Show us your Chapel St Shoulder Bag Series - Getting Organised, What's your Sewernality?

I hope by now you have read all about the fabulous competition being run as part of this blog series, if not you can do so here.

In today's blog post I want to talk about sewing styles and sewing organisation.

- Let's have a bit of fun, have you ever stopped to think about what style of sewer you are?
What is your Sewernality...


Are you "Sew Organised": Are you a super organised person that works on one project at a time before moving onto the next? Plans well and thinks through before buying fabric and starting a project. You work step by step and are good at scheduling time to sew.

Are you "Sew Dreamy": Are you a dreamer? You dream about your sewing project, sometimes for days and sometimes for weeks, you picture it even when your meant to be doing other important things, you sew it in your head but you rarely find the time to sew in real life.

Are you "Sew Well Planned": Are you a planner? Do you plan your fabric, hold onto it, match the thread, interfacing, before making that all important first cut?

Are you "Sew Exhilarated": Are you a sewing thrill seeker? Do you love the hype of a new pattern release, sew it within days and have enough fabric in your stash to not need to go shopping. The thrill of a new design really makes your head spin with excitement and you jump in boots and all.

There are pros and cons to each sewing type, but you know what, I think if you are having fun and doing something that you love then that is all that matters. (awwww)

All jokes aside, this post is going to provide you with some fabulous tips and tricks to get you organised for sewing your Chapel St Shoulder Bag or any bag really.

1. Print your pattern pieces. Although this sounds simple you need to make sure you check a few things first, so that things run smoothly.
If you find your pattern pieces are not printing correctly, ask yourself these questions:
- Do you have the latest version of ADOBE Reader (or similar) installed on your PC?
- Is your printer scaling settings set to No Scaling/100% or Actual Size? (This is correct if they are)
- Check the 1" test square measures correctly

Once you have your pattern pieces printed correctly, you need to cut them out and join them at the designated markers sticky tape them together.

OK now for my special trick, if like me you use the same pattern piece over and over, they tend to get ratty and tatty after a few uses. So here is what I do......I laminate my pattern pieces. This makes them last a long long time. Tadah! I told you it was a good one!

But wait there is more.......now bags in particular have lots and lots of pieces for you to cut out, pockets, gussets, bag exteriors, bag linings, strap connectors, straps and zipper tabs! To become sew organised I suggest you printing 1 x copy of the cutting chart out, laminate it and tick off the pieces as you cut them out.

I also like to label my pieces as I cut them, I thought you may find these tabs helpful, feel free to print (and laminate) and use them over and over again.

Chapel St Shoulder Bag Helpful Tabs

 - Print and Laminate -

Joey Pocket	Exterior Body	Interior Body
Gusset	Strap Tabs	Recessed Zipper
Gusset Pieces	Zipper Tab	Strap
Piping	Pocket Piece (Optional)	Be FABulous!

Do you have any other handy tips you use to get organised? Share below I would love to hear about them.

Happy Sewing,

Kylie xx