Cat Patch for Halloween...Gift...in March

 This is for a friend who likes Halloween

 

 

More Patchwork! More Halloween Patchwork!

A friend's birthday is approaching.  Time for more patchwork!  More Halloween patchwork!

 

This friend is just as much of a Halloween All year person as I am--more so, actually.  That's one of the reasons we're friends.

All of these fabrics were from my stash.  Most of the prints are actual Halloween prints, even those that don't have specific Halloween imagery, but I did end up calling in a few non-Halloween prints (two of which also showed up in the recent not-exactly-Halloween patchwork vest.)  I only repeated one of the prints, and I took the graphics from markedly different parts of the design, so they don't appear to be the same print, and I still consider this to functionally not repeat any print.

There are eight of each of the solid colors, and 16 of the black.  My plans for this project evolved as I started (die) cutting things, taking into account how many squares I had versus how many would make geometric sense.

I used the 60mm die, and the finished squares are about 50mm, or just under 2".  The finished size is about 11" x 15", or about 28cm x 38cm.

Inside, between lining and outer layers, is more of the striped fabric used in the apple patchwork messenger bag and inside the camo foil bucket bag. I also interfaced the patchwork sides.

I actually got this zipper, I believe, from the friend for whom I made this bag--they had gone to the craft thrift store when it was about to close for renovations, and the entire store was basically 'pay what you want,' so the friend grabbed a bunch of zippers for me.  This one was just the right color and length for this project.

 

A project like this doesn't make much of a dent in the stash, but it's still fun to see what's in there that'll work.

A Few Little Things, Much Procrastinated

I needed another zip bag to sort/store doll clothes, and decided to work on rerooting a doll who had been in the To Do Box for a very long time

I ended up making an extra, smaller bag just because, and the reroot had taken so long to get to that I had learned enough to realize the hair I'd originally chosen was polypropylene--since one of polypropylene's inherent properties is "disintegrates after UV exposure," it's a fiber that I now personally want to avoid on dolls, soooooo had to choose something else.  I ended up adding a weird random nylon fading rainbow gradient under the head's original black hair.  It's weird.

(I include doll reroots on this blog because I use an anchor thread method, so the hair is more or less sewn in.  With the understanding of how much I dislike hand sewing, you may also realize this is why I don't do reroots very often.)

A Few More Stitches

 As always, I made something to thank the Friend Who Drives To The Faraway Places.  This time, it was also an excuse to do an experiment I'd been thinking about for a while.

A year ago, I had the idea to make a doll jacket with what was essentially quilted clear vinyl on top of a layer of cotton broadcloth, with sequins trapped between the stitches. It looked cool, but I hadn't drawn out the sewing lines so they were kinda...haphazard.  But it still looked neat!

Unfortunately, the sequins made it impossible to turn the sleeves right-side-out, and the attempt to do so caused the sequins to damage the thin vinyl, so I had to sigh and let this project go.

But the basic idea stayed with me, and yesterday I made a zip pouch with the same approach (but heavier vinyl) on one side

This time, I measured and drew lines on the cotton--although, as part of the overall experiment going on here, I used the roller presser foot for the first time, and...let's just say I need a little more practice finding the center of that thing. But!  The stitching is mostly where it should be.

I stitched the vertical center line first--and of course I used a leather needle--then the horizontal center line.  I placed sequins around the stitching intersection, then stitched on the next sets of lines out from the center. I placed sequins in the four horizontal cells, then stitched the vertical lines outside those. This left the cells around the outside, which I filled with sequins then stitched closed at the ¼" seam lines I'd marked when doing the initial measuring and marking.  That's as much sense as my explanation is  going to make.

I chose a dark blue thin vinyl for the back, a yellow zipper, and glowworm green lining, and assembled them in my usual lined zip pouch way.

The only thing different from normal was that I had the ¼"-from-the-edge existing stitch lines to guide where to sew when attaching things to the front.

This was silly fun.  I'm not sure if I'll try it again, but that's mostly because I can't, at the moment, think of anything else to make from trapped sequins like this. But, the technique is unlocked.

Destash Zip Thanks

 My friend and I had been planning for weeks to go back to the creative re-use thrift store, and I wanted to donate as much as I could--I largely turned a critical eye on yardage fabric I probably never would use, and similar odds and ends of lace and trim, and craft stuff I hadn't touched for years (if ever.)  I emptied some storage boxes/areas and made space in more, which, yes, would allow me to acquire new stuff, but the real intent was just to...generally eliminate things.  I get a lot of satisfaction, at this stage of life, from honing my craft and hobby stashes.  (It's not exactly the Konmari approach, but it's similar.)  I made enough space that I could move some things, which had been in an annoying storage situation, into a concealed storage spot, and now it makes me happy to look at where the stuff used to be and not see it sticking out anymore. (I will never be a minimalist, but clutter doesn't sit well with me, either.)

The creative re-use store's website says they don't accept fabric donations under a yard--I know they do accept calico in quarter yards/fat quarters, so I did donate some of those (and a quick chat with the register lady said they accept smaller cotton pieces that can be used for doll clothes--she tried to sell me some bags of those, but, heh, nope, I have so many I could donate to them...)  I have two big bags of scraps--one of calicos and one of everything else.  My storage concerns need to figure out what to do with them, as well as leave space to keep filling future bags, because I will always generate a lot of scraps I'm not personally prepared to use for doll clothes or patchwork.

ANYWAY.

One of the remnants of fabric I didn't want to keep but I thought was too small to donate, leftover from a skirt I made last year, I decided to sew into a Thanks item for the friend, who is the one who drives to the place (friend has a Prius, so there's less...uh...ecoguilt about driving a long distance to a thrift store.)

Vintage metal zipper, too.

Zippy Zips

 So I had two decent-size rectangles of the Ikea fabric left over from the scrap-filled floor pillow(ish) project, and apparently what my brain wants to do with scraps of Ikea fabric is make zip bags.

So.

Here are two more zip bags made from Ikea fabric.

The pattern placement turned out as good as it would have if I had been making these intentionally--well, on the one with the bird, at least.  The other is...minimalist.

See?  Even the print on the back of the bird is a nice assortment and distribution of elements.  The other one is...a void. And what you can see on the other side of that one in the first photo is all of the print on it.  I think it's funny.

They both use yellow zippers that I remember Mom buying in bulk in a weird fabric store in the very early 1980s.  No lining, just serged the very few seams, so these were super fact to make.

No ideas yet what I'll do with them, but, hey: I'll have em when I do figure that out.

Screen Bags

 So, over the summer, we repaired some screen windows and I grabbed the window screen mesh leftovers and stashed them away for potential future projects.

After the dubious outcome of the purse project in the previous post, I decided it would be a good time to make some simple zip bags with that mesh

but of course my ideas got away from me and I also made a small tote bag in a style I'd never made before (at least, I don't think I've made a bag with straps like this before)

Utility Sewing...for Dolls

I store doll clothes in zip bags I made a few years ago--I can't find any posts about them here (I may have forgotten to tag 'em, because I know I made them less time ago than I started this blog--hey, I'm tired, that makes enough sense.)  They're super simple: front/back/zipper, no lining, no seam finishing.

They worked for years, but...things have been getting crowded, so I finally took the time to make more

 A random hand-full of mostly gifted fabrics, some of which have been seen here before (and one of which I'm wearing right now.)

I sewed four individually before I realized that batch sewing would probably be good, if only to reduce the need to switch between the straight stitch foot and zipper foot so often.

I mostly kept these simple, but I did serge the seam allowances

and the bag destined to hold doll socks and tights got a few pockets, so (in theory) I can keep basic styles sorted.

The only sewy oddness that happened was the way, when I top stitch along the fabric edge by the zipper,  I move the zipper pull by stopping with the needle down, raising the presser foot, then using a heavy needle to help maneuver the zipper pull out of the way, back beyond the presser foot

It takes both hands, and my camera is a DSLR which also really needs both hands, so this is the best recreation I could do.  And this particular vintage zipper is a bit...storage worn.

It's fine.

I'll figure out what goes where tomorrow.  Time for sleep now.

Apple Thanks

Made a zip pouch as thanks for something the kiddo's teacher did.  The apple/ABC/123/gingham stripe print is something from a thrift store grab bag, and I held onto it because I think it could make a cute EGL dress for dolls.  But...considering there's a good chance I'll never actually make such a thing, I figured it wouldn't be a problem to go ahead and use a bit for the teacher thanks thing.

When I was picking out the prints, I grew keenly aware that I have very few "modern" prints in my calico/doll clothes stash, which I suppose is a natural result of thrifting so much cloth.  (The ABC/123 print had a 1995 copyright on the selvedge.)

 Normally I don't think twice about lacking trendy prints, but I did have a bit of "will this just look incredibly out-of-date?" with this project, since it would be a gift for someone I barely know (and the school has a website with a "here are all the teachers/staff and lists of their favorite things" section...which this teacher is missing from, since she was added last minute, so I couldn't even look up her favorite color.  I have a vague memory of her sending home a sheet listing those things at the beginning of the year, but...uuuhhh...where is it...)  Anyway.  I chose these coordinating prints hoping they would flip the whole thing from "out of date" to "vintage retro."

 I know my idea of How A Zip Pouch Should Look has been influenced by following s.o.t.a.k. handmade and her love of low volume neutral designer/handmade prints + Quilt As You Go, none of which are me things, but they are fun to watch other people be happy with (I have that attitude toward some popular kinds of dolls, too)--I just have to remember that I know I wouldn't be perpetually happy with those things, if I did join in on the fun of them. (I have to perpetually remind myself that customizing Furbies is something that does indeed look like fun, but, once I was finished with the custom, I would be finished with the Furbie, so it's in my best interest to just...not.  I have plenty of other things to use my time and resources on!)

The apple appliqué is from a 1990s craft panel print--something that my "mostly thrift" fabric acquisition habits hadn't realized that wasn't a thing anymore, until, when I went through a period of making doll clothes from them (including the instructions), I found I had to explain what a craft panel print even was.

Ah, well--I hope this project conveys my thanks!

Cheapskate or Pinterest Inspired?

Eh, well, I'll tell you that I try to avoid Pinterest, and you probably figured out I was a cheapskate three or four "thrift store grab bags" ago, but I hope this could be mistaken for some Overachieving CraftMom project.

Basically, it's time to start getting ready for Back To School supply runs.  I knew we had several things on the list for fourth grade already (we're set on 70 page wide ruled notebooks for the foreseeable future), and I thought of how many crayons and markers and colored pencils we had...especially those that were brought home, barely used, at the end of last school year.

And, yes, really, this isn't a case of being a cheapskate, because none of these items cost much.  It's far more a case of "look, if we already have them, why do we need to buy them over again, 'cause that just seems wasteful."  I just couldn't think of a pithy way to set that against Pinterest in the title.  (And there's also the fact that I started making a shirt for the kiddo using Burda 9419 and hadn't stitched much of it together before I realized I really wanted a button band, so today's sewing may have been spurred by procrastinating on that design alteration.  Again...not pithy.)

I have an excess of zippers, including a lot of vintage models with metal teeth, and I had a bit of somewhat heavy clear vinyl that was salvaged from the cover of a sample book of interior decorating fabric, and I had a bobbin still loaded with "jeans gold" from that enh skirt I made somewhat recently (which I'm wearing today.  It's not as bad as I thought it was.)

I was not, however, enthused about cutting that vinyl.  Using scissors was out, unless I wanted to draw lines on the vinyl first.  Using a rotary cutter didn't appeal, because I know I'm not exactly skilled at using those.

Then I remembered this thing

which is made for cutting paper and poster board and just things in general that are significantly thinner than the vinyl I wanted to use.  Still, it scored the vinyl in a lovely straight line that then allowed the vinyl to be gently pulled apart along that score.

And then I completely obscured most of those lovely straight edges with some decorative zigzagging

They are lovely and straight, though.

I sewed this one first, forgetting to swap the regular needle for the vinyl needle.  When sewing the zipper, it seemed like absolutely no problem.  When sewing vinyl to vinyl...yeah.  I definitely swapped the needle after.

The narrow zigzag around the edges is slightly for decoration and mostly to try to keeps the ends of the zipper tapes from fraying.  I probably won't see these things again until the upcoming school year ends, so that's when I'll find out if it worked.

I could have used 'normal' cloth for these, but I thought "being able to see what's in the bag" would be appreciated.

And they do kinda look cool.

The crayon bag is constructed differently from the others.  The last large bit of the vinyl had the interior decorating fabric collection name printed on it.  Since the kiddo likes green, I decided to turn the letters to the inside (they're somewhat visible from the back, but, in real life, not as much as they are in the upper photo) and let the green background bar become a graphic element, and I wanted only to fold it over instead of cut through it.  I also didn't have any zippers the right length to go along the side of what was left, and I did not want to shorten a metal zipper, so I trimmed just a bit to make it work with a 4" zipper on the short end.

Since these are sewn in a way that feels inside-out, it was no problem to set the zipper into the ends of a folded piece of vinyl.  Then the sides were flattened and sewn.  Taadaaa!  Crafty or frugal?

...well...both, of course.

Large Bag and Big Bag

I forgot to post about it here, but, a few days after my birthday, I was able to go a'thriftin' on my own while Husband watched the kiddo, which meant I could take as much time as I wanted to look around without a certain little someone exceeding his boredom threshold.

I also wanted to stop in JoAnn, too, to see if I could find any cloth to make a pencil bag for the kiddo (at school this year, they're supposed to use large zip bags instead of pencil boxes, and, hey, I can make a zip bag...)  He'd wanted a print with as much BB-8 as possible, which I kind of found, and I also picked up a Halloween eyeball print that I thought would work well for doll clothes.  When I got back and asked him if he wanted to combine any other prints with the Star Wars print, he said, yes, he wanted the eyeball print.  Well...OK, then!

I picked out the zipper (because I still have a lot of these yellow zippers) and lining (because I wanted to make sure it would be bright enough inside that things wouldn't get lost in shadowy corners.)  He's happy.

But!  The bigger find was in the Goodwill--which is usually a relatively disappointing Goodwill, and seemed like it was going to be just as disappointing this time, yielding only two dolls (granted, one was a Marin Chiclana guy, something I'd wanted for a while), one piece of cloth, and a bag full of perler beads and small pegboards...and holes.  It was while I was chasing down escaped perler beads that I noticed the big bedding bag that was full of sewing patterns and marked $7.99.  It was held closed with a cable tie through the two zipper pulls, so there was no possibility of surreptitiously opening it up and digging around to see if anything was worthwhile, and, hooboy, was what was visible on the outside...not worth it.  So much late '80s/early '90s blandness.  Still, if there were eight patterns I liked, I could consider it to be breaking even...and...this was supposed to be silly birthday shopping,  stop trying to be reasonable, Self.  So I picked up the last perler beads I could see and dragged the...um...delightfully heavy bag of patterns to the register.  The nice customer ahead of me put it on the counter for me, expressing (possibly) a bit of appreciation for the find.

After I got home and put everything else away, I parked myself on the living room floor, snipped the cable tie, and dove in.

So.  Yeah.  When you get a grab bag that ends up having 120+ patterns, you're probably going to find plenty that look worthwhile, no matter how many 1980s beginner patterns or early 1990s fancy jumpsuits patterns (for girls and women) or curtains patterns or indie quilted vest patterns there are.  There were even a few men's patterns in Husband's size range, and kids/boys patterns for the kiddo (whose foot is visible here, yes), and a lot of patterns in sizes suitable for some of my friends.

I'm happy with what I got from this, although I'm now out of room in the file drawers where I keep my patterns, and I'm unsure of what to do with the giant stack of patterns left that I have no use for.  Still, definitely worth the $8.

I have a 1982 Laura Ashley shirt pattern picked out (and ironed flat) for my next project--hope to get back here soon with that!

It's Easy Being...Red

I volunteered to chaperone the kiddo's field trip to a science center, fun!

But.

Everyone had to wear a red shirt, or "as close to that as possible."  I delved into my closet, pretty sure I didn't have anything red, but was surprised that I didn't even have dark pink.  Huh.  So!  A trip to the thrift store on 99¢ day and I was able to find a short sleeve button up woven shirt that I turned into...

Squares

I wanted to make a quick patchwork zip pouch as a gift for someone, and, for some reason, my brain insisted on making same-size squares for the patchwork--I usually just square up whatever size cloth scraps I have and start piecing things randomly, so this was an unusual thing for my brain to wanna do.

So I made it and I wasn't entirely happy with it and I forgot to take any pictures of it and I decided to make another, smaller, Halloweenier zip bag, and that's this one.

Nope, no pattern to it, but it is 35 different Halloween prints--most of which were from the scrap box--on the patchwork side, so that's nice.  And the ghosts on the other side are printed with glow-in-the-dark ink, so that's even nicer.  Lined with a synthetic plaid, because Halloween is for all the time.  or something like that.

Angry Bag

I made the Angry Birds storage bag today--not as involved as the Terraria bag, and also conveniently emblazoned with an Angry Birds print, so no inclination to improvisational appliqué.

That didn't keep me from doing it entirely simply, of course.

Square bag for a square game

Well, Terraria isn't as overwhelmingly square as Minecraft, but...um...

Yeah.

I made another bag.

I can hear the music now (I mean, not just because it's playing on a computer in the next room.)

Simple little zip bag

Me being me, it got more complicated the more I worked on it, but it's not the level of refined complexity I see on some of the blogs I follow.

It's roughly 9"x5.25"x1", made from the two coordinating bird prints given to me by CheshireTiffy, and the softly splotchy pink and purple was in one of the cloth assortments I thrifted in recent years, plus one of a gazillion yellow zippers from the enormous package of yellow zippers Mom bought somewhere around 1980 (there are 19 left.)  There's iron-on medium weight nonwoven interfacing on the back of the pink strip on the outside and a sturdy nonwoven behind the pocket, too.  No pattern involved, of course. (See: me making things harder than they should be.)  There wasn't much more of the bird prints than seen here, so I'm happy with that tiny bit of pattern matching in the first picture (as unnoticeable subtle as it is.)

Making this was really just an exercise in using the bird prints, so I'm not sure what I'll do with it--it's very likely it'll end up as a teacher gift next school year...

I tried to get all of the cat hair off for the pictures, but I can see that I missed a few.  Things like this don't help.

Oh, wait. Sewing. Yes, yes, sewing.

I made enough doll dresses for Etsy to set myself up for two weeks to sew whatever I wanted, and I...didn't want to sew much of anything.  That's not saying I didn't sew anything, I just...didn't...sew...much.

Force Day Sewing

Well, of course I decided to wear this shirt I made a few years ago

I used my old go-to shirt pattern, a modified New Look 6217 (fused the front pieces together), and still very proud of that pattern matching I am. *Yoda cackle*

Then I decided to make a few more things from the little bit of that cloth I had left. 

A Thank You Tote

...well, maybe it's not quite big enough to be a "tote," but...y'know...puns...

Anyway.

Last week, someone I don't know very well did something very nice for me, so I made a zippered bag as Thanks, which I will give to her tomorrow (or at least drop it off where she works.)  The bag is constructed the fairly easy way, stitching a sandwich of one outer layer and one lining piece on each side of the zipper, opening it all flat and sewing around the edges, leaving a bit free to turn it right-side-out, then sewing across the opening. (There are tutorials for this, which I found after I started making zippered pouches this way.)  Where I made it overly-complicated and, I hope, an extra-nice thing to receive, was in what I did with the exterior pieces.

For this side, I cut and assembled 50 1¼" squares from my scrap stash.  I've made patchwork from very small pieces before--often for use in doll dresses--but I'm pretty sure this is the first time I made a small patchwork of even-size pieces, and pieces that I cut with a ruler and rotary blade, instead of pulling threads to make sure it's on grain.  Such freedom...

On the other side, I drew letters freehand and appliqued her name, which I'll show part of here:

I wanted a kinda late 1980s/early 1990s color scheme, and, hoo, yeah, I think I got it.  I didn't use any kind of stabilizer, and my Necchi 539's satin stitch isn't its best feature--which is entirely my fault for using a zig zag presser foot that's just a smidge short and then not wanting to mess with the pressure on the foot so that the feed dogs actually move things like they should.  (If I ever wanted to try free-motion quilting, though, I should be golden.)  So this looks rough, which is actually the look I was going for.  Really.  Really.

And the inside, which is lined with a poly-cotton blend, so it has a nice luster and is smooth but doesn't disintegrate quite as readily as pure polyester.  I hope.  I remembered to stitch the lining down on either side of he zipper, because I have a history of forgetting to do that, which leads to...um...frustration...as the lining frequently creeps up and gets caught in the zipper...  I know a lot of people line bags like this with cotton, and sometimes I do, too, but I like the change in texture you get with a synthetic lining.  See, I do think a little bit about the finished project before I finish it.

Sometimes.

What do you think, are zippered bags like this good ideas for gifts?  Have you ever made a zip bag with lots of outside decoration?  Would you like to receive something like this?