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!

Capture... Cambodia

Craft, create, CAPTURE.
Other than capturing photos of what I craft, it has been a long time since I really got out with my camera...until the recent Hootchie Catch up in Cambodia. We missed one of the group terribly, but did our best to make up for her absence with an extra cocktail, almond croissant and massage where we could.

Here are some of my favourites:

Clothes Pin Elves

These are pretty much straight out of the 2013 Christmas edition of the Better Homes and Garden's Magazine and we did initially make them in Christmas colours so they were true Christmas elves. And they were naughty! Little Imp woke each morning in December to find them up to some mischief or other.

January just wasn't the same after the tricky Christmas elves had been packed away, so I succumbed and we made 2 more...non-Christmas elves.

Still fun, but not nearly as cheeky;)