oh fransson

Baby Shower Quilt

I finished the collaborative baby shower quilt today!

I didn't want the whole thing to get too big so, instead of sashing, I made these little diamonds at the intersections of each block.  Because of all the chunky appliques, I couldn't really do much quilting, but I did tack down each row, as shown above.  (You can see in this photo that there are still some pen marks on the appliques.  Those will go away when I wash the quilt.)

I ended up making a border from the coral dot fabric and then pieced the binding from the kiwi, teal and chocolate dot fabrics.  The overall effect -- with the diamonds and the border and the pieced binding -- is kind of busy, but I guess that will just give the baby a lot to look at!   

Lunchbox Inspiration 4: Wooden Handles

 

Hello, lunchbox swappers!  As a reminder, the "send by date" for the swap is this Friday, April 25.  If you think you'll be sending much later than that, please let me know so I can give your swap partner a heads up.

This week's lunchbox inspiration is about wooden handles.  I had a bunch of them laying around, but had never actually tried to use them. 

This bag was my first attempt and, while it looks okay in the photos, it was only partially successful.  It took me  couple more attempts to get the handle case just right.  I am kind of fond of the fabric flower I made though.  It has four petals, just like the ones on the Kaufman Kitschy Kitchen fabric I used.

I made this one next.  It's made from a pink linen blend with red eyelet-like stitching all over it.  I made the casing and lining from a polka dot cotton and added a felt daisy (pretty much exactly like the ones on all my other lunchbags). 

As you can see, the handle casing came out much better on this one. 

Here's the third "granny style" bag I made.  This one features Kaufman's famous sushi print and a basketweave print from Denyse Schmidt's Katie Jump Rope.  I love the basketweave print with the sushi -- it reminds me of the fake grass you get when you buy those little sushi roll packs at the grocery store!

This one had the best handle casings yet!  They're kind of tedious to attach.  I made them almost exactly the same way I would make quilt binding -- machine sewing the "front" and hand stitching the "back."  The big difference was having to get the handle in the middle of everything when doing the hand stitching.

I also made this more lunchboxy bag.  It's pretty straightforward -- boxy and insulted with Insulbrite, the kind of insulation that retains heat or coldness.  These handles were pretty easy to attach -- I just made little fabric loops that are sewn into the top seam and reinforced with additional stitching in the seam allowance.

It's been really fun seeing what everyone is posting in the Lunchbox Swap Flickr Group.  I can't wait to see what will show up this week! 

Shark Attack!

My nephew, Elliot, also has a birthday this month.  He will be turning three on the 26th.  Elliot likes to play outdoors whenever possible and, in the summer, he likes swimming and playing in the sprinkler, so I decided to make him a fun towel/wrap.  It's supposed to be a shark, but I think it looks more like some kind of weird sea monster.

The exterior body and dorsal fin are made from two inexpensive bath towels that I got at Target.  The eye appliques are made from bits of terrycloth (cut from inexpensive washcloths).  I wasn't sure about making the teeth from terrycloth, so I made them from white flannel.  The entire thing is lined in very lightweight terrycloth in a darker blue.  I should probably be glad I have my mother's sewing machine this week, because it has a really cool "auto tension" feature that was invaluable when sewing through are many as six layers of terrycloth at a time.

Here's an action shot, showing the hood . . .

. . . and another showing the dorsal fin.  I'm sure it will look better on Elliot, but you get the idea! 

I should also mention that my father's birthday is also in April (on the 12th).  Happy belated birthday, Dad!

Nan's Birthday Bag

   

My grandmother really liked the bag I made her for Christmas, so I decided to make her another one for her 93rd birthday, which is coming up on Sunday.  (We also have a Brandon Roy bobblehead for her, since she's the world's biggest Blazer fan.) 

The bag is really simple, made with a light blue suiting fabric and patchwork.  The front has a dimensional flower detail and the back has a bird-shaped wool felt applique.

The bag closes with a magnetic clasp and has a simple slip pocket inside.  The straps are made from the suiting fabric and lined with printed cotton.  Nana doesn't carry much around with her, so this is a pretty small bag.  She wears a lot of red, blue and navy, so hopefully she'll like this color combo!

Lunchbox Inspiration 3: Zakka-Inspired Basket Bags

Hellow, lunchbox swappers!  Have you looked at the Flickr Pool recently?  More great projects are showing up all the time!

This week I made some zakka-style basket bags, inspired by ones like these that I'd seen on Flickr.  There seemed to be two types out there: tote bags made with basket bottoms and baskets with fabric drawstring tops.  I decided to make a hybrid of the two.  I plan to use this yellow and black one as a work basket for embroidery projects, but it's also the right size for a lunchbox.

All of the instructions I'd read suggested sewing the fabric sleeves directly onto the baskets, but I didn't think that technique worked well for baskets with tapered sides, where the top was wider than the bottom.  For this yellow and black bag, I ended up measuring the fabric top to fit around the widest part of the basket.  Then I made a small elastic casing around the bottom, which cinches the fabric in around the narrower part of the basket and holds it in place.  Both fabrics are from Alexander Henry.

I sewed big buttons onto the end of the twill tape closure to keep the tape from disappearing back into the casing.  This picture also shows some unfortunate stitching.  I'm still getting the hang of my mother's machine, which she's letting me borrow while mine is in the shop.  (Thanks, Mom!)

Here's another basket bag in a similar style.  Because this basket had straight sides, an elastic casing wouldn't have been a very secure way to attach the fabric part.  Instead, I pressed a 1/2" hem along the bottom of the fabric part and then used the fold line as a guide to hand stitch it to the basket with embroidery floss.  The soft fibers used on this basket made it really easy to sew through.  To give some additional stability to the handles, I also sewed the buttons all the way through the basket.  These fabrics are Birdseed by Alexander Henry and a dot print from Michael Miller's new Ginger Blossom.

This is an entirely different kind of basket.  I thought it might be nice size for storing a knitting project.  Because this was another tapered basket, I used the elastic casing method again.  I also embellished with some ball fringe I had laying around.  The fabric is Noguchi by Alexander Henry.  (I realized when I was done that it's a mostly directional print and that I used it upside down!)

Here's kind of a cool close up showing the drawstring top and some of the bottom of the basket.

And here are two mini baskets I made for practice.  Both use Japanese fabrics.  The fabric portion of the basket on the left is secured with an elastic casing.  The fabric on the right is stitched directly to the basket.

I also need to give a shout out and thank you to Adria for recommending daylight simulating lightbulbs.  They're kind of disconcerting at first (like being in a clean room or something) but I was able to take these photos at 10:00 pm without them being overly yellow, so that is definitely a step in the right direction.  Thank you, Adria!

Free Motion Quiting: This Time It Worked!

Years and years ago, I worked at a letterman jacket shop and part of that job involved using an industrial chenille machine.  I think that, nowadays, most chenille for letterman jacket patches is done on electronic chenille machines, but this shop had the old-timey kind.  They looked sort of like industrial sewing machines, with a regular looking foot pedal, but they also had a (wooden!) hand crank under the table that you used to guide the chenille foot around.  I'm mentioning all this because, apart from the hand crank under the table, I thought free motion quilting felt a lot like using an old-timey industrial chenille machine.

As a side note, I sure wish I had one of the industrial sewing machines I used to use at that job.  They could sew through anything and had a presser foot control that you could operate with your knee!

Anyway, I've had my darning foot for 10 years -- as long as I've had my sewing machine -- but I never quite mastered how to use it.  I figured out a long time ago how to attach it, but my experiments in actually using it have been mediocre at best.  I finally did some research and learned some helpful things (chief among them that you're apparently supposed to start by setting your stitch length to zero).  Once I had the bare bones of "the right way" to quilt using a darning foot, I tried it out on this mini quilt.

I'm very pleased with my first "real" attempt at free-motion quilting and plan to use this method on the two other mini quilts too.

And here's a picture of George-Michael who, as you can see, was a huge help with the quilting process!  (Actually, he's on top of my desk right now.  He's a huge help with the blogging process too.)

Another Shopping Bag

Here's another bag that I made in a "plastic grocery sack" style.  The main body uses a heavier-weight print from Superbuzzy called "Dreaming in French" which features a bunch of conversation bubbles with (mostly nonsensical, often misspelled) French words and phrases. 

I constructed this one a little differently, making the gussets from a contrasting fabric (Masquerade for Red Rooster, which I had never heard of but purchased at Fabric Depot).  I made the lining the same way.  The main part is solid black, but the gussets are a red, black and white Kaufman floral print.

I appliqued a felt bird on the front. I'm not so sure about the stuffed animal eye I used there, but I like the red bird!

I thought that, with the applique, a tie closure would be too fussy, so I just made a simple elastic loop (made, as usual, with a ponytail holder) and button closure.

And here's one last shot of the bag laying flat.

Lunchbox Inspiration 2: Fabric Grocery Sacks

 

Hello, lunchbox swappers!  This week I made replicas of plastic grocery sacks -- another thing that I often see people carrying their lunches in. 

Because I intended to use mine for groceries, I made these bags out of vintage percale sheets and pillowcases, which I thought would be durable.  I thought the percale was also a good choice since it's an easy-care cotton/poly blend.  (Regardless of how cute they are, I have no intention of ironing my grocery bags!)

The bags have a tie closure at the top, which can be used to tie them up like this:

They're each fully lined with a contrasting print.  I made the ties from the lining prints, so you could see both prints on the outside of the bags.

Most of the bags like this that I've seen have a seam on the top of the handles.  I didn't like that idea, since those seams are, in my opinion, kind of clunky looking.  These handles are sewn into the top seam of the bag and reinforced with several rows of stitching -- two to the seam allowance on the inside, and two through all layers of the bag.  The interior/bottom of the bag is the only "raw" seam.  I finished it with several layers of zig-zag stitches and, since these are utilitarian bags, I don't think it will be particularly bothersome. 

I had never tried out the pleating technique I used for the sides, but it was super, super easy.  It accomplishes the same thing as "boxing" the corners, but the way the pleats are sewn makes the bag much more compact when it's not in use.  I can see why, basically, all plastic grocery bags are made this way, it's a genius design!

If you're looking for ideas for all manner of shopping bags (far more patterns than the one shown on the cover) I recommend Japanese Craft Book ISBN 978-4-8347-2571-1, which I purchased at Kinokuniya in Beaverton.  The strap concept for my bags was inspired by one of the bags in this book. 

Unfortunately, my sewing machine became quite ill during their construction, so you'll probably be seeing some non-sewing posts for the next week.  I'm hoping it will be in good repair in time for next week's lunchbox inspiration post!

Lime Elephants Wristlet

I made this wristlet tonight for Tasha's birthday.  She wanted a wristlet made with this lime elephants fabric from Superbuzzy.  I also used a little scrap of Girlfriends fabric and some linen.  The front is embellished with hand stitching with lime green embroidery floss and a vintage mother of pearl button.

The back of the wristlet is solid linen.  Before I added that panel to the wristlet, I used a disappearing ink marker to draw a little elephant, like the ones from the fabric, onto the linen and I used a simple backstitch to outline the drawing with embroidery. 

Happy Belated Birthday, Tasha!  I hope you like your wristlet.

ETA: The way the elephant fabric is cut -- so that there are four neat rows of elephants, with none cut off -- was not planned.  It was, as Bob Ross would say, a happy accident! 

Collaborative Baby Shower Project

Back when we had Jenny's baby shower, I set up a collaborative craft project for the shower guests.  The idea was that we were going to make a baby quilt.  (A pretty, useful baby quilt that didn't involve anyone writing their name in fabric marker!)  I chose a color scheme and brought flannel squares I'd precut and pieces of polar fleece in coordinating colors.  I asked the guests to cut shapes from the fleece and arrange them on a flannel square.  Since there weren't many crafters in this crowd, I brought along a bin of cookie cutters and some water soluble markers so people would have something to trace. 

Once people were done with their squares, I stacked them between layers of tissue paper and brought them home to sew.  Now, months later, I've finally gotten around to sewing all the fleece shapes down to the blocks.  I used a buttonhole stitch and sewed around the edge of each fleece shape, securing them to the blocks.  To save time, I did one color at a time, i.e. first all the green shapes, then all the white shapes, etc.  Because all of the pieces were fairly small, I didn't use any adhesives.  (If you want to try this out, I suggest preparing the fleece by ironing on sheets of fusible webbing before people cut their shapes.  This may even be easier for the block makers, since they would be able to draw on the paper backing.)

Anyway, here are the finished blocks:

I think the colors look nice together.  There are clearly a variety of skill levels in play here, but the fact that everything is sewn the same way, and made in the same fabric, lends some unity.  The way the fleece shapes are sewn down also creates a smooth, fuzzy surface on the top of each block.

My next step is to make pieced blocks for the two "holes" and add sashing around the applique blocks.  The fabric I've chosen is Pop Parade by Metro for P&B Textiles.  (I'm not really familiar with P&B, but it's a quality fabric and the colors were perfect!) 

I'll post pictures of the finished product, hopefully soon!