Category Archives: Art and Crafts

Encompasses not only attempts to make things, but also appreciation of beautiful things.

The Mini-backpack, Round Three–quilting

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It’s my third post about mini-backpacks (though maybe my fifth actual bag)! that I made in imitation of my favorite purse. One of the difficulties is adding enough stiffness so the bag doesn’t turn into a limp pool of fabric that is hard to open and manipulate.

This is what happens without enough stiffness.

Since my current bag is showing wear at the bottom corners (a design flaw–I shouldn’t have had corners there), I decided to make a new bag. I used some material from an old pair of pants, plus scraps of interesting prints, and lined it with a jungle map print. And this time, I quilted the exterior of the bag.

I didn’t do a fancy design, or fancy quilting. I wanted to see if quilting the bag gave it enough stiffness that it wouldn’t need piping on the edges or some other sort of structural support. It did! It also feels pleasantly soft to hold.

Another change was an exterior pocket with a zipper, something none of my previous mini-backpacks had. I like the pocket very much. However, I think I should use a different procedure for it next time. It would also be nice if the zipper pull for the pocket was on the left, matching the main zipper. Oops.

I experimented with the interior as well, and learned a few other lessons. First, while I like the fun map-print, I discovered that a busy print makes it harder to find items in the bag. In the future, I intend to use more subtle prints for lining my bags.

Second, I added an extra-large pocket on one side, gathering the top with elastic. I thought it might serve as a sort of divider in the purse, but I forgot to interface the lining of the bag, let alone the pockets, and the interior came out soft and formless. When the bag is turned right-side out, the pocket gapes even more than it appears in this picture of the bag inside-out.

The bag inside out, showing the fun lining and large pocket.

I used white fabric for the smaller phone pocket, which does make it easier to locate. White on off-white wasn’t the best choice, but I was in a hurry. I will remember in the future that yes, I should always make the phone pocket stand out slightly from the rest of the lining, whether by using a different color or perhaps by trimming the upper edge with something colorful.

Still inside out, but showing the other pocket.

I’m delighted with my bag, despite its shortcomings. However, I really need to write up my pattern notes before I forget what I learned.

Till next post.

It’s all in here somewhere!

More Delights of Light

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If you’ve been following this blog, you know I am fascinated by the effects of light. I’ve written about shadows, reflections, rainbows, sparkle, and the aurora-like reflection of Christmas lights on the ceiling.

So, above you’ll see another effect of light: sunshine through a faceted piece of stained glass in a bathroom window at Saint Andrew’s Episcopal Church, Haw River, NC. Did its creator anticipate the interesting constellation-like points of light it would cast?

One more surprise of the light. It’s hard to tell from this photo, but this dragonfly glistened gold in the sun as though someone (or Someone) had made it out of gold wire–a piece of jewelry for the grass. It amazes me how insect exoskeletons can create those metallic and/or iridescent effects. Imagine if our skins could glitter like that!

Till next post.

Cookie Houses–smaller is better

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There are two kinds of people in the world: those who are more interested in the appearance of food, and those who are more interested in the taste. (Joke–there are two kinds of people in the world–those who divide the world into two kinds of people, and…)

Okay, it’s really more of a spectrum, but by way of illustration, every year I see magazines in the checkout showing clever ways to create cupcakes that look like spiders for Halloween, cookies that look like nests of eggs for Easter, and so forth. These are ingenious and very attractive comestibles, and I appreciate them as such, but I also can’t help thinking–do licorice whips really taste good with chocolate cake? Will the marshmallows work with pretzel sticks?

Partly for that reason, I’ve never been all that excited about making gingerbread houses, even though I love baking. I’ve always seen them as purely decorative–after all, surely pretzel logs and Necco wafers don’t taste as good combined with gingerbread. My husband, on the other hand, sees gingerbread houses as edible as well as decorative. His position is that one should enjoy it for a few days, then start picking candies off, then eat the cookie before it gets stale.

Still, I do like to decorate sweets, and I do like constructing things. This year, I had an urge to make a cookie house, possibly as a result of watching too many episodes of The Great British Baking Show. But did it have to be made of construction gingerbread? What other flavors might there be?

In looking up recipes, I found some blogs with pictures of miniature cookie houses: Pretty Petunias and For the love of butter, among others.

Brilliant! Not only were the little houses cute, but they had the following advantages over full-size cookie houses.

–I could make cookie houses and still enjoy fresh cookies from the rest of the dough.

–Each person could decorate their own house.

–It would be easier to cover the finished houses (to protect them from our cat who has been known to lick at them.)

–The cookies would not need to be quite so sturdy as the pieces would be smaller and subject to less tension and compression. (Thank you, Stephen Ressler of The Great Courses for the engineering vocabulary!)

–And finally, we could eat one while still enjoying the appearance of the remaining ones.

I tried two different doughs, and I tried cutting out my own small pattern (which was a bit of a pain) and then bought some ready-made cookie cutters for mini cookie houses. Photos below.

Cookie houses made from my own pattern.
Cookie houses made using purchased cookie cutters.

I’m not going to provide links to recipes, as the recipes I tried were okay but not thrilling. Better that you should scout around for recipes you find exciting and try those. (And then let me know, please, if you find a recipe you think is especially good.)

I will provide links to some of the cookie cutters, however, because they make it much easier. I didn’t recut my pieces after they were baked, which probably would have improved the results, but they stuck together all right anyway.

These are the cookie cutters I bought:

Fox Run Christmas Village

and this mini set which seems to come from several different sources. There is also one that cuts out all the pieces at once, which I didn’t try.

Till next post.