A Christmas Gift

I made exactly one Christmas gift this year. I was spending Christmas day with one of my sisters and she had told me about looking for a case for her circular needles. So the week before Christmas, I looked for a pattern and found one that looked like it would work. (This one from BumpyCrafts on Etsy.)

I went through my fabrics and pulled out some fat quarters I thought my sister would like and would go together.

They might not meet everyone's definition of "go together" but I liked the common oranges, purples and greens.

Following the pattern, I made several "pages" with pockets for the needles.

I spent a lot of effort to make sure the orange circles lined up across the pages, only to realize later that the large pocket on top makes it considerably less important.

I deliberately rounded the corners of the pages as well. You can never get a truly crisp square corner, so I traced the curve of a spool I had beside the machine to make the curves consistent.

The needles simply slide into the pockets.

I thought about making a place where she could write the needle size on the pocket but didn't do the work to make that happen. As an alternative, she can slide a card with the information into the pocket if she wants.

The pattern has instructions for a snap closure, but I used a button and elastic. (Something I had on hand.)

I stacked two buttons on top of each other. The smaller one underneath makes room for the elastic to nest comfortably under the big button.

Using a button with a shank would have worked too but I didn't have one I liked for this project.

As I sewed on the buttons, I went through a smaller button on the back to keep the stitches from ripping through the fabric and because I thought it was a neater finish than the thread by itself.

Here's a top view where you can see the different pages:

The pattern called for a flannel lining to give more structure, but I used cotton batting scraps that I had on hand.

A finishing detail I added was some quilting on the cover before I assembled the pages.

Just a few highlights around the flower petals.

It was a fun project to make in a day or two. I hope it functions well.

How to Wear an Elephant

So a dear friend gave me two lovely tea towels for my birthday. She knows I have a thing for elephants and who doesn't need new tea towels?

BUT I could not bear to use them as tea towels. They were so cute. I thought, "I could make a shirt out of these." (I have obviously been reading a lot of "re-fashion" blogs! This one's my favourite.)

And that is what I did!

I started by tracing the shoulder slope from a sleeveless shirt that I liked to wear, and sewed the two towels together:

I then traced the side seam and sewed them together at the side leaving a slit at the bottom. Then I tried it on. I could barely get it on. Obviously tracing a knit shirt to a woven fabric has its pitfalls.

So I ripped out the seam, marked the armhole a little deeper and stitched the back and front together with no seam allowance at all.

I just ran the pieces through the machine with their finished edges side by side. I used a wide decorative stitch and it worked out great. It also progresses beautifully into the side slit.

Here is the back:

This towel was a little longer and had a lace trim as well as a ribbon on the one end. Perfect for a hem of a shirt.

The other towel was a little less busy with a larger motif. In other words, it was perfect for the front.

Ya, that's a pretty big smile.
I'm pretty pleased.

It has a simple ribbon edging--no lace.

I know the shirt is not well fitted and sits a little awkwardly, but I love it and it is just what I was imagining. It is comfortable (it is the perfect crispness for cotton--almost like linen) and has an easy fit. (Once I get it on; it barely fits over my head.)

Later I may cut a rounded neck in the back and redo the front. (A rounded neck? A slit tied with ribbon?) But for now I couldn't bear to cut into the towels and liked the idea of just using the two rectangles to make a shirt.

On top of loving the shirt, I serendipitously acquired two skirts recently that are the perfect shade of pinkish orange to go with it. (Before I got the tea towels. Life just works out sometimes considering this is not a colour I normally wear!) And it's a good thing because I have a wedding to go to today and obviously I was going to wear this shirt for its grand debut. It was nice to have something matching and dressy (or dressy enough for a summer afternoon wedding) to go with it.

Here is a shot of my wedding outfit:

After I had it together, I was looking for a necklace to break up the big space of white on the top. I couldn't find anything the right length and "heft" until I tried this knitted necklace I made last time I went to Squam. It was exactly what I was looking for, except I wasn't sure about the colour. Then I noticed that it is the same tone of greige of the ribbon on the bottom of the front and the lace on the hem of the back. Serendipity strikes again!

I also added some turquoise bangles to my wrist to break up all the orange that was going on. But it turns out I didn't really need to because when I got to church, this same friend had part two of my present ready to give me:

A parade of elephants on a bracelet that will match everything! :)

Block 25: Winter Star

This week's block was the Winter Star. Obviously we did not keep the seasons in mind as we scheduled the blocks. It's been warm and gorgeous this week.

The pattern starts by making these units:

There's a left rectangle and a right rectangle. Those are pretty easy to put together with the "flippy corner" method. But then when you sew the rectangles together, you have to match two seams to make nice points. The seams are pressed the same way so the placement is less secure while you're sewing the seam.

All this is to say that I sewed the four units like this together on a wing and a prayer and had one come out good enough to keep. The other three I had to undo half of the seam to fix one of the points. I still considered it a victory to have one of the points work out in each unit. :) With the second sewing, the rest of the points were good (enough). And I could move on.

You may have noticed that I used different orange fabrics. I didn't have enough of any one orange that I liked but I did have plenty of orange scraps from a pumpkin block that's coming up later. So I picked out eight different fabrics and placed them in matching pairs. (Their match is not the piece they're sewn to, but the one kitty-corner--the one that would be their "corner" in square dancing, if that means anything to you. You'll see why this is when the block comes together.)

The rest of the pieces were fairly straight forward and the block went together like this:

This block had more matching than some of the others. Besides the points in the units discussed above, you also had to match the diagonal lines with the red squares. As I recall, that did not require any ripping and re-sewing. Perhaps because I made sure to trim all the units to the right size before sewing them together. (I didn't trim off much at all, but it can make a real difference.)

And here are all the blocks done so far in a virtual layout:

_______________________
Here is Kim's block:

She chose a beautiful piece for the centre of the star. I find it interesting how her block reverses mine--blues and purples where I have oranges and reds and red where I have blue. It draws your eye in a completely different way. Quilting--a never ending adventure! :)

A Cosy Tea Pot

It's that time of year. I'll be posting some projects that are Christmas gifts. If you think I may possibly be making you a gift and you want to be surprised, you should read these later. If you don't mind missing out on the mystery of what a gift may be (while retaining the mystery of whether something is for you), then feel free to read the posts. In general I'm not going to get into too much detail anyway. It is your choice. And considering I just don't make that many gifts, the vast majority of you are perfectly safe reading. (Although I guess you risk disappointment if you think something is for you, and then come January you realize it's not. Life is risk. Sorry.)

No that that is out of the way, this project was a "two-for" -- one for me, one for "giftee." I have wanted to make a new tea cosy for a little while. My old one doesn't match the new kitchen and was part of a set with some oven mitts and little pot handle covers for our cast iron frying pans. The oven mitts have been replaced, and the pot handle covers were functional but obviously singed and not holding up too well any more. So I thought I would make a new cosy and pot handle covers. And I knew someone else who could use some too. Get it done in time for Christmas and I had a nice little present, I thought.

First I had to find some fabric. Not too hard to do!

As soon as I saw the bright blue/multi colour elephant fabric in my stash, I knew that was the one for me! I also discovered an orange shirt in with my fabrics. It was a lovely shirt I found at Goodwill but was too small for Troy. I couldn't resist the colour and thought I could use it as fabric one day. This was the day. For the second set, I found some bright batiks. The green has pink allium blossoms and I paired it with an orange, pink and yellow all over pattern.

The first set was made from the Simplicity pattern 8693, a collection of kitchen appliance covers, place mats, oven mitts, apron, etc. At one time I had matching covers for the toaster, bread maker, coffee maker, plus the oven mitts, tea cosy and my own pot handle covers. (Don't judge me. All these appliances used to be out on display and the house was subject to much dust from Troy working in the basement.) And by now I was down to the tea cosy and sad pot handle covers.

I still had the pattern, so I pulled it out and realized the cosy was way, way too tall. I must have shortened it last time. (A reminder to make notes when you change something. You never remember what you think you'll remember. You often need what you think you'll never need again.) So I pulled out my existing cosy and make mods to match.

Last time I insulated with some quilt batting and a special heat reflective layer. (A thin silverish fabric they sell especially for making your own ironing board cover.) I wasn't too impressed with the job it did, so I didn't think I had to get so high-tech this time. I pulled out a sweater I had felted and used it instead. Here's the sweater:

It didn't felt particularly well and wasn't in a colour that I loved, so I thought it was a good candidate. I cut out pieces for two tea cosies and two "onderzetter" (the Dutch word I use for a trivet or hotpad because it seems more descriptive and sounds good with a Dutch accent) and two pot handle covers.

When I turned over the round piece, the tag centered
there so nicely surprised me. I guess that's what I get
when I center a piece on the center back of the sweater.
(I did cut it off before continuing.)

Once everything was cut out, it was time to layer everything. The onderzetters were easy--simply layer bottom, sweater layer, and top on top of each other.

I basted around the edges because there was no way I would be able to apply the binding with all those layers, especially considering the thickness. Two tips: run the foot so that the entire bottom surface contacts the fabric (don't hang it over the edge), but move your needle to the right so that you sew closer to the edge and don't have to take out these stitches later. Two, loosen the thread tension and lessen the pressure the foot applies. I'm lucky in that my machine will do this with one button that indicates I'm sewing thick layers. Your machine may have that too. Once it's basted, you can trim the edges even so you don't have to worry too much about having everything perfectly lined up. (I was in "get it done" mode, not "do it perfect" mode. It works for projects like this.)

For the tea cosy, I changed the construction a little to avoid having to bind the bottom edges. I sewed the lining and top fabric together along the bottom edge (with right sides together),

and then laid down the sweater layer and flipped up the top layer to cover it:

Then I pinned,

and basted:

Once I had two of those, I trimmed the edges even, and then basted the two piece together along the curved edge:

That is a lot of thickness!

Then it was time for binding. This is where I used the shirt again. It occurred to me that if I cut the sleeve on an angle, I had a ready-made bias tube to cut bias strips from. I tried doing a spiral on the first sleeve. That was not successful. (I think because it's not a straight tube, but is narrower on one end--the cuff.) On the second sleeve I cut one long line from the placket to the shoulder seam and then cut strips on either side for as much fabric as I had. I had to seam some of those pieces together but that's alright. (This also meant I had the existing sleeve seam as part of my binding, but I found that charming. Evidence of upcycling.)

Some of the bias strips. You can see the
sleeve seam in some of the pieces.

Since I needed shorter pieces of binding and wasn't going around one big piece, working with the shorter strips was very manageable.

No pictures, but I sewed one edge of the binding to all the pieces and then pinned for some hand sewing:

That is a pile of hand sewing to be done!

Last time I did the binding all by machine, but I don't really enjoy doing it that way so I did it by hand this time. It takes longer, but I find it too hard to make it look good when I do it by machine, and I've realized I just don't enjoy it at all, so why make myself do it because it's faster? To each her own.

An evening or two of sewing and I had all the pieces done:

The onderzetter came out bigger than I had in mind, but I followed the pattern. It's no big deal either way. I didn't have anything under the tea pot before, but I like the idea of insulating it from below as well. (Hmmm, Troy rubbing off on me, perhaps??)

I really like the thought that my tea pot is wearing a sweater.

Skirting my Baggage (Part 1)

I saw this skirt at Goodwill and loved the fabric, immediately thinking "Purse"! (Ok, so actually my first thought was that my sister would love this fabric, but I pushed that away quickly so I wouldn't be tempted to give it to her since she happened to be shopping with me.)

My first thought was to turn the skirt upside down and just sew the waist shut to  make the bag, but I decided I didn't want the top wider than the bottom.

So I sewed the hem shut. I did no deconstruction, figuring the bulk of the hem would just add strength and structure to the bottom. I just butted the two edges together and zig zagged the seam.

 I didn't bother go right to the ends. It was too bulky to sew over the side seams,

 and I knew that I would be cutting them off anyway.

I wanted to gusset the bottom corners so the bag would have shape to it. I turned the bag inside out and folded it so that the bottom seam and side seam matched up and formed 45 degree angles with the folds:

Then I marked a sewing line. In this case, I marked 1.5" from the point. I made sure it was straight by lining up the bottom seam with the line on the ruler and making sure the point where the ruler met each fold was the same distance from the seam.

 I marked the line on each corner and sewed across them both:

I turned it inside-out to make sure it looked good:

The very observant among you will notice that the side
seam doesn't match up with the center bottom seam.
That is because the side seam wasn't centered. The
skirt designer made the front narrower than the back.
That's because it was Ann Taylor and she makes good
stuff that fits. Because guess what...for most of us, it
takes more fabric to go around our backsides than
across our fronts.

 and then zig zagged it on the inside to reinforce the seam and cut off the excess:

 And here I had my bag:

But it wasn't what I wanted. It looked like a great project bag. But I wanted a purse. So I decided to cut off a lot of the length:

I think I cut off about 6 inches and then did all of the steps explained above again! Seamed the bottom and gusseted the corners.

Then it was time to think about a strap. I've had this belt for a number of years:

I kept it long after I stopped wearing it because I thought it would make a great purse strap. One problem I noticed right away was that I thought it was leather, but it's not! Whatever plastic it's made out of isn't aging very well. But without any other good options, I decided to use it anyway. I kept attaching it simple by just sewing over the tassel ends just below the rings.

The purse itself doesn't really have enough structure to hang well with one strap attached to either end, even though I think the belt looks great.

For this picture, I inserted a rod just inside
the top so that the purse wouldn't sag and gap.

The purse will hang a lot better with a pair of straps attached to the front and back at two points. I just read a recommendation for the lace weight cotton from Knitpicks for weaving and I may have just ordered a yellow, brown and green so I could make some new straps. While I'm waiting for them to get here, I'm hunting down a good weaving pattern to go with all the great geometric shapes on the bag itself.