Tutorial - a petal pin pocket

A few months ago, I made a petal pin pocket for a friend.  Since then, I've had a few people ask me how did I make it.  Actually, it's very simple, so in response I thought I might try to make a quick tutorial.

What do you need?
- fabric 25cm x 50cm (or two pieces, each 25cm x 25cm)
- pellon 25cm x 25cm (pellon is lightweight fusible wadding)
- felt 20cm x 20cm (buy at Spotlight, Lincraft or a craft store like Riot)
- a small button
- pins

all the necessary 'ingredients'

Drop me a message for the pattern pieces (I don't know how to attach a PDF to this blogger page) and I will email them through to you.  Alternatively, let me know how I can attach a PDF to this post!

You need to cut of two pieces of the main petal pattern from the fabric.

pinned and ready to cut

Once that's done, you will also need to cut a main petal pattern piece from the pellon.  Fuse the pellon to the wrong side of one of the fabric pieces.  This piece will be the outside fabric for the pin pocket.

Left piece has the fused pellon attached, right piece will be the inside fabric

On the fabric piece that does not have the pellon, mark the centre on the right side of the fabric (I use a chalk pencil for this).  Then, make a  2"-4" (5-10cm) cut around the centre of the piece (not on centre that you have just marked, just close to it).  This is what you are going to use to pull the pocket through after sewing it together, so try to keep it as small as possible.  Keep the cut smaller than the felt piece, as the felt will go over the cut so you will never see it.

After the cut has been made

Cut the felt piece out.  Mark the centre. Now you are ready to sew!

Putting the right sides together, sew around the two large fabric pieces using a 1/4" seam, backstitching at the start and end of the sewing.  (Hint : the pellon is on the outside while you are sewing.)

Once you have sewn around the outside edge, you will need to trim and cut the seam allowances back. Use small sharp scissors to take notches up to the stitch line but take care not to cut through the stitch line.  Once you have done that around the entire edge, pull the pocket through the small cut you had made on the fabric without pellon, taking care not to rip the cut further.  Roll the edges between your fingers to help it sit flat and then press with an iron.

Now match the centre mark on the felt with the centre mark on the fabric.  Pin the felt in place, matching the curves.

Showing how the felt is pinned down
(orange lines indicate where to sew)

Now sew from one side to the other side, four times.  This is what provides the petal appearance and gives the 'fold' lines for the pocket.

Now, on the tab, sew a button hole, measuring the button you are going to us to give you the length required.  (I love an automatic button hole!)

Once the botton hole is done, sew the button on the outside, on the edge opposite to the button hole.  And viola, you're done!  Put a few pins in it and it's perfect as a small gift.

Variation - if you don't want to do a buttonhole, it would be easy enough to use a small loop of hat elastic.  Put this in as you are sewing the two fabric pieces together (would be on the inside while you are sewing).  If you do this, I would probably cut the tab off and re-shape that side to be the same as the others, in terms of continuing the curve.

I reckon all of this can be done in about 30 minutes.  Too easy! :)

Mount Bunting!

A few friends have had babies lately and another baby turned 1 recently.  I decided to sew some personalised bunting flags to celebrate.  It became a mountain of bunting flags!

I started about a month ago and have been chipping away at it slowly.  The applique was the most time-consuming - tracing all the letters, attaching them letters on to the flags and edge-stitching each letter.  The easiest letters have straight lines, the letters that were fiddly had lots of curves.  :)

So, I ended up doing bunting flags for five children - Polly, Jacob, Grace, Brennan and Spencer.  Fabric for the boys' flags was bought from Spotlight, fabric for the girls' flags was bought from my local quilt shop.

Here's some of them on display ....

Jacob

Polly

Spencer

And all of them (close-up shots)

Jacob

Grace

Brennan

Polly

Spencer

All of these flags will be sent to families this week - I hope they like them!

As an aside, take a look at my home-made "lightbox" that I used to trace out the letters.  It worked a treat!

Boy's satchel bag

Another opportunity for a handmade gift.  A friend's son had his 4th birthday recently and after discussion with his mother, I thought a satchel might be a good idea for his many toy cars.  Again, I used the small tote bag pattern from Nicole Mallalieu's website (I know I can make this bag!).

So, what fabrics do you choose for a 4 year old boy??  Cars, of course!  This time I did a simple patchwork for the satchel flap, using some Disney Cars fabric that I bought at the local craft show a few months ago (I knew it would come in handy sometime). The lining of the bag is also done with the same fabric. I used a dark denim for the body of the bag, stiffened with the heaviest interfacing I could find.

And here it is .....

The Bag.

Lightning McQueen!

a try-hard arty shot of the strap and strap guide

the clean lines of the strap

I've posted it off this week (finally).  I hope the recipient enjoys it.  I am very pleased with how it all came out, as you can tell from all the photos!

Oliver + S Birthday dresses

One set of patterns that I quite like are the Oliver + S childrens pattern (see http://oliverands.com/patterns/) which tend to be classic sewing patterns for children.  One of the patterns I have bought was the Birthday Party Dress pattern.  I was fortunate to win a some gorgeous pink floral twill fabric earlier in the year and I thought it would be perfect as a feature panel in the O+S dress.

Left : approx 20cm x 20cm section of fabric ; Right : a close-up of the print

The plan was to use 21-pinwale (lightweight) corduroy for the main body of the dress and the floral fabric for the feature panel.  I selected a bright yellow corduroy for Samantha's dress and a dark emerald green corduroy for Asha's dress (bought from Spotlight). 

Now, I have to say, I started these dresses months ago but they were left unfinished for a couple of months.  The delay was partly because I made Samantha's dress first and I was a little unimpressed by the instructions.  It took me a little while to figured out how I wanted to do it for Asha's dress.  And then once both dresses were almost done, I delayed because I had 10 buttonholes to do (seriously, I have an aversion to buttonholes).  Anyway, I finally finished them - here they are!

Asha's dress on the left, Samantha's dress on the right

Front and back of Samantha's dress

Asha's dress

Pleat detail on the front

Button detail on the back

a happy camper!  :)

Overall, I'm pretty happy with how they turned out.  I have to mark up the pattern with the changes I have made so that I remember them for next time. 

Toy ironing board cover

One day, a couple of months ago, Pete made the girls a toy ironing board.  The girls loved it.  I promised the girls I would make a cover for it.  I finally did it over the weekend. 

I simply traced around the ironing board to get the correct shape.  To give the cover a bit of cushioning, I also cut up an old scrap of a woollen blanket and an old flat terry nappy.  I stitched these together around the edges to hold them together.  Then I attached a 2 inch rectangular band around the edge - this was finished off with bias binding.  A thin piece of elastic was threaded through the binding and viola!  It was finished, one hour later. 

Do you recognise the fabric?  Yep, still a favourite of mine.  :)

The girls love it and the ironing board is getting carried all over the house - bedrooms, rumpus room, lounge room and bathroom (don't ask about that one!).  Big success, and so simple to make.

Petal pin holder

I saw this petal pin holder at one of my sewing classes (local community college).  I started making it ages ago for a friend and it was nearly finished after a few hours, all it needed was the buttonhole and button. Unfortunately it stayed that way for a couple of months. Don't ask me why, I can't think of why I didn't just finish it off.  I think I still have a historical aversion to buttonholes, but it's getting better.  With my machine, buttonholes are easy-peasy!

I loved the fabric I used for this - it's a gorgeous paisley cotton. 

When I get some time, I might write up the instructions and include the 'pattern'.  Super easy! 

My first bag!

So, when Samantha had her birthday a few months ago, she was very lucky and received a fabulous handmade pillow from her best friend Ella.  The pillow was made by Ella's mum Jo and depicted a drawing by Ella, showing Ella and Samantha holding hands.  It was very creative and so well made and Samantha just loves it.  It's one of Samantha's prized possessions now.

The fabulous pillow
(Ella is on the left with curly hair,
Samantha is on the right side with straight hair)

So, it's coming up to Ella's birthday shortly and I was trying to think of what we could give her.  I thought of a girl's bag and Samantha thought that was a great idea.  I ended up buying a small tote bag pattern from Nicole Mallalieu's website.  It's a great pattern because it comes with options to alter the bag into several different styles and the instructions were good to follow.

Given Samantha's design instructions, the bag had to be predominantly pink. So, off to Spotlight we went to buy the fabric.  We bought hot pink cotton drill for the outside and a multi-coloured dot fabric for the lining (with a pink background).  Predominantly pink it was!

I decided to make a satchel style bag, which gave me the opportunity to do some applique on the satchel flap to make it more personal.  At first I thought I'd just make the flap with Ella's name on it.  After I had made done that applique, I then decided that maybe emblazoning a child's name all over their bag is not a good idea for their security viewpoint.  Any stranger would know their name just from the bag, so not a terribly attractive idea to a lot of parents, I would imagine. So, after making the applique of Ella's name, I ditched that idea.

Samantha suggested flowers, so after a bit of image sleuthing by Peter, we managed to find a flower design that I could applique (with a bit of tweaking).  I did the new flower applique one night and then made up the bag the next night.  Here's the finished product.

I used a metal tri-glide to give the bag an adjustable strap, which is more functional for a growing girl.  To give the strap a bit more body, I also used pellon (a fusible light wadding).  The flap was also given a bit more structure by using pellon and medium-weight interfacing. The outside fabric was stiffened with medium-weight interfacing and I also created a sturdier base by inserting a stiffened structural base piece at the bottom between the outside fabric and the lining fabric. 

This was also the first time I had ever made my own bias binding, to use around the edge of the satchel flap, so that was another 'try-and-see' experience.  Afterwards, I did wonder whether I should have simply used the plain outer fabric (instead of the spotty lining fabric) but I still think it looks good.

I also used printable fabric to make a personalised birthday message to Ella from Samantha.  This was stitched to the lining of the bag, so it was discreetly out of view.  And it was the first time I have ever inserted a magnetic catch (super easy, I have to say).

Thankfully the appliqued flower was centred in the flap, so I was very happy about that.

Anyway, I'm very happy with the way it turned out.  Tonight the bag will be wrapped up and tomorrow it will be given to the birthday girl!  I hope she likes it as much as my daughter does.  :)