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Fabric portfolios

We at the Sew-op decided to make gift bags for the two individuals who take care of the logistics of scheduling and publicity, run our meetings, keep the website updated, and are our interface with the Co-op at large. I decided to make little portfolios to hold notebooks. If project effort is measured from 0 to 10, my settings 3-7 are missing, so I made portfolios that will hold either a notepad or a notebook, 8″x5″ or 8.25″x5″ (Moleskine just has to be different), via a large pocket with both horizontal and vertical openings. There is a slash pocket on the opposite face, and three elastic loops hold a pen which in turn holds the portfolio closed. There were two prototypes before these two, and even the second is not the same as these.

I actually made these ages ago to be given at the June meeting, but then the giving kept getting postponed, so the posting did as well. We finally gave the bags at the September meeting, and as for posting, it gave way to things that weren’t already old news. I have been asked for the pattern by two of my Sew-op colleagues so I’m going to revamp it on the assumption that others might be interested as well. The version shown here is a little fussy (too much pressing seam allowances down and using half-strips of Stitch Witchery to secure them) – not that I withheld the pattern from my colleagues on that grounds!

Fabric craft basket

My mystery afghan and blackwork map have a new home!

I’ve mentioned that I was thinking I’d buy a large basket for this purpose. The local co-ops stock fair trade woven baskets, and some are quite large. They are lovely but I couldn’t seem to settle on one – none of them had colors or patterns I was in love with. Meanwhile, I realized that sewing a lining for the basket, as I planned to do to prevent snags and add pockets, would be nearly as much work as simply sewing a basket.

I bought fabric before designing the pattern and so ended up with a yard and a half of each of two home dec fabrics: a patterned “outdoor” fabric and a solid cotton duck. I could have gotten by with 3/4 of a yard of each, as it turns out, so I’ll have to find another use for the rest.

Staring at the yardstick led me to write down a pattern for a 9″x18″x12″ basket, but I started thinking that was maybe excessive, and calculated out a smaller one as well. To check, I made a paper “basket” that was 8.5″ by 16″ by 11″, with no bottom, and decided that was quite large enough, so I went with the 8″x16″x12″ version of my design (it doesn’t sound like a major change, but the difference is a shoebox plus a kleenex box worth of space). For sturdiness, the basket has an inner layer of thin fleece from my stash – all these sorts of projects seem to use batting for interfacing, so that’s what I was going for.

The basket is twice as big in one direction than the other partially so it will sit alongside pieces of furniture with a lower profile, but also so that it could have some large flat pockets on the inside, for printed-out patterns. I knew I wanted a large flat pocket for the afghan pattern and a large slightly non-flat pocket for the blackwork pattern and hooped map-in-progress. I decided to add a pocket for my crochet hook, and as long as I was at it, some shorter pockets for this and that (embroidery floss, stitch markers, etc). The tall thin hook pocket is flat and the shorter, squarer pockets are not. The shorter pockets also snap to the basket lining at the top, to keep those little odds and ends in place.

flat pockets on the interior of the fabric basket

darted pockets on the interior of the fabric basket

So I wouldn’t have to deal with turning down the edges at the top and capturing the fleece and what have you, I bound the top of the basket with bias tape (more extra wide double fold, baby).

The sewing was time consuming (mostly because of pocket construction) and not everything is as flawless as I might hope, but I’ll show you how I made it later in the week. Flaws and all, I am quite pleased with how this came out, and I expect it will come in handy many times in the future. It would be a nice bag for car travel as well as projects.

Now I’m eyeing my threadbare purse…

Mud monster

April showers bring Mud Monsters!

Mud Monster Pattern

He’s a sloppy little guy, inspired by frogs and mudskippers — not to mention mud season. The pattern page has more about what’s required to make your own; here I just thought I’d show you an adventure we had. Just to warn you, there are a lot of photos past the cut in this post.

We got a good bit of rain this weekend, so it was perfectly wet. Down by the river, Muddy made a sand castle amid the pawprints and then posed with it.

Continue reading Mud monster