Surface Design and A Tutorial...

I've been playing with some surface design using Jane LeFazio's Eucalyptus stencil to change some commercial fabric into something that is uniquely my own.  You can see the details of that transformation here.

I've been meaning to make myself a toiletry bag for about a year now, but I just couldn't fine the motivation.  Well, I guess this newly designed fabric was the ticket.  I've decided to share my steps in a detailed tutorial since I was unable to find any toiletry bags this size quite like it when I did a search online.  I would like to thank Jane for her tutorial for a similar but smaller zippered pouch.


Fully Lined Toiletry Bag Tutorial (or make a cosmetics bag using the smaller measurements)

Materials:

For the larger/toiletry bag (finishes about 12" long, 6" wide, and 3 1/2" tall)

18" zipper
2 pieces of fabric measuring 16" X 10" (for the outside of your zippered pouch)
2 pieces of fabric measuring 16" X 10" (for the lining)
4 pieces of heavy weight fusible interfacing measuring 16" x 10" (Important!  This is what gives your bag some structure!)
2 pieces of fabric measuring 4" X 3" to make your tabs (these can match your outer fabric or you could use a coordinating fabric)

For the smaller/cosmetics bag (finishes about 7" long, 4 1/2" wide, and 3 1/4" tall)

12" zipper
2 pieces of fabric measuring 10" X 8" (for the outside of your zippered pouch)
2 pieces of fabric measuring 10" X 8" (for the lining)
4 pieces of heavy weight fusible interfacing measuring 10" X 8" (Important!  This is what gives your bag some structure!)
2 pieces of fabric measuring 4" X 3" to make your tabs (these can match your outer fabric or you could use a coordinating fabric)

Optional:   

I chose to cover my lining fabric with iron-on vinyl to make it easy to wipe with a damp cloth should anything spill inside.  If you decide to do this, you have to cover the lining fabric with the vinyl before you do anything else.

This product is available at fabric stores like Fabricland and on-line.

Just follow the instructions on the package for how to apply it...it's very easy!

Okay, let's get started...

1.  Making the pull tabs.  Take one of your 4" X 3" tab pieces. Fold and press about 5/8th of an inch along one long edge.







Turn it the other way, this time folding and pressing about 1/4" along the other long side.

Fold the 1/4" edge down onto the wider 5/8" edge until the edges are close to even and press (see photo with red circle).

Top stitch close to both edges and then fold the tab in half and press.  Set aside.

2. Adding the interfacing.  Fuse the heavy weight interfacing to the wrong side of all 4 of the bag pieces (outer fabric and lining).

You've now got all of the parts you'll need to put the bag together!

3. Putting in the zipper.  It is important that you make some marks 1/2" in from the sides on the back of your lining and outer fabric pieces.  You can't sew past these marks or you'll get yourself in trouble later!  My zipper was longer than needed (using what I had on hand) so I marked where the edge of the fabric would fall as well as that 1/2" mark on the zipper too. 

It's time to put in the zipper.  Lay the first piece of lining right side up (blue dots).  Put the zipper on top, along the 16" edge, and also right side up.  Lay the outer fabric right side down (green pattern).  As much as I hate pinning, you will want to pin this carefully.  I put the first pin in that 1/2" space that you don't want to sew, and then continued along, putting the last pin in that 'no sew' area on the other end. 

Remember not to sew the 1/2" areas at the beginning and end of this seam.  You should use your zipper foot (didn't have mine with me at the cottage!) to sew this.  Fortunately with the low profile zipper and the extra thickness of the fabric because of the interfacing, I had no trouble with my regular foot.

Fold the fabric away from the zipper and press.

Repeat these steps with the remaining pieces of outer and lining fabrics to attach the other side of the bag.

Top stitch along both sides.  As you can see, I like to use two rows of top stitch.  For the first, I set the machine to the 1/4" setting, then I stitch to the centre setting and again keep my pressure foot right along the edge of the fabric.

4. Sewing the bottom seams for lining and outer bag.  Right now, you have the zipper at the centre with a layer of lining wrong side together with a layer of lining on each side.  You need to rearrange the sides so that the lining is together on one side and the outer fabric is together on the other side.  Lay the piece down so that the zipper is at the centre and the lining sides are on the left, right sides together, and the outer fabrics are together on the right, right sides together.

Starting with the outer fabric, pin if you like, and stitch just along the 16" edge.  This time you will stitch right to the edges (you don't need to leave that 1/2" you did before).

Unlike this photo, stitch the outer fabric seam using a 1/4" seam.

Now let's do the lining seam.  Match the 16" edges, right sides together, and pin if you'd like.  If you lined it with vinyl you'll need to pin!  Before you sew, mark an area along the middle of this seam where you will not sew.  You need this to be about to turn the bag right side out when you're done.  I'd leave about 5 inches, especially if you used the vinyl.

Sew this seam using a 1/2" seam so that the lining ends up a bit smaller than the outer layer of the bag.  This way it nestles nicely inside.  Backstitch at the stop marks so that the opening doesn't rip as you are turning the bag right side out later.

5. Adding the tabs and sewing the end seams.  Fold the bag so that the bottom seams are centred on the zipper, with the outer fabric on top. Make sure the lining's bottom seam is lined up with the zipper too, and press it flat.

Here's another shot of what this folded pressed piece should look like at this point.

Lay the tab so that it is centred along the bottom seam of the outer fabric, with the part you want at the top facing up and the raw edges lined up with the raw edges of the outer fabric.  Tack the tab in place with a quick line of stitching just over this tab, as shown below.

Now, starting with the end OPPOSITE the one with the zipper pull (while zipper is closed), pin the outer fabric edges, right sides together, and carefully stitch along this seam, being careful to hold the lining fabric out of the way (This is why that 1/2" 'do not stitch' area was so important earlier!).  

It should look like this photo when stitched.  If your zipper was too long, you can go ahead and trim it a bit shorter now.

We're now going to stitch the other side of the outer fabric closed. OPEN THE ZIPPER!

Open the zipper almost all the way.  If you don't, you won't be able to turn your bag right side out when you're done!











Pin and stitch along this seam, as you did for the other end, above, being careful to pull the lining out of the way.

Repeat the same steps with the lining, this time holding the outer layer away as you sew the ends of the lining shut.  Do this for both ends of the lining.

6. Shaping, folding and sewing the corners.  You are going to repeat this for all eight corners (4 bag corners and 4 lining corners).  Pick up a corner, and press it flat so that the seam runs straight down the centre of the triangular fold as shown by the red line in the photo.

Lay this folded triangle flat on the table and measure 1 1/2" from the tip, along that centre line.  Draw a line along the edge of the ruler to mark your sewing line.

Sew along the line you just drew and then trim off the extra fabric. 

Repeat these steps for the other seven corners. 

Here you can see I've shaped the outer part of the bag after finishing the first four corners.  I still have to do the corners on the lining.

After all 8 corners are finished, you are ready to turn the bag right side out.

Reach into the opening that you left in the bottom seam of the lining fabric and turn the bag right side out.

Shape the bag by completely pushing out all of the corners.





All going well, your finished bag should look something like this:

'Egg'-citing Tutorial

Yesterday afternoon I dyed some Easter eggs and I thought I'd share how I did them.  This would be a fun activity to do with your kids or grandkids, or just by yourself :o)

Let's start with what you need:

Eggs (keep the carton)

Crayola crayons

a tea towel

paper towels

food colouring

vinegar

water

6 little custard cups

6 teaspoons

My trick for timing perfect hard boiled eggs is to carefully put the eggs into a pot of cold water.  Put the pot on the stove and turn on to high heat.  Wait until the water comes to a full boil, then put the lid on the pot and turn off the heat. Set a timer for 20 minutes and let eggs sit in the hot water until the timer goes off.  When the timer goes off, carefully pour as much of the hot water out of the pot as you can without dumping the eggs.  Then run cold water over the eggs, continuing until the water in the pot is cold.  Let the eggs sit in the cold water for a while (10 minutes or so) to stop the cooking and to cool them down.  Once the eggs are cool enough to easily handle you're ready to start decorating.

Using your crayons, doodle/draw simple designs on the egg shell.  I kept the eggs on a tea towel to give them a bit of a cushion and also to keep them from rolling off of the table as I was colouring.

Here are my eggs with the colouring step complete.  Notice I did everything from simple dots and stripes to flowers, spirals and zig zags.  You might also want to write names on the eggs.  Anything goes!

The next step is to prepare your food colouring.  I used Wilton Icing Colours this time, but in the past I have also used the liquid food colouring available at the grocery store with equally successful results.  Just remember that the Wilton colour paste is highly concentrated, so a little goes a long way.

I used the six colours I had, so I prepared a little custard dish for each colour.  To protect my counter top, I put a sheet of paper towel on a plastic tray and put the dishes in the tray.  I added a tiny scoop of the food colour paste to water in which I had added a bit of vinegar (about 1 tbsp vinegar to 2 cups of water).  The vinegar helps the egg shell to absorb the colour better.





As you can see in this photo, I did not fill the dishes very full.  The 2 cups of water was enough for the six little custard dishes.  This saves having to use too much food colouring (always trying to be economical).

Once you lower the egg into the dye, you'll need to carefully rotate the egg in the dye with the spoon to ensure it dyes evenly all over.  When you're happy with the colour (it will only take a few seconds) carefully lift the egg out of the dye and let it rest for a few minutes on some paper towel to absorb the excess dye.  Be careful to use a clean area of the paper towel to avoid unwanted spots of other colours on your egg.

For most of the eggs I dyed them in only one colour, but as you can see with this one, I decided to experiment.  I first stood the egg in the orange dye, holding it up with my fingers (be prepared to get coloured fingers!...it did mostly wash off after a few washings.).  Next I stood the opposite end in the green dye.  Then I gently wiped it with a paper towel to take off any excess dye before putting the whole egg into the yellow dye for a short time, rotating it with the spoon as above.  To get the smaller bits of blue and purple on the top and bottom, I held the egg in a teaspoon of the desired dye so that just the end would be in the colour.  If you plan to do some experimenting, I would do this at the end because you do risk cross contaminating the dyes and therefore may not be able to get the pure original colours again.

I store the finished eggs in the original egg carton in the fridge  for safe keeping until I'm ready to serve them up in a pretty Easter basket.

DO NOT dump your food colouring dye yet...

Because I hate to waste beautiful colour, I grabbed 6 pieces of white fabric (fat quarter sized) from my studio and wet them.  I then wrung them out, crumpled them and put them into sealable plastic bags.  I poured one of the food colour dyes into each bag, sealed it up and then gently squished it around until the dye penetrated all of the fabric.  I set the bags into a basin and I'll let them sit for about 24 hours (I'll flip them over ever few hours when I think of it).  They will then get a rinse and I'll heat set them with my steam iron and they'll be ready to use in my fibre art!

How to Use the 'Mouse Over' Technique...

Credit where credit is due...
this fun 'mouse over' image is thanks to this site here.

So many of you have been admiring/enjoying/commenting on my use of the 'mouse over' technique to show the before and after of images of my digitally edited software so I decided I would share the technique in a post.

I used to just link people who asked about it to Kim Klassen's website because that is where I learned the technique.  Kim generously shares (for free) so many wonderful tips and tricks, as well as beautiful textures, and one of them was this mouse over technique.  

Kim also has many amazing workshops and online courses which I can highly recommend.  I have taken Photoshop: the Essentials, and am currently enjoying Beyond Layers.  (Please note that for obvious reasons I would never share a lesson or technique taught in a class that has a fee attached to it!)

Okay, back to the 'mouse over'.  First of all, you need to upload your images (before and after) to a web based site like Flickr or Picasa (those are the ones I use) because you are going to need the image URL (which you can obtain by right clicking on the image once it's in those web based sites).

Next, you need the following code (copy and paste everything between the squiggly lines into a blank document and save it on your computer...Go ahead, do that now...I'll run and get another coffee while I wait...):  Important:  part way down in the code you will see http://lindakittmer.blogspot.com/ which is MY blog URL.  Replace my blog URL with your own, and then save the document.  Do this now so that you only have to do it once and not every time you use the code!  Be careful not to delete the punctuation as computer code is not forgiving.  You must maintain the exact syntax or it won't work.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">

<br /></div>

<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>

<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://lindakittmer.blogspot.com/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img onmouseout="this.src='http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7059/6866348739_39f5e72a84_z.jpg'" onmouseover="this.src='http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7066/6866348525_2b0a727255_z.jpg'" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7059/6866348739_39f5e72a84_z.jpg" /></a></td></tr>

<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mouse over photo to see the 'before' image.</td></tr>

</tbody></table>

</div>

<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">

<br /></div>

<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">

These next two lines aren't part of the code, but you want to copy and paste them into your document to remember what goes where: 

first and third photo addresses are the “after” images

second photo address is the “before” 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Okay, now to actually put it into your post...

You'll notice that you can either post by using 'Compose' or 'HTML' (I'm using blogger...sorry I don't know about other blog interfaces).  You'll see the two buttons on the left in the tool bar of the post screen.  Go ahead and start writing your post as you usually would.  When you want to add the photos, click on the 'HTML' button.  You should see what you have typed so far, along with computer code for spacing, etc.  

Open that document you saved with the above code, highlight and copy the code, and then come back to your post.  Put your cursor where you want the image to appear (that should be below what you have written so far) and paste the code.  

Now you have to substitute your images URLs for mine (since that's what you've got in the sample code).  Go to Picasa, Flickr or where ever you uploaded your photos, and right click on the after image.  Copy the code.  Come back to your blog post in progress, and find the first place that you see an image URL (http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7059/6866348739_39f5e72a84_z.jpg).  Carefully highlight it (remember the warning above about computer code syntax) and paste your own image URL in place of mine.  Now, scan down and find the THIRD place you see an image URL and repeat the highlight paste with the same URL.  

Go back to Picasa, Flickr or where ever you uploaded your photos, and right click on the before image.  Copy the code.  Come back to your blog post in progress, and find the second place that you see an image URL.  Highlight and paste to over write my image URL with your own.

Do your happy dance...you're done!!!

It may seem complicated, but once you've done it once or twice you'll find it pretty straight forward.  Perhaps you'll want to print these instructions out so that you can follow along, step by step, for the first few times until you feel confident.  

I look forward to seeing your 'mouse over' before and afters in your future posts!  Please leave me a comment with your link so I can come and check them out.  Thanks!

Sharpie Faux Tie-dye Tutorial and More Journal Covers

Sadly some sort of a computer glitch has caused all of the images in this post to disappear, and I am unable to correct the problem.  Sorry!

I'd like to share with you a fun faux tie-dying tutorial using Sharpie markers.  You can use this method with t-shirts as indicated on the Sharpie website, but today I'd like to show you another fun use of this method, using cotton fabric (rather than t-shirt jersey).

You'll also need a drinking glass and a straw or eye-dropper.

Step 1:  Cut the cotton up into small squares, slightly larger than the opening of your drinking glass.

Step 2:  Lay a piece of the cotton onto the top of the glass.  You can secure this with an elastic band if you wish, but it's not necessary.

Step 3:  Using a Sharpie marker, draw a few dots in a circular pattern (see first left photo below).

Step 4:  Using another colour of marker, add dots between the first (as illustrated, these can be outside the original circle)

Step 5:  Using the straw or eye-dropper, slowly drip rubbing alcohol, one drop at a time, into the centre of your dots (see photos 2-4 above).  As the alcohol spreads, it causes the marker to bleed and spread.  Stop once you have the look and size you like.

Below I have used a secondary circle of dots outside of the first.  As you can see, once the alcohol reaches this secondary series of dots they too start to bleed and add to the design.

Have fun experimenting with a variety of colour combinations and be ready for some interesting surprises.  The purple in these photos was actually made with the black marker!  Keep in mind that you don't have to limit yourself to circles.  Play and see what happens!

After letting them air dry, I cut the circles out using scissors.  I don't worry about perfectly round circles...I like the more organic look I get when they're a little 'wonky'.

Once I had all of my circles ready, I pulled out some of my hand-dyed fabrics, including cheese cloth, and I made some more journal covers.  

On this journal, I've played with various decorative stitches that my sewing machine is capable of, creating a bit of a grid pattern.















For this one, I started by echo quilting around the 'tie-dyed' circles.  After a few rounds of that, I switched to straight lines of stitches, going horizontally on the bottom half of the journal cover and then doing vertical lines on the top half.

I used hand-dyed cheese cloth on this cover, securing it with a zigzag stitch.  I then added more zigzag stitches to create the subtle lines that echo the shape of the orange cheese cloth.  The circles are secured using more zigzag stitching.











And here's the collection of all three of the new journals.  Thanks so much for visiting today!  If you try this, I'd love to see your creations.  Leave a comment with a link to your blog or Flicker photos so I can see what you come up with!