sewing – Page 9

I had fully intended to have a completed project here today. But there was an explosion in my sewing corner. Ummmmm, caused by me when I decided to get one of my trunks of fabric organized. I will not show you a picture. It was ugly.

And then, surrounded by the mess, I started on a Christmas pillow and had a nasty gluing incident.

Piping — This is the pillow I thought I’d tell you about today. The only thing I actually finished was the piping!

So I returned to sorting all those scraps in the trunk. How do sewist arrange all these leftovers?

I’ve been working on several things in my sewing room besides the pillow…..like I just finished a quilt top. Lots more to do before I have a completed quilt, though.

Quilt

Then I got into the organizing mood yesterday. I have no idea why this crazy idea just popped into my head. Just clean out that trunk, you have plenty of time to get that pillow finished. Which caused that spontaneous eruption of bits of material flying around the room and landing helter-skelter.

Part of that mess is my holiday fabrics. I wanted to get new but after getting them all sorted and in a nice neat pile, I’m having a tough time justifying the expense when I already have too much!

Come back next Thursday and I’ll have that pillow finished. And I’m sure it will be very cute and Christmasy. And put you in the holiday mood. And you’ll want to get all of your boxes of decorations out.

If I could just get this chaos under control.

A few weeks ago I mentioned I used Algebra to figure out the dimensions of the bags, totes, baskets, and boxes I design.

Today I’m demonstrating the calculations I use.

But first a little background….

Last month I said I was making a bag for my daughter-in-law’s school’s fall festival auction using these Premier Prints fabrics…

But I really messed up the pocket on the bag plus ran out of the gray thread that I was using. I was working on a very short timeframe so rather than getting the ripper out and then driving to Jo-ann’s which is 35 minutes away to get more thread, I pulled some other Premier Prints fabrics out of my stash and made this bag instead:

Then I put a little tutorial together that explained how I made the boxed corners for the bottom which gives the bag that nice structure.

And my daughter-in-law just texted me that the bag went for $50 at the auction!

I hate leaving anything unfinished before I move onto another project. The orange and gray fabric was sitting there nicely cut out and lined in fleece, it just needed a little TLC and I had already picked up more thread. So I decided to fix the pocket and create a new tote.

And here’s where the calculations come in….

I keep an Excel Spreadsheet on my computer with formulas in it just to figure out–quickly and easily–how to change the sizes on bags, totes, baskets and boxes.

My three variables are height (h), width (w), and depth (d).

I use 1/2″ seams on all my totes, bags, and boxes.

I want this tote to be 12 1/2″ in height (h), 13″ in width (w), and have a 4″ depth (d).

So I need a piece of fabric cut 35″ x 15 1/2″. And how did I know that?

To get the width, the calculation is ((2 * w) + (2 * d) + 1)

The 1 in the above formula is for the 1/2″ seam on the sides of the bag.

The desired width is 13″ and the depth is 4″ so I just fill in the variables.

(2 * 13) + (2 * 4) + 1 = 35

The height formula is (h + (1/2 * d) + 1)

Again, the 1 is for the seams on the top and bottom.

The height is 12 1/2″ and the depth is 4″

(12.5 + (.5 * 4) + 1) = 15.5

One last calculation allows me to figure out how to box the corners.

(d/2)

My depth on this bag is 4″

4/2 = 2″

Let's Calculate! Formulas to figure out size of fabric piece. — 4″ across

Confusing? Not really. It’s easy-peasy. Especially if you put the formulas into Excel. But, I always liked Algebra–except those word problems.

And here’s the inside of the bag.

I don’t have any plans for this bag yet. Perhaps it will go into into my inventory so next time I get a last minute text that I need to make a bag–I’m ahead of the game!

You may also want to check out:

Works in Progress, November

Let’s Calculate!