New city tote

I listed another tote today, this time a city version - a bit taller, able to comfortably hold a A4 size folder, school boooks or work papers - whenever you want to take it.

Made from delicious cherry red cotton canvas and decorated with a patch of striped Basque cloth in rainbow colours, interfaced and lined with contrasting dark khaki canvas. Inside are two pockets, a smaller slip pocket for your phone and a larger, zippered one plus a D ring for attaching keys. Many colourful details make this tote really unique and if somebody doesn't grab it quickly (my 15% sale is still going on), I might keep it for myself!

Today I was busy all afternoon, working on a custom order Pippa Grande shoulder bag. I will have some pictures tomorrow...

The challenge

It is time to start participating in European Street team's weekly challenge again - each theme gets picket by the last week's winner and after that we get one week to list theme related items in our Etsy shops.

This week it's all abour stripes, a theme chosen by Estella from staroftheeast.

I chose to make a zipper pouch from the most cheerful of my striped basque canvas collection - a kind of srawberry lemon sorbet with a slice of lime on top. I even found a pink candy striped cotton satin to line the pouch with...

Mia zippered pouch in pink, green and yellow stripes

The challenge winner will be announced on staroftheeast's blog on Monday at the end of the day.

New in my shop

Here she is, another Pupa shoulder bag, made from the delicious Basque cloth I got a couple of weeks ago. I chose this plum purple and rusty red striped combination and paired it with some chocolate brown upholstery canvas and cotton webbing shoulder straps in oatmeal colour.

I have another similar bag a few stitches away from being made but today I ran out of time & daylight to finish it...

These days I'm lucky to be able to make one bag a week - and last week I made a special version of Pupa for a friend who celebrated her 40th birthday with a huge party over the weekend.

Check back soon for more Loddelina bags!

New bag and more to come

I have just listed my new Pupa shoulder bag called Postcard from Paris. This time I used cheerfull striped upholstery canvas in bright fuchsia, spring green and orange and decorated it with a sewn-on "postcard", featuring a small metallic Eiffel Tower charm with rows of embroidered town houses underneath.

The inspiration for the Paris postcard came after I purchased some beads and metallic charms from yukidesigns. I can't wait to use them all so keep your eye on Loddelina shop, there will be some new bags coming soon!

Custom work

I was so thrilled when Alice, my first ever Etsy customer, contacted me for some custom work. It was the new Pupa bag that had caught her eye and she wanted a pouch to match. Some "convo brainstorming" later three more pouches came out, each made of different part of the colourful striped Basque canvas, adorned with trims, lace and embroidery.

Thank you, Alice, it was so much fun working on your custom order!

BEA the boyfriendly tote

My latest listing (and the last for some time - at least until I set up my work space again in the new home) is this large city tote made from black denim and cheerful striped canvas.

It is a Valentine's day handbag with a bit of humour, inspired by this week's European Street Team's challenge. The theme is "Bring your inner child out to play" and HERE are all the entries, in a blog post by enchantedhue, who won last week's challenge.

The boyfriendly tote has a reinforced, zippered "boyfriendly" pocket in the back to store your date's wallet - so he never has to fish it out of the depths of your handbag, trying to avoid the lipstick and the tampax during his search...

The tote has two comfortable shoulder straps, a cotton lining with flowery pattern, an interior pocket and it closes with a magnetic clasp.

Love, Hope and Peace tote

I managed to list a new item today, the LOVE HOPE PEACE tote I have been working on for the past few days.

I got this gorgeous striped linen canvas from my mother in law, who bought it on one of her trips to the Basque country. It is hand woven and very hard to work with as it unravels quickly and has to be securely stiched together - but I think the results are well worth the effort!

I was struggling with naming the shades of brown and grey on this fabric, they are so specific and the pictures never show the true colours. With help from Etsy forum readers (I find forums a great way of getting feedback) I will rewrite the item descriprion a little but will do it tomorrow, it is getting late and I'm off to bed...

A Tote bag for Lily

The small personalized tote bags I've made a while ago for Leoni and Michelle came out quite nicely so I used the same pattern to make one for my daughter.

Lily and I go to toddler gym once a week for an hour of active play, climbing over obstacles, up the ladders, down the slildes... She will use her tote bag to carry her water bottle, her workout socks with non-sliding nubs, a change of nappies and a snack for afterwards. There might even be some room left for her teddy bear.

Totes for kids

When Gaston left his nanny or Tagesmutter, as Germans call it (meaning "daytime mother"), he got some beautiful going away presents from all of her family, like a photo album of the months spent in their home and a handpainted callender, mostly done by his two "daytime sisters", nanny's 3 and 8 -year old daughters, who were very fond of him.

I wanted to give something to the girls to thank them for their love and so I've embroided their names (thanks to my new machine embroidery foot, see previous posts) and sewed it into small tote bags, just large enough to carry around some books, toys or crafting materials. The totes are 30 cm (almost 12 inch) wide and 22 cm (8.5 inch) tall, with a T-shaped bottom seam of 10 cm (4 inch) and handles measuring 35.5 cm (14 inch) from end to end. I have lined this beautiful striped canvas with bright red cotton and I think the black stripe with red embroidery gives it a nice touch.

Now all I need is to find a nice name for it and I can offer some in my shop...