Lisa Cox has been a fixture in our blog community for many years and she never fails to delight us with beautiful photographs, pretty fabrics, and inspiring projects/tutorials. I was over-the-moon happy when I heard she was writing a book!
It's finally here and I have great pleasure of showing you one of the projects from "A Spoonful of Sugar".
You know, I've been meaning to make a sewing portfolio for ... a really long time. My sister even asked me to make one when her store-bought one was falling apart (back in the 90s or early 2000s ... I wasn't kidding when I said a really long time!). I just never got around to it, I guess. So when I saw Lisa's verison, I simply needed to make it.
I used all "Flower Sugar" fabrics by Lecien. The main fabrics on the cover and the inside are from the newest collection that's coming out later this year. But the handle fabric is about four years old and the binding fabric is from five years ago! That's one of the things I love about Flower Sugar - it mixes so well from year to year.
Oh, and the solid pink is a Lecien Flower Sugar basic.
My first fabric pull for this project was pink for the main fabrics and yellow for contrast. But at the last minute, I remembered my recent apology to yellow and a promise to myself to use it more often, so I did a last minute switcheroo. I love how sunny and happy it looks. Yellow is just cheerful. Period.
A few "full-disclosure" items:
One - the original pattern in the book has a delightful hourglass patchwork cover, but sadly I didn't have enough time so the cover of this one is just something I made up on the fly, it's not in the book.
Two - I'm really naughty about reading instructions carefully. I'm embarrassed about that, but it's true. It's quite ironic too, because if you've ever bought one of my patterns, you may have read the "Please Read Carefully" clause on the first page! LOL! Gotta love karma ... I got caught with this pattern. One of the photos of the finished project shows what I thought was a decorative measuring tape ribbon stitched to the inside. I thought it was a sweet and clever design detail, and I just so happened to have such a thing it my ribbon box. I realized later that it is an actual measuring tape that's supposed to be functional! (I'm such a donut sometimes, honestly.)
Three - I fussy cut a pretty rose for the tab closure and decided to use a magnetic clasp rather than a snap that would hide some of the rose. That's just the way I roll.
I hope you are inspired to make one of these super handy portfolios for yourself, or even for a gift for a sewist you know. If you've never sewn with plastic before, don't be scared! The sewing machine goes through it like butter.
I'm only one of many stops on this book tour. Here's a list of all the blogs you can visit to find out more about Lisa's book that I think belongs in every sewist's library. :)
April 26 – Jodie Carlton from Ric Rac
April 28 – Melissa LeRay from Oh How Sweet
April 29 – Jemima Flendt from Tied With a Ribbon
April 30 – Beverley McCullough from Flamingo Toes
May 2 – Sedef Imer from Down Grapevine Lane
May 3 – Nadra Ridgeway from Ellis and Higgs
May 4 – Amy Morinaka from Chick Chick Sewing
May 5 – Caroline Critchfield from Sew Can She
May 6 – Me ;)
May 7 – Bronwyn Hayes from Red Brolly
May 9 – Anorina Morris from Samelia’s Mum
May 10 – Peta Peace from She Quilts A Lot
May 11 – Faith Essenburg from Sarana Ave
May 12 – Angie Wilson from Gnome Angel
May 13 – Sharon Burgess from Lilabelle Lane Creations
May 14 – Stacy Olson from Stacy Olson
May 16 – Ayda Algin from Cafenohut
May 17 – Jennie Pickett from Clover and Violet
May 18 – Wynn Tan from Zakka Art
May 19 – Lisa Cox from A Spoonful of Sugar
Lisa, thanks a million for inviting me to participate in this book tour. Your work delights and inspires me always. Congratulations on a lovely book. Looking forward to your encore publication! ;) xo k
September 30, 2016 
