This is a little one but I actually got a 'little job' done.  I had a lace curtain in my bedroom that was way too long.  For several months I tried to pretend that it was OK because it was artistically draped but the reality of a little kitten meant I had to do something.

This is the point I would show you the before photo. 'Aha' I thought.  I don't need to worry as I can use that photo from when I first painted.  Trouble is, it turns out that photo was prior to me getting the curtain.  So the short version is, I don't have a before.  But I did cut off over 20 cm of material and the amount of material folded over for the new pocket was... hmm, 5+5 for the pocket, 1.5+1.5 for the bit at the top plus another 1cm for the folded mock french seam... 14cm?  ish?

Anyway, there was a lot of excess.  Got that mental picture in your head?

OK.  So here's the after.  I was quietly astonished that it is A) straight and B) not a teeeeennyy bit too long or short in a Murphy's law kind of way.  Woohoo!

It wasn't terribly high tech.  Basically I first measured to see what length I wanted (197 cm).  Then I laid it out in the most open area I had (dinning room floor).   Then I did the above again AFTER the cat didn't think this was the best new toy ever *sigh*
Using pins, I added a pin to mark the bottom of the pocket, top of the pocket (5cm), 1.5 for the top bit x2 (as it will be folded over here), 5cm for the other side of the pocket and 1cm to fold over for the seam.  That was the point that I then very very carefully cut so it wasn't wonky.

After that, I pressed the folds before sewing (very low heat, no steam as I think it was synthetic material).  That made the sewing SO much easier.  Fold the 1cm edge over first (this hides it in the pocket and makes a nice finish) and press.  Then I used the nice ironed line to measure the other fold line- 6.5 cm from the new fold to the old, pin in place then press.

Finally, sew the two seams- I used a zig zag stitch as my two second google research says that's best for lace/shear fabric.  One just above the bottom fold first (the bottom of the pocket) then the other at the top pocket line.  Not having a cat jump on the material can be helpful in this case, as can that cat not deciding that it was time for cuddles...

And of course don't get me started about putting the curtain up and the joy of a certain four legged, fur covered creature deciding to play with the big pile of lace again...  Sill, he's cute so he's easily forgiven.

Interchangeable patches

This is not a full project but more of an idea that you can implement into a project.  A few posts ago I showed off my little embroidery that came with a cute bag kit.

It's OK but it's not 100% my style although the bag is cute.  Now I could make the bag without the embroidery or I could put it on anyway and deal but then I got thinking.  What if I could do both?

This is a bit of a 'make it up as you go along' job with the odd ebay purchase to help.  The first step was from the kit- make up the backing border.  This is pretty basic- two pieces of fabric cut to size (allowing for seam allowances) and then sew around the edges, right sides facing.  Then cut a hole in one side to allow you to turn it inside out to make a little pocket thing (this hole is going to be the back when it's attached to the bag).

This is the point where things take a turn.  Jumping on ebay, I found some very thin little powerful magnets- you can see one of them in the photo above.  They are about 1 mm thick but are strong enough to stick to a metal washer through a layer of material (I checked before sewing them in).

Handsew these into place inside the fabric pocket onto the BACK piece of material.  That way the front stays nice and plain.

This is the BACK view of the pocket- you can tell by the rough slit to gain access and the stitch marks holding those magnets into place

Then all you need to do is sew some metal washers onto the back of whatever pieces you want to add to the patch.

Not the most pretty sewing job but shhh, no one else is going to see this bit!

Put the top patch in place and the magnets will hold it in place nicely

With four magnets (plus I bought an extra just in case that I've just stuck in the pocket with the others to add a bit of oomph) it's more than enough to hold the patch in place- holding it up and giving a good shake doesn't move it so it should?  be enough to keep things in place.  At least for something with low interaction- it probably will not work as well as is on a piece of clothing that rubs and catches on other things.  You could boost the strength in the attachments if you used more magnets instead of washers to the embroidery- just make sure you don't sew the magnets the wrong way so they repel rather than attract!

Feel free to leave a comment if you try it!  I realise that I could also have used velcro, but this way you don't see anything if the embroidery isn't put into place.  Plus maaagneeets...

Really finished crochet bag

I went to see when I posted the finished crochet for a small bag and was slightly shocked that it was way back in 2014!  At the time it was just the outside, but since it had no lining it wasn't terribly usable.

Well I finally sat down with some fabric and tried to fix it.  I used some light blue/purple silk I picked up at a craft show years ago for the inside and some cream cotton for the outside and lining of the pocket.  It took a bit of puzzling and 'um, if I want the seam there to be inside but that seam to be opposite... ?' but I got there in the end.  Even got the pocket in properly and sewn in such that it is big but not going to lose things in the lining.

Sewing on a few small D rings and adding a chain (as I couldn't find something that would work for a strap and internet says that metal chain handles are in anyway) and it's finished.  There are a few little things that I can see that I did wrong but since I'm not an expert sewer or designer, I can live with them.  I might throw a few hidden stitches in to hold the crochet in place a little better but I suspect that it's one of those things that only I see.

Hiding stitching on braids (and a dragon cross stitch)

I have a project that just needed a bit of gold braid sewn on in order to finish it off.  So I stitched it on and sat back to admire THOSE BIG WHITE STITCHES STICKING OUT LIKE A SORE THUMB!

Well OK, it's not that big but it was noticeable.  And there was already a dodgy area where a thread pulled when I sewed it up so I was feeling a bit miffed.  Then it struck me... I just need gold.  Not thread- metallics are often temperamental anyway and besides, I was feeling a little lazy....

So I broke out the gold pens and found the nearest match.  A careful daub on the thread later and...

I mean it is still there if you know where to look, but it is far less in your face.  As a bonus, I also added it to the end of the braid where the white core was showing:

It isn't a perfect match, but it is far less eye catching (and yes, I did go and do the other end after taking this photo!).  A word of warning though- I would be cautious if the object needs to be laundered regularly, you might need to keep the pen handy for touch ups
All that in order to make the final touches of this:
Teresa Wentzler's Delightful Dragon Fob

Those lines in the background are 1cm apart for scale.

 The main change I did with this pattern was to bring out the glow-in-the-dark thread to replace the ecru for the decorative stitches on the back (with the initials) and the background stitching on the dragon.  It is a very subtle effect- I find that the DMC glow in the dark thread is very faint, even when looking at it on the thread bobbin.  But it does glow and I know it glows, which is the main thing as it is stuck as mine now unless I ever met anybody who liked them and who had my initials!

We have swamp dragons!

It's done!  The head only nods, it doesn't turn like I wanted but he's done, stuffed and ready.  I'll probably use a bit of hidden velcro or tape or similar to hold him in place when walking around but I'm resonably pleased.  I won't be posting a full tutorial down the track as a lot involved making it up as I went and fixing the odd bit that went a bit funny, but if you do know a little about sewing and toymaking, I should be posting enough to let you make your own version. That won't be for at least a month so stay tuned!

Four weeks to go... uh oh...

ARRRGGGHHH!  Only four weeks to go before the convention, and my weekends are already too busy (glances guiltily at the unmarked SACs in the corner).  But I really want to finish my dragon (not to mention make the rest of the costume!) so I got stuck in this weekend to try and finish him off.

Here's the side view- as you can tell, I've not put the front legs on yet!

Front legs are on and you can see he has ears and a face

I think I'm on the home stretch now, I just need to make some ears wings (which are basically slightly bigger ears).  He's not got the range of movement that I really wanted (while he can nod well, it's very hard to get him to turn his head side to side).

I also tried to make a 'leather' apron for Lady Sybil to wear but.. well the less said, the better right now. I've not experienced the joy of sewing vinyl in a machine before and while I tried a few tricks, they are not helping right now.  I'm leaning towards ignoring seam details and just hand sew the string/ neck band on and calling it good enough.  And I have no idea about the rest of the costume, too little time, no great ideas.  ARRRGGHH!

Oh, and I've been told that some people (hi Mum!) are having issues with commenting.  Sorry- I've tried playing with the settings available to see if that helps but I would rather not have it anonymous as I end up playing spam filter to poorly worded advertising posts.

Making a swamp dragon- Post 1 of ?

Urgh, the 40C weather has come and I don't like it!  It's also a scarily short period of time before the Australian Discworld Convention- at least if you have not yet done any thing for your costume *eep!*

So I have spent some time today starting my very own puppet swamp dragon.  Early days so far but here is the head with some features.

Don't mind the bit on the bottom left- that's the gap for me to add stuffing and other things

I'm just working on the ears now as I want to have the head as complete as possible as it needs the most attention to the details.  There will be a pattern of sorts at some point in the distant future but for now I am just going to be recording progress!

Works in progress or just finished

No tutorial for this post, just a few things I've knocked together at the half way point of my holidays.  Since I was already in the process of working on something for my car, I tried making a rubbish bin to pop in the card using a great tutorial on Crafster.  While the original tutorial included both a inner, removable bag and an outer fabric liner, I elected to just make a single plastic bag with a tag.  It won't be terribly obvious where I keep my bin anyway.

This was a great, cheap project as the material is from my ill fated sashing for the quilt top shown here.  After making the sashing, laying it out next to the quilt my first thought was.... 'yuck, that doesn't work'.  The trick is going to be working out what to do with the rest of it now! The plastic is a recycling job using the plastic from a set of sheets I bought a while ago.  You can also buy it by the meter at Spotlight or similar but don't bother if you only need a bit like I did!  Although this bin won't be water tight, it will be easily cleanable if a few drops leak out of an empty coffee cup or the like and who puts full drinks into the bin in their car anyway?

I've also been working on a crochet bag on and off as it fits nicely in my day to day bag as a travel project.  I'm about 3/4 of the way through the crochet side of things, then I have to work out if I want to try and dye the motifs (I couldn't find cotton that was a colour I liked so the pale blue is not my first choice) and finding the necessary other bits and pieces.  I probably won't finish the crochet before the end of the holidays but I'll see if I get motivated!

Knitted Bag Part 2

Many moons ago I posted a pattern to make a simple knitted satchel bag. I always intended to show how I finished it off and I'm sorry it's been so long!

These methods could in theory be used for any sort of bag, particularly one of a soft material that will stretch when the bag is filled.  Unfortunately though, the photos I took for the first steps have disappeared.  I blame goblins in the camera deleting them from the SD card.  It is, after all, the only logical explanation...  So apologies, but you will have to cope with me explaining what to do.  I would suggest though you read through the whole thing and sketch out a design to work out quantities of materials.

Materials for bag liner

• Felt- amount will depend on what you bag size is.
• Plastic canvas (the hole size doesn't matter- I used it because it is a lightweight, flexible material that can be cut easily)
• Ribbon (a little narrower than the thickness of your bag)
• D rings
• Sewing thread and either a sewing machine or needles to hand sew

Method

Note, the sizes I give throughout are only for an example bag so you can see what I mean with dimensions.  You will want to measure your own bag and work out sizes based on what you want!

The first step is to cut two pieces of plastic canvas to about 1cm smaller than the interior of your bag.  For example, if your bag is 27 x 15cm , you want your canvas to be 26 x 14 cm.  Then cut four pieces of felt to the exact size of your bag interior (27 x 15cm in the example I'm using).

Centre the plastic canvas on one piece of felt and lay a second piece on top.  Sew around all four sides to secure the canvas inside.  This will give your bag its structure.  Do the same for the other side.

Now for the design part.  The exact style of the bag liner is entirely up to you.  At the most basic level, what you are aiming for is to make a simple box, open on one end.  But you can customise it however you like.  In the picture below, you can see that I've added some pockets (sew these onto the felt before you sew the piece to the plastic canvas if you want to machine sew things together).  I've also added a large piece of felt to act as a large pocket.  Just remember that if you are making a pocket for something thick (pen etc) that you take that into account.  For the pen holders for instance, I sewed one side, then moved the felt so there was extra material on the pocket side to have room for the pen.  It's hard to explain, but basically just don't have both pieces of felt flat against each other or your pocket will only be able to hold thin objects.

When you have a idea of what you want, you'll need two small rectangles to act as the sides of the bag (the same height as the bag and however wide you want the bag to be.  15 x 5cm in my example.  Another piece of felt will be the base and be the length of the bag by the width.  27 cm x 5cm.

Sew all the sides together to make the liner (see the picture above).

Now to put it into the bag itself.  There are two options.  You could just place it inside the bag and secure it with a few stitches if you felt like it.  But I felt that this would place all the weight against the bottom of the bag when filled, and the stitching would stretch out. Instead, I've done something a little different.

Take the ribbon and wrap in around the outside of your liner.  What this is going to do is support the weight of the contents.  You can secure the ribbon with a few stitches at each seam if you wish but I didn't bother.

Now place the liner into the knitted bag and bring the ribbon up to each side.  Thread the ribbon through the D ring and stitch securely.  All the weight of the bag is now going to be carried by the ribbon into the D ring (and strap/handle) directly.  This means, no stretchy bag!  I also stitched (seperately) the sides of the knitted bag to the ribbon to hold things together.

Now all you have to do is the finishing touches.  I made a handle from left over yarn using a lucet, but the options are endless.  I also stitched the knitted bag to the liner all around to prevent the knitted edges from curling away and looking messy.

The finished bag

Hope you find this useful. Do let me know if you try this.  Comments make me happy :D

Little things during the holidays

Some of these have not been worth a full post so here's a round-up of the crafty things I've done over the last few months.

First some polymer clay toadstools.  This was a Pinterest inspiration and looked simple enough that my basic skills could manage.  Only suggestion I'd make if you wanted to DIY is to make the stalks around a toothpick or skewer to make it a bit easier to stick them into the pot.  This would not be as vital if they didn't apparently scream 'attack me!' to my neighbours cat who has shuffled them around and played with them as soon as I added them.  All I can say is that it's a good thing my neighbour's cat is cute and friendly!

Next is a pretty silver bracelet I got the kit for from the last Melbourne Craft Fair.  I love the three dimensional nature of it!

This little bag was another kit- it has a cool little pinch to open bendy clasp and the bag fabric is pretty (another Craft Fair purchase- the website for the shop is here).

And since one of my unfinished holiday projects was this post, here's another from these holidays.

It is a secret compartment keyring by Silkstone Designs.  It's yet another kit project that I bought on the last holiday that was on (camping down at Inverloch).  Doesn't everyone buy craft stuff as souvenirs?  Not that it was all smooth sailing on this one.  Can you spot the mistake in the example below?

I'd plug this one but the website listed on the back of the instructions is dead and I couldn't find any online.  The only thing I can suggest is that if you are in the area, swing by Coal Creek Historic Park and check out the obligatory little shop.  If you are in the area you should swing by anyway- I like old parks like that :D

Oh, and as always, I don't get kickbacks from anyone.  If I've linked to something it's because I bought it and liked it.  Not that I would be against plugging something for a fee- it's just the opportunity has never come up! Now it's back to the pile of half done stuff...

Into the Labyrinth Bag Part 2

Hooray for school holidays!  It means I can finally get some of the jobs that have been sitting on the back-burner done!

Labyrinth bag blocking

Today's post is about how I finished off my 'Into the Labyrinth' bag.  In the previous post I had the bag finished but needing a liner so the wool that was carried on the back of the knitting would not tangle with every item put into the bag.

Step one was to block it so it would hold it's shape.  This was easy to do- lightly wet your bag (the wetter it is, the longer to dry so you ideally want it just damp- or do this on a stinking hot day).  Then put it into the final shape.  I achieved this by rolling up a towel until it was the desired internal diameter and placed it inside.  If sitting it upright like I did to allow it to dry evenly, then safety pins can be useful to hold the top up.

Then to work on the liner. I wanted cheap and easy so I went with pieces of felt. They are available most commonly in A4 sizes so I went with that.  However, if you don't want to sew multiple seams to get the diameter right then fabric shops will have wider widths you can buy by the metre.  For my bag I went with two black pieces for the side and a piece of light green for the base, partly because contrast is pretty and it matches the front but mostly because I hate having to hunt for a dark object in a dark bag with dark lining.  The green piece was cut to be about 1cm smaller than the size of the leather base on the bag itself.

Next sew the sides together and check they fit around your base.  Tiny confession here- technically my sides were about 3cm too short to fit around my base. But felt is forgiving and by the time it was put into a bag I figured it wouldn't matter.  Fit the base around the sides and use safety pins to hold in place and to ensure your sewing will be even.  Then just stitch the base on.  You can see mine below with the cool matching green thread.

Once done, place into your bag and check for fit.  My sides were about 2cm too long.  You could cut the excess off or you can fold over and hold in place.  I chose the latter.

You can also see the cunning method I used to hold the liner to the bag- eyelets.  Adding them is fairly simple.  You usually get a tool to hold the two parts together and you need a big hammer.  Going through multiple layers of felt can result in a poor fit of your eyelet (ask me how I know!)  so I suggest punching a hole through the felt if you have a hole punch.  I didn't have one so I will probably have to go back and redo a couple at some point *sigh*

When finished thread a cord through the eyelets.  I used satiny cord- little tip.  If using something like that the ends will LOVE to fray or unravel.  CAREFULLY IN A WELL VENTILATED AREA use a lighter to set the ends on fire.  The synthetic material will melt and hold the end together.  Be sure to let it cool before touching it (or letting it touch anything else).

That's pretty much it.  One Labyrinth bag, suitable for holding knitting project, lovely jewels, crystal balls, or supplies for 13 hours travelling through a Labyrinth.

Dressmaking for Barbie

Like, I assume, a large proportion of girls who have grown up since the 60s, I had several Barbie dolls (and probably a few fashion-dolls-that-just-happened-to-be-the-same-size-as Barbie).  And while my sister and I had lots of clothes to dress them in (many of which were clothes from my Mum's childhood), I never sewed any myself.  So why now?  Is it a reaction to the stress of uni causing me to regress to childhood?  Well no, much as my assignments (two and a half to go!) have driven me up the wall or into procrastination crafting, the incentive for today's post topic was the upcoming 3rd birthday of my niece.

As a poor uni student, I didn't see the point of spending a lot of money since she has a ton of doting parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles.  Besides, that's good craft money and she's three- it isn't like she understands the difference at this point anyway.  But she loves playing with dolls and with Barbie so I thought I'd try crafting something for a Barbie doll for the first time.  A quick search on google for a pattern or two surprisingly did not turn up as many as I thought.  But the pattern I choose for the first attempt was a lovely simple pattern I got from the Janel was here blog.  Very simple strapless bodice pattern and then you just wing it for the skirt.

Sorry for the photo, afternoon lighting sucks and my prime photo spots are all dark colours which makes the brown dress camouflage in perfectly.  The dress was made using offcuts from a skirt I made for myself a few months ago.  Around the bodice is a row of french knots in gold (note to self, given the vagarities of your ability to do french knots, particularly when doing it in already sewn material, next time just use beads or some other stitch!).  The back is held in place using a velcro fastener (much easier for little fingers to manage than press studs at this point).  All in all, very happy with the pattern (the darts for the shaping are perfect) and I will certainly use the bodice pattern again if I make my niece any more doll clothes.  Christmas is coming, after all...

For now, I need to get off the computer to go wrap up a certain birthday present she's also getting the miniature flower shop that featured in a earlier blog post and a Barbie doll.  This information is safe to post as A) no one in my family knows of my blog (that I know of) and B) my niece can't read :D

First experiments with free motion quilting

Since I bought a new sewing machine, I've been wanting to find more sewing projects to get my money's worth out of it!  One thing I've always admired but never really gotten into before is quilting.  The only quilt I've made has been a small 1m square art quilt (that I really should do a post about later).  It was made on my old (evil) sewing machine and was quilted using straight lines and a walking foot.

But one of the things I have discovered in my internet wander in search of quilt information was the idea of free motion quilting.  In particular, the awesome Free Motion Quilting Project which has hundreds of different ideas for quilting.  So I bought myself a free motion foot and sat down today for the first quick play.  Below are attempts #1 and 2:  an attempt at Bamboo and Stomach Lining from the Free Motion Quilting Project's large repertoire.

Hmm, I think I'm going to need to do a little practice before sitting down to try a quilt!  Also, trying to free motion on material with a bit of stretch in it (offcuts from a skirt I made last week) adds an extra challenge!

Bag organiser finished!

Or if you prefer, the alternate title: It's not a mistake, it's a feature...

The organiser consists of a large inside pocket and then three smaller pockets on each side at the bottom for smaller things.  I was planning on having both black sides facing out but I wasn't paying a lot of attention when adding the three pockets.  After a careful consideration of my options (unpick a lot of stitching or make do) I decided that it was a design feature cleverly planned to make it clear which side is which when digging in the bottom of the bag.  It also lets you see the contrast fabric.  See? I did it just for you, blog readers!

There is a truth that you should never examine anything you make closely- you will always see things that are wrong.  Not being much of a seamstress, there are many flaws. In hindsight, using heavy interfacing on the large pocket did make things very awkward when sewing- particularly at the end when I was adding the bias tape around the bottom corner (there was lots of layers of fabric, seam and interfacing at the two bottom corners).  Some of the stitching would definitely not give me marks from my old textiles teacher!

I think the idea of an organiser is a great one and could be easily adapted to any size bag.  It's great if you have a big cavernous bag that things disappear to the bottom of on a regular basis.  And if you like to swap bags on a regular basis it gives you a simple way to swap stuff from one bag to another fast. I think I'll try designing my own down the track once I get a better feel as to what I need in my great cavernous bag of mystery on a regular basis (I'm thinking that small pockets for each of my gadgets might be good- phone, ipod, ebook plus other general essentials).

Playing with a new toy

Yesterday I succumbed to temptation and bought a new sewing machine.  My old one (which I had inherited) always drove me mental trying to get to work and after trying to use it on the weekend and finding I could not even sew a straight line, I cracked.

My new toy is a Brother NS50 for those interested- lots of nice features I've never had on a machine before and a large number of different stitches.  Now the stitches were not originally on my shopping list, but after eventually deciding on this machine for other reasons, I'm not going to complain about it.

So I sat down to use it yesterday.  I'm making a bag organiser- partly because I've a big handbag that is essentially a giant tote bag with no internal pockets, and partly because I'm not terribly experienced in sewing, so if the results are less than professional, no one but me will ever see it!  I'm using McCall's pattern M4851 which is a pattern for two virtually identical tote bags and an organiser pocket- we'll see if I decide to make a tote bag sometime down the track.

Step one is to create two large flat pieces to form the sides of the largest pocket.  The pattern says to use straight stitching vertically down the sides to join the two pieces of fabric (and interfacing inside to stiffen the side).  But since the pattern referred to this as 'decorative stitching' and since I had just unboxed my nice new toy, my first thought was 'Oooh!  Excuse to use fancy stitches to test machine!'  And my second thought (no doubt assisted by the fact I had 'The Princess Bride' on while I worked, was 'Oooh!  My machine has letters.  I could put quotes on the sides as well!

So here are the two sides with decorative stitching.  Virtual geeky cookie to anyone who can identify all the geek references.  I'll post more as the work progresses.