Catch Me and My Treasure Bags At The Summer Soiree!

Got fleece?

How about far too much ribbon?

Me, too.

Well, then - turn them into fun little pouches!

My girls think they're treasure bags.

You can keep them subtle

or make them summery

and even patriotic -

-you're limited only to what crazy colors you have in your winter stash! Make them in team colors! Make them with monograms! Make them to match your outfits! 

And, unlike my usual projects, they're fast and easy! 

See- this is all you need:

I'm sharing the tutorial today on Aimee's Summer Soiree - a month-long collection of ideas for things to do with your kids in the summer.

Head over to Home Spun Threads for the Easy Version Tutorial!

Then come back here for the Even Easier Version:

Step 1

So take the pattern and cut out the same pieces. 

But flip each side piece into the portrait orientation

and use the base pattern to cut curved corners:

Step 2

Cut out the ribbon casing pieces and snip 1.5" off each.

Step 3

Lay the ribbon casing pieces on the side pieces and sew them on as with the regular fleece pouch.

Step 4

Place both completed side pieces (from Step 3) together, wrong sides out, and sew all around their sides and base, in a continuous U-shape. Trim the tops of the side seam allowances.

Step 5

Turn right side out

and thread ribbons through the ribbon casings.

All done!

Alphabet Books

Alphabet copy books for the girls! 

I made one for Emily a couple of years back, when she started showing interest in writing her ABCs. She was already writing her letters, but shakily, and kept asking me things like, "Mum, how do you write 'G'?" I initially wanted to go out and buy her a copy book, but was too lazy to actually go shopping. So I sewed paper together and made her one instead. And now Jenna is old enough for hers, too!

Each page is dedicated to one letter. It has grids for the upper and lower case letters to be copied out, and pictures to color.

Where relevant, I included examples of words beginning with the different sounds of a particular letter, like cupcake, cello and circles for C

and eye, egg, earth and eel for E.

Obviously the kids don't have to explore all the sounds if they are more interested in just writing out the letters or coloring the pictures, but exposure is always good - they might pick up something useful without us ever knowing.

And, finally, a little pocket on the inside of the back cover, with a sticker sheet -

so she can stick one on each page she's completed.

Jenna quite likes her book - she's at the letter "E" now. It's very interesting to watch how differently Jenna and Emily work through their books. Emily very slowly and assiduously filled and colored each page and stuck on a sticker before moving on to the next. Jenna has sped through five pages, writing out all her letters at top speed. Then she used 8 fish stickers in one go, decorating 4 pages one after the other. She still hasn't colored any of the pictures, telling me she's saving them till the end. Can't wait till Kate is old enough for her book!

P.S. The puffy fish stickers are from Korea, but I bought them in Singapore last year. They remind me of Lucy Cousin's book "Hooray For Fish", which we all adore.

P.P.S. Blogger was a little messed up the past day or two, and a lot of us lost our most recent posts (temporarily, I hope) and affiliated comments. Sorry if you couldn't leave comments recently. Fingers crossed that everything will be back to normal soon!

The Heavens Are As Brass

Phooey.

Can you tell I used to work in the government?

Source: Graphics from http://dir.coolclips.com

Housekeeping

First, I apologize that I'm about to waste an entire post on a reminder. I'd just like to remind everyone not to copy my tutorials onto your sites, even in different languages. This is what I mean: on an uncomfortably regular basis, people copy an entire ikatbag tutorial and post it on their own blogs. Sometimes they copy my English instructions as well, but more often, they translate it into their own language, ostensibly for their readers to better understand. But in either case, they copy all my photos and reproduce them in the original sequence as a tutorial. I do not enjoy being the blog police, but I've had to pop over to offending sites to let their authors know my copyright policy. Awkward for everyone. 

I'm not cynical or disillusioned or anything silly like that, nor am I going to stop writing tutorials just because of this risk - this has happened so very often that I now just roll my eyes and mutter, "here we go again.... does nobody read sidebars anymore?" and go do what I need to do. It's nasty work, and I always feel bad telling people off. I'm sure it's one of the downsides of aggregators - a person can read an entire blog post without even going to the original blog to read the pertinent sidebar info (where most people post their copyright notices). 

Many people have similar copyright policies, so I know I'm also speaking for the entire blogging community when I say this - everything we post on our blogs is our property, and therefore we have copyright of it. It may no longer be private because it is now in the internet (eek) but it is still ours, and it is good manners to get permission to use it in any form. If anything is OK to use without asking (e.g. linking, using one or two photos, for instance), we will say so in our sidebars somewhere. If you ask us, we will often, if not always, say yes. If we don't say so explicity, don't do it. And copying entire tutorials from anyone, even if you translate the words? Bad idea. No. Don't even think it. 

Working With Knits in Practice II: A-Line Skirt

Welcome back after the weekend! If you've just joined us, this is the third post of the Working With Knits trilogy. In the first installment, I went on and on about knits in general. We followed that up with an actual garment - a tiered skirt with a non-gathered waistband. It attempted to illustrate how knits can streamline an opening that might otherwise have needed to be bunchy. However, because gathers were part of the inherent design of a tiered skirt, the effect was somewhat watered down. In this third part, we'll see this effect more convincingly. 

Today's project is a basic A-Line skirt. It's fitted at the waist through the hip but roomy in the thigh. This is important because we're making it in a knit, and knits can cling. Eep!


I picked french terry because it is a robust knit and very easy to sew. It is thick, non-clingy, doesn't need interfacing and has a nice weight for a skirt. It also has a nice stretch but behaves much like a woven when under the presser foot. This means it can take top-stitching! I used a universal needle (after trying out a ballpoint needle with surprisingly unpleasant results)!


I started out with a basic skirt pattern. This is my fitted A-Line skirt pattern that I've used for all my (woven) skirts. It has darts only in the back. Two important changes were made upfront to convert this to a knit pattern:

1. There is now no zipper. Therefore the back piece will be cut as a complete piece on the fold.
2. There are now no darts. Therefore we will tape shut the darts.

Common sense will then tell us that, sans zipper, we will need to make the waist circumference big enough to fit over the hips. Let's go ahead and cut that out then. (Note: My patterns never have in-built seam or hem allowances, so you'll see a narrow border of fabric around the edge of the paper pattern - that's the seam allowance I added to the fabric when I cut it out.) Notice, however, an extra-wide allowance near the top of the pattern where extra ease was included to the waist so it might fit over the hips. How clever we are! (Or are we? We will come back to this later.)

Now, beyond this experiment, I am actually going to wear this skirt, so I added functional pockets.

This being a printed knit, I didn't want to mess up the print by slapping on a patch pocket. So I made unfaced inset pocket and matched the print of the pocket lining to the skirt. The pocket lining was simply top-stitched to the wrong side of the skirt.


Here's the construction sequence:


Slash away the edge of the pockets on the front of the skirt. The piece of fabric is still folded, to indicate symmetry.

Face them with a strip of fabric, right sides together (the fabric is still folded to show just the one side). Sew to attach, flip the facing over to the wrong side of the skirt, and top-stitch it down.

Position the lining behind the pocket opening, pin in place (if you're using crazy-print knit like I am, you might want to line up the print), and sew around the side and bottom edges of the pocket pouch to secure the lining.

This is the back.

 

Here is the front of the skirt with both pockets sewn in.

That small embellishment completed, The side seams were sewn up and it was time for the first fitting.


Surprise- it was far too loose! This is a knit, so the fabric itself stretched to accommodate the hips. We didn't need all that extra waist-ease after all!


So lay the paper pattern back onto the skirt,

redraw the original side seam

on both sides

and sew the new (er.. I mean, old/original) side seams. Trim away the excess seam allowance. 

Make the waistband - 

it's almost the same width as the waist of the skirt

so that it can be attached with minimal gathers

for a streamlined finish.

Top-stitch on the skirt just below the waistband to secure the seam allowance so it lies flat down.

Fold and hem the bottom of the skirt, and it's done!

No zippers, no darts, no excess ease, no gathers. 

Ignore the sag lines in the pockets - I'd just removed my hands and forgotten to smooth them down.

Here's the back - zipperless and dartless:

It's fitted, but stretchy!

I hope these two projects have given you some courage to dabble in knits. Many, many patterns originally meant for wovens can be adapted just a little to work for knits. Don't be afraid to experiment!