CrafTBQ

First things first: I have shelves!
They’re still a work in progress but even so, I have them! Shelves for putting crafty things on! My current plans are to move the yarn out of the plastic bins and into baskets, and from there just wing it. Currently up there are books, yarn, jewelry making supplies, and cloth. *happy sigh*

Next up, there is my sock in progress:

As you can see I’m doing it toe-up on two circs. I like this much better than cuff down on DPNs. Much faster, and my OCD/perfectionist nature feels better knowing that I’m not going to run out of yarn while making the sock part of the actual sock. (Unlike before where I made it to the heel and then started fretting that the toe would turn out to be a pipe dream.) I’m very happy that I frogged the first sock attempt and went with this instead.

Then there was sewing! Which I did at 10pm last night because I’m insane. The story here is that I’ve taken to air drying my clothes, and I’m finally taking advantage of the warm weather to dry some things outside on the line. This means using clothespins and that means needing a clothespin bag.

(Well, not needing per se. I had a reused plastic shopping bag that did the job just fine. But that’s hardly fashionable or crafty!)

I have some fat quarters that I purchased off of Etsy for the specific purpose of having pretty cloth around to use for random projects just like this. I used this tutorial as general guidelines for the pattern, with tweaks along the way. Since it’s a clothespin bag for my own usage I didn’t bother with pesky things like “ironing” or “measuring.” Which is why the bag itself is “old-fashioned looking” in the sense of not having “straight seams” or “straight sides” and “obviously defines ‘old-fashioned’ as some new phrase which refers to how cats might’ve done a better job making this than the person with the opposable thumbs and the sewing machine.”

That being said I am starting to get a better feel for how things work while sewing. I’m not quite there yet but I’m nearing that “aha!” moment where it all clicks into place. Which is good since I’ve got cloth on the way that I’m hoping to turn into curtains and that’s when it’ll actually need to be done with some vague semblance of looking like I know what the frak I’m doing.

Here’s a breakdown of how it went:

The basic materials. I decided on having decorative trim to liven it up a bit. I also decided on using a wire hanger from the dry cleaners as a way to recycle it. My original thought was to sew the bag onto the hanger but as I worked I realized that it would probably be useful to be able to take the bag off if I needed to launder it. So I improvised a handle.

Step one: Cutting the main fat quarter into three pieces.

Step 2: Cutting fabric for the decorative edge.

Step 3: Doing a very loose stitch to hold the decorative fabric in place while I sewed it onto the main fabric. This was when I figured that ironing would’ve probably come in handy but that would’ve involved taking out the ironing board and iron and did I mention that I started all this at 10pm? (This would also explain the crappy picture quality.)

Step 4: Attatching said fabric to the main fabric. I used a leafy kind of stitch to vaguely match the pattern. Once this was attached I removed the loose stitches I had holding the decorative fabric in place. I’m proud to say some of the uneven appearance of those stitches is due to camera angle. We’ll just ignore how many other stitches I’m not showing you. Ahem.

After all this there was sewing the bag together, realizing I was going to go with a handle, making, and then attaching said handle. At which point we were kissing up to midnight and if I stopped for pictures I knew I probably wouldn’t start sewing again

(I hasten to add that a great deal of the time here is due to how I was sewing at the slowest possible speed on my machine so that I could have more control. This is obviously the kind of project that probably takes a half hour tops if you know what the frak you’re doing.)

Anyway, all that was done, the hanger was bent to accomodate the weight of the pins, and voila! One clothespin bag:

I haven’t had a chance to use it yet due to rain this weekend, but hopefully next weekend I can give it a whirl.