A Laundry Goodie

I hate doing laundry.

But, we must.

This past year, we made an effort to hang our laundry on the line to dry.

I did okay, but somedays it was just easier to toss it in the dryer.

One obnoxious thing:  keeping up with those silly clothes pins.

I’d seen some different tutorials for a clothes pin bag. 

Some I liked.  Some I didn’t.

I really liked this tutorial, but I didn’t have a super-cute vintage placemat to use.

So, I tweaked it and made my own clothes pin bag.

Start with 1/3 yd of fabric, about 18 inches of ribbon and a button. (You could also use a fat quarter, but your clothes pin bag would be a little smaller than mine.

Cut 2 rectangles, each 12 x 18 from your fabric.  (If you are using a fat quarter, yours will be about 11 x 18.)

Center your ribbon along the top edge of the right side of one rectangle of fabric.

Top that with your other rectangle, right side down.

Pin the edges.

Stitch around your rectangle with 1/2 inch seam allowances, leaving a 3 inch hole for turning.

Trim your corners.

Turn your piece right side out and press it well.

Fold your rectangle in half.  Pin the edges.

Sew these side seams with a 1/2 inch seam allowance.

To make the boxy corners on your bag, pinch the sides down to the bottom. 

Match the center seam and the center bottom. 

Make a line about 1 inch in from the tip of the corner. This line should be 2 inches long. 

Stitch along this line.  Stitch another seam, just outside of the first. 

Trim your corners with pinking shears.

Top stitch around the top edge of your bag.  (I forgot to take a picture of this step.) 

This will close the opening you left for turning.

Decide how long you want your ribbon.  Mine is just long enough to wear on my wrist. 

I folded under the raw end of my ribbon.  Then I put a buttonhole in the grosgrain.  (If you don’t like to do button holes, you could just do velcro here.)

Add a button, inside the bag on the same side as the ribbon. 

Embellish the front of your bag with something fun.  I choose this “Count Your Blessings” label from my stash! 

Hopefully, it will remind me not to whine about the laundry!

 

Perfect Proportions

I’m a nerd. 

That’s your warning for all that’s about to follow! 

But, if you promise to hang with me for a couple of minutes, there is some sewing/design info at the bottom.

Here we go!

0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144…

Recognize those numbers? 

They begin the Fibonacci sequence. 

(If you don’t remember it from math class, you might remember reading something about this in Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci’s Code.)  Anyway, back to the  numbers. 

You can find the next number in the sequence by adding the two previous numbers together:

0 + 1 = 1, 1 + 1 = 2, 1 + 2 = 3, skip a few,

34 + 55 = 89, 55 + 89 = 144, 89 + 144 = 233, and so on.

 

So, I promised you proportions and you’re wondering where they are.  Here you go: 

The ratio between two consecutive numbers in the sequence is about 1.62.

That’s your ratio!

1.618…

Your Golden Ratio.

The Golden Section, the Golden Mean, Divine Proportion, Golden Number, Phi (φ)

In nature, we see this ratio often.

 

 

Amazing how nature follows a Plan.

We also see this ratio in architecture, art and design.

Think about The Parthenon. The Pyramids.

So you’ve kept up and now you’re wondering what does all this have to do with creativity?

Well, if you don’t see the genus and beauty of it, you might be beyond help, but here’s why it’s on my mind today:

Some design texts suggest that the most flattering clothing for a body divides a body into this same ratio, the perfect proportion if you will. 

For example, if it is 40 inches from my waist to the floor, then following this suggestion, my skirt should to fall to 24.7 below my waist. 

This dress obviously doesn’t fall to that length.

Shall we take a look at some others?

18 inches

 20 inches

 15 inches (Yikes!)

So what does 24.7 inches look like?

Uhm.  Not so sure I like that. 

So, what’s a girl to do?

Follow the rules—or not?

 

 

Handy Thread Chart

Look what the thread makers have for us…

Coats and Clark Threads Advisor

How handy to have all this info at hand when you are preparing a new project!

The Big Girl’s Pumpkin

My blog has been hijacked!!!  My almost 8-year old has taken over.  Here’s her post:

Today I made a pumpkin for the table.  This is how you do it.

1.  Get your supplies.  You will need:    hot glue    pipe cleaners    orange fabric    Timtex    iron    pencil    scissors
2.  Draw 2 pumpkin shapes on the Timtex.  I used a stencil.
3.  Cut them out.
4.  Put 1 pumpkin shape in the fabric like this: pretty side down, Timtex, pretty side up.
5.  Press it to make it all stick together.
6.  Cut out the shape.
7.  Do it again for the other one.
8.  Make a cut in one from the bottom to the middle.  Make a cut in the other one from the top to the middle.
10.  Slide them together to make a pumpkin.
11.  Twist the pipe cleaner on the pencil to make a stem.
12.  Have Momma hot glue it on your pumpkin.
13.  All done!

Summer Swimming and Sewing

It's Summer! Well, almost! June for us means:

Swim Meets!

Of course, this means hot days, ice chests, sno' cones, sunscreen, and swim caps. The BG needed a great bag for her suit and gear, so I whipped up this beach bag:

I wrote out and photographed a tutorial. You can find the Beach Bag Tutorial at http://www.needlesnutsandbolts.blogspot.com .

Stay COOL!!!!

The "How We Did It"s !

I promised more pictures and details about our t-shirts from the challenge. Here you go:

I'll do a tutorial for mine if anybody wants, but for now, I'll just show you a before and after. (Since somebody said I cheated!)

I'll let you know if any of my friends (or sisters) came through on this challenge...

5 Cool Sewing Tips

Here are my 5 favorite sewing tips (for today anyway, because tomorrow I'll probably learn something new):

1. Wet the back of your needle before trying to thread it. The surface tension from the water pulls the thread right on through.


2. Compare your pattern pieces to a RTW piece that has a similar fit. This is particularly helpful if you're fitting a difficult client (like my hubby).


3. Instead of chalk, mark your notches, darts, etc. with a dried-up remnemt of Ivory soap.


4. Put a shirt together at one shoulder (or if it has raglan sleeves--at 3 seams). While it's flat, serge your neck binding (or cuffs onto sleeves) on the neck line. (I find it easiest to place if I've notched center front, shoulders and center back on both the shirt and the ribbing.) Then serge the remaining shoulder seam, all the way up the ribbing.


5. Choose your pattern size based on your front width measurement (FWM). This is a great N. Zieman tip. To take the measurement, find the crease in your skin where your arms meet your body and measure straight acros your chest. Round off to the nearest half-inch. A FWM of 14 inches corresponds to a size 14 and every 1/2 inch difference is a pattern size. (I.e., 13.5 inches = size 12, 13 inches = size 10, 14.5 inches = size 16, 15 inches = size 18)

So, those are mine. What are yours (and no, Jane, "If you can't find it, just call Salinda and she'll make it." doesn't actually count as a tip. :) )

Super Hero Costume Pajamas!

Here's the scoop on those "awesome" super hero pajamas/costume/pants/shirt/etc. that the Little Man requested:

The Pants: The pants and cape are both a 100% cotton licenced print that Momo bought just for the LM. The pants are made with an unknown pattern I traced years ago when the Big Girl could wear a size 4 PJ bottom! I did add an extra inch in length, because these size 4's were too short for this 3-year-old. The pants are serged, with a 1-inch hem, and the waistband is finished with 1-inch elastic because that's what I had.

The Shirt: This is a store-bought undershirt (again what I had, because Ike was on its way through and I wasn't about to get out). I let LM choose his character (today his favorite was batman) and I cut it out, used a little Heat-and-Bond and then top stitched it on with a very narrow zig-zag.

The Cape: This was the super-easy part. I cut a rectangle from our fabric and finished the edges with a rolled hem on my serger. I originally cut it much longer but LM complained that it was too long. So, I shortened it to the length he specified. In all honesty, he think he had the right idea. To gather the top of it, I just stitched it to 1/4 inch elastic.

Since I anticipate we will be falling asleep in these PJs on a regular basis, I didn't want the cape to tie on. I get nervous about choking and things. So, I've got Velcro around the neckline of the shirt and the matching Velcro along the top of the cape. Now, if anything, the cape will just fall off (or mom can remove it while he sleeps:).)

Here he comes to save the day...

More on the mini-wardrobe

So, we all know men hate to shop. I've decided it's because they hate to try-on. And, I've discovered over the past few weeks that they hate to be measured or fitted. So, I had to come up with someway to actually make these clothes fit my dear hubby. Here's my solution:

That's right. I pulled out one of his RTW T shirts and matched the pattern pieces to it. (I used one of his undershirts because they are more form-fitting than, say, his Jimmy Buffett T-shirt.

This started with Kwik Sew 3570 . The finished garment measurements were waaaaay out of wack with the body measurements and DH was at work. So, I laid the pattern piece on the shirt and compared. What did I find. The finished measurements were wrong. I was able to retrace the pieces before I ever cut my fleece. Whew!

On the raglan tee (the PJ pattern that I modified into a very cool T), I also used this method. I confirmed the size and was able to use the RTW shirt to shorten the sleeve.