Summer Sewing Projects

While some of you might be shivering away through a cold northern hemisphere winter, I am experiencing a mixture of all sorts of weather in the southern hemisphere summer, aka "the summer holidays".  My girls have about a month until they start their new school year, so I have been planning craft projects to keep both them and myself occupied during what I am hoping will be halcyon days of leisure.  I plan to blog more about the kids' craft projects over the coming weeks, but today I want to give you a little teaser into my own planned projects.

The first of my projects will be to sew Miss 5 a library bag for school.  I suppose I could have bought one for her, but I am supposed to be making the most of my sewing machine and this way she can have a bag in any colour way she desires.  Although, as you can see above, allowing Miss 5 to choose the supplies she wanted (after much argument and discussion in Spotlight) is going to result in an interesting mix of slightly mis-matched fabrics and cord, ha ha.

My next project is to be brave and tackle a new craft technique for me, sewing a kisslock frame purse.  I am hoping to make myself (and maybe some fortunate friends or family members) a little clutch purse using this tutorial here.  I mentioned being brave because, to be honest, while I loooove kisslock frames, the thought of getting my sewn purse into the frame and securely and evenly attached is scaring me no end!  There is also the fact that this tutorial doesn't come with a pattern but shows one (very ably I might add) how to draw up one's own pattern - eep.

And finally, I managed to find some gorgeous vintage lace and vintage crocheted lace ribbons in an op shop and thought I would try designing some "mixed media collage" fabric cuffs for my online stores (and maybe for a giveaway later in the year).  My idea is to combine fabric, lace, ribbon, filigrees and vintage buttons and cabochons to create feminine, vintage-style cuffs one could wear for special occasions or to pretty up an outfit.

I have no idea if I will be able to complete all of these projects in between entertaining kids and organising summer outings (and I just found two more projects I want to try while writing this post, LOL).  But, I thought it was a good idea to at least set myself a goal and have a plan for my creating or else I might find that I don't get anything done over my summer holidays!

So tell me, do you have any craft projects planned for this summer (or your summer to come)?  Or do you have any tips to share which might help me with my above projects?  Drop me a line and let me know!  Also, I like to try and reply to all of my lovely commenters, but I can't do this if your email profile has been set to "private" on blogger.    :)