Vinyl Pouch Tutorial

We have a lot of puzzles and board games and other things that live in cardboard boxes around here. The problem is that after some hard playing the boxes tend to pop their corners and get all ratty. Not to mention it gets hard to find places to store all those bulky containers.

I got tired of sticking all the boxes back together

So one day I decided to make some pouches to keep the puzzles in, which greatly reduced the amount of storage space needed on our shelves. I made them from clear vinyl so that the kids could easily see which was which.

These are super quick and easy to make - the hardest part is having to use three different feet.

The best part is matching your fabric and zippers:

All these fabrics were a gift from Krista. Merci cherie!

You can estimate how big the pouch needs to be by looking at how much you need to put in it.

(I bought this vinyl on a roll in France - it was actually sold as plastic to cover text books with during the back-to-school sales. It was cheaper than buying it at a fabric shop.)

Cut two identical pieces of vinyl for each side of your pouch and then cut two pieces of fabric the same width as your vinyl.

How long you make your fabric depends on how much of a fabric accent you'd like.

Iron the top edge of your fabric over 1/2 an inch. (What you decide is the "top" edge is important if you have directional fabrics - you want them facing the same way each side of the pouch. As you can see below, I wanted to make sure my elephants weren't standing on their heads.)

Sew your two fabric pieces to your zipper with a zipper foot.

Then you need to sew the vinyl pieces to the fabric. Here are my tips for sewing fabric to vinyl:

I switched to a 90/14 needle
I increased my stitch length to 3 (my standard stitch being 2.5)
I used my walking foot
I slightly decreased my upper thread tension (it's normally at 2 and I reduced it to 1.5)

Most importantly: sew a test line with some scrap fabric and vinyl. Then you'll know if you need to fix your tension at all.

Once you've done your test line you can sew the real thing. I pressed my seam to the fabric side with a not-too-hot iron, under a cloth (to avoid melting the vinyl). I then topstitched the seam to the fabric so it wouldn't show through the plastic.

Then match your two wrong sides together and sew around the outside edge of your pouch (choose a pretty, matching thread as you'll be able to see it). Don't forget to open your zipper to about half way so you can turn it right-side out again!

Sewing plastic layers together without them sliding all over the place requires a few quick changes.

Tips for sewing vinyl to vinyl:

Stay with the 90/14 needle
Go back to your regular foot (I used my quarter inch foot)
Put a patch of masking tape or matte (not shiny/slippery) sticky tape on the bottom of your foot, as below (this helps with grip).
Increase your stitch length to 4
Go back to your regular tension.

Poke a little hole so your needle doesn't get caught up in the tape

Again, a quick test on scraps is recommended.  Once you sew the vinyl it is perforated forever, so you can't really unpick and sew again.

You can't pin the vinyl but a few pins in the fabric helps hold it all still

Once you've sewn all around the edge (I used the above foot setup on the fabric part too, no probs) you can clip your vinyl corners a little.

Then turn inside out and you're done!

Another quick press under a cloth sets the seams

Fill 'er up with all those puzzles.

You could use these pouches for tons of things: pencil cases, school or craft supplies, hand-sewing projects or as a toiletries bag:

Any gift, no matter how small, looks extra classy when in a custom-made pouch. 

Yay for pouches!

Square Union Jack Patchwork Cushion - a quick tutorial

The Olympics made me do it. The Olympics and Blandina.

You see, Blandina gave me a beauty of a charm square pack she'd had in her stash for many years (she bought it when she was three ;).

Laura Ashley, no less.

I wasn't sure what I wanted to make with it until I saw those Union Jacks all over London.

The colours were perfect:

I had a 40 cm/16 inch cushion form that needed a new cover.

I started with 6.5 inch square paper templates like this for the diagonals:

I had to join my fabric squares together to make them large enough for the job:

Then I paper pieced to make the diagonals. (For a detailed tute on paper piecing diagonals, see this one. Just remember our diagonals are NOT random - you need to follow the lines on your template.)

Make 4 of these

Then I added 1.5 inch white strips along a side of each block:

And then another 1.5 inch white strip to complete the blocks:

Then it was time for the St. George cross. This is where you might like to alter my design.

As you might have noticed from my top photo, I like my cushions well-stuffed, and I don't care who knows it. If you like your cushion covers a little looser, or you plan on quilting the cover, you might like a little more ease in there.

If you like it toight like a toiger, use 2.5 inch red strips. If you'd like more ease, go for 3.5 inch strips.

Join two blocks first:

And then use a final strip to complete the design:

Yay for Jack. You can easily turn it into a cushion now using this tutorial.

I spent a little time considering the back of my cushion. Being Australian I like to see the Southern Cross wherever I see a Union Jack but to be honest, I couldn't bring myself to make all those itty bitty stars. So I took the easy route and made the French flag instead.

Can Jack and Marianne live together? 

There you have it, a little bit of the 2012 London Olympics for your couch.

Happy viewing!

Tutorial: Modern Chevron Baby Quilt (Crib size)

Chevrons are everywhere at the moment and I love 'em. I know I'll want to make this quilt again so I'm documenting it for my forgetful future-self and anyone else who might be interested.

If you've ever thought of sewing a quilt this is a great one to get started with. It's made from squares and half-square triangles which are quite easy to put together. Plus I've also got plenty of helpful links to guide you through the whole process.

Before we start - here's where I took my inspiration. A manhole cover. Romantic, oui? Just be thankful I photoshopped out the cigarette butt.

This pattern will produce a crib sized quilt (45 x 60 inches) for your baby-wrapping pleasure. You'll need to decide on two contrasting colours (I've gone tangerine and a beige/taupe) and then assemble some fabrics.

I chose 4 different neutrals (a half yard of each) and 7 different tangerines (fat quarters of each). A neat trick is to find a fabric with a repeating pattern in regular rows, like this one:

By just altering the spacing of my cutting, I ended up with three different looking blocks from the one fabric:

Once you've had fun pulling your fabrics together, you can start cutting:

From your tangerine colours you will need a total of 180 x 3 in squares.

From your neutrals you will also need a total of 180 x 3 inch squares.

Then we need to make the 72 half-square triangles (HSTs). What follows is an explanation of how I like to make them, but there are other methods. Get your google on or see this tutorial over at Jennifer's That girl...that quilt.

So, back to the HSTs -  you'll need:

36 x 3.5 inch tangerine squares, and

36 x 3.5 inch neutral squares.

Take a neutral 3.5 inch square and draw a line diagonally corner to corner on the wrong side. I use a Hera marker, but a water soluble fabric marker works too. Match this neutral square with one of your 3.5 inch tangerine squares, right sides together.

Then using your marked line as your guide, sew a seam a quarter inch either side of that line.

Chain piecing really speeds the process up here. Feed your units in one after the other to sew one seam, then clip them apart, flip them around and feed them all back in again to sew the other seam. Then you'll have all your squares sewn up lickety-split.

You might notice I've evenly mixed my tangerine squares while my neutrals are still in their individual colour stacks (just lumped on top of each other). This way my tangerine fabrics will be evenly distributed among the neutrals in my HST units. (I didn't want all of one orange fabric ending up sewn to the one neutral.) Then I could just grab from the top of each stack without thinking about it.

Once you've cut apart all your two square units it's time to cut along the marker line to give yourself two HST units.

Press your seams either open or to one side, as you prefer. Remember to press and not 'iron'. Ironing involves running the iron back and forward like you'd iron a shirt, pressing is putting the iron down, shot of steam, lift the iron up and repeat. No moving the iron across the fabric as this stretches and distorts your triangles.

Now I have made these triangles a wee bit larger than the 3 inch finished product required. This is so there is some fat to trim so your HSTs are accurate and make pointy looking points. Yes, it adds another step, but it makes for a good-lookin' product.

Right, so trim/square up your HSTs to 3 inchs either with a square template or, like me, using the 45 degree angle line on your cutting mat:

Now you will have all your units cut and ready to lay out in your chevron pattern. Just follow the grid below, alternating your colours within each chevron in a way that's pleasing to your eye.

All laid out? Good. Break open a block of chocolate and then sew the whole thing together - first join your squares to make rows, then sew the rows together.

Whee! We're on the home stretch now. Now to make a backing. I used the tangerine left overs in mine, between two pieces of IKEA flat sheet. If you're getting jack of it all (or have run out of chocolate) and just want to finish, go with a single large piece of fabric.

What quilting pattern are you going to use? It can be as simple as a large grid, using the seams as a guide or some fancy free motion quilting to highlight your chevrons. I went for a straight-line pattern echoing the chevron shapes.

I drew the pattern on my quilt top with a water-soluble marker, one inch from my outer seams (added bonus is you aren't quilting over thick seam lines where multiple layers meet).

Make your quilt sandwich with backing, wadding/batting and then your quilt top. You can pin them together (great tutorial on this at Red Pepper Quilts) or you can spray baste them together. I chose to spray baste as my quilting pattern had lots of pivots and I wanted the extra hold as I hauled the quilt through my machine.

Choose the thread colour for quilting - I went with thread to match each fabric colour but you could easily use tangerine on your neutral chevrons and neutral on your tangerine fabric for a different look. Don't forget to consider the back as well. In retrospect I wish I'd only used tangerine thread on the back (bobbin thread) so the quilting stood out even more on my neutral backing. We live and learn, huh?

Once you've quilted it's time to bind. My favourite binding making/attaching tutorials are here: at Crazy Mom Quilts and Red Pepper Quilts.

Once your binding is attached you have to trim excess batting and backing, fold the binding over to enclose the raw edges of the quilt and then secure by sewing. You can machine sew it with precision (Red Pepper Quilts tutorial) or go for a quicker machine sew by using a zigzag stitch (like Rachel in her Stiched in Color tutorial). I chose to hand sew this one.

I choose a thread to match the backing (rather than the binding) and use a long length of it doubled up. I thread the two cut ends through the needle and the uncut loop hangs at the other end. I put my needle through this loop when making the first stitch to secure the thread without having to use a knot. I sew an uneven ladder stitch - about a quarter inch in the binding (I just zip along inside the fold) and then a smaller stitch into the quilt back and batting before heading back up into the binding. And I love using binding clips to hold it all in place; much more friendly than pins.

After it's all done, throw it in the wash to get rid of your water soluble marker, dry and then find a baby to snuggle with. Mmmm, babies.

Even though I'm late I'm going to link this up to the Tangerine Tango Challenge pool, which I first saw over at Ali's blog a.squared.w.

And there you have it. Not hard when the internet is here to guide you! If anyone is still reading, I wish you many chevrons and babies and plenty of time to enjoy them all.

 P.S. If you see any boo-boos please let me know.