DIY

I just finished the shopping tote I was making for my daughter-in-law to sell at her Fall Festival that I mentioned last week.  Which means I didn’t have time to write up a tutorial explaining the size or those pockets or any of the fun stuff I added.  

But here it is….

Yeah, you’ve seen that fabric before.  And I still have enough for a couple more bags.  I wasn’t planning on using this fabric but I messed up the first tote I made and didn’t want to go to the local fabric store and get more.  “Local” for me is a 35 minute drive.  Add the return trip and the hour I spend browsing–half a day is gone!  And I had a deadline–which, by the way was Saturday and I missed it!  I’ll be making a drive to Tampa to deliver the bag today.  

The outside of the bag has two water bottle pockets and a toggle with button for closure.  I used three fabrics–two coordinating from Premier Prints that I got from Fabric.com and a dark blue denim–plus muslin to line the pockets. 

Here’s the inside of the totel  There’s a key snap, phone pockets and a big pocket for your iPad.  I actually made the phone pockets bigger than usual since I saw the iPhone 6 and that sucker is huge!

While I’m not doing the tutorial for the bag, I thought I might explain “boxed corners”. 

Know what that is?  Boxed corners make the bottom of the bag nice and square. Well, square probably isn’t the right word since this is a rectangle but you probably get the idea.

I used to do a different method and when I first stumbled across “boxed corners” on some anonymous blog, I found it a wee bit confusing.  So I practiced and checked out a lot of different blogs and now it’s really easy-peasy.  And they are very useful for totes, baskets, and even cushions.

So here’s the quick and easy and hopefully not as confusing explanation…..

I have a big rectangle lined with fleece, 41″ x 17″, I brought the two 17″ ends together and using 1/2″ seams sewed the one side and bottom. So now it’s 20″ wide by 17″ tall.

Now it’s time to box the corners.  I’m doing the corner that’s in the upper right of the above picture.  Pick up the fabric and kind of tug that corner apart.  Put the side seam on top of the bottom seam.

The “box” I am making is 8″ wide.  So I measure down four inches (half of the 8″ box) from the tip and then measure from side to side.  Should be 8″.  Make sure that the seams are lined up exactly–very important.  After I do the pinning I peek inside the box to make sure the seams are actually lined up.  

Mark the sewing line.

And sew on the line.  I usually sew it twice for extra durability. 

Then cut that point off.  I zig zag the raw edge.

Do the same for the other side.  And that’s it!

Here’s another look at the shopping tote I made.

 And eventually in one of these posts, I’ll let you know exactly how to figure out all the dimensions you need to calculate to get the exact size that you want your tote to be.  Do you remember when you told your Algebra teacher that you will never use those formulas in real life?  Well, this is an equation that I figured out and it works for all sizes of totes, boxes, and baskets.  And I’m going to add that Algebra was one of my favorite subjects. Seriously.

More to come!

I try to have a new project finished to display every week.  But I have to admit that those Frozen Costumes have kicked my butt.  Every little step seems to take three times as long as it should. 

This is just a tiny example….yesterday morning, I was ready to put this little clasp on Anna’s cape.  The very last absolutely final step.

Please note on the BACK of the card that the clasp was stapled to, it says it’s NOT WASHABLE!  Why would BUTTONS ever be NON WASHABLE!  Seriously people,  What’s next?  I am making clothes here.  And, as far as I know, eventually clothes need to be WASHED!  So now I have to figure out an alternative.  Heavy sigh of exasperation.

Okay, on to the rest of the projects.

Karen, my daughter-in-law in Tampa asked if I’d make a tote for her Fall Festival auction.  She owns and manages two private schools in Tampa, The Reading Corner and TRC Academy.  She’s the principal, creates the curriculum plus teaches at the schools.  And Andy and her have five kids.  

This event is one of their major fund raisers so I immediately said yes.  The event is Oct 17th but I want to hand off the tote and those beautiful Frozen dresses this Saturday.  Which was no problem until I ran into the numerous issues with the costumes.  But I do have the fabric for the tote and should be able to put it together in a few hours.  Guess what I’ll be doing this afternoon?

 One of my next projects will use this bit of fabric left from the Catnap Blanket. 

I’m planning to make my version of this contemporary quilt that I found on Pinterest.  The fabric should be here today!  

I also want to recover some old pillows that have seen better days with an Autumn theme. Then I’ve got to start working on CHRISTMAS! 

As my heart does some extra lub-dubs at the thought of all those projects that are stacking up,

I’m thinking, other than those costumes for my adorable granddaughters, I don’t really HAVE to do anything.

Think it’s time to do some meditation and get my priorities straight!

Namesta 

 

I made a fun blanket last week for a fun friend who was hitting a monumental birthday. (Not a fun one but we made it fun) I call it the Catnap Blanket. 

It’s nap size. Which, according to a post on Pinterest is 40” wide and from 50 to 60” long.  40” is easy.  Most fabric comes in 45” width and after washing, drying then shrinking, and cutting the ½” selvages off plus doing 1/2” seams, you end up with about 40”. 

My friend, let’s call her Yvonne, is a former mermaid and likes all things mermaid and hummingbirds. Which everyone knows so I figured she’d be getting a few for gifts.  What only a few people know is that she really likes wild cat prints and has about a dozen cats at her house.  Just kidding.  Once upon a time there were six and a few of them just happened to follow her granddaughter Austin home after school.  That was her story.  Austin moved away but the cats stayed.

So I decided to make a very cool leopard blanket with faux fur and an appliqué and to make it even funkier, I added pom poms.

Anyhow….

Here’s what I made.

 This is a simple project to make.  Except the applique.  You could leave off the applique and make this in a couple hours.  But then it would just be a nap blanket.  Not a Catnap Blanket

I wanted something soft like minky for the back but minky can’t be ironed. Well I guess you could iron it but you wouldn’t like the result. And you have to iron that applique. So I went with flannel. 

I used fun felt for the appliqué. Wool felt is nicer but can’t be washed and I wanted Yvonne to be able to wash it after Maggie spends the night with her and gets her little dirty paws all over it. 

The front is faux leopard fur. I thought about a nice thick black panther faux fur but, once again, Maggie does occasionally stay at Yvonne’s and we wouldn’t want white JR hair mixed in with that black panther.

I didn’t quilt this because I didn’t want lines in that nice soft faux fur so I didn’t use batting. (Hey we live in Florida, we don’t need three layers for a nap.)

So here’s the shopping list. (I bought all of mine at the local Jo-ann’s because I didn’t have time to order it online.)

1 ¾ yds of 45”wide cream color flannel

1 ¼ yds of 60” wide faux leopard fur 

6 yds of black pom poms

1 yd of 72” black fun felt

2 yds of Heat ‘n Bond Lite

I washed and dried everything except the Heat ‘n Bond Lite.

Cut the selvages off of the flannel, it will now be 41” wide. Cut the piece to be 59” long.

Cut the selvages off of the faux fur, it will now be 59” wide. Cut the piece to be 41” long.

The hardest part was creating the appliqué. I found a couple different panther graphics on Pinterest and melded them together then printed them out.  The easy way to make a graphic bigger is using an overhead projector and just tracing it onto paper.  But who has one of those? 

Then I thought about making it really large on PhotoShop and then just printing out letter size portions and taping it together.  Waste of printer ink which is 100 times more expensive than gasoline.

But then I said to myself, “What kind of an artist am I if I can’t draw this cat figure?”  And then I remembered,  “ Oh wait, I’m not an artist, that’s my sister!”

I did it anyhow.

I used freezer paper. Cut and taped it together to the size I wanted. (I didn’t measure it but  I matched it up to the flannel and left about 5″ on each side.) Folded it into quarters.

Then I printed out the cat graphic to fit on a letter size paper. Folded the graphic page into quarters.

Then I did a rough drawing on the paper side of the freezer paper—trying to match up each quarter of the cat.

When I was I was kind of satisfied, I put the freezer paper on to the fun felt.  Waxy side down, and ironed it.  That will make the freezer paper temporarily stick to the felt.

Before I cut it out, I made sure that the appliqué outline width was 2”. 

Next I pinned the appliqué fabric to the Heat ‘n Bond lite, cut out the shape, then ironed the back side to Heat ‘n Bond lite.  Then I peeled the Heat ‘n Bond lite off of the back and centered the figure on the flannel. 

Now I ran into an unexpected problem.  The Heat ‘n Bond lite is like a glue that melts when pressed and holds the appliqué in place which makes it easy to sew onto the fabric.  But I could not get the stuff to melt onto the felt so it would adhere to the flannel.  I went out to their web site and checked if there was a problem with using felt, but no.  If the fabric was thick, I was supposed to just press a little longer.  Still didn’t work. The website said that I probably used fabric softener when I washed it and that’s why it won’t stick.  Can’t remember if I threw a dryer sheet in there or not but washing it again was out of the question.  I ended up pinning the appliqué to the flannel, flipping it over, and ironing on the flannel side. 

Next I stitched with a regular stitch close to all the appliqué edges.

Basted the pom pom trim ½” from all the sides of the right sides of flannel.

Then I pinned the faux fur and flannel with right sides together and basted on all sides, leaving about a 6” opening for turning.  I turned it right side out, checked that the pom poms and edges were okay, turned wrong sides out again and stitched.  Turned right side out, checked again, then did a hidden hand stitch for the opening.  Done!

The final measurement was 40 x 58, not counting the pom-poms. 

A fun and unique gift!

 Happy BIG birthday Yvonne!