Real fast: Some One of a Kind Project Bags

If you watched Chain 344's first episode last week you know that I had a crazy weekend this past weekend Minnesota Yarn Shop Hop'ing. It was insane, and sosososo fun. But I'm going to spare you the details until Ch344 Episode 2 goes live, because we'll pretty much break it all down on there for ya.

Today I'm spending the day recovering.

Doing laundry, dishes, and some odds and ends that seem to have gotten forgotten in the anticipation of the Shop Hop. One of those odds and ends: posting these lovely bags on Etsy!

I've been kind of addicted to making these project bags. No two are alike! They all feature weird, wild, funky, thrifted fabrics. Well, not all the fabric is thrifted, but both of these bags have thrifty stuffs making up their parts!

Just going to leave these here for you to oogle over while I dash away to switch the laundry and do my other "real life" stuff. Be prepared for more bags! They're a-coming!

You can purchase one of these at LastinLineShop on Etsy.

Happy Monday, home dogs!!

Classy Cook Aprons: A Happy Ending

Remember the warning about unfolding fabric I gave you guys? Well, this "Ooops" has a happy ending: look at the spiffy new apron made from the fabric I sold!

Bev at Classy Cook Aprons purchased my fabric and made it into this very classy apron. Still not a fan of skulls, but I must say, the apron looks nice. Her work is all very cute! Lots of funky aprons in her shop. Check them out!

Happy Monday!!
-Carolyn

Drawstring Project Bag Pattern

For some odd reason, I got tired of shoving my project into the diaper bag I now carry in place of a purse. And though my amazing Aunt custom made the diaper bag for me, there were only so many pockets she could include. A project quadrant just wasn't going to happen.

So the big question became: Do I tangle the project by shoving it into the diaper bag, or do I take another large bag out with me? I, for some reason, own zero small, manageable bags.

Guess what? I decided to make some.

And this one is the first! I scored the blue floral fabric at an epic thrift store score back in Utah and have been planning on bag-ifying it since I saw it. I trolled and trolled Pinterest for the right bag pattern (and the right cookie recipe and the right homemade cleaning product and the right chalkboard...you know how it is) and came across this pattern from Sew Serendipity. It's a lunch bag pattern that was being offered for free by Sew Mama Sew and I knew it was right.

I did a few minor adjustments (namely to the handle) but for the most part kept the bag as it was. The pattern makes a very very nice, roomy project bag without being hugemonsterous.

I opted for a single sided handle in order to make the bag more clip-to-the-diaper-bag friendly, but you can do whatever you want. I don't care. I'm not the boss of you.

I feel kinda fancy with the wooden beads on the draw ties. I was thinking about NOT putting them on because for some reason I was feeling particularly anti-hardware at the time, but I'm so glad Other-Side-of-My-Brain convinced me otherwise. The look so nice! And professional. And stuff. Unlike those last few sentences.

Yeah, I don't actually use those knitting needles, they are more for show. Big long wooden needles look better in pictures than my tangley circulars I enlist for every project. More rustic.

Straight needles are rustic?

Hush. Agree with me. You know I'm right.

My thoughts on the pattern:
-Go with a med-light Peltex on the outer body of the bag if you are using thick fabric like me.
-The strap is very customizable. I could even see this as having two straps for a weirdy cute little backpack!
-Gathering the drawstring segment made that part a bit unmanageable to sew. In the end, I measured (read: completely guessed on) some pleats to ease the top into the bag.
-It's AMAZING that all the seams are enclosed. Nothing is more lovely in a pattern to me than a project that effortlessly encloses all the seams.
-Also, you don't have to turn the draw strings. Because, why should you be subject to that torture? I just ironed them out like bias tape and sewed them shut with some edge stitching.
-Oh, and I didn't include interfacing on the lining. Because I'm a rebel and believe that if you can leave out interfacing, do.

I'm going to be making quite a few more of these, I think. They are quite quick once you get all the pieces cut out! I've actually already finished one other one!

Happy Tuesday!!
-Carolyn

Unfold the Fabric: A Public Service Announcement from Last in Line

Once upon a time there was a girl named Carolyn and she went shopping. She went shopping in a big city while her husband was busy at a meeting. She felt proud of her ability to drive a large van around the big city and not hit anyone or anything. She was also proud of her ability to write out directions for herself to the places she wanted to shop.

Burning with all this pride, Carolyn set out to +CraftyPlanet to see what she could find. To her joy, she found a cute shop filled to the gills with cute fabric. She decided to buy a lot of it.

She mostly bought fat quarters: some plaid, some raccoons, some polkadots, some flowers. Then a section of bagged yards of fabrics caught her eye. There was some very pretty colors all folded up in those glossy little ziplocs. Maybe she should buy a yard! Make something bigger!

So, carefully, she selected a color pallet that suited her. Then Carolyn wondered, "Should I open the bag and unfold the fabric?" She could only see a small section of the pattern from the way it was folded, but she really liked what she saw. All paisley and filigree. Not wanting to be THAT customer who opens up packages and makes everyone angry, she decided to just buy the stuff.

And that's just what she did.

Fast forward a year (A YEAR??), Carolyn got pregnant, moved out West, had the baby, moved back, and finally settled in to a new, more permanent apartment with her little family. The bagged fabric came out West, but sat untouched. The bagged fabric came back to the Midwest, but sat untouched. Until two weeks ago when at long last, Carolyn decided to take stock of her fabric stash and plan projects for what she had amassed.

With joy, images of cute sleeping shorts and pillow cases danced in her mind as she at last unfolded the fabric to find:

 Skulls.

So many skulls staring back at her with their dead, flowery eyes. Carolyn is not a fan of skulls. Not at all. And her dislike of them is strengthened when she is expecting a lovely floral pattern to pervade the fabric she bought long ago.

Had the selvedge been showing, surely the name of the fabric alone would have put her off. But no. No such luck had she. Let this be a lesson to her and all crafters of her kind:

Always unfold the fabric.

My mistake is your gain, if you are into skull fabric. I listed the yard on my Etsy. You can find the listing here! I am hoping it finds a happy new home where it'll be used for a great project and I won't have to see it every time I open my fabric drawer. Heh.

The Specs:

1 yard "Indigo Skull" in Pool & Aqua by The Alexander Henry Fabric Collection

Happy Tuesday (and St. Paddy's Day!) y'all!!

-Carolyn

A Restful Week

We have been having an enjoyable, albeit snowy week here in the midwest. I've been blessed to be able to spend some time with a good friend. Even got to teach her to sew! Yes, that is a chemistry themed apron she is making. Yes, she is making it on a Hello Kitty sewing machine.

Simple pleasures.

One of the cuter moments today: Mr. E fell asleep to the sound of the sewing machine. My gosh, how cute!! It just made my heart melt. I remember doing the same thing when I was a kiddo. Listening to the methodical hum of the machine and drifting to dreamland. So lovely.

I am getting ever-closer to finishing these man-socks. I need to have them done this weekend. They are for my Grandpa and are already an incredibly late Christmas gift. I was so overjoyed when I turned the heels last week. It felt like a mega accomplishment!! Because it kind of was. I guess.

Stay warm friends!! It's cold and snowy all over, it seems!! Stay inside, drink hot cocoa, and craft up a storm.

DIY Refashion: Men's Shirt to Peplum Dress

 Hey guys! Remember this big old ugly shirt? A week or so before Christmas I set to work chopping this shirt up and designing a snazzy peplum dress out of it. I wore it on Christmas Eve and got asked a few times where I bought the dress! I consider that a successful refashion.

#betterthanstorebought #booyahmozzerellasticks #awyeah #hashtag

Ahem. Enough of that. Let's talk about the dress. I started by properly dissecting the men's shirt and gathering some matching thread and some extra fabric in the event that I needed to add more.

 While I do not have any good pictures from the process, you will have to make do with my turn of phrase and poetic descriptions.

I started by drafting up what I wanted in the dress. It had to feature a princess-seamed bodice. The lines are flattering to every body type, and will hopefully suit me for at least another month or so of Baby Z's growth. Hehe!!

To achieve a well fitting bodice, I was lucky enough to have a princess-seamed dress that fit me quite well. I used that dress as a basis for designing mine. I added a little wiggle room in the bust area (since pregnancy has already left me floundering for tops that fit in that realm) as well as the waist. After drawing up the pattern on cardstock (and making sure to add a seam allowance) and picking which pieces of the shirt would become which parts of the bodice, I set to work cutting.

 After piecing the bodice together with pins, I was shocked and concerned to discover that the bodice was FAR too tight. So, without a moment to lose, I drafted a side panel. Having such limited fabric from the men's shirt, I had to use some sections from a pair of teal old lady trousers I scored a year ago. I also decided to use the teal pants to assemble the peplum ruffles as well so that the side panels did not look out of place.

After the bodice was pieced and sewn, I quickly trimmed up the skirt and edged the peplums. Then, after attaching the skirt to the bodice, all I had to do was finish the neckline and sleeves and WHAMO. One bootiful dress.

Since this dress will hopefully be able to be worn for another month or two of this pregnancy, it is a bit billowy. I pair it with a brown belt to keep some of the girth in check. You can hardly tell that it has got extra belly room!! The shoes are a Goodwill score from a few weeks before Christmas. $3!! Holy schmowzow!! And they are practically new. I love me some fun flats.

There you go friends!! Have you done any spiffy refashions lately??

-Carolyn
Linkin' up at these fine sites!

Handmade Knitting Needle Case

 As you may recall, I give a lot of handmade gifts for Christmas. I love giving handmade gifts because I love getting handmade gifts! It's a "do onto others as you would have them do to you" kind of thing. This past Christmas, my Aunt totally surprised me with the most fantastically crafted knitting needle case.

 When I first learned to crochet, my maternal Grandmother (who taught me to crochet) made me a crochet hook case. I still have it, even though it is in shreds. She replaced it on my 21st Birthday with a new version, but I can't get rid of the old one. Too many feels.

Since I started knitting, I have been trying to cram dpns and circs into my crochet hook case. Each time I struggled to close it, I vowed I would actually get on top of my life and make myself a case for my needles. I'm a big girl, I can sort of sew. It shouldn't be too hard, right? So, I started doodling plans for the needle case I would make after Christmas for myself.

 But low and behold, I didn't need to! My Aunt (my mom's sister, so my crochet-teaching grandma is her mother) is an incredibly talented seamstress. She would be all "Oh nooo, it's nothing, I just mess around" if she was reading this (which...she might be?), but let me tell you, she is so precise with her stitchery. Everything she makes is so sturdy and beautiful. She often makes purses and tote bags out of placemats. I am lucky enough to have one that she made. I've had it for 4 or 5 years now, and it is still in tip top condition. (And that is really saying something, because I abuse my bags.)

This case is going to last forever.

 Another surprise: it was full of circular needles when I opened it!! There is this spectacular shop on ebay that sells high quality, yet affordable, bamboo knitting needles. She scored me a full set!!

 The fabric she chose was "home decor" fabric. Aka upholstery. Aka Carolyn-proof. Seriously, it was a miracle that my first crochet hook case lasted from when I was 7 until 2 years ago. Bags tremble at the sound of my name.

 For even more ridiculously awesome detail, check out those labels!! My Aunt does not have a Pinterest account (though she occasionally peeks at the site), but I tell you, her projects that she undertakes are pure Pinterest gold. She took regular hardware-store washers and some number punches and put the sizes on each washer. Then she rubbed some black ink into the indented numbers to make them even easier to read. -swoons over the details-

I love gifts that are cool, but useful. Not just useful like, "Oh thanks yeah, I needed toenail clippers," but useful like "this is so pretty I want to keep touching it and I forget why I got it out in the first place." I think this needle case wins. Especially now that I have a whole slew of projects that I will need a whole slew of needles for. I'll know riiiiggghht where to find them.


Happy Monday, loves!!!
-Carolyn

Linkin' up at these fine sites!

How to Dissect a Men's Shirt

There are a multitude of ways to chop up a men's shirt and make something completely different out of it. Today, I would like to share with you the art of complete shirt dissection. This is not a way to make a cute dress out of a shirt, but rather a method for getting the most fabric out of a button-down shirt. Of course, you could use the fabric to make a dress later! That's what I did. Let's get started!!!

Gather your materials, yo:

Big ol' men's shirt

Measuring tape (for seeing how much fabric you got once done)
Seam ripper
Scissors
Matching thread (for correcting any little oppses you may make)

And of course, a bangin' playlist. I went "Flo & the Mac" on this one.

A few tips on selecting a shirt: most project work best with cotton. But, I mean, this dissection process isn't going to fail if you find a fantastic silk or polyester shirt. The shirt I scored was a gift, so I didn't really have a choice on the pattern. My mother in law had it for some reason and gave it to me for "whatever".  But, for most projects I do, small patterns are the best patterns, so this fine plaid shirt worked out brilliantly.

 Another suggestion: Go for big. Bigger the shirt, the bigger the fabric gain.

SO. To the chopping! If your shirt has a pocket, get out your seam ripper and carefully take off the pocket. Save it for a project that involves pockets taken off of shirts.

 Bam. Be careful when seam ripping, here. Try really hard not to rip the fabric of the shirt itself. If you happen to rip it, that's what the matching thread from earlier was for. Fix dat hole!!

 My shirt had collar-stay buttons. Carefully clip these off. Don't do what I did and get a little enthusiastic and clip a hole in the shirt.

Careful clipping!! Don't make holes!!

Now it's time to cut the buttons, button holes, and collar off in one looonnnngg cut. Trim this whole unit off by starting at the bottom of the button flap and cutting all the way up and around the collar and back down to the bottom on the button hole side. Be sure to cut the seam the attaches all this jazz to the shirt off with the button flap and whatnot. If you don't it's no big deal, but you'll have to go back and trim it off.

The button flap

And it's all off!!

 You can wear it, if you like. Or just save it for some other creative thing later.

ooh gurl, dat headband iz cray!

 Alright, now flip your shirt over to address the back yoke. Most shirts have them. It's that area right at the top of the back where your shoulders would go. Most shirt have a double thickness of fabric here for extra strength. Sometimes they have that weird loop thing. Mine had both.

 Here's what it looks like from the inside of the shirt. It is easiest to remove it while looking at the inside, I think.

 Cut the shoulder seam out. Again, make sure the actual seam goes away with the back yoke. It just leaves a nice clean edge on your big chunks of fabric if you do it this way.

 Trimmy trim trim the part that connects to the sleeve.

 And the part that goes across the baaaack...

And vioala! The back yoke is out!

While this piece is not very big, don't underestimate it's potential. I had it in my garbage pile, but had to fish it out and separate the layers to get all the fabric potential out of it for a project. Thank you back yoke for saving my project!!

So, here's your shirt so far:

Lookin' good. Time to cut the front panels off of the back of the shirt.

It really doesn't matter which piece you leave the side seam attached to, but I prefer to leave it on the front so that the back ends up with a clean edge.

Cut so that the sleeves end up still connected to the front panels.

Do the same on both sides! Woot!! The back of your shirt is almost completely dissected!!

Just trim the bottom hem off of the back, and it'll be all done! If you want to go really fabric-gaining-crazy, you can use the seam ripper to open the hem and get less than an inch extra of fabric for most shirts. I'm lazy, so I just cut it off.

 Tadaaaa!!

Now let's work on the front panels. You do the same thing for each side on the front.

Start by cutting the sleeve out. Take the side seam with it all the way down.

Take the bottom hem off too. You'll end up with a sleeve with one nice long tail-thingy.

Check out your cuff. It probably looks like this:

Cut the cuff off the sleeve all the way around, starting and ending at the hemmed slit that goes up the sleeve to accommodate big muscles.

Then cut the slit (seams and all) out with the cuff.

Now, cut one side of the sleeve seam out, letting your sleeve lie flat.

Then, cut the other side of the seam out, freeing it from the sleeve.

Some sleeves are strange, like the one I had, and have another seam as well. No worries, chop it out and call it a day!!

Yaaayyy!! Now, iron out your big pieces (back, 2 front panels, 2 sleeves) and decide what you want to do with the extras (the collar/buttons combo, the cuffs, the back yoke, and all the seams) and you are golden!! Iron that bad boy and make all the things!! I'll have a post later next week to show you what I made with my dissected men's shirt!

Love you all bunches!!
-Carolyn

Linkin' up at these fine sites!