Library Bag

Another hiatus. Been way too long since I was in the Button room. Lots of other life stuff happening in the last few months. The few times I have managed to get in there I haven't managed a whole lot. I need a few big chunks of time to get in the creative groove!

A crafty catch up with a talented sewer friend last week helped me get things happening again. A few little dresses finished off over the weekend, and a nothing too fancy library bag for school.

Like so:

Finished size - approx 16" x 12" plus handle.

Basic How To:

Cut 2 rectangles (16.5" x 12.5") from each of the outer fabric and lining fabric.
If you want to embellish the outside with a name or anything else, now is the time to do that before you start to sew things together.
Next, place outer fabric rectangles right side together & stitch around 2 sides and base (leaving top edge open).
Place lining fabric rectangles right sides together & stitch around 2 sides and base (again, leaving top edge open) - making sure to leave a 3" gap in the base (for turning right side out later on).
Then sew boxed corners into each corner of the lining and outer bag pieces - I measured 1.5" in from each corner to make these. This will make sure there is a bit of space for books inside the bag.

At this point I also added velcro to the top edge of the lining of the bag.

Handles - I decided to make two small handles, one for each side of the bag. I only had felt to hand to reinforce the handles, so that is what I used.
Cut 2 felt pieces (1.5" x 15").
Cut fabric to cover the handles 2x (5" x 15")
fold over about 1cm and press a fold along both long edges of the fabric handle pieces. Place the felt along the fabric, roughly one third of the way down and then fold over the fabric (top down and bottom up) to cover the felt. Straight stitch the length of the handle, just near the edge of the fold to hold everything in place. I posisioned the fold so that it was abouth a third of the way down, so that when I then ran another line of straight stitching a third of the way up the spacing looked good.

Here you can see the right side (top) and wrong side (bottom) of the handles:

To assemble the bag:

Turn lining right side out and then slip inside outer bag (that is still inside out) so that the right sides of both fabrics are facing each other. Match the side seams at the top opening and pin together.

Pin each handle in place to the lining fabric, using the velcro as a guide for centre placement. Make sure the right side of the handle is facing the outer fabric (this will mean when you turn the bag right side out you don't see the folded edge on the 'wrong side' of the handle).

Then pin the outer fabric and lining together, matching the top edge as you go. Repeat the process for the other side of the bag, adding the handle and pinning along the top edge.

Then straight stitch along the top of the bag - all the way around. Trim excess handle fabric and then turn bag right side out through the opening you left in the base of the lining. Press the hole in the lining so that the edges are neat and then straight stitch close to the edge to close the hole.

Top stitch along the top edge of the bag - this will keep the lining neatly inside & also reinforces the handles.

Done!

Crazy Nine Patch Quilt

Before I left for Cambodia I managed to finish off another baby quilt. Having a deadline helped that along - it needed to get to Melbourne & Husband was headed there just after I returned.

I started off by selecting the 9 fabrics to make up the crazy nine patch squares. The pattern & how to make these can be found at Oh, Fransson!

The end size of the crazy 9-patch blocks was dictated by the fact some of the initial squares were from a layer cake & therefore only 10 x 10 inches. Just having 9 smallish crazy blocks floating on the quilt top didn't look good, so then came all the umming and aahing as I played around with different designs & combinations...until...drum roll...
The plan was that it would look something like this. Kind of.

First up I strip joined rows of 9-patch blocks together like so:

 And so:

...to end up with one big 3x3 crazy block.

I also fussy cut the nine 2.5 x 2.5 inch squares from the animal print fabric that were also going to go on the quilt front. I use a clear plastic template I've made to work out where to cut (the inner line on the template shows where the seam line will end up.

Or line up my quilting ruler using the template on top

I find one of the easiest ways for me to work out which bit of quilt to join together first is to chalk out the edges on my sewing room floor & then place out where I want things & measure in between to work out what sizes I need to cut, and how things will end up piecing together. Here I have the finished big block & am working out the spaces between the fussy cut animal squares, the big square and the quilt edges.

I ended up deciding a pop of purple was needed between the small animal squares, So this is what I did next, strip joining the 2 rows of animals with the purple. Now the floor begins to resemble the rantings of a crazy woman - numbers and symbols scrawled everywhere!

There is method in my madness (for me anyway!) & slowly the other sections of fabric are cut and joined together in order:

The Quilt back.
I had a big strip of the animal print left, so wanted to use as much of that as I could.
A small square managed to use up some more of the turquoise, grey & green scribble (Bungle Jungle) prints and broke up the solid teal green.
The binding I was using was another piece from the lovely gift of a huge bag of scraps I received a few years ago. Not quite big enough to make it all the way around I added in some of the yellow polka dot scraps I had left. This I decided would tie in with the yellow scrap I used on the back of the quit.
Here are the quilt back pieces before they were all joined together:

The quilt sandwich was compiled & then I began to play around with how I might quilt. I liked the notion of random lines, reflecting the 'crazy' lines in the 9-patch squares.

Two things I couldn't find the answer to on the internet.
1. How do you plan the pinning around such a  random quilting plan without having to remove & re pin pins the whole time you quilt?
2. Where do you start so you minimise bunching/puckering? I know it should be working from the middle outwards & I could do a few main lines that fitted that, but then what!?

This was in part my own answer - I lay wool 'lines' out over the quilt in a rough pattern I was happy with & tried to pin around these lines.

And then used painters tape to mark the line before quilting.

It kind of worked - but there was still a whole lot of pin moving...and a bit of unpicking of puckers where some of the quilted lines intersected. Not too much though.

 Quilt sandwich finished & trimmed down, I then added the binding, making sure to position the yellow section in the one corner to match the yellow on the quilt back. I use metal hair clips now to hold the binding in place - you can buy special (expensive) quilting clips, but the ones I bought from the $2 shop seem to do the trick for me!

Hopefully there is enough quilting to hold it all together for the years of use ahead!

An easy peasy cushion cover

I'm still alive, still crafting!
Was about to upload a post last month when I realised with a rude shock that I had gone WAY over my internet usage for the month - oops. So been offline for a while....but that has maybe meant more spare time spent in the ButtonRoom:)

Anyway, back online now and have loads to share!

Life before going to Thailand in October was hectic enough, but in the few weeks before we left I suddenly realised I definitely needed to make a padded laptop case for my laptop that was coming with us, and a travel pillow for OneLittleImp. Oh, and I also had someone contact me via my blog asking if I could make one of the giraffe t-shirts she had seen on my blog for her daughter's birthday . What a lovely surprise that was - and even a bit funny when I realised she lived all the way in Texas! So now I have sold my first item through my blog....exciting stuff!

So of course I fitted all of this craft in between packing and writing lists and cleaning the house so it would be nice to come home to (that does make such a difference to post holiday blues!)  and packing some more.

First up is the easy peasy cushion cover. This takes almost no time at all to make. No buttons, or velcro or anything! Promise.

First up, measure your cushion, add 1.5 inches as allowance on each side & then cut your front piece of fabric (the owl print in this case) to this size. For the back you will need to cut 2 pieces, both the same width as the front. To work out the length, divide the width measurement in half and then add 3 inches (so if the width was 14 inches - 14 divided by 2 = 7.  7+3=10, so you would cut 2 pieces of the backing fabric 14 inches wide x 10 inches long). This will mean that you end up with the back pieces overlapping by about 3 inches.

Fold over 1cm or so along the width of each back piece, iron & then fold over & iron again to get a nice neat edge.

Stitch along the length of this nice neat edge to secure and create a 'finished' edge. I used a fancy wavy stitch, but a straight or zigzag stitch would work just as well.

Next, place the front of the cushion cover right side up. Lay one piece of the back fabric right side down, raw edges lined up with the front piece raw edges & the 'finished' edge positioned as shown. Pin the bottom edge of the front and back pieces together.

Then lay the other piece of 'back' fabric right side down onto the front fabric and overlapping the first piece of backing fabric. Match up all the raw edges again and make sure that the 'finished' edge you sewed earlier should sit as shown in the picture. Pin all the way around to hold all the layers together.

Now sew all the way around all 4 edges of the cushion cover using a straight stitch. I then also zig zag stitched all the way around to reinforce & prevent fraying.

 Clip the corners & then turn your cushion cover right side out. Iron if you need to & hey presto - you are done! All that is left to do is stuff in the cushion.

Nothing fancy, but it sure did the trick as a comfy travel comforter during our trip:)

Bungle Jungle Quilt - Red and Yellow Block

All there is for the Red and Yellow block is a finished shot - I was short on time and just wanted to whip this one out, so no pictures along the way.

I used the same technique for this block as for the Green and Navy Block - strips rather than blocks.

It is all beginning to come together....I just hope the finished product is going to work after the mistake I may have made....

I went searching for the background fabric last weekend, and really wasn't finding anything I liked. I had in my head that a charcoalish grey would work, but none of the greys were dark enough from the quilting cotton section. And then I found what I thought was a perfect grey in the Broadcloth section, so after a bit more umming and ahhing that is what I bought. It wasn't until I checked the receipt on my way out that I realised I had gone and bought cotton drill! Ooops. Wasn't sure if drill was acceptable for a quilt - & an internet search didn't really help. But I figure quilts in the past were made with whatever people cold find, & surely that meant fabrics would have been different weights at times?

The drill definitely is a bit heavier than the quilting fabric, and one side of has a definite diagonal weave, so if the fabric is cut and then re-oriented 90 degrees you can notice a different sheen (see pic), but the flip side doesn't have this weave line, so I think it will be ok if I make sure that is the 'right' side throughout. The plan for the finished quilt is to have a reasonable amount of quilting too, so I think any difference in fabric weight shouldn't matter once I've quilted it all together. Here's hoping anyway!

cut out background fabric - different sheen noticeable dependent on fabric orientation

Bungle Jungle Quilt outline
Red and Grey Block
Green and Navy Block
Aqua and Navy Block

Bungle Jungle Quilt - Aqua & Navy Blocks

There will be 2 blocks from the aqua & navy print fabrics, one big & one smaller rectangle.

The larger Aqua & Navy block is essentially made the same way I put together the Red & Grey Block.

After cutting strips from the selected prints - an assortment of aqua, navy & some white prints for contrast  - I joined these into groups of 3 strips sewn down the long edge:    

... I then randomly cut each of these into 3 or 4 strips of different widths:

..and joined these together into mini 3x3 blocks:

Some of the mini blocks needed an extra row to increase their size so that I would end up with a block as big as I wanted, so that was added where needed...

 ...and then I joined these 'mini blocks' into one big block:

 And then squared it up (or 'rectangled' it up in this instance) to finish:

I also made a smaller rectangle aqua & navy block using some of the left over strips, as well as some longer pieces of the same fabrics:

Bungle Jungle Quilt outline
Red and Grey Block
Green and Navy Block
Red and Yellow Block

Quilted placemats

A gift to the recent bride and groom

I had planned to post the full instructions for how to make these placemats and had even taken photos along the way.  Change of heart though for a few reasons.  One - I realised after cutting the navy and mustard fabrics that my method certainly wasn't the speediest and I could have saved myself lots of time if I had been smarter, so I'd hate to mislead all the vast number of readers of this blog (ha!).  Two - writing instructions takes effort & I just don't have any effort this morning.  Posting pictures is about all the energy I can muster.

Finished placemats, I decided to use felt in between the fabric layers rather than batting & it worked really well 

Placemats and a few double felt thickness potholder mats

Some of the quilting detail - the flowers are outlined through the top layer only, the straight lines go through all layers & form a pattern on the back of the mat)