Crazy lack of inspiration

no more. I haven't posted much because, sadly, there was no inspiration to be had, despite my dutiful attempts to pry something, anything, out of my cold, heartless sewing machine. However, after a weeklong sewing frenzy, I'm back--and hoping that the drought is over, at least for now.


After a year of almost constant zipper frustration, I think I'm finally getting somewhere. After exhausting my creativity on the big diaper-style handbags, I've been dying to make some cute small Mommy-bags for holding only the essentials. The wristlet I'm carrying now is fine for that purpose, unless I happen to being wearing pants without a pocket for my keys, which is often. At which point in time, said keys can only be wedged into the wristlet with nothing less than an alarming amount of force. And every time I've started a small bag, I've been effectively stymied by that darned zipper. Last night was my one and only breakthrough:


Ta da! Oh, and the zipper:



The handclapping is still ringing in my ears. Go me :)

I'm getting together with some of my dearest friends tomorrow, most of whom have managed to become moms to adorable toddler girls (one of whom is my three-year-old niece). So, of course, Auntie can't come empty handed. To wit:

Heather Ross was on the Martha Stewart Show either last week or the week before, where she shared a super simple smocked summer dress pattern. She made it look so easy, I decided to try it myself. Voila! I hope they fit--I only had standard sizes and a reluctant two year old who is NOT in the habit of wearing dresses, to work with. I figure if these don't fit my cute nieces, they're bound to fit someone, somewhere!


I have one more of these sweet little dresses to make, and then I'm going to make a chocolate butterscotch bread pudding for my get together tomorrow. We've had a rule going back to our college days, that when we get together, there are no such things are calories. No-Calorie Days were then expanded to include holidays, birthdays, any sort of physical or emotional crisis day, and then to pretty much any day of the week. Yet another reason I love my girls so much.

In the meantime, I've got a kitchen to clean and a little boy who will be waking up from his nap in about 100 seconds.

I bit off more than I could chew

My apologies for being so late with this blog post. Inexcusable! I can only say that Real Life intruded fiercely over the past few months (and then some), and given the choice between sleeping and blogging, I chose, well, you get the picture.

So, here's what I've been up to! It all started with some totes that I made for my Lovely Friend Jen, who gave them to her sister as a birthday gift. Some lovely people in her office were intrigued with the totes and suggested a party so that they could do some holiday gift-browsing. One thing led to another, and Jen, my lovely friend, ended up throwing me a gorgeous party/trunk show in November. This set me off on a frantic sewing spree, with many late nights and ripped seams. After all that, I ended up with:

Aprons! Which Lovely Friend Jen (on the right), I (in the middle), and Second Lovely Friend Karla (on the left) modeled in her kitchen:

I also made baby blankets, in satin brocade with cloud-soft minky fabric:

A shopper tote in a yummy pink and green plaid:

A lunch tote, with waterproof lining and insulated fleece:

Look! The inside of the lunch tote is plenty roomy. And I added loops on the inside to hold utensils. How's that for cute and convenient?

And, of course, some diaper bags!

Remember this one?

How about this one?

Here it is, all in splendorous display!

Partygoers took home these cute and sassy reusable coffee cup sleeves:

While I had hoped for more attendance at the party, those who did come had a fabulous time, and even ordered some items from me! How about that?

So this started another round of furious sewing, in which I came up with:

Grocery totes!

Lunch Totes:

Aprons:

Baby Blankets:


Burpcloths:

And finally, some Shopper Totes:

Whew! It's been six weeks of nonstop sewing. I've been blown away by the interest in Vivian Shultz Designs. My head is brimming with new ideas for bags and other products. I can't wait to see what other yummy things I can come up with!

No one will ever know

how difficult it was to work with this satiny brocade. A nightmare. But here it is, another diaper bag in the "Done" pile:





Super roomy, too:

I made this from leftover fabric from another project. It's a really lovely bag, but not entirely practical. The exterior fabric (the afore-mentioned satiny brocade) has a tendency to snag and it ain't waterproof. Still, it's really pretty and quite stylish, if I do say so myself. Working with fabrics like these will NOT be a major staple for my upcomng online shop--more like a one per season type of bag--if that.

So, look to your heart's content, for there ain't gonna be no more of these!

Tunnel Vision

When I'm working on a project, I'm consumed by it. I also lose all perspective, which means I have to rely on other people to tell me whether the product is objectively good or not. Case in point, I finished this last night:

I loved every minute I worked on it. Here's some more eye-candy:

I don't think I can be objective. I love this bag. Hopefully, other people will like it, too. On the whole, though, it doesn't matter. I still love this bag :)

This was cut from some upholstery fabric I got at JoAnn's on sale. From one yard, I cut two bags. Both of which will go on sale at the online shop (whenever I get it up and running) or be sold if I can find buyers. I'm thinking of keeping this one, for, ahem, market research. Just to see how it holds up to daily use. Did I say I love this bag?

Math is not my strong suit

Never has been. I was surprised and relieved that my major (journalism and international relations) didn't require me to take any math classes after high school. If lawyers had to excel at math, I'd be unemployed and likely homeless by now. And yet, my lifelong avoidance of all things mathematical has, time and again, risen up to bite me on the behind many times. What does this have to do with sewing and handbag making, you might ask? Not much, except for the fact that in making patterns for my bags, I often have to add a 1/2" or 5/8" seam allowance to bag dimensions. This requires frequent conversions from halves, quarters, eighths, and sometimes, Dear God, sixteenths and thirty-seconds. As I alluded to before, this is NOT what I would call a strength of mine. Luckily, I found a great calculator that does the conversion for you, and keeps it in fraction form (rather than decimal) so that you ca translate it easily to a ruler. Voila. Problem solved. Yet another Vivian math deficiency overcome!
So after I spent more time than I am willing to admit to this morning figuring out seam allowances and cursing my sixth grade teacher (sorry, Mrs. Nicholson!), I finally finished a pattern and prototype for a large tote bag and matching wristlet:

This is based on the classic shopper tote. I've rounded the bottom and sides and added pockets on both sides. The pocket panels have fleece lining, which I think helps smooth out the fabric and add some body at the same time. This is the prototype of a bag I'll make for a friend, who requested it as a birthday gift for her sister.

I bought a bolt of this fabric a couple months ago, and am using it for all my prototypes. If you tune in to this blog often, you might get sick of seeing the same fabric all the time, but if you're patient, you'll eventually get to see lots of yummy bags/accessories in awesome fabrics (*crosses fingers and shuts eyes*).

Inaugural Post

I've always been something of a closet crafter. Unwilling to get into conversations in polite company about the latest crafting craze I'm in. And there have been a lot. It started with cooking. Then baking. Then, a lot later, knitting. Papercrafting. Now it's fabric and sewing. I think I'm in love.

About six months ago, while waiting in the grocery store checkout line, I noticed that four of the shoppers ahead of me brought their own reusable grocery bags. I thought of all the hundreds of plastic grocery bags I had stashed in my cupboards at home. I also thought of the thousands of grocery bags that I had blithely thrown into the trash over the years. So I went home and made my own out of some old fabric that used to be my drapes. The bags were really ugly. But it sparked something in me. I've made a lot more grocery bags, using Lisa Lam's excellent tutorial. I'll post the latest version, which was made from some Tommy Bahama fabric I got on sale--just as soon as I get pics downloaded from my camera. Update: here it is:

I finished three of these. It's amazing how much stuff one bag can hold. I could fit all my groceries into three bags, including two gallons of milk. Go me!

My latest sewing fascination is diaper bags. I can't help it, really. I made one from a standard pattern and then the next thing you know, I move into my own pattern. And holy cow, one of my sister's friends wants me to make her one. For money. Yikes.

Here's what I came up with:

And from the side:

My client (yay! client!) was very pleased with the finished product and gave me such nice compliments on it. Whew! One down--hopefully more to go!