Info

Home of the Organized Crafter.

Archive for September, 2011

Or more formally: jewelry rolls! A good friend contacted me to ask about making a custom jewelry holder for her. She has some store bought examples with her that each has some features that she liked, along with some problems. I can tell you, I haven’t pondered over a design this hard in a while. I kept waking up in the middle of the night with a new idea or solution to an issue. But after much deliberation, this is what I came up with! (as always, click to see a larger version of the photos)

The outside is about the size of a paperback book, with a button and elastic closure (similar to my knitting needle rolls). A couple of unfolds leads to this:

Zippered pockets on the left hand side in various sizes. These are perfect for your earrings and bracelets. The right side has a flap that is held down with velcro, and when you open it…

…there is all kinds of storage for your rings and necklaces! Each of those little dark pink strips is held down on the left end with a piece of velcro, so you can string your necklaces (both long and short) as well as your rings onto them. And when the flap is folded back over and the roll closed, there is no way for anything to fall out.

I was secretly hoping my friend wouldn’t like it so that I could keep this one, but not that much because I was very happy with her reaction. She was thrilled! In fact, ee met in our local coffee shop and a few of her friends were there. One of them loved it so much that she commissioned me on the spot to make her one!

This one features one of my favourite Amy Butler fabrics.

The inside is the same, except that this client asked me to divide up the top pocket into smaller divisions for her earrings.

Here is a closer look at how the hold down straps work:

And then, once missbedora saw some pictures, she wanted one too!

This one has an additional custom feature – an area made out of loosely woven linen that she can pin her earrings through.

So, it didn’t take me long to realize that this is something that I should list in my shop. Keep your eyes peeled for the release of these bling holders coming up in early November! Can’t wait that long? Contact me at info@kscdesigns.com for a custom order.

My friend Becky approached me about making some drawstring bags for her, with a special twist.

She wanted to use them for her lace knitting, and she didn’t like that her needles were getting caught up in her projects when they were all in a bag. Her suggestion? Grommets! Each bag has two grommets at the top that you can stick your needle through, so they are on the outside of the bag! (For circulars, of course). Then the needles won’t get all caught up in your lace! (Or any project for that matter)


I made two different bags:

Light and…

dark!

These sweet little bags are going to be available in my shop in about a month or so. I have some crazy craft show prep coming up over the next few weeks, and as soon as that is over with I am going to be listing all kinds of new things. I hope you like them!

My weaving study group has spent the last year working on the study of colour – how it works, how it doesn’t, how to apply it to a project, terminology….you get the idea. To wrap up this particular study, we decided that we would all make a finished project. (Up until now we had been following sample projects and making little swatches to give to everyone in the group. Educational, but not all that interesting).

I have really wanted to try two things with weaving – working with wool, and making cloth that is meant to be cut up and sewn into another product. So for this exercise, I did both!

Look! I made a messenger bag! I had so much fun working on this project. First, after all the planning to figure out how much cloth I would need, was the actual weaving.

The yarn I used was Harrisville Designs Highland (in the teal and purple) and Shetland (in the grey and black). I used a technique called “Crammed Dents”, which makes a fabric with a definitive rib to it.  You can see a bit of that texture up close:

It definitely has a stripe to it.

Once the fabric was woven and off the loom, it was time for a dunk in the sink. Because this yarn is from the cone, not a skein like knitting yarn would be, there is a ton of spinning oil in it. Which lead to some of the most disgusting water I have had out of a project.

It was black. That white-ish thing you see floating around is a Shout Color Catcher. The blackness to the water was a combo of oil, dirt and dye, so I threw in the catcher just to make sure the colour didn’t stick to any of the lighter yarn.

I did a fair amount of agitating with the fabric, as I wanted it to full (less than felting) a bit. It makes the fabric denser and it makes all the fibres stick together, which is what you need if you are going to cut up your weaving.

Once the washing and drying was done, it was out into the sunshine in the backyard to fix any mistakes in the weaving and trim my ends.

Then I used fusible interfacing to stabilize the back of the cloth before cutting. The pattern (I made mine from wrapping paper – use what you have!) was pinned down over the interfaced cloth, and snip snip. Gotta say, cutting into this was certainly nerve wracking.

Once the pieces were cut out, both of the woven cloth and the fabric I was using on the inside, it was time for assembly. Sewing with the woven cloth was not particularily difficult, but I did have to alter the pattern in a few places so that I didn’t have too many woven layers on top of each other. It’s not that my machine couldn’t handle that many layers, it was that it was too fluffy to go under the presser foot!

The inside has an orange bottom weight from Joann’s, and the lining of the flap is Kona Cotton in Coal. One of the things we had to do for this project was use a colour harmony. This is “split complimentary” with the blue-purple, blue green, and orange-red colours.

Finishing touches included my label, some magnetic clasps, and a webbing strap along with a big industrial looking parachute clip. I thought it gave the bag a little interest.

And I have to say, I am so pleased with the results! I have used it a couple of times already, and it is quite sturdy.

I am so happy to have my weaving study group – they are a fabulous bunch of people (men and women) and it really makes me want to sit down at the loom. And there is nothing wrong with that!

My friend Stephanie approached me a couple of weeks back with an interesting project. She is currently making the Bee Keepers Quilt, for which there is a video made by the artist, showing you a bit about the construction. Part way through the video, there is this neat little bag. Here are a couple of terrible screenshots from the video:

Basically it is a round bag with a drawstring segment to it. Apparently a lot of people were asking her where she got it, but it was from a second hand store and was vintage. So Steph asked me if I could make a version of it for her. It wasn’t easy, but tada!

The outside is a really neat upholstery fabric that Steph chose from Joanns. It had a large pattern repeat to it, so I lined it up on both the top/front of the bag as well as the bottom/back. ETA: The top is about 10″ in diameter and it’s about 5″ deep.

The inside has a fabulous coordinating cotton that Steph picked, again from Joanns, which is a great contrast to the outside fabric.

Steph requested that the top half have a pocket on it with a magnetic snap. I added this custom button to give the inside a little more detail.

The main part of the bag has a drawstring section on it, which allows for secure storage even when you open the top of the bag.

And it is nice and large for easy access. The whole bag in general is larger than the one in the video, to allow for holding more projects and little bags within. I think Steph was pleased with how it came out, and so was I!

One of our SWV Modern Quilt Guild friends recently lost someone very close to her. I never know what to do in those situations (usually because there is sadly little you can do, other than be there if they need you), so I tend to sew or knit. For some reason it seems to be my immediate response when something bad happens. I wonder why that is…..

Anyhow, I sent out a message to some of our members to see if they wanted to help me get together a comfort quilt. I thought something bright and cheerful would be appropriate, but also in keeping with the kind of colours the recipient likes (at least I hope). And since we are a modern quilt guild, I thought wonky log cabin blocks would be fun.

Four different people worked on this quilt, and I love that it came together so well, even though we didn’t get to see anyone’s blocks before we made our own. I think the blocks represent their makers very well.

Since there was so much white on the front, we thought we would go with a very punchy backing

It (obviously) incorporates the 6 colours used for the blocks on the front.

The quilting is a pretty feathery pattern, which I had not used before. I will definitely use it again though, because I think it is both feminine and modern. I can see it will be one of my favourites.

The binding was Kona (Medium Grey I think) to frame everything together without being too distracting.

Thank you so much to Lindsay, Melinda and Whitney for helping me with this. And also to Laura for the ever present use of your machine! We hope this quilt offers our dear friend lots of hours of comfort. We are here for you girlie.