A newfound interest

I've well and truly caught the sewing bug - I am loving sewing little bits and pieces lately.  I'm finding that it's also helping to take the edge off some of the excitement about our upcoming travels - actually getting in and doing things that I've been thinking about in preparation for our trip is definitely helping me to quell the excitement to a manageable level!

I still have a list of things to buy/do before we go away, and when I realised that it was the beginning of March today it just seemed that much closer! We still have a number of weeks left to go yet though, so there's no need for me to start panicking just yet though!

I had a dream the other night that we arrived in Europe and we were in such a rush to pack that we left behind all of the extra SD cards for the camera, my travel journal, and the second little compact camera! Hmm, do you think I'm thinking about our packing list much?!

I've made a list of the little pouches/bags that I want/need to keep the little bits and pieces in and have started working my way down that list.  (We've got a heap of SD cards that I want to keep together in a zipped pouch, we've got four chargers and the power point adaptor that I want in a drawstring bag together, etc.)  I'm really using them as an excuse to sew things and hone my skills I suppose - things like sewing with zippers, gathering fabric, inserting linings.  I'm learning so much from tutorials posted on various blogs all over the internet.  It's amazing what you can find by typing in 'zippered pouch tutorial' into Google!  I'll post a list of some of my favourite tutorials that I've learnt at the end.

By the way, the fabric that I've used is just so beautiful - I am in love with it! Spotlight has nearly sold out though, so once I finish what I've got that will most likely be it!

This is the first one I made with a boxed bottom. I was so excited to do the boxed bottom and give it some width, and I think I did the 'box' too big.

This next pouch was my first go at gathering fabric, using a great Vimeo video from someone that I can't find now! I had previously tried to gather some fabric using a long stitch on my sewing machine, and found it hard to get exactly how I wanted and the thread kept breaking.  What I found was a great method, which used two rows of long straight stitch - one either side of the finished stitching line. The fabric to be gathered was then pinned in the centre and at the end to the piece of fabric that you wanted to stitch to (this made sure that the end width was correct). I've found out that my bobbin thread is looser than my top thread, and was easier to pull.  The final stitch to the 'flat' fabric was done in between the gathering lines which made it really easy to stitch down nicely.  I won't bore you with the rest of the details (well, probably too late), but the bottom line is I'm so happy with my little gathered detail, and I think I'll definitely be putting some more pretty gathered fabrics in my upcoming pouches!

I'm definitely happier with the size of the little 'boxes' at the bottom of this pouch.

I then saw this and this and decided that I really like that type of boxy pouch.  I had trouble with the finishing of the boxed seams being concealed, and could only work out on method that was really really fiddly.  I finally found this one with french seam finishing which worked so, so well.

I then decided that I needed a matching luggage tag, and made this:

Just don't look too closely, it's a bit of a mess! (The white is a piece of paper beneath a clear vinyl front for me to write my details on.)  I used this tutorial, but struggled a bit with the casing around the vinyl (the teal bit).  It was my first time sewing with clear vinyl, and I found that the trick is to stick a post-it-note to the edge of the vinyl so that the foot will not wreck it.  The post-it-note then tears off really easily.  I think I would use bias binding around the piece of clear vinyl next time as it may have a nicer finish - or maybe I just need to be a bit more careful. 

The piece I was most looking forward to making was my document wallet:

I used this tutorial and instructions that I had previously posted to make this, and I'm really happy with how well it turned out, considering I've never made anything like this before!

My only disappointment is how floppy it turned out - I didn't have heavy duty interfacing, so I just used what I had.  I've inserted some pieces of chipboard into the pockets to make it a little firmer.  (I've pulled the chipboard pieces out a little so that you can see the pockets more easily - they normally slip in out of sight.)  My passport actually fits, as does my drivers licence (which has been substituted for the back of an ANZ business card in the photo).  My credit card actually fits in the purple pockets, and the little pouch is for loose change.  I've since bought some heavy-duty interfacing from Spotlight (and it really is HEAVY duty) so I might give it another try.  The instructions and pattern were really easy to follow.

I've also made a couple of lined drawstring bags:

and a new camera strap cover. 

The last camera strap cover that I made was really a bit small and didn't sit nice and flat.  I started off with the idea to make a pocket to fit my lens cap and also a smaller one to fit a spare SD card, and I lined the back with some corduroy to make it a bit softer.  As with the last one I made, after everything was done, it had magically shrunk quite a bit, and the width was nowhere near what I wanted.  I am at a loss as to how to make these things wide enough!! This is the third one I've made now, and it started off soooooo wide just so that I could make sure it ended up being what I wanted, and it still found a way to become too narrow! Needless to say, my lens cap definitely won't fit in that teal pock, and my SD card won't even fit in the pink pocket! The cover actually fits the strap though, and I just think of the teal/pink as being some decoration! This is probably something else that I will try again, and cut the strip of fabric 12" wide if I have to!

I made a pouch (with a string to hang around my neck) for my iPod last night, and it was my first attempt at quilting a 'quilt sandwich'.  I don't have a walking foot, but I'm really happy with how it turned out.  And, it's a miracle, the iPod actually fits! I'll post pictures of that later.

Now that I've bored you all to tears with my blow by blow acount of what I've been making (which only I'm really interested in, I know that) I'll sign off and be back later with some more.