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.

scripture totes

I finished this a couple weeks ago - just in time to give to Kate for her baptism. (and by "on time" I mean I finished it at 1:00pm in time to go to her baptism at 2:00pm)


These may seem like not the typical "girl" colors - but Kate loves 'cheetah' prints. If it's cheetah - it belongs to her. :) I had some misgivings while sewing it. I almost scrapped the entire thing and started over with some blue fabric ... but Kate loves it. And her smile eliminated all the doubts.

The bag is lined, has a pocket inside, and is big enough to hold a composition note book, scriptures, a couple pens/pencils, and gum. Perfect for an eight year old to carry to church.

The pattern - uh. The dimensions are taken off of Kate's older sister's bag. I put fabric on the handles like the ikatbag tote. I played with the section sizes until I liked the proportions. The font is just one I liked. (So far, each bag has had it's own font.) I need to write down all of the dimensions here - but I keep forgetting to look them up. Maybe later.

I've made two other bags - one as a birthday present for a niece. The next as a Christmas present because a younger brother needed a bag for church too.

Plarn?

Question: What do you do with plastic bags? Answer: Use them to make another bag.

I've been wanting to make a "plarn" bag for a while, but I was intimidated by them. Luckily my sister found a great tutorial on etsy (here) and I knew I had to make one. Bags were collected, folded neatly, carefully cut in 1" increments (yes, I used a ruler), loops connected, how to make a center pull ball was looked up, and a ball of plastic yarn (plarn) was created.

(Check out the cradle! Isn't it the coolest. Dad made it and Mom painted the flowers and the "brand" on it.. Plus I love the doll.)

It's coming along really fast. I'm using a smaller crochet hook than they recommended. (I think it's an "I".) I have a tendency to crochet tightly so I was a little worried that I would make it so tight I couldn't stitch it, but the plastic has just enough give to it that it hasn't been a problem. It's a lot of fun to work on. I took it to book club when it was about 4" tall (I watched "The Blind Side".) and after book club here is what it looked like. I also used this pattern for the increases on the bottom that created the "curves".I think it is also helps form the "base".



I think I want it another couple inches and then I'll start working on the handles. The only problem - I'm out of bags. Time for another grocery trip.

softie, softie, who's got a softie?

After seeing my sister's "selvage whale" - which is _way_ cute (now to save selvages for me!) - I thought she needed some more animal ideas. Plus I know my 'you never sew for me!' nephew needs a monster and maybe a dragon. Here's the listing of tutorials, patterns, and ideas that I've found. I'm sure more updates will come!

Tutorials (some with patterns)
- duck
- hedgehog
- monster
- monster tutorial (no pattern)
- platypus
- humpty dumpty
- goldfish
- sock owl
- owl
- koala bear
- little pocket doll

Patterns to buy:
- dragon (This one is going to be the "exercise reward" this month!
- Funky Friends Factory
- Melly and Me

Look what others have done:
- Peakaboo
- Nosey Nest
- Mariska's blog and her shop that sells Fluffels

May I see some ID?

I still really love this bag. It works great as a nursery bag. I think it will work great for lots of things.

But do you want to know what my favorite part is?

Look:


A label. My label. It makes me giggle. And smile. My sister did a fantastic job coming up with the name. And I love the font. Put the two together and I'm almost giddy when I see them.

How did I do it? Cotton fabric, freezer paper, and a laser printer. No ink jet, so I decided to try it on the laser jet. Iron freezer paper to the back of cotton fabric, cut to 8.5x11, feed into printer. Worked perfect. Now to try twill tape and other fabrics through my printer. I feel the need for more labels.

tote bag times four

Sewing items assembly fashion makes the job go faster - right? WRONG. I found this tote bag tutorial on Ikat Bag's web site and knew I had to make one. (LiEr is amazing and talented and I want to grow up to be just like her.)

It's functional. It's a bag. I love bags. I love to sew them. I love to have them. I love to carry them. Plus I really needed a second bag to haul to church to carry nursery items in (food, books, lessons, new toys, old toys, tissues, things to be fixed, things to do, etc.) This bag looked to be absolutely perfect.

I knew if I sewed one, I'd want to sew one for my sister. (She needs lots of tote bags too!) Then I thought of my sil who admired the bag I sewed for my sister at Christmas, and knew she needed one. And while I was at it, Mom didn't have a bag I made. 4 bags. It didn't sound like too big of a task

The first one went pretty fast. I didn't put the pocket edging on it because I couldn't figure out how I wanted to do it. I also didn't interface the lining fabric because the bag was made of canvas and between that and the thick craft interfacing, I would be okay - right? WRONG. The bag was okay - it was even cute ... but the lining didn't hold it's shape and the pocket was just okay. Ack. Time to start ripping it apart.

I started on the next three bags. I guessed at how to put the pocket edging and _really_ liked it. I liked it enough that I started undoing the first bag completely so I could also re-do the pocket.

They took twice as long as they should have. But I like them. I really like them. I like the edging around the pockets. I like the lining fabric on the handles. I like them. LiEr is a genius. (Have I mentioned how much I admire her mad design skills?)


But I'm never making 4 bags at the same time again. Or at least for a few months. :)