Author Archives: Jan

About Jan

Musician and geek and Juris Doctor; lover of fine art and fine craft; mother and grandmother and significant other and friend. Passionate about sewing.

A Little Manbag for the Birthday Boy

By | |
4 Comments

My partner of twelve years had another birthday last Thursday. On Monday, I remembered I had thought, six months ago, that I wanted to make him a small backpack/sling bag for future travel experiences. I had a bag in my head that I had seen somewhere as I cruised through the websites or Facebook pages of the various independent bag designers whose patterns I love. I checked all the pages I could think of, but couldn’t find that bag that had formed in my imagination. I posted on the “PDF Love of Bags” Facebook group asking for help identifying the … Continue reading →

Clams in Summer

By | |
Leave a comment

My dear friend, Debi, had a birthday a week ago. Her new age has a zero in it. So another friend who spends a part of each summer in a lakeside cottage on Lake Erie planned a birthday party for July 3 and invited the entire group of friends. In the past year or so, I’ve sworn off making bags as gifts, because I think all my friends are maxed out on my handmade bags and accessories. But as this is my summer of decreasing the size of my fabric stash, I decided to make a byAnnie “Clam Up” bag. … Continue reading →

An Experiment for Me

By | |
Leave a comment

I saw a tote bag somewhere on the internet early last week. Over the past months, I’ve been trying to decide on the best crossbody bag pattern for the vintage fabric my cousin’s wife, Diane, sent me with her request for three bags—one each for herself and her two sisters. But there are two pieces of fabric, and wouldn’t it be nice if I could give each woman two bags. The “Tourist Tote Bag” from Sew Many Creations grabbed my eye and my imagination. All the reviews and accounts of this pattern say it’s easy and quick. Several members of … Continue reading →

Blazingstar Bag Sewalong

By | |
2 Comments

Just finished: A new pattern from Sara Lawson of Sew Sweetness Patterns. She sponsored a sewalong for this wonderful new crossbody bag. The event took place over four weeks. I was late starting as we were in Texas visiting my Amarillo son and daughter-in-law in their new-to-them home, and then in Lewisville (northwest suburb of Dallas) with my elder son. After we returned, I was able to push through and finish the bag a few days before the end of the sewalong. I don’t believe I’ve mentioned here that my 20-year-old granddaughter is living with us now while she’s job … Continue reading →

Llamas and a Lazy Girl Bag

By | |
Leave a comment

The next pattern I tried in my seemingly never-ending crossbody quest was the Lexi Carryall from Joan Hawley’s “Lazy Girl Designs.” I believe I finished the bag the weekend of May 7. It was such a busy time with the final week of classes, then exams/juries week. And while I was snatching time from my schedule to work on this bag, I read on Facebook that Joan Hawley had died, suddenly, on May 3 of a brain bleed. This was the first of her patterns I had worked on in five or more years, and it just felt eerie to … Continue reading →

Jan of All Trades

By | |
2 Comments

Today’s Me-Made item is something you don’t see often. It’s a sound-dampening blanket for an upright piano. The first picture shows it in use in Youngstown State University’s black box theatre, the Spotlight Theatre. When one plays for musical theatre productions or performances of singers who deal primarily in musical theatre, there is rarely the issue of an imbalance of sound between the piano and the singer. The singers are almost always fitted with a microphone that broadcasts their music through the house sound system. But when playing for classical music singers, they are usually not mic’d. They are taught … Continue reading →

This May Be It!

By | |
2 Comments

I may have found The Pattern for the bags for my cousin. I’ve admired Noodlehead bag patterns for years, but have never made one. As I was reaching the end of my test bags for Diane, the wife of my cousin, Ken (link to the blog posts about the test bags) and taking one last pass through all the patterns of the indie bag pattern designers whose work I admire, I came upon Noodlehead’s Hillside Tote from designer Anna Graham, and realized it was the perfect candidate. And now, with the bag finished and having eyed it repeatedly for several … Continue reading →

Traveling Again

By | |
Leave a comment

Everyone I know is hungry to travel. I snuck in a quick trip to Orlando at the beginning of YSU’s Spring Break, flying on Friday and Monday, enjoying the warmth and sunshine on Saturday and Sunday. <Jan, I don’t care who you saw or what you ate. I’m only here to see the Hackney Pouch.> I stayed with the elder of my two brothers and his lovely wife, whom I have admired since I first met her when she was 17 or so. The middle brother and his wife drove up from Tampa on Saturday morning and we all went … Continue reading →