LEO Tote Bag

It's that time of the year again for Spoon's Secret Lion Final Gift Exchange. For all of you who are confused on what I'm talking about refer to LEO Pillows to clarify. We were at a stand still for a while on what to do. In the end we decided on a tote bag.

I was inspired by this fun floral fabric. It was too thin and busy to be the outer section but would be a beautiful lining for the bag. For the outer section I did choose a nice simple royal blue fabric. I wanted something plain so it wouldn't interfere with the LEO face and the name I was going to sew on.



Using the same template from the LEO Pillows, I cut out the parts for the LEO Face and attached it all together on the royal blue fabric.












I used casual font to print out her name and traced it out with carbon paper. I then attached the lining fabric to the back, sewed out her name and cut it out.


And here is the finished tote bag. I really liked how her name turned out.

OctoRave Outfit

I don't even know how to explain how this came about. Let's just say that if you ask me a question in the midst of one of my obsessions my answer will revolve around my obsessions. So in the midst of my oCtOpAcK sewing Grip N Flip decided that she wanted to throw a Rave/Birthday Party. She was asking for some suggestions on tag lines for the invites and my response was "Octorave: Eight times the fun" . . . .. . . and somehow that stuck.

So obviously if Grip N Flip is throwing an Octorave an Octofit is needed. While I was reading a manga I found the perfect outfit. I'm really not into cosplay nor will I ever be. But this outfit had the essence of the Miyavi Concert Outfit that didn't work out. I'm talking about the triangular cut outs that ended up being a disaster. The manga is 07 Ghost by Amemiya Yuki and Illustrated by Ichihara Yukino. The illustrator Ichihara Yukino has her own website and some pretty cool illustrations.


But since her illustrations are on rotation the picture of the outfit isn't up. I hope posting it here doesn't go against any copyright infringement policies. (Please don't sue me!!)

This ended up being a quickie outfit and took me a day to do.

I don't hate the top but there are somethings that need to be fixed. The straps around the neck don't hold really well. The side seams need to be taken in to fit better. And Grip N Flip needs some instructions because she doesn't know how to put it on correctly.

oCtOpAck COMPLETE

oCtOpAcK has completely exceeded my expectations. This is my crowning achievement to date. I'm reeling from it's exquisite curtness. It's so awesome!! OK I'll try and stop tooting my own horn now.

Here are more detailed pictures of the oCtOpAcK.
















I love that you CAN see the fruit lining fabric as you open it's zipper mouth. The button eyes aren't as large as I would like, but since they were free I'll have to wait and decide if I'm going the change them. The double zipper at the top opening was a lucky find at a bargain price. It just makes it feel more like a backpack. The explosion of pockets on the inside still tickle me. And the secret back pocket, well since I've told all of you I guess it's not so secret anymore, gives me a childish delight.

What next, you may ask. Well I have a kids version of this backpack in mind. I'm not sure if it's something I'm going to construct in the near future but it'll be just as whimsical as this one.

oCtOpAck The Pockets

Here are the bevy of pockets I've sewn for the Octopack. On the outside, I've attached a zipper for the mouth pocket and a zipper on the back for a hidden pocket. On the inside I have a total of 10 pockets. You read that correctly, 10 whole pockets on the inside. This backpack is pocketastic, if I do say so myself.





























All I have to do to finish up is to attach the straps, sew up the side seams, and mount the button eyes. Sounds simple enough.

oCtOpAck The Beginning

An octopus shaped backpack. The question is, "what would compel someone to sew one?" And to be honest I can't answer that. I can say that the Octopus Charm Tutorial by Oborochann started a conversation between myself and Grip N Flip on the cuteness of Octopi in general. Somewhere in that conversation came the desire to sew an Octopus-shaped backpack . But this conversation, like many others, was taken like a flight of fancy.

As time progressed the desire to sew an Octopack grew. As the Miyavi Concert drew near there were plans to have an Octopack, in addition to the concert outfit, constructed to wear to the concert. Sadly, as the concert drew near, I found myself short on time and decided that sewing the Octopack would have to take a back seat to the concert outfit.

Fortunately, Grip N Flips' birthday is coming up, therefore, creating a lovely reason to sew an Octopack.

Here is the pattern that I drafted. I wasn't sure how to shape the Octopack at first but decided the cuteness from the Octopus Charm came from their roundness so that's how I progressed with the drafting.

We are trying to figure out general placement of the zipper mouth and button eyes. We couldn't make a decision. There were just too many options.















This is the fabric we finally decided on for the lining. We wanted something fun and colorful that was visible when you unzipped it's mouth, while being affordable, since I was going to use a lot of it to sew a bevy of pockets. And what is more fitting than fruits!!
Anything food oriented would have been fine. I have to say I almost wanted to use this fabric with Japanese Women in traditional Kimonos but that would just have been a bit weird. Just imagining Japanese Women spewing out of an Octopus's' mouth would have been more frightening than whimsical, even in my book.

Miyavi Concert Outfit COMPLETED

IT'S FINISHED!!!!!
This is the whole outfit. That's a Miyavi Poster in the background.


The star cut outs were a pain but turned out pretty well. The sarong skirt is my favorite piece for this outfit. I lost love the fact that I was able to keep the pockets from the jacket intact. For accessories we used a glove I made for her Bill Skirt Outfit and a hot pink bracelet I found in Thailand. I bought one of the chains from Home Depot and the other one from Walmart in the craft accessory section.

Miyavi Concert Outfit, The Tops

The Miyavi Concert Outfit (MCO) has a two part top. There is a one sleeve tank that I'll knock-off from the preexisting JRR Concert Outfit . Why not use the preexisting green one you ask. Well Grip N Flip would like it in a burn-your-eyes neon pink fabric she got from her babcia (according to Grip N Flip it sounds like bop-chu, it's Polish for grandmother). Well those Polish Grandmothers sure love vibrant burn-your-eye colors!!!!

I traced out the shirt onto on old over sized calendar. I forget which celebrity is staring at me but it was sort of freaky and distracting the whole time. Next time I have to remember to use the back!!

Here is the burn-your-eyes neon pink fabric I'm about to trace out and cut. I don't think this picture is doing justice to the agonizing retina burnout that occurred while I had to work with the fabric.


I ended up having problems finishing the edges for the collar/sleeve section. I believe that section of fabric is on the bias of the fabric and gave it more stretch than I anticipated. I didn't have time to fix it and because this would be the inner shirt I decided that I would deal with that problem another day.

The second top or outer top would be a simple black shirt with buckles at the straps and triangular cut outs. I made a quick tester to work out the details. It's on the dress form that we made last month. The dress form is still a concave slouching mess, as you can you see in the picture. But Grip N Flip was far away and I need a quick model.

The shirt was taken up significantly and buckles for the straps were found at the last minute. The triangular cut outs ended up not working so we decided to do star cutouts. What I did forget to do was leave opening at the waist side seams since this was a non-stretch fabric. Oh well live and learn.

Miyavi Concert Outfit

Miyavi is coming!! I'm so excited. And with Miyavi coming for a concert it means that Grip N Flip needs an outfit. This outfit is all her own design. I violently and vehemently rejected her first design thusly making complaints on her second design null and void. We're not even going to discuss why the first one that she designed was so reprehensible, it just offended all of my sensibilities.

There are three parts to her outfit. The first part is inspired by this sarong skirt by Refuse To Be Usual (I was afraid to post the picture in case there are some copyright infringement permission line the would be crossed). We made it a little shorter and not ALL the details are the same but that's why it's an inspiration. I actually took apart an old jacket that I didn't wear the make this. I was able to keep the pockets from the jacket. It took apart an old bag for the buckles and belt.














The skirt is mostly completed. I think the biggest challenge wasn't recreating the skirt but figuring out how much fabric I had available from the jacket. And living in fear that if I messed up I wouldn't have any fabric to replace the pieces. It made the process a lot more time consuming and premeditated cutting was necessary, as opposed to my "cut first, figure out later" methodology. I turned out better than I expected. I have it wrapped around a pillow for lack of a model.
















I still need to add a chain, but other than that this skirt is 98% complete.

I still have two more pieces to go. Lets hope that they won't be a pain in the bum.

Lace Gloves

Here is something I thought I would NEVER do. Well, never say never.

Grip N Flip ask for long fingered lace gloves. FINGERED LACE GLOVES. This project wouldn't have been that difficult if I had purchased stretch lace. But because I'm thrifty and found non-stretch lace for $1/yard I would obviously choose pricing over ease. Well maybe that wasn't the best decision. After several tries I was able to finish the gloves. There are slight fit issues.

I didn't have a plan and basically traced her arm & hands, then sewed the outline. The gloves were actually sewed against the grain, if lace even has grain, because the selvage had this beautiful scalloping that I used at the top of the gloves. I'm sure there was a better way to do the gloves then how I did them, but I'm still just in awe that I made gloves out of lace!!



She wore these gloves with a pleather outfit that her friends gave to her as a collective X-mas gift. A few weeks later one of Grip N Flips' friend borrowed these gloves for prom.