Extra Buttons Find a Home

 

Messenger Bags with buttons and beads

I love buttons. Mother had an old fruit cake tin full of buttons. They were from her mother and grandmother. I would spend hours when I sewed most of my own clothes looking through that tin to find four or five buttons which matched. Before Mother would consign a garment to the rag pile she would cut off all the buttons and put them in the tin. I no longer have the tin, and have used a lot of those buttons, but I still collect buttons. At thrift stores I have bought items I didn't like and knew I would never wear just so I could cut off the buttons.

I have gotten to the point where I ask myself why must buttons match. And I still keep extra buttons I particularly like. They are in the same category as pocket rocks and sea shells. I have begun to use them, along with extra beads to make fasteners for purses or folios. 

Debut of Wild Goose Witchery

South Loop Studio Tour

 

With the big art tour canceled a few of us jumped in to do a limited tour. We had the stock to sell, our studios were clean. It seemed a waste to go into another Christmas season with product but no income. We quickly and cheaply produced a brochure, an advertising campaign just using social media and a press release or two. The results were way better than expected.

It inspired me to produce new product designs as well as amass more inventory of the old favorites like bowl cozies. I am currently producing 16 of those (six being for an order). Seems they make excellent Christmas gifts. But I wanted another product equal to the six pocket tote. Ergo the six pocket folio.

Inside view of the six pocket folio

Outside of the six pocket folio

I still need a unique closure of some sort and working on scrap leather and decorative beads. But meantime it is in field testing. I have a second one not completely put together but the original has found a home with me on my computer desk where it holds tasks for the day and goes with into my Explorer to keep things organized. That is effecting closure design. Do not want that too inhibiting. 

Meanwhile fans of Wild Goose Witchery are suggesting other creations to work on. Terry Atkin Rowe sent me the pattern for these storage pods.

Storage pods Love From Beth

Beth has an Etsy shop which sells many innovative patterns. I am at least making three of these from my vrbo next door to hold the disposable "in house slippers" I have ordered to keep my new floors clean during ski season. But whether or not they become a regular on the menu depends on so many things. Like popularity of the product. And that includes with me. I love making the Six Pocket Tote and the various herringbone mini totes. No two totes a like.

My fabric creations are really just painting with fabric so as I stare at the pattern I am looking at a way to personalize it and insert another color feature. Maybe a pocket high inside to put your house and car keys? Input from fans welcome though the less zippers the better.

Wild Goose Wizardry

Hats and Bags and Boxes

Getting started by fits and starts. One thing I knew was no clothing. That has to fit. Too many years in costuming to want to go back to that. Hats and boxes were an immediate hit. And my little accessory bags. Necessity urged me to explore totes. I am getting too old to carry a purse over my shoulder but fabric totes are way lighter.

Accessory bag and tote

Most patterns are for people only wanting to do one bag. But since I wanted to once be an architect adjusting the floor plans seemed very easy. 

And before I knew it I had three or four basic designs like the designer tote, the beach tote and the messenger bag in various sizes. Now I am on to accessories beyond the basic cosmetic bag; sunglass cases, tablet cozy. Currently working on designs for the cellphone plus bag with changeable straps. The plus is pockets for cards and cash and a key. 

Now I am on to getting sew in tags made which of course required a name for the tag. I settled on Wild Goose Witchery or WGW in memory of my father who named our popup camper Wild Goose. The Fabric Arts by Jacqui does seem like a popup. It can be quickly folded up and ready to leave town. Pack the fabric and the sewing machine, and do not forget the camera and it the road.

Fabric boxes

Tablet Cozy

Once More With Feeling

 

My mother and our neighbor, Lois went together to purchase a Singer treadle sewing machine when I started in the first grade. Dad said mother needed something besides my baby brother to occupy her time. From my perspective it seemed moving the machine between the two houses took up the most time. Oddly enough I always felt most at home at which ever house the machine was in.

I also took possession of all the scraps of fabric to craft wardrobes from my bevy of dolls. Frankly until then they seemed to not have much purpose but to adorn my shelves and bed. I was not allowed to use the Singer but would from time to time ask the operator to overstitch some of my hand sewing. Lois was always more amenable to this. She was the one with previous sewing experience. Mother knit and crocheted but Lois knew how to stitch things up and so she was the teacher for my mother, and on the sly me.

By the time I was twelve and no longer living by Lois I was sewing my own clothes on Mother's new Elna. I had also developed the treasured skill of untangling it when it did not live up to her expectations. It may have appeared more complex than the treadle Singer but was elementally the same. I sewed all my school clothes through college and mastered the organizational skill of cutting out all patterns and storing them until I was home during break and sewing like crazy to get them all done before going back to school. At the time you could also rent sewing machines for a month so nothing was lost in leaving home.

I really loved to sew and it didn't always have a lot to do with needing a new outfit. And I could create on other people's dime by volunteering for amateur theatrical companies. Having to earn my living and drifting to the real arts like painting the sewing machine which I eventually owned was relegated to the spare room. But like the computer, pets, and plants it always moved with me. When Covid-19 hit I moved it to a corner of the living room to make masks and scrub caps for my sister and her nursing staff.

Masks and fabric boxes

Then I discovered what I should have known from my costuming days; I was addicted to fabric. And like my romance with painting, the more colorful the better. But I also knew I never wanted to make anything which had to fit ever changing figures again. Well, maybe hats. 

Sun hats

Bags, purses and totes. So many possible creations out of materials you can buy on line.

Messenger Purses from old jeans

Detail on Messenger purse

Small Messenger bag

And so began Fabric Arts by Jacqui. Unlike paintings they do not require wall space which was at a premium with businesses and galleries closed down. And they ship far easier than paintings. And did I mention they do not have to fit or match the couch?