Harry Potter pencil case tutorial

I wanted to make a pencil case for a harry potter fan and came up with this using the tuts from here and here.

What you will need:

• Main fabric
• Inner fabric for lining
• Lightweight fusible interfacing
• Zipper 11”
• Thread and of course sewing machine!

I cut the following pieces

• Cut 5.5” X 9.5” in size
• 2 from the outer fabric
• 2 from the inner fabric
• 2 from the interfacing
• Cut 2” X 10” from outer fabric

Fold the long 2” X 10” piece on the short side. Iron. Fold each side again in half and iron. You will get a piece like above.

Fuse the fusible interfacing to the back side of the outer fabric. My outer and inner fabric are the same. You can see two of my pieces have interfacing and the other two don’t.

Stitch the zipper to the outer fabric and then the inner fabric. You can find more detailed photos here.

Looks like I forgot to take a photo of the next step. With the outer fabric right sides together stitch the bottom. Open the zipper partially. With the inner fabric right sides together, stitch the bottom leaving an opening to turn the bag inside out. Flatten the bag with inner fabric and outer fabric stacked one over the other and the zipper in the center. Put your loop in place. Stitch on both the sides. Using the zipper opening, turn the bag inside out. Now to make the box corners. Pinch the corners and sew a 2” inch line like below on each corner.

You will end up with this:

We still need to stitch the opening on the bottom of the inner lining. Do a slip stitch for that.

Turn the bag inside out!

More chevron background

Like I mentioned before, I cut a lot of chevron background from my Portrait ! Here’s another one. I love the simple look of this card! Cut the sentiment using Portrait as well. The stamp is colored with copics and then added some shimmer using Wink of Stella on the balloons and the bow. A closer look at the shimmer here:

Supplies: My Favorite Things Happy Hippo stamp set, Copics, Wink of Stella.

Anniversary wishes with Peony Bouquet

I’ve been having fun cutting the chevron background with Silhouette Portrait 2 (used this design). Here I used the inlaid die cutting technique. I cut the purple glitter paper in chevron and then the antique silver glitter paper also in chevron. In the purple background I fit in pieces from antique silver and vice versa. As a result I was able to get two backgrounds! When I finish the card with the other background will share that as well. It was a lot of fun – I created four card bases using this background!

The peony was stamped using versafine onyx black and colored with Zig Clean Color Real Brush Pens. The leaves were stamped using the distress inks. The sentiment is stamped in black on vellum and then clear embossed.

If you look closely at the envelope (underneath the card), I stamped that too with peonies – in memento yellow ink. Looks really pretty!

Supplies: Altenew Peony bouquet stamps, My Sentiments Exactly Anniversary Innies and Outies stamp set, Misi stampipng tool.

First card using Silhouette Portrait 2

I’d been waiting for the black friday sale to get a silhouette portrait 2. I sold my KNK Zing sometime back and this was my replacement for it. Zing was a great machine but much more powerful (and hence complex) than my needs. It was also quite big (like other 12” cutters). I leaned towards the Portrait 2 for a couple of reasons:

1. I really like the variety of designs in Silhouette Design Store. It gives you a lot of options.
2. I do not cut anything that’s greater than or equal to 12” on all sides. I can still cut anything greater than 8” in the portrait as long as the other side is less than 8”. That fits the bill for all my projects.
3. The smaller size and the light weight of Portrait swayed me towards it. Smaller size definitely helps in saving space. light weight was probably more of a feel good factor because it’s not like I carry it around.
4. It has the same cutting capabilities as the Cameo – including the bluetooth. I believe the stipple feature is only for Cameo but I don’t care much for it. No longer I wanted to buy a machine thinking “oh what if I needed that feature once in 2 years”. I wanted to buy for my common scenarios.
5. Love the auto-blade feature!

While the price wasn’t that much discounted ($160 vs $200 regular price), I did get $125 credit for Silhouette Design Store and 150 free designs.

Now going back to the card, I really like the clean cuts from the Portrait. For the font I used “bauhaus 93”. It’s one of the fonts that comes pre-installed on Windows. I got the stars from one of the free designs and the chevron background is this design in the store. The glitter paper is from DCWV Glitzy stack. Love that paper! It has glitter but not the kind that rubs off and the paper is very smooth. I used 65lb paper for the background.

Portrait cut settings:

• For DCWV Glitzy cardstock, I used the built-in “Cardstock, Glitter” setting.
• For the 65lb cardstock, I used the built-in “Cardstock, Plain” setting.

How to use sewing patterns 101

I’ve been using sewing patterns for a few years now to stitch clothes, bags etc. There are a lot of companies that make these patterns – McCall, Simplicity, Vogue, Burda are the big brands and then there are a lot of boutique designer patterns. Even after using the patterns for sometime now, I’m still learning them. That made me think how intimidating it must be to first start using them and hence the idea for this post. I thought I could share what I’ve learned so far. Here you go:

1. Let’s start with the basics – pick the right size of pattern. Take your body measurements and look at the pattern to see which size you would need for your body measurements.
2. Select the right fabric. This is one of the most important things. I have learnt the hard way. There were times when I chose to ignore what were the recommended fabrics for a pattern and just bought the fabric I wanted to make it with. Not a good thing to do. If you don’t know much about fabrics, you can search online fabric store for the type or better still go to your local fabric store (preferably not a big box store) and the attendants there are very helpful as well as knowledgeable. You can show them the pattern’s recommended fabric list and ask them what would work.
3. Read the instructions completely before starting. And make sure you understand most of it. Some of them may get more clear when you start sewing it but you should get a good idea about what the general instructions are and how you would be sewing what you would be sewing.
4. Cut the pattern to your measurements. It’s possible that the bust size of Size 16 is right for you but the waist is not. Every pattern has instructions on how to cut a pattern if your 3 measurements belong to two or three sizes. Read that and cut your pattern accordingly. This might mean you will not cut the pattern on the line for one size.
5. Pay attention to instructions. When sewing, make sure your garment looks like what the picture shows at that step. It has happened to me a couple of times that I misunderstand the instruction and then my garment picture doesn’t match the pattern picture at that step. I think oh it’s a problem with the picture and carry on. No! Don’t do that! You might have to rip the seam and do it again and do that till you are satisfied with it.
6. Be ready to rip the seams. Don’t be afraid or lazy to rip the seams as needed. It’s important to do it right for the pieces of the puzzle to fit together. For that if you need to rip the seams multiple times do it. The end result will be worth it.
7. Try it out if it’s a garment. As often as possible try out the garment to see if it fits well. Once it’s done you can’t change much but you can right now. So try it out and see if it’s lose/tight/low/high/etc.
8. Take notes. I’ve found things vary by pattern company. So take notes. Did the pattern company ask for more fabric that you needed? Did the size fit you well for this pattern company? Were the instructions clear? And so on. This is something I regret not doing.