Nota bene: TFQ: if you have not opened all of your gifts, stop reading now!!! Go open them and come back.
Yes, my good friend TFQ is 39 again today…with some years experience. 😉
In addition to the gifts I have been collecting for her, I also made her a couple of things. Did you guess journal cover and pencil roll? I am so predictable, I know.
Journal Cover
The black and white fabrics, from Lonni Rossi‘s Paint Box collection, are the fabrics I used to make Marilyn’s Multi-tasker while I was visiting TFQ in November. She admired those fabrics and that stuck in my mind.
TFQ is an excellent colorist. She can put fabrics together in the most amazing ways. I strive to be like her, which requires cultivating more patience and determination in my quiltmaking process. If I want to make something for her, I feel like I need to really do an excellent job of picking colors, thus the clue that she liked these fabrics gave me confidence.
Using only those black and white fabrics together was too depressing, especially in winter. I had to add the dots. They cheered it up quite a bit.
Journal Cover- front
One of the things I like about some of the prints in the this [relatively] new Lonni Rossi line is the screen printed look. Note the black circle on the white fabric. It really looks like a screen print when you see it up close. It doesn’t have that icky, plasticy sticker feel, though, you find with some screen printed-like fabric.
Journal Cover - back
The small rows of lines under the circle also have that screen printed look. It is much more subtle in the white/grey on black colorway.
I didn’t want a repeat of the size problem I had with my mom’s journal cover, so I ripped out the bottom stitching three times until I was satisfied with the fit. I don’t know if I got it to fit perfectly, but I didn’t have to cut the journal’s plastic cover to get the journal cover on it, so I was satisfied.
Journal Cover - piecing
Lately, when I have started a journal cover I just start piecing until I get a piece big enough for the outside. I use this type of piecing for a warm-up or when I only have a few minutes to sew or when I need a little bit of thinking time. Usually I want to achieve a certain look. With my blue journal cover, I wanted to use a variety of blue fabrics because I liked them and wanted to see them all the time. I also wanted a calming effect.
In this case, I only had scraps of the Lonni Rossi fabrics left and needed to make the best use of them. I wanted it to have a somewhat cohesive design and, finally, but most importantly I wanted it to appeal to TFQ.
Pencil roll - closed
I have started to think of pencil rolls and journal covers as sets. I also love this pencil roll pattern so much that I am looking for excuses to make it. Of course, time is the issue on that front.
Pencil roll - open
This is a rather large pencil roll – 18 slots, I think. When I use my pencil roll, I prefer to put pens in every other slot rather than each slot. I find it easier to get the pens out.
For the moment, this is the last gift to which I have committed to make. When I say committed I mean to myself. There is one I am thinking about making, but I need to finish the FOTY 2009 blocks first. Look for a post on that project later this week.
This is the journal cover I made for my mom for Christmas. It goes with the pencil roll and bag I also made. She really liked it, which is nice.
I might make it a little bigger for her, because the journal didn’t quite fit. I have to ask her about that. I don’t know if she will use up the journal the way I do, so it may not be necessary.
I am working on another journal now and I ripped it out twice to make sure it fit properly.
This is a denim bag I made out of of an old pair of jeans for my stepdad, The Big Guy. I made one of these in high school that I carried around and embellished. I am not really sure what happened to that bag or whether there are any photos of it anywhere. I stitched around the edges of the pockets with embroidery floss and embroidered flowers on my version.
I wanted to do something like that on this bag, but really ran out of time. I had a lot of gifts to make, as you know.
The shoulder strap is pretty wide. I made it that wide because of the seams and because I thought it might be a little more comfortable for him to carry. The straps will be a good opportunity for him to embellish.
I really had a hard time sewing through the denim and all of the layers in various places. The 9K did NOT like the denim. As a result, I couldn’t do as much topstitching as I normally do on bags. Both of the issues I ran into allowed me to go with the flow, though, and I billed it as a joint work in progress.
The Big Guy is VERY creative. He works in various media including leather. He has made leather slippers before, so I thought the bag might be a good canvas for him to stitch on. He loved the idea! I am looking forward to seeing what he comes up with.
I am pleased [with myself] to say that 2010 started out with a sewing bang. I finished the bag for my aunt (she never reads this blog as far as I know, so I don’t feel bad about posting it even though I haven’t sent it off yet).
Jeri’s Bag
I started this bag way back in December 2009, but with one thing and another wasn’t able to finish it until Friday. I feel bad, because it was intended to be a Christmas gift. My aunt really loves purple, so I made this bag in purple for her. In terms of fabric selection I had a couple of things I wanted to accomplish and some limitations to deal with. First, I was limited in my fabric choices because of the size of the pieces of fabrics I had available. For a long time I have purchased half yards and FQs. These are fine for quilting, but I am finding that they are barely adequate for bag making. I intend to try the Mini-Multi (AMH’s pattern for the Multi-tasker tote that I resized)This limitation directed me to more plummy colored purples.
Also, I wanted to try a bag where I didn’t use fabrics with a ton of contrast. I think Marilyn’s Multi-tasker was pretty successful. That one wasn’t boring to make. Thus, I wanted to try another interesting combination of fabrics that were also not wacky looking and my aunt wouldn’t feel bad about carrying around.
I am pretty happy with the way this bag turned out. It looks nice and does not look wacky. I made the pockets and straps at the beginning of the process even though AMH says to make the straps at the end of the process, right before I am supposed to attach them. I think my process worked better for me, because once I got past the tedious, fiddly parts, I was able to put the bag together relatively quickly. I like to get all the fiddly parts done, so I can move through the process quickly as I tend to get bored if I have to keep going back to the fiddly bits periodically throughout the process.
Jeri’s Bag – detail 1
I think the combination of fabrics is a good one. The colors work well together and there is some interest in the combination. They are all older fabrics, so an added bonus is that I delved into the fabric closet and used some stuff that has been hanging around. I think Auntie would have preferred less plummy and more purply colors, but the bag is what it is.
Jeri’s Bag – detail 2
AMH does not make her pockets fully lined. Another change that I have made is that I make them fully lined [by cutting a piece of fabric, folding it in half (right sides together), sewing around, turning] before sewing them on to the bag. I think this method makes a nicer finished product and doesn’t take much longer. I want to remember next time to add a label to the pocket. It seems like a good place to include a label.
Jeri’s Bag – detail 3
I am still liking the cell phone pocket, which I learned to make from the Sweet Harmony bag, so I added one to this bag as well.
Cloth Napkins
I have bought some of the fruit and vegetable fabrics, that seem to be popular, recently. I had a joint project with my mom in mind, but decided I liked certain ones too much to give away, thus I made napkins. Perhaps I am making a series after taking a look at the raspberry napkin I made in 2009? The cake fabric and the pots and pans fabric is from my collection of fabric for backs. Those pieces are large, so I can make FQ napkins with no problem and no piecing. In general, I don’t really like making napkins. Turning the pieces and getting the seam crisp are really frustrating and I am generally not successful at it. I tried a couple of different methods this time and am progressing. I do enjoy using the new napkins! I also enjoy looking at the cake fabric. My sister wants a set, but I don’t know if I have it in me to make a SET. Perhaps I can make one a month for her, then give her a set of 12 for Christmas? We’ll see.
In a way I wanted to set a trend for 2010 of major league sewing. In 2010 I want to make major progress in the sewing-quiltmaking-bag making department. I think I did well last year. Still, I want to do better. Not necessarily in terms of numbers of projects completed, but improvement in my processes. Oh, and I would like to see major improvement in my organizational systems. I am not committing to anything on that front, but would like to see it. We’ll see about that.
We give small and/or handmade family gifts to DH’s siblings (5 of them) and his cousins (5 on one side, 1 on the other side) plus small gifts to a few hangers-on who attend our Christmas Eve celebration. This year DH and I made cardholders. Just so you don’t have to do the math, I made about 14 cardholders.
Original Card Holder
DH’s mom has a cardholder in the shape of a Santa (oddly shaped, but Santa nonetheless) that I have long admired. She bought it from a door to door salesman in the 1950s or 1960s. She may have told me the name of the company, but I don’t remember. I have wanted to replicate it for a long time and decided that this year would be the year of the cardholders. I also quickly decided that I was not going to make the cardholders in the shape of a Santa.
Original Card Holder - detail
I searched the web to get some ideas and found very few ideas online. Apparently, this is not a popular gift. I did find a few, but no free patterns that I liked.
What I find were ideas for shapes. I decided that a long rectangle with a pointy bottom would be easiest to sew and look the best.
DH and I sat down with the measurements of felt (72″ wide) and an idea of what I could sew in a reasonable amount of time. He did most of the heavy math lifting while I stuck to the practicalities of sewing.
Once we had the dimensions down I set about cutting and figuring out the sewing process as I wanted to do as much assembly line sewing as I could.
Testing Ribbon Trims
I have a can full of various odds and ends of ribbon. I use that ribbon when I make gift bags. Some of the saved ribbon is too short for gift bags so I got it out to test trimming the pockets. Above is some really interesting French gold ribbon that I sewed on to a pocket. I liked it, but thought it was a bit wide.
I have several rolls of 1/4″ ribbon in red and green that I got when I cleaned out my Aunt’s craft room after she died. Since I have a lot of it, I used quite a bit to trim various pockets, even though I thought it was a bit thin. The best size turned out to be 7/8″ ribbon, which DH got when I sent him to the store to get some silver ribbon.
Assembly Line Pocket Trimming
I got the assembly line figured out eventually. Above it looks like I am just putting a bunch of pockets on a line of ribbon and sewing. Actually, I cut the pieces of ribbon, wrapped them around the pockets. This enabled me to sew through two layers of ribbon and one layer of felt to anchor the ribbon and keep it from fraying a bit. As soon as I was done sewing one, I would put the next pocket very close to the one exiting the presser foot and keep sewing.
Figuring out color schemes
You know my rule is to “make visual decisions visually”, so we laid out all the cut pieces and rearranged them until we were happy with the color combinations. After this step, I got down to being serious about trimming the pockets.
Measuring pockets
Once all of the pockets were trimmed, I sewed the sleeve and then pinned them to the back, measuring down from the sleeve’s seam line (above).
Cardholder: pinned & ready to sew
The pockets required more thinking to sew on. I ended up pinning as many as I had cut and trimmed and then sewing like colors on. First I sewed all the red pockets. That left some cardholders with white and green pockets only trimmed and pinned. Once I completed all the red pockets, I changed thread and worked on green, then white. This method prevented me from having to change thread (to match a pocket color) every 5 minutes.
One evening I was home alone, so I took all the cardholders down to the TV and embellished them with buttons, sequins and beads. It was nice to do a little handwork and get away from the machine for a couple of hours. I also think it gave them a bit of a one-of-a-kind look.
Little did I know that DH was surfing the web and had embellishment ideas of his own! He found patterns/templates for some stars, ornaments, mittens and holly. Again, I hauled all of the cardholders downstairs and we figured out what would go where.
Holly Embellishment
It was very clear that the red buttons I sewed on a whim would make excellent holly berries. I would have liked to put some kind of spine or shading on the holly leaves, but ran out of time to figure that element out. These are some of the cardholders we made.
First Completed Cardholder
This is the first completed cardholder. We gave it to our friends, Eric and Yar, when we went to their Christmas party at the beginning of the month. They also invite us over for dinner every year and we have yet to reciprocate. Now that the dining room is painted, I think the time has come.
This was is more plain than the later versions. I should call it subdued!
Hanger detail
We are using some Lucite rods, that didn’t work as quilt hangers, to hang the cardholders. They look nice, were easy to cut, did not need finishing other than a bit of sanding and work very well.
2 Mittens & a Star2 Stars, Mittens & Holly
I had to pay attention to what color embellishments went on which color of pocket or background. If I didn’t, the embellishments wouldn’t show up. This war particularly tricky for the mittens, because of the white cuff. I tried some other colors, but they didn’t look right. This is why the embellishments ended up on the two middle pockets on the card holder on the right, above.
Holly & Gold Ribbon
The gold ribbon in the card holder on the right, above, had a papery feeling. I didn’t like the feel of it after I put it on. I had to chalk it up to experience, though, as those were some of the first pockets I embellished and was still in the learning process.
I also made one with a winter theme, rather than red and green, for a family that celebrates both Christmas and Hannukah.
Winter theme with Holly
Here are the two winter themed card holders I made with one of the holly versions. I had fun embellishing the blue and white with silver beads, sequins and pearls.
Winter beading - large detail
The beading does help keep the embellishments on as well.
Winter theme - detail, small
I thought the turquoise snowflake added a bit of shading or interest to the Winter card holders.
One of the good things about making many of a project is that you know how to make it well. I would say that I am a master card holder maker now, if there is such a thing!
Here is the journal cover I made for Julie. It is a companion to the pencil roll I made for her birthday. This is actually the third journal cover I have made and this one went together the fastest and looks the best. My only problem was putting it together backwards, so the tree I wanted on the front ended up on the back.
Julie's Journal Cover - front
No matter. I tried to think of it as a design challenge after my initial disappointment. I fussy cut a tree out of the small piece of fabric I had and raw edge appliqued it to the front. I thought that Julie could handle the raw edge stitching.
Julie's Journal Cover - in process
The main green fabric is an old Marrimeko print, as I may have mentioned. The directions I used are a combination of the pattern from Allpeoplequilt.com, the directions on the Exuberent color site (they don’t print well) and my own trial and error and notes from previous journal covers. I use the Miquelrius journals, so those are the journals I bought and for which I made covers. Hope all of the recipients like them!
I love my sister dearly, but she is hard to shop for. She buys what she wants, so I always have to think early and creatively. I found this Basic Grey fabric and just knew I had to use it for a gift for sissy. She is an invertate scrapbooker and LOVES Basic Grey paper. It started the whole thought process, actually.
Sweet Harmony - Full
On my week away, TFQ tempted me with doing a joint Sweet Harmony Bag by Amy Butler. My idea was that we would each make one at the same time. However, it turned out that we worked together on one bag.
This is probably the last time I will make an Amy Butler pattern. I purposefully did not write the review right away, because I wanted to give the shock time to wear off and give the piece a fair hearing.
While the finished product turned out really well, the directions were overly complicated and the pattern promoted extreme wastefulness.
Here are some tips and things to be aware of when making this pattern:
Trace the pattern pieces on tracing paper and keep the originals all together on the pattern sheets.
Trace the pattern pieces again, but smaller (approximately 3/4″ will work) for the fusible fleece and interfacing pieces. If you don’t do this, the pattern will tell you to cut them full size and then trim them down. Thus, this direction promoted a lot of waste in the interfacing, Peltex and fusible fleece.
Make a separate pattern piece for the inside pocket as well. This is a combined piece and it is just too confusing not to have a separate pattern piece.
Make a chart (Excel or the Google Docs Spreadsheet feature would work) of the pattern pattern pieces you will need and which fibers you need to cut them out of. I didn’t know to do this and ended up laying all the cut pieces out and reading the list over and over while counting pieces.
The designers seem to have a problem with naming pattern pieces consistently. In Step 4G, they ask you to do something to a Lining Panel. This was the first time I had ever heard of this piece.
This pattern and the directions don’t always make it clear which layer (fleece & interfacing or interfacing only) the designer wants you to work with.
Sweet Harmony Org System
Directions should have included a rotary kit (cutter, mat, ruler). The instructions do not include these tools, but they make the process much easier. I understand that the pattern isn’t necessarily targeted at quiltmakers, however I think many sewists now have rotary cutting kits as part of their tool arsenal. If you only sew garments and accessories (e.g. no quilts) and do not have a rotary cutting kit, I think you should go and buy one. What do you think?
Use tailor tacks to mark dots.
Handbag pattern includes a 20″ zipper in the list of supplies needed. Then the designer wants you to modify this zipper to make it about 8″ shorter. I don’t know about you, but I don’t know how to modify a zipper. I also did not want to modify a zipper. I barely know how to put in a zipper. TFQ who has LOTS of garment sewing experience and she didn’t know how to modify a zipper with confidence either. This is another bit of waste. I ended up omitting the zipper (it’s for a an inside pocket), but I would recommend buying a 12″ zipper and not modifying anything. The pattern also gives the pattern pieces for a tote bag, which I did not make, and I believe that the 20″ zipper would work with the tote bag. I think they were trying to save space on the pattern by not listing two supplies.
The marks for the magnetic snaps are below and to the left of where they actually should go.
Sewing piping to outside pocket
The pattern asks you to make much more piping than you actually need. You will really only need about 25″.
Finally, there are not enough pictures, despite the price of the pattern, so I would recommend giving yourself plenty of time and using nice fabric. You may never make it again, so you want to like it!
I think that making all the tote bags I have made really helped in understanding the pattern and how to follow the directions. The final product is really nice and looks very professional. I als learned how to make a pocket that has a little tuck so larger things will fit and you can actually pull it out.
Remember this tote? I wrote about in a post way back in March. I ended up giving it to my mom so I get to visit with it periodically as she brings it over when she comes to visit with the Child.
The financial situation has not improved much, but my mom said in no uncertain terms that we were going to exchange gifts. We didn’t last year and she said it was really hard, so I decided to work on making some her, and a few others, some gifts.
I am not always a fan of giving homemade gifts, because I don’t want to give people things that have that homemade dorky look. I also like giving people things they will actually use and I don’t know yet know how to make iPhones or a Wii.
I have been working REALLY hard at making my fiber stuff look professional. It will never look like it was made in a factory, which I don’t want either. I press really well, poke the corners carefully and am careful about stitching, so I think they look good. In any case, I am not embarrassed to give things I make away.
Mom's Pencil Roll
I decided to make my mom a pencil roll since I thought she would use it and I had a lot of fun making Julie’s during my week away. Kathy‘s patterns (well, at least this one) are fabulous. As I mentioned in a previous post, they are very well written and easy to understand.
Mom's Pencil Roll Open
The most time consuming bit of this project was cutting the strips. I was kind of at a loss on fabric choices until I found the flowered fabric and the turquoise, both of which I used on the tote I made for her. Perfect! She’ll have a little set!
Stitching all the parts together after layering and turning them is also fairly time consuming. I do that topstitching very slowly after marking the lines on the pocket with a white pencil.
For the inside, Kathy says to use flannel, which I didn’t have, so I used batting and it was a little bit thick o sew through. I can’t say I would absolutely not use batting again, but it wouldn’t be my first choice. If I make another one, I’ll try a couple of layers of interfacng, though I suspect that would make the piece too stiff. We’ll see what I have in the fabric closet that might work.
Strips sewn for Pencil Roll #2
Above is a picture of how the strips look sewn together before the whole thing is layered together. One thing I needed to remind myself about was to turn the strips with a strong motif around so it would show after the pocket was applied. I didn’t choose fabrics that would lend themselves to arranging the strips in a colorwash design, as Julie did with mine. I am happy with the arrangement and the idea of making his pencil roll into part of a set.
I mentioned that I am trying to make as many gifts as possible for the holidays. I am having fun doing it, but I wish that I had started earlier. I wasn’t sure what to make Grama since all she really likes to do is shop and play bingo. I decided to make her a ‘Grab Bag’ from the All People Quilt pattern.
She has started bringing bags back to the grocery, so I decided to make her this bag. I knew how to make it since I made it for a gift previously and could use a couple of FQs, if necessary.
Grama's Grab Bag in process
I found the older Jinny Beyer border print and a floral for the inside and think that it turned out well. I know she doesn’t read blogs, so I am not worried about ruining the surprise by posting this before Christmas.
My birthday isn’t until January, but during my week away, TFQ took me to Laura Bee Designs, a handbag maker in Seattle, and I was allowed to pick out the makings of a business card holder. It came last week.
I asked about whether she made saddlebag type handbags and she asked me what I liked about my handbag. I found out later that Laura asks many people that question.
Biz Card - inside
I love the bright cheeriness and I am waiting anxiously for someone to ask me for my card so I can whip it out and show it off.
We first heard about Laura Bee from a CraftSanity podcast. You can hear a lot of more about how Laura got started and her whole business.
I was walking back from lunch the other day. I am always on the prowl for the perfect bag and saw a display of luggage I had never seen before. I looked closer and really couldn’t figure out the purpose of these suitcases. Finally, I stepped back and looked at the store’s sign and found it was a pet store and these carriers were for pets! I was amazed at the complexity.
The other day my sister sent me this picture of her dog, Cherry in the tote I made. I never thought of using the Eco-Market totes as dog carriers, but I am sure it was much cheaper than one of the pieces of luggage I saw downtown. Doesn’t Cherry look cute and sweet? She is sweet, but only intermittently. My Sis saved her from a bad home and she has to contend with 3 other dogs, the smallest of whom is 3x her size!
I hope her little claws don’t rip through. The bag has already been back and forth a time or two.
Babies and wedding some in waves and I am in a baby wave right now. I am not having my own baby, just to be very clear. Friends are in baby producing mode, however. I have made a few quilts for friends, but am, frankly, too lazy for the most part.
I do make receiving blankets quite frequently. They are much more useful than quilts and people seem less reluctant to use them or save them for a special day. I thought I had written about them before, but I guess not. I searched and only saw mentions
Lily Blankets
Mostly I made receiving blankets, which can be used for all sorts of useful baby things such as:
Superman (or girl) cape
sunshade
nursing cover
layer for warmth
tent
playmat
wings
changing pad
burp cover
etc
Ayden Blankets
I fold over a double hem and stitch with fun thread and a decorative stitch. Often I will leave the selvedge on so as not to have to hem yet another side. The decorative stitch takes awhile, so it is better for me to do as little hemming as possible. If these were going to another sewist or quiltmaker, I might rethink that strategy, but mostly they go to people who are not crafty.
Baby Gift Bags
Finally, I don’t usually give gift bags to people who don’t give them back or re-use them. This time, I really didn’t feel like dealing with any paper or tape or anything. I sincerely dislike wrapping gifts with paper, so I pulled some fabric off the ‘back art’ shelf and made two bags. I don’t really like the background color of the fabric. Don’t ask me why I bought it – the cherries, probably. I like the bags, though and perhaps it will encourage more people to make fabric gift bags they can re-use.
This is a cool garland that my sister made.I thought I wrote about it before, but apparently not.
If you want to buy it, go to her Etsy shop. I love it and hope she will just make one for me and I don’t have to buy it. I can imagine it draped artistically aroung my bannister. She is a tough business woman, though, so we will see. 😉
I got the directions for making this little bag, just with folding an sewing from Maeda Trading Company at PIQF 2009.
They sold squares of fabric so you could make this little bag right away. Of course, a person could also use their own fabric with no problem.
Mine looks a little weird, because I didn’t have enough of the right ribbon to make this work. I thought about using these types of bags as another kind fo gift bag.
This is one of the fabrics I received from the new Etsy store in April, which I didn’t order. Some of it isn’t really my style, but every style makes a good gift bag, so here is gift bag #2 for Holiday 2009.
To make gift bags:
I press a double hem on one side of a fat quarter and finish it with a decorative stitch. This is a good way to get to know the resources required to use your decorative stitches.
Once done, I fold the piece in half, right sides together, aligning the hem at the top. I put a piece of ribbon, folded in half, inside the piece. The fold of the ribbon will be sticking of the side a little bit and is placed about a quarter of the way down the side.
I sew down the side, starting with the hem. I reinforce the start, the the ribbon and the end by backstitching over it a few times. Then I turn the bag right side out.
I love using gift bags for gifts. Besides the fact that I intensely dislike wrapping gifts with paper, the fabric feels so much nicer in my hands. I also get to see the beautiful holiday fabric each year.
