I'd Rather Be Crafting: Gift

Showing posts with label Gift. Show all posts

Monday, 28 March 2016

Alpaca My Bags! Lined Tote Bag Tutorial

This is a project I worked on before Christmas but hadn't gotten around to writing up. Please excuse the quality of the photos…the light at that time of year made photographing as I went along tricky! I bought half a metre of this black & white, cotton canvas alpaca fabric from a shop called Nomura Tailor in Kyoto when we were in Japan last July with the intention of making a tote bag out of it as a Christmas present for my brother.

To make a similar lined tote bag with a pocket, you will need half a metre of your main fabric…something like cotton canvas works well as it is pretty hard-wearing, but I have also made one of these bags from a shirt. You will also need half a metre of lining fabric…I used a polycotton lining that I picked up in Dunelm. To make the bag:

Cut 2 rectangles from your main fabric and 2 rectangles from your lining fabric measuring approximately 17” wide by 19” high.
Cut a 2” square from each lower corner of both the main fabric and lining rectangles.
With half a metre of fabric you may not have quite enough to cut the straps as one continuous length. I therefore cut 4 strips measuring approximately 16” long by 2.5” wide from the main fabric and 4 strips from the lining fabric, which I then pieced together to form 2 long strips of the main fabric and 2 long strips of the lining fabric.
For the pocket, cut a 17” wide by approximately 10” high rectangle from the lining fabric.

This step is optional, but if you have an overlocker you may wish to overlock all your raw edges to prevent fraying.
Take the pocket rectangle and fold over the top edge by 1cm and press. Fold over again by another 1cm and press. Now stitch along this top edge.
On a flat surface, place the pocket rectangle on top of one of the lining rectangles where you would like the pocket to be positioned. I positioned mine roughly halfway between the top and the bottom of the lining piece. Then fold the pocket rectangle forward so that the pocket is upside down with right-sides together and the bottom edge of the pocket is still lined up with where you want the bottom of your pocket to be and pin in place. Now stitch along the bottom edge. Fold the pocket back up and press along the bottom seam.
If you wish you can add sections to your pocket. Here I have created 3 sections of different sizes to hold things like a notepad, pen & phone. To do this I placed a row of pins where I wanted to stitch to create the sections and then stitch as straight as I could following the pins.

© 2016 Jennifer Richardson
Take the 2 rectangles of main fabric and with right-sides facing, stitch the side seams and bottom seams leaving the 2” corners open. Do the same for the lining. I used at 1.5cm seam allowance. Press seams open.

© 2016 Jennifer Richardson
To finish the corners and create the base of the bag, line the side seam and bottom seam up and then stitch across.

© 2016 Jennifer Richardson
Put the main fabric bag inside the lining fabric bag so that right-sides are facing and lining up the side seams. Stitch around the top of the bag leaving an opening big enough to turn the bag right-side out.
Once you’ve turned the bag the right-side out, push the lining inside the main fabric. Press around the top of the bag and then top stitch all the way round. I used a twin needle to do this.

To create the straps, piece together the 4 strips of main fabric and 4 strips of lining fabric to create 2 long strips of the main fabric and 2 longs strips of the lining fabric.
Fold over the raw edge on both long sides of each strip by ½” and press. Your strips will now be approximately 1.5” wide.
With wrong-sides together pin and stitch 1 strip of main fabric to 1 strip of lining fabric. And do the same with the remaining 2 strips. I used my twin needle to top stitch down each side of the strap.
Finally, position the straps where you want them to be on your bag and pin in place. Stitch the straps to the bag.

I finished my bag off with a free machine embroidered tag reading “Alpaca My Bags” :-)

This is a variation I made, also for my brother. For this I picked up a shirt in Primark for £3 and refashioned it into a bag!

Monday, 14 March 2016

Quick Baby Quilt and Matching Bib Set

This is a quick and easy project if you’re in need of a gift for a new arrival. From 1m of fabric I was able to make 2 matching quilt and bib sets that I gave as gifts to two friends who were expecting baby girls.

To make the sets:

I bought 1 metre of patterned fabric.
I cut enough fabric off the bottom for creating 4 bibs.
I then cut the remaining fabric in half lengthways and straightened off the edges to create 2 rectangles for the quilt tops.
I had enough wadding in my stash leftover from previous projects to fit the 2 quilt tops. This is a great project for using up leftover bits of wadding, but if you don’t have any leftover wadding then you will need to buy 1 metre.
To back the quilts I used some pale blue flannelette/winceyette that I already had in my stash. If you don’t already have something suitable then you will need to buy 1 metre or you could instead back them with a towel or something like a brushed cotton sheet.
I used some spray adhesive to stick all the layers of the two quilts together and hold them in place. I then used some coordinating blue bias binding bought from Dunelm to edge the quilts and top stitched with coordinating blue thread. And ta-dah, I had 2 finished quick and easy baby quilts.
To finish the bibs I backed them with the same pale blue flannelette/winceyette that I used for the quilts. I edged them with some blue, lace-edged bias binding I already had. I added some Velcro for the fastening. As I finishing touch I used some scrap bits of the fabric to make fabric yoyos which I hand-stitched on to the bibs with some little buttons.

The finished quilts measured roughly 55x73cm (21.5”x28.5”). They are a good pram size and I have been told they are great for car seats too! They could also be used as a changing mat.

Friday, 19 February 2016

To infinity & beyond! Silk infinity scarf.

A few months ago my mother-in-law Aileen gave me some beautiful silk fabric in 2 different designs…there was metres of the stuff and I was more than delighted to take ownership of it!

Aileen thought that the lighter-weight of the 2 fabrics would make beautiful scarves and she was after an infinity type scarf that she could wear a bit like a necklace with a jumper and with no ends to get in the way. So I thought I would try and make her one for Christmas.

I found a few tutorials for making infinity scarves via Pinterest and roughly followed this one from the I Heart Nap Time blog. Mine took somewhat longer than 20mins though!

This was the first time I’d sewn with silk. I knew silk can be a little tricky, but I thought “hey, how hard can it be?” Well, I learnt that it can indeed be pretty tricky! I needed to cut a long narrow rectangle to make the infinity scarf, but it was sooooooo hard to cut the fabric straight as it kept moving all over the place! I tried to do some research into how I could prevent this. One suggestion was to use a fabric stabiliser, but that would have meant ordering some and waiting for it to arrive and I didn’t have time for that (though I’ve since read that you can use gelatine!). So the other suggestion was to cut the fabric between layers of tissue paper. This did help and I eventually managed to cut out a roughly rectangular shape measuring approximately 30inches by 15inches for making a single loop infinity scarf.

Cutting out was by far the hardest part. So I decided to make the scarves from a single piece of fabric to minimise the amount of cutting out and to reduce the number of seams due to the delicate fabric. The silk did fray quite badly as well and as the fabric has a slight transparency to it I decided to use a French seam for the long seam. To do this:

Fold the fabric rectangle in half length-ways with wrong sides together.
Stitch along the long seam approximately 0.5cm in (or half of your seam allowance) using a fine needle. This creates a tube of fabric.
Turn the tube of fabric inside out so that right sides are now together. Press along the long seam before stitching along the long seam again approximately 0.5cm in (or half of your seam allowance) ensuring that the rough edges of the first seam will be encased by the next seam thereby hiding the rough edges.
Turn the fabric tube inside out again so that right sides are facing out and press.

To close the loop I matched up the 2 ends of the long seam and pinned together. It was not possible to use a French seam to close the loop so instead I used my overlocker to sew the 2 ends together as far round as I could, leaving a small opening which I then hand stitched closed.

My machine handled the silk well and I didn’t find it moved about at all really. Overall I was pretty happy with the result and once I made one I was able to churn out a couple more for presents much quicker.

Tuesday, 15 December 2015

Super Snuggly Baby Blanket

I was browsing Pinterest looking for ideas for something I could make for the arrival of my friends’ first baby and came across Mrs Brits’ Sweet and Chunky Baby Afghan crochet pattern here. This looked like just the thing I was after. Being in chunky yarn I knew it would crochet up quickly and the pattern is easy peasy so it was something I could mindlessly follow whilst sat watching something on the TV in the evenings. I loved the colours of the yarn Mrs Brits used for her blanket, which is what caught my eye in the first place, but I knew my friend was expecting a baby boy so wanted something more boy appropriate. The pattern uses Bernat Baby Blanket yarn, but this does not appear to be terribly easy to get in the UK. However there are sellers on Amazon and also eBay where I got mine. I wanted something a little bolder than typical baby colours so after much deliberation I ended up buying 2 balls of the Bernat Blanket Big Ball yarn in Sailors Delight. This is a multi-coloured yarn of blue, orange, brown and beige and is sooooo soft. The end result is a super snuggly blanket! I followed the pattern exactly using a 9mm crochet hook and my finished blanket roughly measured 30” wide and 36” tall. I think this may become a go to pattern for new arrival gifts!