day.

Here are some more pictures of the bag:

Here you can see the detail on the back of the bag.  It has a pocket on the back that seals with velcro.  The handmade piping goes around the perimeter of the bag.

Look at the detail of the pocket panel on the inside flap.  This section alone was a week in the making because it took me forever to figure out what the directions were trying to tell me to do.  Once I figured it out, it seemed so obvious, but I had to get my head around the method the directions were trying to instruct me with. 

There are side pockets, center zipper pockets both small and large.

Here is the inside of the bag.  A zipper pocket in the inside too.

You can also see the detail of the cell phone pocket on the side.

Here is the picture of the bag.  The padded handle, all the piping and design. 

Steps to an organized sewing project:

1. Select pattern.

2. Select fabrics suitable to the project, based on the recommended fabrics described on the pattern directions. 

3. Cut out fabric, following the directions exactly.

4. Stack all pattern pieces in an organized manner.

5. Set up your sewing machine, serger (if you have one) and ironing board and iron.

6. Sew the project step by step, according to directions.  Use all notions such as interfacing, seam bindings, zippers, buttons etc. according to directions.

7. As you sew each piece, carefully fold and return the pattern piece to the envelope as soon as it is separated from the fabric so that you dont' loose any pieces.

8. Press seams as required during sewing.

9. When you have finished your project, make sure ALL of the pattern pieces are back in the envelope so that if you want to use the pattern again, all the pieces are there.  Tidy up the sewing machine and all sewing accessories.

10. ENJOY your new, finished project!

Happy Sewing!

Cassie

Quick Update

My friends in the blogging world....
Thanksgiving was lovely, and I have been a super busy girl for several days now.

I finished the bag I have sewn for my daughter!
All day I have wanted to post about this, and I am still working on other responsibilities at 10:30 at night.  The blog entry will just have to wait until tomorrow.

That is part of Making Your Life Organized...sometimes you can't do everything on your "to do" list realistically, and the fun stuff has to wait.  Blogging is part of my fun stuff, it has to wait.

I really hope that tomorrow I can share my sewing project with you.  Until then, thanks for stopping by.

Cassie

Pumpkin Pie

  Anna Olson's Pumpkin Pie

Every year an essential part of our Thanksgiving dinner and Christmas dinner is pumpkin pie with homemade whipped cream.  Anna Olson's recipe for Pumpkin Pie has become on of my most favorites.  As you prepare for your shopping this week, I thought I'd post the recipe so you can plan for the ingredients.

 

Courtesy of:  Anna Olson - Bake With Anna Olson - THE FOOD NETWORK

Recipe summary

I find that a whole wheat pie dough makes for a crust that browns nicely and stays crispy under the pumpkin filling, and the subtly nutty taste really works well with the autumn filling.

Makes 1 9-inch pie

Preparation time: approx 30 min, plus chilling time for dough.
Cooking time: 10 min + 35 - 40 min
Yield: 8

Ingredients

Crust

3/4 cup whole wheat flour (all-purpose)
3/4 cup cake and pastry flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
10 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into pieces and then frozen for 10 minutes
1 large egg yolk
3 tablespoons cold water
1 tablespoon lemon juice

Filling

2 cups pumpkin puree
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
3 large eggs
3/4 cup evaporated milk
1 1/2 teaspoons finely grated fresh ginger
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 egg whisked with 2 tbsp water, for brushing

Assembly

Directions - for crust, filling and assembly.

1. Pulse the flours, sugar and salt to combine in a food processor (or the dough can be prepared by hand or using a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment). Add the butter and pulse it in quick pulses until just small pieces of butter are visible and the mixture as a whole just begins to take on a pale yellow colour (indicating that the butter has been worked in).
2. Stir the egg yolk, water and lemon juice together and add this to the dough all at once, pulsing until the dough barely comes together (it should look like a crumble dough). Shape the dough into a disc by hand, wrap and chill for at least 2 hours before rolling. Alternatively, the dough can be frozen for up to 3 months and thawed in the fridge before rolling.
3. On a lightly floured work surface, roll out the dough to just under a ¼ inch thick. Lightly dust a 9-inch pie plate (do not grease) and line the plate with the pastry, Trim the pastry off right to the edge of the pie plate and press it down gently to secure. Reserve any remaining dough for trim and chill it and the pie shell while preparing the filling.
4. Preheat the oven to 400 F.
5. Whisk the pumpkin purée, brown sugar and eggs together, then whisk in the evaporated milk, ginger, cinnamon, clove and salt. Pour this into the chilled pie shell.
6. To create the trim, roll out the remaining pie dough into a long rectangle and cut into strips about 1/3-inch wide. Braid three strips together, gently pulling the dough a little to stretch it as you braid it. You may have to make a few braids to cover the complete edge of the pie. Lightly brush the edge of the pie dough and place the braided dough overtop, lightly pressing. Brush the braid(s) with eggwash.
7. Place the pie onto a baking tray and bake the pie for 10 minutes at 400 F, then reduce the oven temperature to 375 F and bake the pie for another 35 to 40 minutes, until the pumpkin filling is set, but still has a little jiggle to it in the centre. Cool the pie to room temperature, then chill completely, about 4 hours, before serving.
The pie is best served chilled, and can be stored, refrigerated, for up to 2 days.

Yum!  Very delicious.  ENJOY!

Thanks for reading,

Cassie

Rustic Fall Bouquet

We had company from Australia this weekend.
My Mother is Australian, and we have LOTS of family in Melbourne and it's surrounding area.  I have never had the priveledge to go to Australia, but maybe one day I will.

We hosted a dinner for my Mom's cousin, and I knew I wanted to make a fall table centre piece.  I wanted to do it for free, and I was prepared for something a bit rustic.  It was fun to do.

First I walked the dog on Saturday morning, and I started to gather interesting pieces along the way.  Everything I gathered was on public property along the green belt that follows a creek in our neighborhood. 
I managed to get a pretty good selection by the time I was heading home.
It looks like this:

 

Next I found 2 glass vases in the cupboard and I started to trim the foilage and stuff them into the container a bit at a time.  I was careful to leave the flowers until last as they were quite delicate.

Here is the work part way through.

From this point I continued to stuff pieces into the vases, this way and that, and moved them around until I managed to achieve something that resembled a bouquet.

I am not a flower arranger, and I have never held myself out to be one, that is my Mother's area of skill, but she was busy and honestly, it was just plain old fun to do this.

Here is what my bouquets looked like when finished.

Here is the first one, up close:

 

And here is the second one.  Not as even and pretty as the first, but still unique and fresh all the same.

The last thing I did was add water to the vases.

 

Contents of my Rustic Fall Bouquets:

1. Red Maple Leafs (from trees along the creek)

2. Yellow Leafs (from trees along the creek)

3. Green leafs (from a bush along the creek)

4. Dried old burrs (In honour of our dog who gathers these without even trying. LOL!  I found some really cool dried bunches of burrs and took some home)

5. Purple wild flowers (creek area)

6. White wild flowers (creek area)

7. Silver dollar plant (on city property at the back of someone's house that backs onto the green belt)

8. Yellow Flowers (on city property at the back of someone's house that backs onto the green belt)  

Everything I gathered was 100% free, honest and for real and would qualify as wild or naturally growing, as I gathered it all along the greenbelt and creek area.

If you wanted to do one of these, you could have done it into a taller vase and not cut the flowers down, but i wanted mine for a dinner table, so I made mine into shorter vases.

So, if you are a Canadian, Thanksgiving is coming this weekend, you can plan for a morning walk, and a simple assembly of  wild flowers and foilage into a vase for a beautiful rustic style fall bouquet.   If you aren't Canadian but it's fall where you live, you can still do an awesome bouquet, you just don't have to worry if it will fit on your dinner table or not!  

Happy gathering and arranging!

Cassie

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