PlanetJune

I designed my pig wrist pincushion last summer, and it’s been so useful - I wear it whenever I use my sewing machine. This month’s Whiplash challenge theme is Zakka so I thought a tutorial for my pincushion might fit into that category. I have named this pincushion the Offset Square Wrist Pincushion because it’s made from two squares of fabric, offset before sewing, which results in an interesting shape in the finished pincushion:

Click for the full size picture

You will need:

2 squares of fabric, each 3.5″
3/4″ width twill tape, approx 10-12″ (depending on the size of your wrist)
3/4″ width Velcro, 1.5″
A small bead or button
Sewing thread in colours to match fabric and Velcro
A small quantity of polyester fibrefill stuffing

Instructions

1. Measure the circumference of your wrist and add 3.5″. Cut a length of twill tape to this measurement.
2. Lay the twill tape down on a flat surface, and fold up 1 inch at one end of the tape. Position the ‘hook’ piece of the Velcro at the same end so it covers the raw edge of the folded tape. Pin in place if required, then sew all around the edge of the Velcro.
   
3. Turn the twill tape over so the Velcro is face down. Fold up 1 inch at the other end of the tape and position the ‘loop’ piece of the Velcro over this end so it covers the raw edge of the folded tape. Pin in place if required, then sew all around the edge of the Velcro.
4. Cut two 3.5″ squares of fabric using scissors or a rotary cutter. Using a fast-fade fabric pen or tailor’s chalk, mark one square (square A) 3/8″ from the edge around all four edges, then mark the centre of each edge. Mark the second square (square B) with registration points 3/8″ down from the top, at each side.
   
5. Position A face up and lay the twill tape along a diagonal of the fabric with the loop side of the Velcro facing up, so that an equal amount of the tape extends over each corner of the fabric. Pin the tape to the fabric.
   
6. Sew the tape to the fabric with a 1.5″ long rectangle in the middle of the fabric and tape (turned over in photo below so you can see the stitching).
   
7. Place B face up with the registration marks at the top edge. Close the wrist strap and pin to itself to keep it out of the way while you sew up the pincushion (see right), then place A face down on top of B. Now offset A by moving it upward until A’s centre marks are aligned with B’s registration marks. Pin the squares together along the right hand side.
   

   Now, to sew the squares together. You will be stitching 7 lines, each half the length of one side of the square, and then rotating either the upper or lower fabric square before stitching the next line. The fabric you have already sewn will get bunched up while you are sewing, but it will all work out in the end!

   

8. Starting at the centre of the right edge of A (point a), sew the squares together from a to b. Make sure the sewing machine needle is down, then lift the presser foot. Rotate A so that the next side of A is aligned with the remainder of the first side of B and point c is directly over point d. Pin in place if desired (as the piece is so small, I find it easier to just hold the two pieces together and feed them through the machine), then lower the presser foot.
   
9. Sew along this edge until you reach point d. Make sure the sewing machine needle is down before raising the presser foot. Rotate B so the next side is aligned with the remainder of the side of A. Pin if desired, lower the presser foot, then sew along the next edge.
   
10. Continue in this way, repeating 8 and 9, until you reach the final side. Leave this side open to turn the pincushion through. Finish off securely.
    
11. Clip the excess fabric from all the corners of the pincushion, then turn it right side out through the open side. It will be a tight fit so be patient with it. You can use a pen or your finger to push out the corners.
12. Fill the pincushion with fibrefill until it is fairly solid, then fold the seam allowances inside the cushion and hand-stitch the gap closed.
    
13. Thread a needle with both ends of a length of strong sewing thread, leaving the loop of the thread longer than the two ends. Push the needle through the centre of the pincushion from the middle of the cushion top through to the middle of the tape. Do not pull the thread all the way through - leave the loop extending from the top. Insert the needle close to where it came out and stitch back up through the pincushion and through the loop. Pull tight to dimple the centre of the cushion.
    
14. Add a small button or bead to cover your stitch and then go back through the pincushion, make one more small stitch on the back and come back through to the top. Unthread one of the two ends from your needle, go through the button or bead once more with the other end. Tie the two ends together and then lose them inside the pincushion.
15. Attach the pincushion to your wrist, add some pins, and you’re ready to go!
    

I saw this post on Craftzine yesterday about the new Japanese fashion of wearing colourful haramaki aka ‘belly warmers’. I think this is the best idea I’ve seen in a long time! Ever since the advent of low-rise jeans, women have been stuck with a little cold gap between the bottom of our shirts and the top of our jeans. This is a cool way to cover that gap, and why import one from Japan when we can all make our own?

I whipped this one up this morning as a prototype, so I left it plain, but just imagine how amazing it could look if you freezer paper stencilled a funky design on the fabric before sewing it…

When it was finished, I tried it on and was surprised by how warm I felt - it really does work, even when it’s just made from 2 layers of t-shirt fabric.

To make your own haramaki:

You can use any fabric with some stretch, so you can pull your haramaki on and off. I used a knit jersey (i.e. t-shirt fabric).

You will also need a sewing machine with a stretch stitch (pictured below).

1. Work out the dimensions you need. The height is up to you - I decided to go for an 8″ tall haramaki but you could make it longer if you want. The length of the haramaki depends on the size of your tummy..! Of course it would be easier to estimate for a skinny straight up-and-down Japanese model than for a regular curvy lady. I decided to make mine 30″ around (without giving too much away, that’s halfway between the measurements for my waist and my hips). If you want to wear it high up, make it a bit shorter than your halfway measurement, and if you want it to cover your hips, you may need to make it a little longer, depending on how stretchy your fabric is.

   To get the fabric dimensions, the length is 1″ over the length you decided (mine is 30″ + 1″ = 31″) and the width is double the height plus 1″ (mine is 2×8″ + 1″ = 17″). Cut your fabric to these dimensions and lay out as shown (right side up):
   

2. Fold your fabric in half so the top meets the bottom, as shown below:
   
3. Pin the 2 long sides together, all the way along. It’s better to space the pins more closely than you normally would, as the stretch fabric can get out of alignment more easily than a regular fabric:
   
4. Sew along the line you’ve pinned. You have 1/2″ seam allowance, but that 1/2″ includes the full width of the zig-zag stitch, so you may need to practice on scrap fabric first to see which guide line to follow on your sewing machine. Trim the extra seam allowance after sewing:
   
5. You have just made a long tube. Stick your arm through the tube and grab onto the far edge of the tube:
   
6. Pull your arm back out of the tube, bringing that far edge of the tube back through the middle of the tube. Stop when the raw edges meet up, and align the edges:
   
7. Pin the inner and outer layers together, all around the raw edge:
   
8. To clarify, you should now have a tube that is half as long as before, made from 2 thicknesses of fabric. The pins should not close off the end of the tube:
   
9. Sew around the pinned edge (again, 1/2″ seam allowance), leaving a gap of about 3″. Turn the harimaki right side out through this gap:
   
10. Fold the edges of the gap under, and hand-sew the opening shut. That’s it! All finished!
    

I’ve been wearing mine all day and it’s warm and comfy and like having a hug all day long
Please leave me a comment if you like this idea or if you make one!

…than a good cup of tea. We even import our tea from England because it’s just not the *same* in Canada. Our teapot is round and comforting, but our precious tea gets cold before hubby can have his third mug.

As a (slightly belated) Christmas gift, I’ve made him a quilted tea cosy. I’ve seen knitted tea cosies that have holes at the front and back for the spout and handle, but the only quilted tea cosies I’ve seen are like giant hats, and you have to remove them to pour the tea. Maybe it’s just easier that way, because the knitted fabric will stretch to fit over the teapot appendages, but quilted cotton obviously can’t do that. But why should that stop me - there has to be a way to make a quilted tea cosy that you don’t have to remove to pour the tea…

I played around with folding a piece of paper until I found something that looked about right:

Starting with a rectangle for each side (dimensions depend on the size of your teapot), sew line A to line B and line C to line D. Then sew the two sides together along lines E and F. These lines are dotted because the easiest way to get the angles right is to NOT measure these lines initially, but draw them in after sewing A-B and C-D so E and F form one straight line along the top of the cosy.

I started by quilting this cat and mouse fabric together with extra thick batting and some scrap cotton on the back (using curved lines to avoid cutting any cats in half with the quilting!) and then cutting it in half to make my two rectangles:
 

Left: front after quilting; right: back after quilting

I sewed my A-B, C-D, E-E and F-F lines. The double layer of extra thick batting proved too much for my sewing machine, so I had to finish them by hand. I then trimmed the resulting triangles of batting that I had created inside the cosy. I repeated the process using black cotton (unquilted) to form the lining, and tacked it wrong sides together with the cosy.

I handmade bias tape from the same fabric using the Dread Pirate Rodgers’ Continuous Bias Tape instructions. I have never made bias tape before, and this method worked really well for me - the best part was cutting the tube I had created into a long spiral and it magically turned into a perfect bias tape strip.

I applied one long strip of bias tape around all the edges using Heather Bailey’s wonderful Continuous Quilt-Binding instructions. I sewed the two sides together under the spout and then sewed a black hook and eye under the handle at the back, so the cosy can be removed.

Ooh, a nicely mitred corner (thanks Heather!)

Finally, I finished the top of the cosy with a fabric covered button with a mouse nicely centred on it!

Et voila!

Hubby is pleased - in our preliminary testing, it kept the tea nice and warm for 2 hours! I am entering this in the GIFT category in this month’s Whiplash contest.

I have been challenging myself to enter the whiplash contest on whipup every month:

• I crocheted a bag in July (bags)
• I refashioned a skirt into a dress in August (wardrobe surgery)
• I crocheted a hat in September (hats)
• I made a bracelet in October (accessories)

Every month I take the theme and then figure out something I can do with it to challenge myself and to create something I like. I’m sure if I made different things I would have a better chance of winning, but that’s not the reason why I enter.

But here is November’s brief:

“NOVEMBER is officially ALT CRAFT month - Non-traditional crafts with an edge
Use of alternative materials with traditional techniques or traditional materials with original patterns”

I have been thinking it over for 2 weeks and I cannot think of anything I could make that would fit into this category. And then it came to me: I am not alternative. And maybe that’s okay - I make up my own designs and patterns, so my work is not entirely traditional or derivative. I’ve seen some amazing alt-craft projects on craftster etc, but I admire them without wanting to do something similar. I like the things I make, and I don’t want to put time and effort into making something that doesn’t “fit” with me.   

Maybe I’m not alone in this… There are suspiciously few entries this month (only 5 at the time of writing) - a lot less than usual. Maybe everyone is too busy, or leaving it to the last minute, but maybe there are others who feel the same as me.

Kudos to the folks at whipup for creating whiplash and the amount of crafty brilliance it generates each month. I’m not criticizing their choice of theme. I just wonder: is ’alternative’ now the only way to be cool? Have I just pigeonholed myself into the ‘unhip’ corner? I am proud of my work the way it is and I don’t want to feel pressurized to change my style (even though the pressure is probably all in my head).

And that’s why I’m not going to enter whiplash this month.

October’s whiplash theme is Accessories; a really broad theme with a lot of scope. I have been crocheting a lot recently, so I reluctantly (but only temporarily!) put my crochet hook down and decided to go with a different craft this month.

Autumn has always been my favourite season. My birthday is in October, and I love the colours of autumn. Especially since I moved to Canada, the ‘fall’ colours are something I look forward to every year. I decided to make a bracelet with all my favourite autumn elements, so I’d have a little piece of autumn to keep with me all year round.

I made seven signature beads from FIMO polymer clay: a crisp red apple, a bunch of purple grapes, a deep pink rose, a glossy acorn, a pumpkin, an ear of corn, and a red leaf (for scale, the acorn is exactly 1cm tall).

After baking and varnishing them, I glued a bugle bead through the hole in each polymer clay bead for added strength and to give each bead the same width. I strung them on Stretch Magic bead cord with golden bugle beads to space them out and amber coloured glass beads as accents. Here is the finished bracelet (click to see a bigger version):

UPDATE: Here’s a photo of the bracelet in use!

This is my entry to the September Whiplash contest. The challenge was to make any kind of hat. I got the inspiration for my hat from my cat, Maui:

I crocheted the cat hat in single crochet from black chenille with cream chenille accents. After reading the tapestry crochet post on whipup a few weeks ago, I’ve been wanting to try it, so I added a zig-zag border around the bottom, to match the ‘M’ markings on Maui’s forehead. I finished the bottom with reverse single crochet.:

I single crocheted cream fronts and black backs for the ears, then joined the fronts to the backs with a reverse single crochet border:

The hat still looked a bit plain, so I added three flowers embroidered with lazy daisy stitch, with bead centres:

Maui seems to approve of the finished hat:

I’m entering the cat hat into the design category of Whiplash this month.

The August whiplash challenge is called ‘wardrobe surgery’ and involves refashioning an exisiting piece of clothing by deconstruction/reconstruction or embellishment/decoration.

I looked through my old clothes and found this long skirt that I used to love in the mid ’90s, but now it’s hopelessly high-waisted and really doesn’t do anything for my body type:

Yuck! I hope it didn’t always look this bad on me! It’s so unflattering…

Here it is laid out on the floor (inside out) so you can see the shape of it: 

How did I turn this into the cute strapless dress shown below?

First I took in the side seams between the original waistband and the new hip area. I added two vertical darts at the front between the bust and waist to fit the bodice more closely, and then added two more vertical darts at the back from the shoulder blades to just below the waist, to fit the curve of my back.

I turned the old elasticated waistband inside the dress (which helps to keep it from falling down - always a risk with a strapless top), and took the bottom of the dress up by 12cm to bring it up to knee length. I used the excess fabric cut from the bottom of the dress to make straps, but the dress looked better without, so I removed them again. I was also considering making a fabric flower to accessorise, but I think the dress looks classy the way it is, so I’m going to keep it simple.

I love the fit of this dress! I can never buy dresses because of my pear-shaped figure, but this does exactly what a dress should do - fits around my top half, and floats over the areas I don’t want to emphasise. It took a lot of pinning and re-pinning (and in some cases unpicking seams and trying again) before I got the dress to fit like this, but it was worth it!

I’m entering this into the deconstruct/reconstruct category on whiplash.

The whiplash bag competition results are have finally been announced and, although I didn’t win, my crochet and satin evening bag got a special mention in the ‘Skill’ category! I really didn’t expect to win, especially after seeing the quality of some of the other entries, so this is a real confidence booster for me.

Here’s my almost-winning design:

Congrats to the winners and thanks to the Whip up panel for noticing me.

I’ve been thinking of crocheting a bag for a while, since I saw a bag pattern on the Bernat site. I didn’t like how thin the strap was in the pattern, or that the bag had no way to close, so I knew I’d have to make up my own pattern. The July whiplash challenge to make a bag came along at just the right time to get me started.

I wanted a small bag to hold essentials (purse, keys, phone, etc) that wouldn’t be too bulky for when I go out in the evening, but that wouldn’t look too ‘dressy’ for everyday use. 15×15cm seemed about the right size.

I crocheted the bag with black size 10 crochet cotton and a 1.5mm hook, using a modified cross treble stitch. I wanted an open crochet pattern so that the lining could show through, and the gaps around the ‘X’ stitches worked out well for that. I made up the pattern as I went along - decreasing the Xs to make the flap of the bag was an interesting challenge.

I used a small piece of gorgeous periwinkle blue satin for the lining, and covered the button with the same fabric to tie everything together. The strap is 350 rows of single crochet stitches, crocheted tightly for strength.

The materials for this bag only cost $5, but crocheting all those Xs took a long time! I think it was worth it though - I’m really pleased with how well it turned out and I’m looking forward to using it.

I’m entering this bag into the whiplash contest in the skill category.

I just bought a sewing machine last week, so I’ve started to make my way through the pairs of trousers I’ve bought and never quite got around to taking up to fit my short legs. I hate to throw away anything that may come in handy later, but I’ve never been able to think of anything to do with the leftover bands from the bottom of trouser legs.

This is a bit outside my comfort zone as I usually plan everything before I start a project, but I was struck by inspiration after hemming a pair of jeans, so I decided to try to make a hairband from one of the remnants.

The cutoff.

I folded the raw edge over twice and hemmed it. I used black thread, so it doesn’t really show up in the photo.

Here I have just started embroidering. I backstitched a freeform design using 4 strands of DMC embroidery cotton.

Here’s the finished embroidery.

I’ve been wondering what to do with these yummy mixed berry shade beads I picked up a while ago. I stitched them on with nylon monofilament so the stitches wouldn’t show.

Here’s the finished article in use.

Thanks to whipup for inspiring me to start this blog!