Sock Project Bag

Merry Christmas!  Well, the day after, anyway.  My sister has been knitting socks like they are going out of style.  I believe she started knitting socks for everyone for Christmas in the summer.  Smart thinking, Lady!

She may have been sick of socks by the time I gave this to her, but I sewed her a Sock Project Bag.  What is that? you say.  It is a mini drawstring bag that holds one ball of yarn and the in-process socks with needles so you can carry it wherever you go.

I saw an ad for it on the Lion Brand website:

Original Bag from Lion Brand

Yes, the socks-on-the-clothes-line pattern is very cute, but it was sold out when I looked into buying it.  Like everything else, I thought, "I can make that, no problem!" 

It has a round-bottom, a drawstring and a wrist strap.  Oh and the retail one is reversible.  Bring it on, Lion Brand!

Fabric on the Right is for the Sock Bag

I made this over Thanksgiving weekend, the same day I made the Knitting Needle Wrap.  This will be for my sister's birthday, which is right after Christmas, but I gave it to her early, while I was visiting this month.  She can never wait until her birthday to open her presents.

I will try and condense this into a tutorial.  I took a ton of pics, so I hope that it is helpful.

Materials:

• Half yard of two different fabrics, Color 1 (C1) and Color 2 (C2)
• Matching Thread
• About 1 yard of Grosgrain Ribbon, 5/8" wide 
• Toggle
• Scissors / Rotary Cutter & Mat
• Ruler
• Marker or Pen
• Calculator (Yes, there is Math involved)
• Iron & Ironing Board

Start by ironing the fabric.  Take a ball of sock yarn to use as a guide in determining how round the bottom needs to be.  I used my flour canister lid and traced it onto a corner of both fabrics.

Tracing Isn't Just For Kindergarten

Cut out each circle.  I will call the olive green fabric C1 and the brown/aqua fabric C2.  It really doesn't matter which is which, since it's reversible, but for the sake of it, they are labeled.

Measure the diameter of the circle (from one edge to the opposite edge).  To calculate the circumference, multiply the diameter by pi.  Yes, pi.  (Isn't this exciting, using math while sewing)?!  My calculator has a pi button, but if yours doesn't, then take the diameter and multiply it by 3.14.  

My diameter was 7".  So 7 x 3.14 = 21.98".  Let's round up to 22" and add another half inch for the seam allowance (22.5").  This is the width of the tube needed to fit your round bottom.  Don't you feel smart now?

Perfectly Calculated Pieces

Once the width is cut to what your circumference worked out to be, cut the height to about 11.5".  It only needs to fit a ball of yarn, needles and the working socks.

Now, the retail bag has pockets on one of the fabric sides.  Since there is extra fabric, take a scrap piece and use it as a pocket.  I chose to use C1 as the pocketed fabric.  Fold and press a 1/4" edge on the wrong side, along the top.  Sew.  Then press another edge on the flanking sides. 

Pocket Action

Line up the bottom edge that was not folded, along the bottom raw edge of the fabric in the middle (like in above pic).  Sew just the pocket down along the 2 sides and bottom.  I also sewed a line up the middle, bisecting the pocket.  Put aside.

Bottom Pinned

Take C2 fabric and attach the round bottom to the tube.  Place right sides together and work your way around the circle, pinning the tube.  When you get to the end, you have extra fabric for the tube.  This is so you can sew the side seam so it fits the bottom exactly.  (Just in case your math was a bit off, the added extra half inch seam allowance is here to save the day).  Pin the tube side and sew the whole length.  Now pin that last section onto the circle.

This is the tough part: sew the bottom to the tube, using about a 1/4" seam allowance.  A little story here (going off on a tangent) is that I tried making a wine gift bag out of fabric when I was about 19 years old.  I had no idea what I was doing, using my mom's sewing machine.  I was Miss Know-It-All back then, so I  didn't ask for help.  Well, the bag was pretty sad looking and I had not sewn a round bottom bag since then.  I feel pretty good that I did it well this time.

Phew, My Round Bottom Phobia Has Been Cured!

Turn the tube right side out.  Yea, one bag down, one more to go.

Take the fabric with the pocket, C1, and do the same thing as you did for C2.  One exception, when sewing the side of the tube, leave about a 2" hole for turning.  Trust me.

Turning Hole - A Fabric Miracle

For the drawstring, we need to make a hole on one of the fabric top edges.  I chose C1 to have the hole.  Find the middle of the top edge, opposite of the side seam.  Measure about 1" from top edge and place a mark.

Button Hole Mark

Make a button hole at the mark, going horizontal.

Now the fun part:  take both bags and turn C1 inside out and C2 right side out, if they are not already like that.  Place C2 inside C1; the right sides of the fabric should be facing each other.  Line up the side seams.  Just to check yourself, the one with the pocket, turning hole and button hole is on the outside and the other bag is on the inside as in the below pic.

Make Sure It Looks Like This

Pin the top raw edges together and sew a 1/4" seam allowance.  Turn this beauty out with the turning hole.  It will look like the bags are end to end.

Nothing Is Wrong, Really!

Now, fit C2 into C1.  Press the top seam.  From this top edge, sew 1" down.  This will be the casing for the drawstring.  

Take the ribbon and make a loose bracelet around your wrist, big enough to easily slide off.  Add 1" to that length.  On the outside, top edge, on the side seam, topstitch the ribbon in place at the very top edge and where the bottom of the drawstring casing.

Wrist Strap - For the On-The-Go Knitter

Once sewn, take the remaining length of ribbon and thread it through the button hole (safety pin works well).

Or Use a Handy Threader

Once the ribbon is in place, thread the ends through the toggle.  With the drawstring at it's loosest, adjust the ribbon.  Make a knot a few inches from the toggle.  Cut the ribbon near the knot.  Sear the edges of the ribbon edges with a lighter or flame, being very careful (you don't want your project to literally go up in flames).

Believe it or not, the project is done!

Side With Pocket Out

Or turn it the other way:

Pocket Is On the Inside

I'll admit, this took awhile, but it came out so cute, that I really did not mind.  It was worth the time to make my sister something useful for her birthday.

Not Too Shabby!

My sister did, in fact, teach me how to knit socks, maybe I can get her to follow my tutorial to make me a Sock Project Bag for my birthday.  What'cha think, Kathy??

Sweatshirt Bag

I bought this sweatshirt at a yard sale awhile ago.  I bought it with the intention of cutting it up, but was not sure how just yet.  Since I just finished the Aloha Maddie Baby Blanket, I found myself with nothing to do.  :-)

I am figuring out what to do about my Glace Shrug, so not to worry.  I do not think I have enough yarn to complete it, so I am trying a mixed media project with it.  It'll be ready soon, promise!

So, back to the project at hand.  I figured I needed a new project bag [insert hearty laugh here] so I wanted to do that with the material.  I've worked with sweatshirt material before, so a couple of traits of this material are that it won't fray when you cut it and the cut edges will curl.  That can be a good thing or a bad thing.  Knowing these things, I am going to play off them.

First, I cut the sleeves and hood off and trimmed it so it's boxy.

Then I placed the right-sides together and pinned them to sew the side seams.

I started the stitching about a half inch from the top and bottom.  This will help the material curl when washed.

I turned it right-side out and sewed the bottom ribbed edge together.  I then took one of the sleeves and cut it up the seam to "butterfly" it.  I trimmed the seam stitching off so that the material could lay flat.  I cut the sleeve into 2" strips.

I evened out the ends so they were straight with a rotary cutter.  I did not worry that they were not the same length.  I then sewed three strips to each other, end-to-end, twice.  These will be used as the handles.

I then folded each one the long way, wrong-sides together, and sewed each handle strip.

I positioned the handles on the inside of the top edge of the bag and arranged them so that they were long enough to be shoulder straps.  I did some measuring to ensure that there was a bit of a margin at the top edge to allow for the curling.  I sewed them in place with gray thread in a box with an X in the middle.  During this, I was coming dangerously close to running out of thread.

The bobbin had about a few inches on it so I had to wind some more of this onto the bobbin.  I was keeping my fingers crossed during this period!

Hold your breath...yes, I was able to finish with enough thread.  Phew!  (I even attached a few buttons on a pair a pants that had recently fell off with the remaining thread).  Here is an inside view of the bag with all the handles attached.

Once this was done, I was pretty much done with the bag!  I threw it in the wash so that you could see the rolling edge and broken-in look it had.  I could even use this bag as a hand warmer using the kangaroo pouch!

I pulled a ball of yarn out of the closet and gave it a new home.  I think of each project of yarn and a project bag as a hermit crab.  Each set of yarn is like the crab and the bag is it's shell.

Awe, look at how cute this hermit crab is!  The shell - fabulous!

Sweater Purse 5.0

Happy Easter!  Even though this is not an Easter inspired project, it is a project that I did back in February.  Guess what it is?  Yes, another Sweater Purse!  You will never escape this project!  Well, maybe once this year is over, then I will move on to a new obsession for 2012!  Anyway, this is a purse that came from the same J. Crew sweater as my last Sweater Purse.  I took that sweater and some odds and ends that I thought may spice up the purse a bit and went to work.

A little bit of this and a little bit of that...

I have Santana featuring Michelle Branch's song Game of Love in my head when I was typing this.  I love that song! 

I had made this purse for my friend that I went to The Melting Pot for in one of my previous posts.  Her favorite color is purple, when I thought it was blue.  So, I had to dig around for the purple tulle you see above.  I also had bought a box-o-ties from an estate sale a while back, not sure what I was going to use them for, but when they are only $1, you gotta go for it!  So, I will use one of them for this purse.

First, I cut out a rectangle section of sweater, utilizing the side seam.



I have scaled down my sweater purse size from what I did over Christmas, because I thought it would be easier to handle, but it takes just as much time.  But, scaling it down has allowed me to make more than one purse from a sweater.

Next, I sewed the side seam and the bottom seam.

Upside Down Purse!

I actually flipped the material upside-down so the ribbing that is normally at the bottom of the sweater will be the top of the purse.  I then cut out a section of purple lining to match my purple tulle.  Those purple items were remnants from a dress I made to attend the Sex and the City II movie with my Ladies.  It was a fun night and I wore the dress at least one additional time since, so it was worth it.


Drinking Cosmos before we left the hotel room!!

Anyway, back to the purse.  Always save remnants, you never know when you will need them.  Here is the cut section of the lining:


They should make a no-fray lining-I'd buy it!

I folded it and inserted it into the sweater purse to get a good fit.  I pinned it and then sewed the lining like I did the purse.  I put that aside and tried to come up with some creative idea to do with the tulle.  I already made a rosette for the last one, so not that.  I knew that the tulle would not make a good handle...so I was stumped.  I finally decided to bunch it up going around the circumference of the purse.  I then realized that I would need to unstitch a little of one of the side seams so that I could tuck it in to secure it good.


Unstitching...


I pinned the tulle to the inside of the purse at the seam I unstitched, then periodically scrunched the tulle together with purple thread and anchored to the purse.  I did the same on the other side.  Then turned it inside-out and sewed up the side seam again.


I pinned before I scrunched.

Once I was happy with that I took the lining and folded down the top until it lined up with the purse.  I then iron the lining at that fold, wrong sides together.



Fold and Press.

Then I inserted the lining in the purse and pinned it in place.  Now comes the tie.  I ironed the tie a million times and used startch, but could not get all of the wrinkles out.  I measured a decent length of the tie for a handle/shoulder strap so that it would fit right under the armpit when worn on the shoulder.  I then measured a "closure", using the tie bottom/front (where the V is in the tie) so that would be the closure front.  I pinned those to the purse between the purse and the lining.  

Tie ends-strap and closure.


I then sewed the lining to the purse with a zig-zag stitch along the top edge ensuring that I sewed through the tie handle and closure end.  Since the edge was finished already, no more needed to be done.



Finally coming together.


Once I sewed the lining in, the purse was complete!

Black-tie Purse!

With each purse I do, I like them even more!  See how I scrunched the tulle at the right places so the tie closure could be threaded though?  Nice, touch, if I do say so myself! 

From the top

While I was on a break, thinking of what to do, my cat Julie decided to warm up the purse before I got started.


Roo-girl!  I can't walk away for a minute! 

How can you be mad at a fuzzy face like that!  So, Sheri, if you find some white cat hairs on the sweater, this is why!  I figured she would not mind too much, she has a cat of her own (fellow cat-owners know you can never get away from cat hair)!

I do have more Sweater Purses in my queue to blog about, so stay tuned!

Craftolution Update - Organize

So, it is March and it appears as though I am not working on any of my Craftolutions.  Untrue!  I just have not been blogging about them.  Let's first start with Craftolution # 1 & 2.  I wanted to organize my patterns and projects and start on some WIPs (Work In Progess); so this post is going to be a picture blog this time (you are probably thinking: "Yeah, she talks too much, anyway").  I first went to my craft closet and took stock of what was in there, yarnwise (I have other crafts such as sewing and misc crafts that I am not talking about here):

Stuff that is not organized



Above are the items that are in the closet that are not in a bin or a basket.  Then I have the items that are in a bin or a basket that appear to be organized, but it has been ages since I looked in them.  Which is what we have below:

All seems neat, but I have no clue what's even in them!

So, let's pull the bin apart and see what we got here.....

UFO#1:Toddler's Sweater

First, I can't get this picture to rotate, so it is sideways.  It is a toddler's sweater that I had thought would be fun with the bright colors.  This sweater was originally going to be for my friend Nicole's daughter.  Nic, this was going to be Allison's!  For those of you that don't know, Allison is 6.   Yeah, no longer a toddler.  This was only the back of the sweater, I never made it to the two front sides or the sleeves.  Hmmm......Next:

UFO#2:Baby Sweater

Again, this pic won't rotate correctly.  Now, this one I really have no excuse.  This is a baby sweater that all I have to do is seam the side and weave in the ends.  It's about 98% done.  Laziness, that is all I have to say about this one.  It has been in this state for about, oh, 5 or more years.  I know, I'm ashamed, but I stuffed it back in the bag it came in to deal with another day, just the same.

UFO#3:Ugly Purple Vest

This pic should speak for itself.  This is the ugliest item of clothing that I have ever made with my two bare hands.  But, this was my first crochet project; still not a good excuse!  This was an actual pattern I got from a magazine and it looked so cute in print.  It should have a crocheted flower near one of the shoulders.  I wanted to use an eyelash yarn to fringe the edges, but that went horribly wrong and I tore it out.  This yarn is very scratchy, too.  Just downright ugly.  This will never leave the yarn bin or the UFO list.  Next:

UFO#4:Irish Knit Sweater

This one I'm not sure if I can even call it a UFO (Unfinished Object).  I would think that it had to be put to needles to be considered a project, but alas, I have about 4 large skeins of this fisherman's wool from Lion Brand.  This was going to be my sister's Irish knitted sweater.  Kathy, I know I promised this to you about a decade ago...sorry!  Next...

UFO#5:T-neck Sweater

These are two skeins that I have that were left over from a baby blanket I made for a friend and now I was using it for a T-neck sleeveless sweater.  It actually will have a cowl neck, but for some reason the pattern called it T-neck.  Whatever.  This UFO is in another bag that appeared in the first pic of loose items.  The UFO project is in the black bag and this reserve yarn was found in the bin.  Below is the rest:

UFO#5 Continued

This UFO is almost complete, too.  It will consist of a front and back and an added cowl neck.  No sleeves.  The front is complete and I am on the back.  I would say it is about 85% done.  I made a mistake and do not want to rip it out, so I placed it back in the bag until I can convince myself that nobody will notice that I did a purl row on a knit row.  I know it is there and I refuse to rip it out so I guess I refuse to work on it right now.  Stubborn, that is how I will describe my thinking on this one.

UFO#5:Beaded Sachet

This next one was from a beading class where you knit with beads.  I took the class at Knit 'n Knibble in Tampa back when I lived in St Pete, which was in 2006.  The goal was to knit a square with your initial in it as the front and then just knit another matching size square as the back and sew them together to become a sachet.  So the pink beads would have been the N and the blue beads would have been the background.  You have to string them on in a certain order before you begin knitting.  I strung them on incorrectly and so a pink or blue was not going to line up correctly.  Ha, so I ripped it out and placed it neatly back in a zip baggie.  I found out by reading an article just recently that you don't have to rip out everything, you just have to rip back to the beginning of the row and cut the yarn and fix the beads in the correct order and restart.  Duh, it sounds so logical now, but not at the time I messed-up.  Oh well.

Seaming Scraps

This one is not a UFO but scraps from another class from Knit 'n Knibble.  This was a seaming class.  Seaming is assembling separate pieces together so they look like they were meant to go together, like sides of a sweater and sleeves in the body.  This was a valuable class that I kept the scraps and refer back to them from time to time.  The red yarn is to simulate that when done correctly, you should not see the red once the tan pieces are seamed together.  Really cool.

Circular Needles

I keep all of my circs in this bin.  I used to store them in zip bags that I wrote the size on the bag, but I had to coil them up to fit them.  I read once that you should not keep them coiled but flattened or uncurled in some manner.  If they are curly, then you have to uncurl them by using very hot, almost boiling water and dip them in until they relax.  That may be ok for the metal ones to do that to over and over, but most of my "vintage" circs are plastic and I am afraid that they will melt one day.  (Who am I kidding, I have not used these circs in years.  I most likely could have left them in the zip baggies for years before I really needed them....).  Let's see what else is in this bin:

Bag-o-Patterns

This bag contained many patterns that I have made over the years.  It also contained all my double pointed needles.  I have said in past posts that I like Magic Loop so much better than using double pointed needles, that this was not such a great find.  But they are there in case I ever need them.  The patterns are what I need to organize in my pattern binder.  I have swatches, patterns, and yarn labels in this bag.  So I threw all of them in a pile and put them in another project bag with the 3-ring binder and plastic page protectors.

Craftolution #2 - Organize Patterns

For me, every project needs its own project bag.  This can be anything from a plastic shopping bag to canvas totes to reusable silky travel bags.  I am not too picky when it comes to project bags because I may not see them for awhile, so I can't be too attached to them.  But what bag I do place them in will determine the order in which I work on them.  Strange, but true.  My favorite bags will get worked on first, then the ones that end up in a plastic shopping bag may never get seen in this decade.  Sad, but true.
 

Extra Project Bags

Here are two extra project bags that I found in the bin.  My People's Saving tote that I got while working at a bank while attending college and a Mobic tote bag that I got in a 5K race promoting a drug for arthritis.  These are great totes for projects.  I will hold them aside for when new projects come in.

I packed up all these UFOs and placed them back in the bin.  I have decided not to work on any of these projects yet.  I am going to organize my binder and then get to the other pile of loose items.  I have my picnic basket of yarn and my loose items to still go through. 

I know you wanted to see me complete something in this post, but I actually did.  I got to see how I have progressed into projects and got to see what my thought process was when I chose these UFOs.  Remember, Craftolution #1 says that I can reuse yarn in a UFO for another project that I will actually complete.  That is a post yet to be written, but it is coming up.

I have to still organize the patterns, swatches and yarn labels, but I have at least gotten to the point where they are in a bag and considered a UFO.  That is more than what they were last month!