I had a great day today! Firstly I'll say that the fruit for today was patience. I feel like I had a fair amount of patience when my 2 year old was reading. It's slow and really frustrating when she gets tired, so I think patience is completely necessary.
Nextly, we went to craft this morning and there were only 4 adults there. Normally there would be 8-12. Another member visited for a few minutes which was lovely, but for the most part only 4 of us. We ate furry friends chocolates from my sister and had a hot chocolate from my aunty. It was so cold outside, so the hot hot chocolate was very welcome!
Third, we went to Grest Nana's, like usual, only this time my sister also came, as did my aunty who comes every other week, and Normal Nana! That is truly rare and very exciting for all of us. So we had a different opponent in Scrabble and she put up a good fight, but it's always a challenge to beat Great Nana. She just finds niggly little nooks to stick in point-heavy letters and smashes the competition. Certainly makes for an exciting game though!
The photo for today is supposed to be "heart" and I didn't think about it until tonight, so this is what I saw and what was missing?
The Heart. Sort of how I feel sometimes when I see certain people. Mmm...
ANYWAY, For those of you that have been following along with my blog, you might remember that I mentioned doing some sewing yesterday, well I did. I completed a whole project. It was a gift for someone very special to me and my kids. Here it is. It's a mobile phone cosy.
I gave it to her and she likes it, so that's a plus.
I thought I could show you how I did it.
So first you need to choose the thing you want to cover, in this case a mobile phone and thankfully the person who received it has the same type as me, so that helped. I just used a plain piece of paper and drew around the phone so I had enough length to fold over the phone with a little flap. Here is my template.
I wanted to use a method similar to foundation piecing, but the lazier version. Basically, I didn't want to measure and pre-cut fabrics, so I made a foundation piece to sew odd pieces of fabric onto until the shape was covered. I thought it would be a good idea to use wadding, but I only had 2 narrow pieces, so I sewed them together with a zig-zag stitch. You can kind of see the seam, but you won't when it's done.
Next I chose some fabrics to use and I thought some of the off-cuts from other projects would be good.
I ironed them and made sure they were all going to be big enough to fit across the width of the wadding. Then I started to attach them.
I laid the first piece onto the wadding right side up but I didn't stitch it on.
The next piece I placed right side down matching the raw edges of both pieces to sew.
I sew most things using a 1/4 inch foot, which I did here too, but this red piece still had the selvage, so I just sewed in a bit from that edge.
I trimmed the seam back to 1/4inch, and the pressed it open.
Then I added a couple more pieces, one at a time in the same way, right side down, stitched them on, trimmed the edge and pressed them open.
Because I was using left-overs, some of the pieces were pretty big and the wrong shape, so I just lined the next one right side down across the middle of the previous piece and stitched it at the angle I wanted. Then I trimmed the excess off the previous piece.
After a few pieces were attached, I turned the whole thing over and trimmed around the edge of the wadding, roughly, just so it was easier to handle, no long dangly bits everywhere.
This is an example of placing a piece where you want and stitching and trimming it.
Using odd shapes and angles, I had to be careful that each piece was still going to cover the whole width of the wadding once it had been stitched. I checked this by first placing them right side UP to check where they would sit...
...and then turning them back over the previous piece to stitch them on.
I needed to do this so many times because of the irregular angles and shapes I was using. More due to my laziness and stinginess RESOURCEFULNESS (using off-cuts) really.
I added a few more pieces and here is the last piece going on.
I pressed the whole thing.
I turned it over to trim it.
Then I decided to stitch along the edge of the flap section to hold the fabric to the wadding. I thought it would help to keep it still while I sewed it to the lining. I just did it really close to the edge though so you couldn't see it at the end.
I though now would be a good time to double check the size. It was ok, so I kept going, but if it wasn't I would have just added another piece of wadding in and some more fabric.
When I was satisfied that it would still fit, I added a button to the centre at one end and a little elastic loop on the flap end.
And then it was time to cut out some lining, so I just laid the main piece onto the lining fabric right sides together and cut around it.
Then I sewed the 2 ends together. I went straight along the bottom, but the whole way around the flap end, so it would stay a little bit separate from the rest when I turned it.
This next bit might be a bit hard to get. I pulled up the wadding part only and laid it together again with the bottom seam against the bottom of the flap section seam. I pinned it so the lining was folded in half and the main piece was in half. It's easier to understand once you can see where I stitched.
Here it is stitched. I left a little opening (maybe 1.5 inches) so I could turn the whole thing through. Something I learnt from someone about leaving this kind of opening was to stitch out from the seam line to the raw edge, that way when you turn it out, the edges you need to sew up by hand are more well behaved ie. the opening doesn't open itself so much.
I trimmed the corners of the flap so it would sit flatter after turning.
Then I turned it through and poked out the corners of the main piece and the flap with a pencil. Sometimes I use a knitting needle, but it depends what is in reach, really. I didn't bother with the corners in the lining because they turn back the other way when it's done.
I stitched closed the opening in the lining with a matching thread.
And then poked in the lining. Woo! Then to test it...
Yay! It fits!
I know there's a little gap, but I didn't want to block the sound completely. I probably could just do a ribbon or elastic over the top next time, not a flap like this, but this will protect the phone more, so I'm not sure.
Anyway, I hope that all made sense. It was pretty quick to make, maybe just over 2 hours including fabric finding and stuff. It was fun doing it all wonky. It's hard for me to do random sort of designs, I like things symmetrical and even, but I think using the scrap pieces of all shapes and sizes helped. If you like it let me know, or if you want me to show you how I do other things, please let me know.
I hope you had a great Wednesday and a Triumphant Tuesday too!
See you tomorrow with the next photo and maybe other stuff.
Goodnight!
