Grand Freaking Finale

Comments from the cheap seats:

My mother-in-law said, “Soon you’ll be so organized you won’t be able to find anything.”

My brother Jeremy, when writing about the sewing machine pad, asked “Where is the snack drawer?”

Clever, clever folks.

This is actually my last post about all the organizational items I’ve been making, because I finished the LAST 3 ITEMS. Have I bored you to tears yet with my quest for organization? Did I do enough sewing? I promise, there is a reason I’m doing all of this. One day it will make sense! Eventually you will all look back and say ohhh, yes, I see what amazing forethought she had.

If that’s not foreshadowing I don’t know what is.

So this is 2 small pockets for Stuff. The green one is for crocheting and holds things like my gauge measure, stitch counter, stitch holders, plastic and metal needles, that sort of thing.  The purple one is for embroidery & hand-sewing, and has things like a seam ripper, adjustable measure, measuring tape, chalk, thimble, etc.  Each has two outside pockets and one main pocket. I haven’t decided whether to put a button close on or not. I think not.

I made myself a needle book, designed from the initial issue of Stitch in 2008. There are 8 felt pages for all sizes of needles and you know what? I own a lot of needles. And many of them are huge. Why do I own so many dagger-type needles?! Well anyway – each felt page features a sewn piece of bias tape written on with a fabric marker.

There you have a bit of detail. On the back of the purple pocket is elastic for holding whatever spools of thread I might be using at the time. Nice, right?  It will also hold embroidery bobbins. Then there’s the needle book stitching, there, I was happy about that – there’s a piece of fabric in between each felt page of needles.

Finally, THE BAG. The bag that holds all this stuff I’ve been making lately. The bag that holds every last little fiddly notion, tool and do-dad that I could possibly want whether I’m sitting on the couch or sitting in a car. Fact is, I do more handwork than anything else, and I HATE continually getting up to get things, and I also HATE losing things.

The bag has a top zipper in a very nice casing. But it’s the lining that makes this bag. It’s got three compartments.

YES THREE. Now, all you sewers out there, please take a second and try to imagine exactly how you would make a T-shaped three-compartment inner lining for a bag. It isn’t exactly easy. But I insisted. One pocket is for crochet, the other for sewing, and the end one for general STUFF like eyeglasses and pens.

And you know what? I’m not great at visualization or anything, but I am quite pleased with this.

Before and after. Haha!

I should mention I got the yen to make a chatelaine in the midst of this craziness, but I think I’m done for now.

Cushion & Keeper

A little while back I made a cover for my sewing machine (purple and green, of course) and typically, I completely forget to use it. Right now it doesn’t make much difference if I do. My machine sits in its own little closet, surrounded by all 1,000 of its closest sewing notion friends. It has its own lighting and chair, and because there is a door on the closet, it is one of the only things in the house to escape the depradations of cat, dog and dust. The Cat does, however, frequently wind around my feet when I’m sewing. Just on principle, you realize, because cats just can’t stand having places in the house they cannot enter.

I’ve now followed up my much-neglected cover with a quilted pad for my machine, a pad which also features convenient pockets for stashing sewing items that I’m constantly misplacing.

Now there is a pocket for bobbins and scissors. And a conveniently matching pincushion. And of course, one of the most frequently used tools of any sewer’s kit – the seam ripper.

Now there is a removable pocket (attached with Velcro) – a place I can stuff the millions of thread-ends and teeny bits of fabric each sewing project produces.

Now my little closet is a lot prettier, eh? I surprised myself by doing a very tidy job with this. I didn’t even lose my patience until the very end!

Details: This sewing machine pad with pockets was based on a free pattern from Butterick (it’s the Machine Organizer in their Free Patterns section – I think my fabric is prettier). I used felt instead of thinner interfacing, and quilted the back. Theirs is an organizer, I wanted to create something of a pad. Plus, you might as well know that ALL the patterns in this particular group of sewing items are going to feature quilted linen.

Other alterations:  I pieced the front pocket from the same fabric I’m making the other elements from.  I also added the velcro and additional pocket for threads.

One more note – this pattern calls for single-fold bias tape, which I used, but wouldn’t use it again. My quilted pad is too thick for the size and type of tape, and although I made it work, there may have been swearing that took place as a consequence.

Next up is some wrangling with my crochet hooks, I think. I made 2 hook rolls, and I may continue experimenting for the “perfect” hook roll, whatever that means!

Bits & Bags 1: Elastic Wrist Straps and A Fear of Zippers

Working my way through Organizational Items A-F (actually it’s now A-H), but here are five of my completed items.

First up: Button Pincushions! These are not fancy pincushions–not cute animals or stuck into teacups or some such–but they are functional. My intent was to just make the wrist pincushions, but I had extra fabric, so I whipped up a third fat little guy.

I’ve loved wrist pincushions since I first discovered my mom’s when I was a kid – I thought it was genius and stole it regularly. I now have one of the standard Dritz wrist pincushions ones too, but these days the shine is off. I think it’s ugly, too thin, and I don’t like the plastic wrist band. My wrist pincushions are a take-off of a Keyka Lou free pattern. I sewed mine with 2 fabric layers and iron-on fleece, while hers are made of 3 layers of fabric. Also, mine have a comfy elastic wrist strap which I came up with all by my lonesome.

Not sure what happened, but the green one is a tad malformed … I must have stuffed it funny. These little guys will save me from sticking my pins and needles into random cushions on the couch or into my clothing while embroidering … a practice which I’m sure will one day become tragic if I continue.

Second: FEAR OF ZIPPER. These two items mean that I’ve now sewn a zipper into three items in my entire sewing life. I decided my irrational fear of sewing in zippers must end. It’s not that hard. At some point I became petrified of zippers to the point of avoiding them like they are months-old moldy cheese. So here I am facing sewing fears–I’m sure some past therapist is very proud. I’m not going to pretend my zippers are at a professional level, but they’re definitely functional and not bad-looking, I think.

Plus it never hurts to distract everyone by adding cute cat charms

I messed about with quilting for these bags … each side of the bags is quilted using thin fleece. One bag has straight line patterns, the other curvy free-form sewing. Quilting makes for thick sturdy bags, which is useful because I intend to keep sharp pointy objects in bags like these – an awl and scissors to start – and thick sides mean the sharp pointy things have less of a chance of poking me when I reach for the bags.

I’m plowing through these now at a great rate of speed, should be ready to post a couple more items soon!!