Small Necktie Bag #2

Today I show you the second small bag I made from 2 neckties this time.  I got the pattern for this bag from the blog Stitch Beautifully…Tread Lightly on September 26, 2008.

This bag is also very quick and easy to make.  Choose two coordinating neckties that are the same size.  I stitched the area where the two overlap with a fancier type of stitch on my machine.  The ties are folded in half and side seams are straight stitched closed.  For this bag I am tying a square knot in the two small ends.  This bag is a little larger than the one necktie bag but is still pretty darn cute.  This only took a few minutes to make so would also qualify as a quick gift too.

I have decided I just might be the family repository for stuff they don't wear anymore.  I collect their old worn out jeans and have a bag full of neckties that either went out of style or they didn't like anymore.  It all takes  room to store but I have a ready supply when the mood hits me.  I love looking at all the old ties in my stash.  Some are quite beautiful and some are just plain UGLY.  Those will take more thinking to use but maybe someday the ugly will grow on me.  Either way it is nice to have them even if I have to store them.


Happy Bag Making,
Lynn

Small Necktie Bag #1

Here is another new bag that I made for my program on bags/purses for my quilt guild.  This one is made from one necktie and I got the idea and general directions for it from the Sulky website.  This is a simple bag and quick to make too.

The strap is made using the excess necktie that is cut off the body of the bag.  After it was stitched I threaded it with a cord.   This is a small bag just right for carrying your cell phone, an iPod or your keys and a little cash.  This will be perfect for when I want to carry just a few things.

Small Necktie Bag VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

This would make a fast gift if you need to make something quick for family or a friend. Make one for yourself to match that special outfit.  I can see making them from ties of several colors so you have something to coordinate with any outfit, I can see it for those special occasion outfits...see you must make more than one.

Until Later,
Lynn

Recycled Jeans Purses

This past week I made two purses/bags from old worn out jeans which is something we don’t run out of here at this house.  Besides the ones John wears out I have been given old jeans by friends and family so have a supply on hand for what ever I want to use them for.  Here are the finished bags – made using pretty much the same pieces but constructed differently.

 

The strap isn’t finished on the light colored bag, it is to be a gift and I will make the strap the length the recipient wants so for now it is just tied in a square knot.

Like I said the two were made with pretty much the same patterns.  Each bag needs two pieces cut from the back pockets of a pair of jeans.  The larger the size of jeans the better, you might be able to make a little larger bag with a larger pair of jeans.  As you can see from the bags above the darker bag is made from a pair of Wrangler jeans and the lighter bag is made from a pair of Levi jeans.  I found that the Levi jeans had more space between the pocket and the yoke seam than the Wrangler jeans.  The bag pieces are cut 1” larger than the sides and bottom of the jeans pocket and 1 1/2” above the pockets on the light colored bag and approximately 2” above the pockets on the Wrangler bag.  I wanted to avoid that thick seam when putting the zipper in the top of the bag so just cut the top a little bigger.  The main difference in the two bags is that the Wrangler bag has the seams on the inside of the bag – all seams were zig-zagged to prevent fraying.  The Levi bag is constructed with the seams on the outside then clipped about every 3/8”.  Neither bag is lined and seem to have enough body the way they are.

Zippers VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

I put zippers in the top of both bags.  Red Zipper – the edges of the pockets were tuned under and stitched to the zipper.  Gold Zipper - the top edges of the pockets were zig-zagged the the zipper was placed on the raw edges and stitched down.  Both applications were easy and I used zippers that were way too long for the space on each.  I do this all the time as they are cut down after they are stitched in.

 

Since the zipper teeth are polyester the sewing machine can sew right through them with no problem.  I don’t like using metal teeth zippers for several reasons.  You have to get the correct length of zipper in the correct color and stitch carefully on the ends so you don’t hit the metal stop and break a needle or worse yet mess up the timing of your sewing machine.  I have scratched my hand on a metal zipper in one bag I made so am very careful now.  If you buy the longer polyester zippers they can be cut to any size so you can have some on hand for when you need them and only buy one long length.  Of course maybe you live close to where you can just pop over to a store and home in a short time but for me it is a 45 minute drive one way to get supplies so I like to have things on hand.  

I purchased a lot of zippers in lots of colors when the JoAnn’s store was moving.  They were not going to move any of the merchandise from the old store to the new and at the end of the sale I got zippers for 10 to 12 cents each so bought lots.  I  pretty much have zippers covered for the rest of my life I do believe.  Of course that is another “stash” my daughters will have to clean out if I don’t use them all.

This is a “fly by the pants” bag so I just cut pieces and stitched them together and kept my fingers crossed it would work.  I wanted more space on the inside of my bag so stitched a gusset to both bags.  The one pictured above is the Wrangler bag with the seams on the inside and it was cut  2 1/4” wide and a little longer than the three sides it was to be stitched to.  All the edges were zig-zagged in the Wrangler bag to prevent fraying as there is no lining in these bags.

Here is the Wrangler bag turned inside out and you can see I added some embroidery stitches around the pocket on this bag.  These were stitched around 3 sides of the pocket using stock embroidery stitches in my machine – no special embroidery machine or module and I stitched before the gusset was stitched.  I used different stitches on the front and back and like the design detail they added to the bag.

 

Straps – for the Wrangler I cut one layer of denim from the old jeans and selected a gold fabric for the inside of the strap.  The edges are folded twice over the denim and stitched down.  The strap on the Levi bag is the flat felled inside leg seam from the jeans that I trimmed all the excess fabric away and it left a very strong narrow strap. 

Well that is it – No pattern, just cut and stitch and I am happy how they turned out.  If I were to make them again I might have added D rings at the top of the gusset instead of trying to stitch the straps onto the gusset.  Was thick and a little tricky to get it all under the machine but got it finished.

Well on to another bag.  If you are wondering why I am making so many bags it is because I am giving a program for my quilt guild in January so am making some more bags and making samples of ways to sew zippers into bags, strap options, pocket options, types and styles of bags to hopefully inspire my guild members to make bags to fit their needs.

This post is from the blog, Nebraska Views. If you are not currently reading this via e-mail or an RSS feed, then this post has been stolen or scraped from the Nebraska Views blog.  Stolen content can be reported HERE .”

Lynn

More Potholders

I can finally show you the other three potholders/hot pads I made from old jean fabric.  These were made as gifts for friends and I didn’t present them until this last weekend. 

I tried to coordinate them with the tea pots that were also part of their gift.  They might be a little large for the pots but will protect the table from the heat of a pot full of hot water and they can be used as potholders too.

The next photo was sent to me from a reader of my blog following the tutorial I posted on this blog entry.

  She helped her granddaughter make these potholders when they had a sewing day together recently.  Aren’t they cute? She did such a good job too for a young girl.  Her grandmother said if she were making them again she might cut the batting a little smaller so it wouldn’t have a chance to peak out.  I think that would be a good idea – the 1/2” smaller size worked for me but a child would have more trouble keeping the batting hidden under the cotton print and cutting it smaller would solve that problem.  Thanks Carol for sending the photo!.

Lynn

Denim Pot Holder Tutorial

Update 14/12/10   I have changed the size I cut of the pretty fabric and the denim squares  from the below diagram.  Now I cut pretty fabric 8 1/2" square and I cut the denim 9 1/2" square. It doesn't matter what sizes you cut so long as the denim is about 1" larger than the pretty fabric and the batting squares are 1/2" smaller than the pretty fabric.

A few weeks ago I blogged about the denim pot holders I had my grandsons make from old denim jeans when they were here.  I have had several more questions about them so decided to post a tutorial on making them.   The frog one above is one that I got as a gift from a friend many years ago and it has seen much use and sparked the idea for the project.  This is one of my favorite pot holders as it really shields my hands from the hot pots and pans.
I made mine bigger than the frog one and cut the fabrics and batting the following sizes.  You will need 2 - 9 1/2”squares of denim from old jeans, 2 – 8” squares of cotton batting that is pre-washed and dried and 1 – 8 1/2” square of pretty fabric  It is very important that the cotton batting is pre-washed and dried in the dryer as it will shrink when the hot-pad is finished and the denim bubbles on the back and the batting bunches up.  I cut off a hunk of batting a little larger than the size I would need and soaked it in hot water, squeezed it out really well then put it in the dryer with a towel to dry then cut my shapes. I then marked the quilting lines on the front of the quilt fabric with a new marking pen I just got.  It is a Frixion gel pen made by Pilot.  The marks come off with a hot iron but have not used it for anything else yet so might want to be careful marking something really precious.  They are supposed to be erasable too.  The verdict isn’t in yet whether these will be good for quilting but on these pot holders thought it would be a good test.   It certainly disappeared when I pressed it with a hot iron.  The web page says the lines will come back with temps of 14 degrees but wonder if they would come back if you washed the fabric – will have to give that a test before I use it to mark quilting lines or use it for applique.

The lines were stitched but I didn’t like the way it was so compressed in the center with the lines all crossing there so took out the diagonal lines and stitched just vertical and horizontal lines instead.   The first pot holder I stitched I layered the pretty fabric on the two pieces of batting and quilted them together.  My later ones I stitched these quilting lines with one piece of the denim to the back centered under the batting and quilting fabric and liked it better.  My original potholder didn’t have the quilting lines on the back so tried to give these the same look – steam can follow the holes left by stitching and come through and burn your hand so keeping one piece of denim on the back with no quilting lines would keep this from happening.

Quilting VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Center the last piece of denim on the back right sides to the outside  and the pretty quilted sandwich on the top side facing up and pin it together.  The seams are all exposed and will be clipped like the rag quilts.  You should have about 1/2” around the edges that is just denim.   I used a embroidery stitch on my machine and the walking foot to stitch the layers together close to the edge of the quilting fabric.  I just overlapped my stitching on the corners and at the end to secure.  Remember this is a pot holder or hot dish mat so it doesn’t have to be perfect.  The fringing on the edge that takes place after clipping when you wash and dry it will camouflage it anyway.

Stitching the Layers Together VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

The last step is clipping the edges.  I clipped out the corners and made clips every 3/8” almost to the stitching line.  I laundered them with some towels and that helped to fluff up the edges.  I didn’t have the boys do this on their pot holders but will when I get to their house the next time as the edges fluff up better.

Easy Peasy – all finished and ready to use!  You might notice this grid quilting is done differently on this one than the one I wrote about and showed above.  It really doesn’t matter how it is quilted only that it is quilted.

I plan to keep this one nice and not use it for a pot holder but to lay on my table when I use my tea pot.  I am storing it with the tea pot so I don’t forget and dip it into some casserole and have it messy when I need it clean and ready for tea with friends.

I think that is easy to make so give them a try and it is a good project for kids as there is really nothing you can do wrong and it doesn’t matter if the stitching is straight or not.

 This post is from the blog, Nebraska Views. If you are not currently reading this via e-mail or an RSS feed, then this post has been stolen or scraped from the Nebraska Views blog.  Stolen content can be reported HERE .”

Until Later,

Lynn

PS
Check out this blog post on the Ivory Spring blog on the Frixion pens by Pilot.
Another post showing more potholders on this blog entry. 

Little Boys Sew Potholders

I have not had much time to sew lately with the family reunion a week ago and then we had our two grandsons visiting this week for several days.  We had a great time but little boys that are 5 years and 8 years have lots of energy.  They love to play outside all around the farm and have great imaginations.  I think they pretended they were Star Wars characters most of the time and they use old croquet mallets as their light sabers and kept us safe from all those bad guys the whole time they were here!

We did do a little sewing while they were here though.  I chose a very easy project for them to work on.  They made 3 pot holders from blue jean fabric and a square of pretty fabric.  The potholders are raw edged and so, so easy, plus they can be very imperfect and still be great potholders.

First we cut 2 squares of denim from old worn out blue jeans.  Two of these potholders were made  7 1/2” and one 8 1/2”.  The seams are all on the outside and will ravel out a bit as they are used and laundered but that is OK as that is what they are supposed to do. 

They chose a fabric they liked for the top of the potholders….two with a western theme with horses and cowboys for them and one with butterflies and flowers for their mother.  This fabric was cut 1” smaller than the denim square.  There is a piece of cotton batting cut about 1/2” smaller than the pretty fabric too.

To make these potholders this is what we did….First we centered the pretty fabric on the batting, pretty side out.  We centered them on one piece of the denim and marked an X and a plus sign on the pretty fabric then stitched the lines with a straight stitch to to hold it all together.  Easy for kids to do so far… right?

The next thing we did was stitch their names on the back of the second piece of denim.  They chose the letters on the machine to program in the name and then stitched it out.  That was really fun for them to see the sewing machine stitch the letters out  one by one.  On the one they made for their mother they stitched “Mommy”.  The 5 yr. old insisted it had to be “Mommy”, not Mom, Mother or Mama.

The last step was to layer the denim square with the stitched names to the outside, then the stitched sandwich with the denim square next to denim square and pretty side up.  I let them choose embroidery stitches to stitch next to and on the outside of the pretty fabric and they each chose to change the stitch on each side.

The squares did not stay exactly lined up and the stitching was not perfect but these will be loved and used for a long time and really are great potholders to protect hands from getting burned.  Both boys were so proud of them and excited to show them to their parents.

The 5 year old told me he loves, loves, loves to sew.  I chuckled at that as he sat between my legs and just ran the foot pedal that was placed on two catalogs to make it high enough for him.  I did slow the speed down as I had a hard time “driving” as he told me I was doing with the fabric since he liked to sew fast.

A great time but this grandma needed a little rest after they went home.  It is amazing how “quiet” is so very nice.

Until Later,
Lynn