Amy Butler's modern diaper bag

I read about Amy Butler's book 'Little Stitches for Little Ones' and immediately put it on hold at the library. In it, is a pattern for a 'modern diaper bag'. I really liked the shape, so I made a copy of the pattern ... and thought I'd make it for my sister. (Before she found this pattern.)

I found some really cool oil cloth fabric at JoAnn's and knew it would be perfect for this bag. (Then I had to wait until I had a coupon because there was no way I was paying $14.99 a yard for fabric.) I found some 'celery' duck cloth fabric for the lining. It's not a perfect match, but I thought it would work.

I sewed the outside of the bag ... and realized this bag is ENORMOUS. I couldn't imagine anyone carrying this bag, so I looked on-line to see what others had said. I found this page and used her dimensions to cut this bag down. I didn't even take apart the seams, I just started cutting. I looked some more and found this page. Once I got over being envious of her really cool fabric (oh when will Ikea come to Denver???) I noticed she shrunk the entire pattern 85%. I did that, but I liked just cutting it down better, so that's what I stuck with.

The instructions were just okay. I got a bit confused on the inner pockets and just did what I thought was best. (The book could definitely do with a lot more pictures.) I did my own thing on the handles ... but still had to hand sew most of the inside edges.

I didn't even try to substitute the interfacing and just used what it called for. (I know, shocking for me to actually follow a pattern.)


The front flap has a magnetic snap I _love_ them ... and I know this won't be my last time using them.
Sewing on oil cloth was surprisingly easy. I bought a 'teflon' foot for my machine and I didn't have any problems with the fabric sticking to the foot or plate.


I do like this bag ... but it is still big. I love the shape, so I think I'd like to make it again, using the shrunk 85% or 75% pattern.

Update: I gave this bag (along with the other) to my sister. While visiting, I used this bag as 'project central' to keep track of everything and it worked great for that. However, she's used it a little and noticed that while it seems _huge_ ... it won't even fit a 3 ring binder. I've got bags that look much smaller that fit 3 ring binders ... so I'm a bit disappointed in this bag. Time to figure out what I can do to make this bag more usable.

buttercup bag

I found the buttercup bag by 'Made By Rae' a few months ago. I like the shape, the curves, the pleats - it just looks like a fun bag. So it was put on the never ending project-to-do list.

But it looked small. I wanted it bigger (so it would actually be able to hold a knitting/crochet project), but with the same shape. Then I found her post on the buttercup bag remix. I could do that.

I enlarged the pattern 129%. Then cut it in half horizontally and added 2 inches. Then put the top band back to the original size (and modified the lining to fit to that). I _love_ a box pleat, so I changed it to one large, oversize box pleat with two smaller pleats on the side. I lengthened the strap and placed it between the outside and lining instead of on top of the bag.

I found some great corduroy fabric ... but it was thin and I wanted to make sure this bag would be able to keep its shape. I decided to try Pellon craft fuse. It worked great. The corduroy suddenly held a shape and kept it's form without adding thickness. The lining is duck cloth. Then to give it just a bit of softness - and some thickness, I added a layer of fleece interfacing.


This was my first time using a magnetic snap as the closure for a bag ... but it won't be my last.



I love this bag. It holds a paper back book, cell phone, keys, mp3 player, and crocheting perfectly - the perfect 'portable project bag'. I love it so much I'm making 7 more for Christmas presents this year. (gift recipients: uh, act surprised.)

Note to self: think about putting little "corners" on the bag ... and maybe a recessed zipper like Rae did.

Got labels?

For the last labels I made, I used fabric, freezer paper, and my laser printer. They worked. They worked really great. But I wanted something with finished edges. Edges that I didn't need to keep folding to hide ... or hem.

I started searching for tutorials again. I found many that use iron-on transfer paper that you can run through your ink jet and then iron onto ribbon or fabric tape. But I don't have an ink jet. And I'm not wild about iron-on transfer paper ... you can see the iron on!

So I wondered if I could run the ribbon right through my laser jet.

I bought ribbon at Wal-mart. White ribbon. 5/8" wide.



I made a page with columns of my label with MS Publisher. I mirrored a few across the x-axis. I printed a page, grabbed the double sided tape and stuck down the ribbon in 3 places.



Put it into the tray for my laser jet ... and hoped I didn't just ruin my printer.



And ....



it worked!!!! It actually worked. I printed the entire roll of ribbon. 4 sheets of paper, 7 columns = gobs of labels. A quick heat set with the iron and I have more labels that I know what to do with.

They're not perfect. I'd like to try writing on the ribbon with permanent marker ... but they will work for now.

Petunia the Cow

Petunia and her friends were cut out before Christmas and have been waiting (patiently?) to be sewn. I was finally in the mood and they jumped to the top of the 'to be done' list. Besides, the refrigerator had to be cleaned before I could mark them using the 'light box'. (table opened, clear fridge shelf placed where the table leaf would go, lamp on the floor)

Two weeks of sewing and two spools of thread later and here is what Petunia x3 look like after their cold water bath to remove the marking pen marks and before their trip through the washer to attempt to shrink the muslin lining.

Sewing went pretty smoothly, but then I had learned on the horse to gather the curves on the belly piece before attaching the legs. Lots of sewing, lots of lines ... but nothing too hard.

And here's Petunia, freshly stuffed with eyes on. Her face is still drying after removing 'eye marks' ... but she gracefully consented to a photo shoot.





I'm pretty happy with her. I've made the snake and a horse so far. Next up, the sheep - or maybe the pig. After the rest of the sewing pile is finished. Two unstuffed 'petunia' will be delivered to their owners in September.

Patterns for Petunia, and the rest of the menagerie can be found here.

'bean' - aka pyramid doorstops

This is one of those 'finish this project in under 30 minutes' projects. I made a bunch earlier (last year maybe?) and then gave some away so that all of the upstairs doors don't have them. The doors continue to slam shut when windows are open ... so these needed to be made. The fabric and interfacing have been cut out for months (or maybe a year) and they just needed to be sewn and stuffed.

I think it took all of 10 minutes to sew 3 of them followed by a trip to Walmart to buy some pinto beans to stuff them with. They look cute, work great. A niece named them 'bean'. Tutorial found here.

Plarn tote bag

I just realized I didn't post the final picture of my plarn tote bag.


I first mentioned it here. It took a little over a month to make and several trips to Walmart to buy enough groceries to have the needed bags. I used this pattern to shape the curved bottom of the bag, but used this pattern for everything else. I made the handles for the bag longer than the instructions, but I like to be able to put bags over my shoulder. The corners where the handles attached are stretched a little, but it's not breaking.

The flowers were a lot of fun to make. I wish I could have found different colored bags for them, but gray was the best I could fine.

It makes a perfect swim bag or knitting bag or an 'isn't this a cool bag to carry around'. I'd like to make another one - maybe from Target bags.

heart garland

This was one of the decorations I made for camp. I don't remember where I first saw the idea.

It's pretty simple to make. Fun foam. Trace cookie cutters. Cut out. Sew. It took a couple hours to cut out the hearts but only a few minutes to sew them. They looked cute strung between the tents before the strong winds tore them off. But they looked cute while we had them.

bags: box and pyramid

While looking for whirly-giggle quilt patterns on-line, I stumbled across this blog with bag patterns. I love sewing bags. The whole process is fun with the added pleasure that I'm not trying to fit the final product to an actual real person whose shape is nothing similar to what pattern companies design for.

I fell in love with the pyramid bag at first sight. But they mentioned the pattern had been taken down from the web. A few google searches and help from the 'way back machine' and I had a pattern.

I gathered what fabric I had on hand, what zippers I could find (uh, sure - green goes with anything!) and started cutting out patterns. I started with the box bag. The pattern gave instructions to line it so that no raw edges would been seen. It's always a bit of a trick to do that, but it didn't sound too bad. I didn't follow all of the directions (it's a curse - I always think I know better than the instructions), so I had to undo a couple of seams a little bit to maneuver everything into place - but nothing big.



Looks great - doesn't it. The pattern size called for 16"x12". I think if I was to make it again, I'd do it a bit bigger. It's a cute bag - but a little on the small side. Only my small knitting (socks or leper bandages) would fit in it.

On to the pyramid bag. I was glad I did the box bag first because it helped explain how to sew the lining and exterior fabric separate while they were both sewn into the zipper so that all of the raw edges would be hidden. I made it 12"x24" - instead of the 7.5"x15" mentioned in the pattern. It went together really fast ... but was way to big to hold it's shape. I ripped the entire thing apart and re-cut to 10"x20". (Sometimes the experiment fails. At least I learned that unless you break out the heavy duty craft interfacing, don't go any bigger than 10" x 20".)



It was a great "evening" project, I've got two bags to hold small projects, I love the green zippers (Mom - where ever did you find that color of lime green?), and I found a new blog to watch for more bag patterns. In all, it was a successful Friday night of sewing.

screen printing - the shirts

Printing on t-shirts is an art form. One that I need a bit more practice in. :)

Because I procrastinated took too much time to work up to the task of screen printing, I was on a deadline. Thursday night I found scrap fabric and t-shirts, gathered my supplies, and started working on it - knowing that Friday we were going to print 27 shirts for the young women - and I had to figure this out fast.

I watched two different videos on u-tube and read at least 4 blogs on how to apply the ink. It sounded pretty straight forward. Make sure you had plenty of ink, spread the ink with the squeegee at an angle of 75-80 degrees, then lift the screen straight up.

I started with the white ink and the t-shirt design. (Remember, deadline. We were printing the shirts the following night!) It went something like this: The first looked okay. The little letters didn't look so great. I tried again. It looked a little less great. Tried again. It looked even worse. Time to wash and dry the screen. Pulled up the u-tube video and watched it again. Tried again with a different angle. Tried again with more pressure. Washed and dried the screen. Tried again. Looked it up on the web. Learned that white ink is a very hard ink to print with because it needed to be thick to be opaque. (I couldn't believe it. Out of all the colors, we chose the hardest ink to put on a t-shirt to give to teenagers - possibly the hardest audience in the known universe. Yea.) I tried the black ink. Worked perfect. (Insert scream of frustration here!)

By the end of the night I had the black ink figured out and had made two reasonably good prints with the white ink. I could only do 3 prints before the screen needed to be washed. The thick white paint dried fast - fast enough that the small letters under the theme could only be printed on the first use of the screen. But the theme looked passable, so I counted it as a success.



Lesson to note: if you are going to screen print at home, choose big fonts. It's easier to print.

Friday night we made the executive decision to tape over the little words and just print the theme on the t-shirts. It took close to 4 hours for 3 of us to print 34 t-shirts. Lindsey had the 'knack' and was in charge of printing (tips: lots of pressure, 80 degress on the squeegee, 8-9 passes of hard pressure, wash after 3-4 uses.), Cosette was in charge of ironing, folding the t-shirts, and letting us use her house and kitchen, and I was in charge of touch-ups.



Not bad for a bunch of amateurs two days before camp starts. And the girls were nice enough to say that they liked them. We got several pictures of them all in the shirts ... and then we went on an underground cave hike in them. They looked great. :)

As for the pillowcases ... it was too windy at camp and the ink was drying instantly in the screen. So we'll do it as one of their activity nights later this summer.

screen printing

For YW camp this year I thought it would be a great idea to do screen printing as one of the crafts. I found instructions on: lilblueboo's blog - and didn't think it looked too hard. Mom got me 40 donated pillow cases to print on ... so all I needed was the kit and a design.

A coupon for Hobby Lobby at 40% off and I bought this screen printing kit. You _definitely_ need a coupon.

After reading the instructions several times, I procrastinated - fearing that I would screw up the screen, run out of supplies, and the craft would be ruined. (Yes, I'm aware that waiting really doesn't help any of that ... but such is life.)

I designed the logos (um, yeah - the project doubled in size when "we" decided to DIY the t-shirts. gack!) in publisher using free fonts that I found on-line. (My favorite source for fonts: Amanda's Fonts for Peas and Amanda's scrapbooking fonts. Awesome, fun, unique, and FREE fonts!)

Last night I turned the spare bathroom into a "dark" room and with the help of a green glowing night light, smeared photo emulsion on two screens - hoping for thin and _even_ coats. It's surprisingly hard to do this by night light. I was paranoid this morning and put another thin coating on them.

A trip to Kinko's for transparencies (3 copies, taped together in the corner with double stick tape), glass taken out of a picture frame on the wall, a black t-shirt, and the lid of a plastic bin, and I had a screen sandwich that I put outside at 12:30ish for 3 minutes to expose.



It didn't look "done" so I left it for about another 2 minutes. I took it apart and sprayed it with water at the kitchen sink. I now _totally_ understand why some people do this part in the shower. I started getting really nervous because the un-exposed, slime green photo emulsion didn't seem to be washing away, but finally one letter started to clear up and then the rest followed. It took about 15-20 minutes of spraying for the design to clear up.

Here's what the t-shirt screen looks like:
(it looks small because I could only by a 12x16 frame. The design is 9.5" across.)

And here's what the pillow case screen looks like:
(and this one looks big ... but it's in a 10x14 frame. Yes, it is crooked. You try lining up a transparency on a screen in the dark.)

I'm pretty excited. I think they turned out _fantastic_. Tonight I'm going to try screen printing on some fabric scraps and find out how easy/hard that step is.