Fabric organization time!

For some reason this time of year makes me want to clean and organize. So today I thought I would share some of my findings in how I organize my fabric.
I have my fabric organized(or some might think unorganized) in many different ways I don't really have any one system that works but I've tried several and here's what I have.

First off I have some of my fabric organized onto "the fabric orgnaizer" which is a piece of acid free white corrugated plastic cut to about 10 x 14".

This is something I saw in a magazine and went online to order, they now have several other sizes to offer. They run about $2 a piece for the large 10 x 14" size I got some of the small but have never used them as they picture with strips of fabric.

I really like these and love the idea of displaying my fabric like a little fabric shop however I don't have the right shelving to best display them in this way. You need to make sure that your shelves are at least 14½" apart to fit the organizer. I'm also not in love with the price roughly $2 a piece is a bit steep and you do get better pricing when buying in bulk however you're still paying $1.75 so not much savings there. I think if these were more easily available some place like Joann's where you could use a 50% coupon I would be tempted to buy more.

Have you tried these organizers? What do you think?

Next I discovered the art of folding your fabric around your ruler... well hey it's free.

Using my 12½" ruler I folded my fabric lengthwise selvedge to fold.

And then began flipping my ruler to wrap the fabric around like a bolt.

Then... because I want my ruler back, I slid the ruler out and end up with...

This nicely folded fabric that looks like a cute half bolt without the bolt.
Which fits perfectly into my Art Bin Yay!

Just as a side note I've been marking my fabrics with the yardage of how much I bought so I know how much I've got. It's much easier to do immediately after you purchase and sometimes your receipts might say yardage in case you forget or purchase an odd amount.

While filling up my Art Bin's and thinking hmm maybe I need more I discovered that the beautifully folded fabrics also fit perfectly in my Iris storage boxes.

In case you were wondering I folded up some single yards of fabric and they come out like this...

This is also a good way to estimate how much yardage you do have since the ruler is 12½"  each fold will roughly be a foot but you can count the folds and see how many feet/yards of fabric you have.

Another  product I love is the closet maid  fabric drawers, the mini ones are my new favorite.

This one has single yards folded in thirds and below you can see they are truly perfect for fat quarters.

The short tied bundles can be stacked 2 high. I love how this keeps a collection or color grouped together but easy to grab the whole lot.

How do you store your fabrics? What organizing products do you love?

Thanks for reading♥

Circle Pouch Tutorial

I'm not sure what to call this project, I titled the post "Circle Pouch" because essentially that's what it is. However you can use it for all kinds of things, I made mine for my ear buds but this could easily be a handy coin purse, chap-stick holder really whatever small thing you can think of.

For this project I used scraps from another project and I made some small mini quilt pieces(see below). I wanted my cut circle to be about 5" so I made one square at about 5½" and made two rectangles at about 3 x 6" these measurements need not be exact but at least as big as your circle template.

For my circle template I couldn't find an object to my size liking so I decided to quick make my own using the trusty old protractor to make a circle 5".

I decided to mark my circle with glow line tape because I really wanted to center the pinwheel design I created but this is optional.

I cut out my circle and then went to work on the other side. I started by attaching the zipper.

And then top stitching it down. This is important so the zipper doesn't catch and it gives it a nice finished look.

Now to cut out the second circle for this step you will want to make sure your zipper is in the middle of the circle. (it would be a good idea at this time to tack down the zipper at either end preferably before you cut your circle) I didn't do this of course but next time I would.

Next I made a small tab about 1 x 2" finished.

 I slipped a split ring on, folded the tab in half, and pinned in place. ( would recommend tacking down that split ring tab and removing the pins for the next step)

Now to sandwich the 2 pieces right sides together.

Sew all around your circle...

Next I carefully clipped my seam all the way around, and turned my project right side out.

Finally I topped stitched the outside edge to give it a nice finished look.

enjoy!


Thanks for reading♥

Sewing Bag

On Pinterest I came across this sewing bag and immediately had to purchase it. I had never seen instructions for such a unique bag with lots of zippers and compartments.

Here it is closed

 This is slightly opened or just unzipped

 Here's how it looks fully open. Imagine taking your supplies to a class or a friends and being able to use your bag not only to carry your stuff but as a caddy where you can easily grab and put away your tools

 This photo just shows the different colors I used for the zippered pockets

I really do love this bag! There are so many functional uses  I can think of for this bag.

I really didn't want to say anything negative about this bag but you should know a little more about the pattern so if you plan on purchasing you're not as surprised as I was. So I made a list of cons but keep in mind the skill level. I think I would rate this pattern at an intermediate skill level, I think a beginner could do it but only with better and more detailed instructions and photos (not diagrams but actual photos).

Cons of this pattern:
After downloading and printing this PDF I was surprised by the instructions there where not many photos and the visuals were a little tricky to understand. Now I know that pattern writing can be difficult and you're not always going to be able to please every person, but since this was a  PDF pattern more pictures would have been nice. Now I can see on a paper pattern mailed to the customers' house you'd need more in shipping and ink and supplies for the extra instructions/ and or clear photos of each step; but again this was a PDF. The only other complaint I have about the pattern is sometimes the wording or the instructions didn't make sense. I made this bag with a fellow sewer who had years more experience than me and she read and re-read the instructions several times and  found the terminology and wording confusing. Such as sentences that didn't make any sense; or where repeats of previous steps and or contradictory to following steps.

Pros of this pattern:
Overall I love the result of this bag and plan on making several more and not just for sewing but for other crafts like crochet etc. I would definitely buy this pattern again knowing what I know now, the end result is just that awesome.

What are your experiences with online pattern purchases?

Thanks for reading♥

More Triangles

I have on my sewing block more equilateral triangles after stumbling across  this blog post (in Russian) and I thought wow this looks so cool I wonder how difficult it is and to my surprise not very. She's got great pictures which give you the gist of the block and when translated even better explanation on how to cut your triangles.
Here's how mine turned out from 2½" strips (we all have some of those right?)

 Here's a rough estimation of how the sizing turned out. This is my 12½" sq ruler and it pretty much fits that top to bottom but side to side it is about 2½" bigger tip to tip.

I liked how this turned out so much with these test scraps that I decided to try a bigger one this time I used fat quarters. I picked 6 different fabrics 3 purples and 3 teal/green. I ended up with quite a bit of left over material from the 4 inner fabrics but not much from the 2 outer fabrics. This could easily be a scrappy project just depending on how large you wanted to make it.

I cut 4½" wide strips out of my fat quarters I wanted to get the most I could out of each one remembering I am limited by the outer 2 colors.

This ended up measuring 27" from top to bottom and 31" tip to tip. Quite a bit bigger by just adding 2" to the size of my strips. This makes a great table topper size and even perhaps a small tree skirt. hmm.

If anyone it interested in a more detailed write up of how I put this together let me know in the comments. Otherwise happy sewing.
Thanks for reading♥

Kimono Shoes

Sorry about such a long absence it's been a crazy busy winter holiday.
I was looking at Pinterest (big surprise) and I came across some really cute quilted slippers and the link took me to a flicker page but I really liked them and wanted to find a pattern. Well quite a bit of time later (hours) I gave up the search for the flicker slippers and had started a new quest, kimono slippers. These I had stumbled upon while performing my original search and decided they would be cute and fun to make. I ended up purchasing from Etsy but after my purchase was directed to get my PDF from ithinksew.com

So after getting the PDF I was excited to start my new slippers. I don't want this to be a negative review but mine did not look as narrow as the ones in the photo and this annoyed me. They were perhaps too big? I made the next size smaller and yes they do fit a little better but still really wide. I guess these are sized for people with wide feet? anyway enough of my rant I may try to narrow them somehow at the tow but right now I don't feel like making a third pair. Has anyone tried this pattern? What do you think about the fit?

onto the shoes...

To be fair I thought I would add photos of them on my feet to get a better idea of the fit.
Excuse my lovely white sport socks.

 In the inner side of my shoes you can see the extra fabric bunching.

Thanks for reading♥