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.

Your non-pro tips for the day

So here we have the second and third crochet hook rolls I’ve made. They’re similar, but I was testing different ways of making them, experimenting to find a prototype that I’m happy with. So far, I’m not 100% happy with any of them. I may make more, until I come up with something I’m actually happy with. Still, these are perfectly usable and are, in fact, already in use. Non pro-tip one: You’re probably not going to get it right on the first, second or even third try.

You’ll notice I’ve used white thread for all these items. I like seeing my stitches and quilting,so  I don’t always think it’s ideal for the stitches to blend in. Plus white thread for these things – well, it’s useful for me to have clear delineation between the pockets for the hooks so I know where to put them.

Visible stitches does bring out the perfectionist in me. After taking this picture I saw the top seam in the green one above – really crooked, right? Actually, ironing distorted it, it’s mostly straight but now it’s bothering me.  Non-pro tip 2: Think, plan, sketch, and visualize first. Cut second.

The purple one has a foldover flap that’s attached on the sides. I thought it would be useful for small metal hooks that tend to slip out easily. Hard to access your hooks, though. The one on the right was an experiment in using bias tape for the sides that irritated me so much I nearly didn’t finish it. Nice idea. Needs work.

These are, again, quilted. Now for your third non-pro tip. If you’re a sewer, you know they make a special quilting foot (and walking foot) that has an adjustable guide for sewing perfectly straight lines. If you don’t know about this, you can see this miraculous invention in action here.

I don’t have such a foot (I could, but that’s another story). But still, you’ll notice my quilting lines are pretty straight, right? Because I wouldn’t want to mark all those lines (how tedious!) I sew straight quilting lines this way, a trick that’s the result of a combination of necessity, perfectionism and laziness. And if, perhaps, your guide isn’t as adjustable as you’d like, this would still work.

1. Mark the first quilting line with chalk so it’s even with the side or whatever diagonal you’d like. Sew that first line.

2. Cut a thin but stiff piece of cardboard the width of the lines you’d like to make. Make sure it’s straight, and make it fairly long. Or you can use one already cut – for example, it turns out the instructions that come with zippers worked pretty well for the sewing machine pad lines.

3. Set your machine to either right or left positions, depending which side of the cardboard you’ll be sewing on, whatever is more comfortable for you. I prefer to sew on the left side.

4. Position the right (or left) edge of the cardboard parallel to the first sewn line, and position the other edge under the foot. Lower the presser foot so the needle is just off the left edge (or right edge) of the cardboard. Since the needle is to one side, quite a bit of the presser foot ends up on top of the cardboard, the effect of which is that the presser foot will hold the cardboard pretty steady.

5. Sew along the edge of the cardboard, moving the strip up when you run out of length. Be careful not to get too close and sew through the cardboard. Repeat step 4 and 5 for each quilted line.

It was fairly easy for me to keep the cardboard in place and sew a straight line this way. I’ve quilted all these pieces this way with good results. I’ve also found the cardboard makes the material flatter – the three layers seem to feed really easily this way without a lot of bunching up of the fabric, which can be a problem when you’re not using a walking foot.

Just a few more items left 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!