sewing Archives - Page 18 of 42

Sewing sleeves

Not shirt sleeves — gadget and pen sleeves. Next week I’m teaching a custom gadget sleeve class at the Sew-op, and starting yesterday I made two samples to hang up as advertising.

One has a flap with a large snap and is simply a flat pocket. The other has an elastic loop that catches a button and has its bottom corners darted out to create a boxier shape. Both are fully lined and quick to make.

After I finished the second one this afternoon I was encouraged to make a simple pocket for colored pens. My latest organization scheme involves a central depot for events, appointments, and daily to do lists, written in color according to category. That allows me to see at a glance whether I really have to gear up one part of my brain or another and whether there are, say, gaps in blog coverage, and also saves a bit of space since something written in green is assumed to be for ReveDreams without any annotation. I may have underestimated the appropriate amount of elastic, but it will do for now.

Wedding quilts and Crayola markers

I received an invitation to a wedding earlier this spring. Unfortunately I will not be able to attend, but the invitation enclosed a square of fabric and the request to write a piece of marital advice on it. The squares are to be sewn into a quilt for the couple.

My piece was an intense red. Since they didn’t specify anything about colors or materials, I used a black Crayola fabric marker to write an adaptation of a piece of advice I read online somewhere.

That little bubble showed up when I heat-set the marker (despite using no steam). I hope it goes away again in later work.

This mini project made me wonder whether I’d even written about Crayola fabric markers here. A little search says I haven’t, although you can see them in action on white elastic and denim. I picked up a box of 10 at a party supply store, on impulse. I figured they would be all right, since I’ve never been really disappointed by a Crayola product. They exceeded my expectations. These things lay down a lot of color and the shades are rich. Here’s a rainbow on denim (contemporary with the other denim link) to demonstrate, at least somewhat.

Fiddleheads and fabric paint 2

The finished product! As of the end of the first post, we had a painted piece of fabric with fiddleheads sewn to it. It waited the recommended 72 hours before being machine washed and dried, and then pressed.

I left the edges of the fiddleheads unsewn in the hopes that they would fray in the wash, and then realized that saturated with paint, even dilute paint, they might not. Fortunately they did. Before ironing and trimming the longer threads I realized a strange thing: the green is lighter underneath the fiddleheads, which doesn’t make sense to me if the paint was soaking up through the fabric.

Then I had to figure out what to do with it. We already have more wall hangings than wall space, and there was no little cubby in need of a curtain, so after hemming and hawing I sewed it into a bag. Well, actually, there was a bit more hemming and hawing on fabric choices, but I went with a somewhat contrasting batik. I used a fabric I like but is not applicable to many situations (somewhat heavy, with a handwriting pattern) to back each piece separately, and then sewed them together. My original plan was to chop off the bottom corners to make it a shorter, boxier bag (as in the reversible drawstring bags), but I realized that would pull the fiddleheads too far down and they would look odd. So instead, I made a fold-over-top laptop or portfolio bag. I do wish the handle were longer (this was already cut corner to corner in my fabric), but I can perhaps graft in a center section later.

It is a poor day for photos, but April’s end is nigh, so without further ado: the finished bag.