Pouch – Page 2 – Hopefully Creative

Productivity!

Friday at quarter past eleven, my vacation started. And so did a productive streak that continued until a couple of hours ago. The second semester of university finished on Friday after handing in the last assignment. I decided I wanted to make something. I found a free t shirt pattern on ‘3 Hours Past the Edge of the World’ and decided I wanted to sew a knit for the first time. There was this piece of light be knitted stuff (very see through) in my stash, and since I did not care much for it, I figured I could use it to test the pattern.

Here is the result:

Changes for next time? Yes, add length, find a less see through fabric, tighten it a bunch and cut the neckband in one piece (this is recommended, but I has scrap pieces that just fit the front and the back). I felt the sleeves were also to wide, but I also had a wrong fabric for the pattern I think. Ah well, it was good practice, and I enjoyed myself. Although I doubt I’ll wear it often as it is so short.

So I printed and taped the pattern together, cut the fabric and sewed the left shoulder seam on Friday, and finished the shirt on Saturday, which I was pretty excited about. The productivity streak continued. I designed a pouch for my mp3-player to replace the enormous not fitting one I made before the holiday in France. Then I put it together using scraps from a coat project. It looks a bit weird but I think it should do the trick.

Here it is:

Lastly I decided to tackle my box of UFPs, I have this long black almost floor length dress (because I didn’t have enough fabric it’s about a cm of the floor without shoes), with a grey bust bit, that has never been finished. I ripped out the zipper, because it was too small, and am trying to get it to fit me better, which is difficult with the zipper being on my back and me not actually being able to see it. So I’ve left that be for now. It will be tackled soon (I hope). (I tried to take a picture, but it was just wrinkles:)

The weird white looking bit on the right is the attachment of the grey fabric. I’m debating attaching long grey ties to make a bow in the back.. once I figure out how to get it to zip up nicely of course. The quest continues for the perfect back.

Long Time No See

Yes I know, I’ve not been here for a while. I have no excuses. Well one, my sewing machine broke in December (which is quite the problem), so no sewing related things. I have made some things since the last time I’ve posted. A mp3-player pouch, it’s awful, ugly and crude but I needed one soon and my machine had just broke, and it works, so that’s fine. I’ll update it when I’ve gotten my machine fixed.

I’ve started a skirt that just needs hemming and buttonholes, (it’s almost all done by hand since my machine broke..), however, this was the beginning of January, and I’ve since done nothing to the skirt.

I did make a present for a friend, which was a pouch, this time with a flame embroidery. The pouch from all sides:

The last picture might look weird to you.. white things with dots and stripes on them? They are a couple of pebbles I got from our front garden. I painted dots and stripes on them and put them in the pouch with an instruction leaflet. When playing you can use them as runes or play games with them like Pigs. It is not very useful, but I thought it was fun. He seemed to like it, so I’m happy. I’m going to attempt to write more here, to make me do other things than watch television.

Presents

I have a birthday party tomorrow. However, I was faced with a problem. What could I possibly give as a present? I had no ideas, so eventually I decided to make something. Next question: what would I make? Something easy but nice looking, the answer was, so I decided to make another ear bud pouch (previous one). I found a nice blue fabric in my stash that I’d used for a pencil skirt (and still had 3 meters left after that). Which looked quite nice, and I had a zipper which was quite close. So I used those, here it is:

One adjustment I made compared to the previous one was that I added a ‘pocket’ on the back of the pouch, so you can put a coin in there for a shopping cart or something like that.

So the other bit of the gift has 2 parts. If I show them to you, can you guess what they make together?

Well here they are anyways:

Left is a ribbon (oh, what a surprise ; )) and right is a set of tiny clothes pins that I’ve glued a funky bit of ribbon too.
Did you guess?

The answer is: A Christmas Card Hanging Line! (Or birthday cards, Easter cards, whatever cards you may get). Tadaa!

With two cards, I really like the left card. In the Netherlands children come around each year selling so called kinderpostzegels, or children’s stamps. The proceeds go to a charity to help children. One year they had kinderpostzegels that were designed by Dick Bruna, the writer of Miffy (or Nijntje, in Dutch). They also sell cards that are designed by the same person, and the left is a walrus of Dick Bruna, I still have a soft spot for Nijntje related things, that’s why I like it so much.

Well off to bed soon, so I can be cheerful and happy at the party tomorrow! I hope she likes them!

Ear bud pouch

I found this tutorial not very long ago via Ucreate. It is for making a little ‘Circle zip ear bud pouch’ (link). I figured, I have some scraps left over from my purple and black dress, why not make me one of those.. (Apart from the fact that I don’t own a mp3-player or thing that needs ear buds, but that’s.. not important, right?)

So I did, cut out the fabric last night, which was about 5 minutes of work. And just put the pouch under the machine. It was literally half an hour worth of work. The tutorial is so easy to follow, and the steps are clear and easy. It’s pretty much perfect.

I had a blue zipper and some purple leftovers and decided that using yellow would be even more colourful, since the body of the pouch was going to black. Here it is:

I gave it to my mother, since she has ear buds, and she quite liked it, so that was nice. Now when I ever come around to buying something that plays music for me, I’m make myself another one, since they can be whipped during lunch basically! I’d suggest this for an easy little project. Also, if you make it bigger you can put more stuff in it, a little purse of some kind. Whoo, can’t wait to try that one out.

Present! Finally Finished

Today I was supposed to go to the birthday party of a friend of mine. However a few weeks ago I found out that I had a study day today as well. This was only a once a year day and I’ve been struggling a bit with the course matter so it seemed like a better plan to go there. However, I felt a little guilty for not being able to come because he had announced it literally months before. So I decided to make a gift. A special gift. A (mostly)hand-crafted gift.

The plan was as follows. Since I know him from Larp (live action role play) which is, how is it easily and shortly explained?!, a type of role playing. You write a character for yourself that you play in a setting that game masters have written, usually fantasy/medieval like. So you basically, from the moment they announce ‘time in’ to the moment they announce ‘time out’, you play someone else and improvise. It sounds very silly and complicated (especially when I tell you that we fight with swords with a carbon core, foam around it and latex on the outside) but it’s really a lot of fun and you can easily enjoy yourself by trying to make period(like) pieces to wear.

So I figured, what do all people in medieval times need? A pouch to put their stuff in. So I made a pouch. I still had some fabric lying around that I’d used for a dress (it’s not done yet, after 3 years), which was brown and suitable. So I picked that. Now because of the little guilt trip I was having I figured I did not want to just make a plain pouch, so I decided to do some embroidery on it. The first thing that came into my mind was leaves. So I found a picture of leaves and copied those.

I have the worst method of embroidering ever, since I use tracing paper to copy the shape and then pin it on the fabric and sewed directly through and over it, later I rip it of and use a pin to remove little bits. That last bit can be severely frustrating if you have several lines crossing each other. But well it worked.

So after many long hours embroidering leaves onto a rectangular and a round bit of fabric that I’d strengthened with interfacing, I decided I had enough leaves. I cut identical pieces to the embroidered ones and sewed them together (lazy me used sewing machine), and the embroidered ones to. Then I attached the lining to the embroidered bit right sides together while leaving 3 cm or so unsewn so I could turn it right side out. I sew a little loop to the top (inside the open bit which I’d left at the back seam) to hang on a belt and added 8 little loops to the top to be able to close it. Then I hand stitched the lining to the embroidery around the bottom and around the top. Many, many hours after the initial idea had been hatched, three lost needles and many pricks from the things too, it was finished. So I mailed it yesterday and received an email today that he’d received it and liked it. So I’m happy now.

Do you want to see some pictures? If not don’t scroll down.
By the way, excuse the picture backgrounds, I finished it at the office because the four loops I had on just weren’t enough so I added four more at the intern ship I’m doing. And since it had to be mailed that day I had to take picture for evidence there.

From the back all the way round, and the lining.

And here how it looks closed up and ready for use!

Conclusions: finishing something on time, before the deadline is very, very gratifying. Making something useful is also very gratifying and learning a new stitch can make one’s embroidery look much nicer. I think I might try this again someday people. Although I’d probably clip the seam allowances more next time. I will hopefully do something fun tomorrow.

Spring Cleaning

So I haven’t been very active in the creative field. However the past Sunday was spent clearing up my sewing room. It was a complete mess to begin with so something really needed to be done. And it’s even Spring so I’m allowed to call this post Spring cleaning. It’s the first time I’ve ever done that I think!

I now have my fabrics neatly organised in boxes on their sides so they look little closets, I put all my notions in a cabinet and found out that I had way more than I though. I finally figured out that the box of buttons I thought I’d lost was just in the bottom of a bigger box in the corner. I even organised all my patterns in a big catalogue binder thing and now they are not all over the place and all the pieces are kept together. I found some (read; a lot) of projects that I did not remember I had in the works, like a jacket and a long dress, a frog dress that only needs to be hemmed and much more. I really should finish those projects someday.

I’m actually really proud of me because I’m not much of a neatfreak, I’m very bad at clearing up. I think I just like to have all my stuff surrounding me.

However the organising has helped me already because I needed some pins and could find them instantly and I figured I was going to make a friend a birthday present. I knew which fabric I wanted to use and I only had to search a little to find it! I’m making a sort of pouch with falling ‘fall’-leaves embroidered on in fall colours (red, orange, yellow, brown, some greens) and I’m really liking it. Too bad I accidentally spilled some lemonade on it and now it’s in the sink, where I’m hoping it will come out. So I’ll take some pictures once it is finished.

I hope this weekend will bring me closure for some projects. Enjoy yourselves!

Tag: Pouch