For my birthday this year, my husband surprised me with a new embroidery machine, which also doubles as a sewing machine. He felt that my handbags needed a little embellishment.
It seems not so long ago, he also got me this Heavy Duty Singer sewing machine as a gift, because my old New Home machine was giving me fits.
About 12 years ago he bought me this long arm quilting machine to use with a quilting rack, as well.
I bought myself this serger simply because it was inexpensive and I wanted to make more professional looking hems.
All four of these machine, plus my old New Home are now sitting around the perimeter of my sewing room. I figured I may as well set up three machines with different colored threads and sew three handbags simultaneously just to see if the process would go faster. It did. Now I officially have my own sweat shop. But I'm the only employee. And, yes, I do sweat a lot.
I revisited my colorful crazy dogs fabric with this first bag. It probably looks familiar. I made a tote out of that fabric previously, only this one has a different contrast fabric and a different design.
I hesitated to use one of my Bali fabrics on the interior, because they are so expensive and beautiful that they should be the featured fabrics. But the colors matched so well with the crazy dog fabric.
These next two bags were my attempt at the American theme of baseball, hot dogs and apple pie, minus the hot dogs, unless you include the crazy dog fabric above.
I embellished the baseball fabric with apple embroidery. Unfortunately, the thread kept breaking, and I discovered that the embroidery machine doesn't have an easy way to pick up where it left off. I had to hand embroider the gaps and didn't do a very good job. I may have to sell this one for a discount.
The interior of the one above and the exterior of the one below sports an apple fabric.
The butterfly embroidery turned out really well. The contrast is much better with white thread against the dark apple fabric than dark thread against the lighter, busier baseball fabric. The machine had no problem using the white thread. I suspect the red thread was a little rotten. Thankfully, my husband bought me some fresh thread for my birthday too.
As usual, each bag had pockets galore on the inside. I think I have enough handbags now to sell.
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