Pirate Map Backpack II

Two years ago, I made O. a backpack for 4K. He picked out the fabric and piping, and I enlarged the made by RAE toddler backpack pattern and added some pockets to it. It was much loved, and held up better than I would have imagined, only getting a few tiny holes in the non-interfaced side bottle pockets near the end of last year.


When I told the boy that I was going to make him a new, bigger backpack, he was adamant that it be the very. same. fabric. However, it was nowhere to be found in quantities larger than a fat quarter.  I happened to have another pirate map print in my stash which he deemed acceptable.  I ripped apart a ready made backpack that had seen better days to use its padded back panel, bottom fabric and strap padding and constructed it in the same way as his other backpack. 

I wanted this one to be more weather-resistant, so decided to try iron-on vinyl.  I'm not entirely certain how I feel about it yet.  It was easy to apply, but it's quite noisy -- crinkly sounding -- and not as sturdy feeling as I'd hoped.  Which I would have known if I had taken the time to make a test project of some sort, but you know me.  I was sewing up the bag the day before school started.  If I were to use the vinyl again for a bag to be used daily, I'd probably add some interfacing as well.  We'll see how it wears over the school year.


O. wanted a simple front pocket like on his other bag, and side bottle pockets.  I used rip stop nylon for the box-pleated side pockets and for the straps. 

 

Once it was done, it looked ridiculously gigantic, especially for a first grader, but when we got to school, most of the other kids' bags were just as humongous.  The increased capacity has already come in handy, and I imagine we will appreciate it even more come snow pants season.

Playing Catch Up

My poor sewing machine has been about as neglected as this blog over the summer, but I did accomplish a few things.  Most were back in June, so I'm foggy on the details, but fortunately there's photographic evidence!


After the kindergarten quilts, I think O's teacher was concerned that I might hate her, so I made sure to sew her something as a thank you gift for the last day of school.  I decided to go with a gathered clutch and a key fob.

Let's pretend it's not crooked in the photo, okay?

I was excited to find the dotted ribbon, which was a perfect match IRL (my photo skills lately have been sorely lacking).  The clutch went together pretty well, although the corners by the zipper don't look nearly as nice as in the tutorial, and I should have made the lining a wee bit smaller.  O. picked out a dragonfly charm for the zipper pull, since he said she really likes dragonflies. 


I also made myself a key fob, which I have been finding surprisingly handy, especially for quick trips like school drop off and pick up, when I am wearing a skirt or dress with no pockets. I put a quick release key chain thing on mine, since the husband is not so fond of the key fob.  Plus he's more likely to have roomy pockets.

Shortly after school let out, a friend had a birthday.  I made truffles and packaged them in this lunch/gift bag.  I don't remember anything about sewing up the bag, so it must have gone quite well!

I really like this fabric, can you tell?

After that, I didn't touch my machine all summer, other than a few repair jobs, until I made O. a new backpack yesterday (post on that coming soon!).  I did knit a few things, though.


Two Snapdragon Soakers.  The first from Peace Fleece for a friend's little guy, the second from O-Wool, a custom order for another friend's cloth diapering store.

 

Then another friend sent me this link and asked if I could knit something similar for her to take pictures of her new nephew when he arrives. A stockinette rectangle?  Yes, I can!  I used Aloft.

I think it will be much more interesting wrapped around a newborn!

So, that's what I did on the sewing and knitting front this summer.  I always have grand aspirations and accomplish little.

Kindergarten Quilts

If anyone ever asks you to make 23 of something, I'd strongly urge you to say no.  I, however, tend to say yes, which is how I ended up sewing a quilt for each kid in O's kindergarten class.  I suppose they're technically blankets, since they aren't pieced, but his teacher called them quilts, so I am too.  :)


Each kid sent in a yard of muslin, a yard and a half of a printed fabric, and some fusible web.  Some of the parent volunteers cut off several inches of the print fabric, ironed it onto the web and cut out the letters of each child's name.  I took the rest home and sewed up the blankets.  I wanted them to have mitered corners and thought this self-binding blanket method would be fastest. I also referenced this tutorial.  For some reason, I thought that since it was basically a bunch of straight lines, it would go pretty quickly.  While the sewing itself was pretty fast, the ironing, measuring and pinning was really time consuming.  It pretty much occupied every free moment for nine days of my life.  I was a woman obsessed.

It was fun to see the fabrics that all the kids picked.  See the one that's just solid blue?  Yeah, that's O's.  He said he wanted blue because "it's the color of water Pokemon, oceans that pirate ships sail on, and the color of my eyes."  Obviously. 


I was really happy with how they turned out overall, although the first few aren't as nice as the ones later on.  I made O's first, and only cut his main fabric 2.5" wider than the muslin.  I thought the border would look better wider, so the rest were 4".  

After the quilts were sewn, some of the other parents ironed on the letters of each child's name.  The kids used fabric crayons to draw pictures about what they learned this year, and his teacher ironed on those.  They each got to take home their quilt on the last day of school.  I didn't take pictures of O's finished blanket until after he'd slept with it, so it's pretty wrinkled, but you get the idea.  

After sewing 23 of these, here are my tips for neatly mitered corners using the self-binding technique linked above.  First, measure carefully.  Second, iron, iron, iron!  Third, take your time sewing the corners.  It's worth it to putz a bit to make sure they end up without puckers.  I took some pics of the process.
  

Mark the 1/4" seam allowance on each corner.

 

When sewing, try to stop exactly at the intersection of the two lines.  

Futz around as much as necessary to make this happen!

The seams should meet perfectly.

This will make it easier to fold the corners with the two side seams on top of each other.  Then mark your line for the miter starting exactly where the two seams meet.

 

Sew carefully so that all three seams intersect in the same spot.  

Once it's trimmed, ironed, turned, ironed some more, pinned and top-stitched (gee, I wonder why these took so long?!), you have a perfectly flat mitered corner.  

Honest Abe

The last three weeks have been a mad rush of sewing.  First up was O's previously mentioned Abe Lincoln costume.  There was a "wax museum" at his school, and kids chose a historical figure or celebrity to research.  They dressed up as their subject and did a small presentation.

Press the button to turn hear the speech!

Although I had previously publicly sworn off McCall's patterns after two successive disasters, M6143 was the only Lincoln costume pattern I could find, and I certainly am not capable of winging a jacket on my own, so I decided to give it a shot.  Fortunately, the smallest size was a 6/7, and O. is right between those two sizes at the moment.  No crazy Big 3 sizing here; it actually fit well!  I was pleasantly surprised.


The jacket was by far the most structured thing I've ever attempted, and I was quite happy with how relatively easily it went together.  Other than the part where I sewed the back on wrong side out and had to rip out three seams by the time I realized it... It's been a while since I've made such a rookie mistake.  I think I'd gotten too cocky! 

Don't the Chucks make the outfit?

There were several darts, and they turned out much better than my last attempt, which resulted in such pointy boobs that I never wore the top.  The construction of the lapel, collar and facings was quite different than anything I've sewn before, so it was fun to try something new.  My only real complaint was that there was what seemed to me to be an insane amount of ease in the sleeve caps.  Maybe because I'm so used to sewing knits?  For the first one I even hand-basted, but still needed to rip out three spots where there was too much puckering.  The second one I just pinned a lot and sewed with the sleeve against the presser foot, and that one went better -- only two spots to rip out!  They're still not perfect, but between it being black fabric and O. not standing still for more than a second anyway, it was good enough for my first try.


I really liked how the kick pleat was constructed, although I don't have a very good shot of it.  O. wouldn't try the whole thing on at home, just pieces as I finished them, so this is the best I could get.  School hallway lighting is also less than ideal.

The pants were a simple elastic waist style, and you were instructed to smooth out the front and sew through the elastic to create a faux flat front.  It worked well.  The shirt & vest are a dickey.  O. chose velvet ribbon for the tie, because it was the "blackest."

The only change I made throughout the process was to use Peltex for the brim of the hat, rather than the fusible interfacing and fusible web combo that was suggested.  I wasn't sure that would stiffen the felt enough.  Peltex worked well, but is so thick that some white showed.  A Sharpie fixed that pretty quickly. 


O's favorite part by far was the beard, which was the part that took about two minutes, of course.  It's just a piece of felt with elastic cording that went over his ears.


All that sewing for a six-year-old to wear for an hour!  I no longer have any residual guilt about buying his Halloween costume.  You can be sure I'll be spending the next four months slipping in subliminal messages about how awesome it would be to be Abraham Lincoln for Halloween.  I also suggested to him that he could use it to be Willy Wonka, but he pointed out that then it should be purple.  And then came up with the brilliant plan that I make the husband a purple Wonka costume.  Not likely.

KCWC Spring 2011 Wrap-up

No more finished projects for me for KCWC.  I traced the Hot Scott Cargo Shorts pattern for O. yesterday, but my dad was visiting for the weekend, so I didn't want to ditch him for sewing.  I haven't gotten my hour in today, and it's not looking likely at this point!  I ran a half marathon this morning, and I think my bed is calling to me.


So while I didn't get as many things done this week as I hoped -- I never do! -- it was much more productive than an average week around here.  If you missed any of the projects, there were linen bermuda shorts, a knit tunic, and a peasant dress, all for Miss E. Thanks to Meg of Elsie Marley for hosting the challenge!


The cargo shorts are going to have to wait for a while, as I have an Abe Lincoln costume that need to be finished by the 25th.  One of my friends pointed out that I could probably have put out a call for and O-sized black suit on Facebook, but since I've already bought the pattern and the fabric, I might as well carry on with my original stress-inducing plan, right?

KCWC Day 5

Woot!  I finally completed an entire project in one day, tracing and all.  Of course, it only had two pattern pieces, but whatever.

The pattern is Miss Madeline by The Handmade Dress.  This is another one that I've made before.  I used grosgrain ribbon for the waistband, rather than a coordinating fabric, and did a 3/4" hem instead of 1/2".

Does the print look familiar?  I used it for a play sling last month and said I hoped I'd sew the rest up into a dress for E. soon.  I'm sort of shocked that it actually happened in a timely fashion.  Yay for KCWC! 

KCWC Days 3&4

I was only able to get in the bare minimum of sewing time on Wednesday and Thursday, but have a finished Fishsticks Designs Emmy to show for it.  I've had this Emmy planned for so long that when I went to cut it out, I realized I'd only traced the long-sleeved pattern piece.  So much for it being a winter dress!  The spring version is short-sleeved and tunic length to go with the linen shorts.

I made two minor changes to the pattern.  I cut the cuff half as tall as specified, to give it more of a ringer tee look, and instead of hemming with a half-inch double fold, I serged the edge and just folded up the full inch.


I really love this pattern, and have made it three times before.  I'm sure there are many more in E's future, since it's so quick, comfy and cute.

 

Proof that she does smile, just not at the camera these days!