getting there
Dec. 29th, 2019 12:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7via https://ift.tt/363acP4
Awoke this morning at 4:30, got out of bed at 5, and spent about an hour puttering around in the basement assembling myself supplies to bring with me for a hand-sewing project. Mostly, it’s two bits of fabric remnants that I wanted to make into larger remnants, so I cut them in half along the short edge and plan to join them up along the long edge. I want to use the by-hand bojagi piecing technique to make them be usable from either side with this method. I have no final plan for what to do with them, it’s just that I wasn’t using them in their long narrow configuration either, and so if they’re squares I’ll be more likely to use them as handkerchiefs or tablecloths or something, IDK. I also cut out some chunks of fabric with an eye toward making a tarot card deck container thing, but I haven’t got a pattern, I just figured out the dimensions it had to be and cut enough outer fabric, lining, and then a scrap of flannel for padding if I make it quilted, and I’ll try to find a pattern this morning and figure out what shape I should make it be.
The Kindle case is nearly finished, and I figure I’ll do that this morning too.
Both of us have suitcases packed, and then I’ve hauled out carry-ons for both of us. Dude was like “but I don’t need a carry-on, I’ll have a personal item?” and I was like “I’m making you carry the food and some of the things I don’t want to carry because my bag will be too full otherwise” and he was like “oh. right.”
So.
Behind the cut, I’m going to describe the Kindle cover I’m making. I have some photos, but it’s not like, a tutorial– I didn’t actually take process photos really, and I don’t have any measurements. But anyway. This is my Extremely ADHD Sometimes This Works: Extreme Hoarder Edition method of object construction, for your edification and amusement.
So I wanted this to both hold the Kindle so I don’t keep hitting the off button while I’m reading from it, and to protect it– my old one died in Kyrgyzstan when a stressed cabbie shoved my backpack into the corner of an accordion in the trunk of his cab at three in the morning, so I’m acutely aware that the screens are susceptible to that sort of damage.
I found several tutorials, and had somewhat intended to make this one [https://www.charlottenewland.com/2013/01/kindle-cover-tutorial.html]. But here’s the thing: I am not going to buy fabric, buy plastic canvas, and buy endless rounds of fusible interfacing, when I have a basement chock-full of Mysterious Hoarded Shit.
So I started with a scrap of canvas– actually I think it’s twill? bull denim perhaps?– of unknown provenance– virgin yardage, it’s not picked out of an old garment, but I genuinely don’t recall what it was offcut from. It happened to be the correct width, so I just cut several lengths of it. No, I did not measure, I just put my Kindle down on it and said “that looks right” with no regard for seam allowances or anything. Then I used that piece of canvas to measure everything else. Did this work perfectly? Mm no. Did I get something usable? Sure! Probably. I’m most of the way done and it seems like it worked, so. Score one for Can’t Understand Numbers So Just Looks At Stuff.
It needs padding, I decided, and so I found an old sock with a hole in the heel. Nothing special, an old white sweat sock, which any sane person would have long ago discarded, but I am a hoarder so I had not. I lay it on the scrap of canvas, discovered I could cut off the holey part, and rejoiced. (It’s not that the hole would be a problem, but it would give a weird texture to have either a hole or a mend in the padding layer.) Then I discovered the foot part had enough length to it that I could do another layer, so both the front and back of the case can be padded. Huzzah!
I wanted something to stiffen the case. Interfacing isn’t enough, it’s got to hold its shape enough against the tension of the elastic holding the Kindle in place. So I found a plastic container in the recycling that had a large enough mostly-flat space in the lid, and cut that out. I refined that by holding the Kindle to it, and cutting carefully with my heavy shears so that the corners were rounded and it was exactly the size of the Kindle.
I also dug out a scrap of some old microfiber sheets left over from my Christmas wrapping project, and got enough out of it for both a front and a back.
I quilted the sheet and sock in a layer, for the back of the case, and then sewed a quilt sandwich– put the sock on top, then the sheet, then the right side of the canvas, sewed around three corners, flipped it inside-out, then I had a bag. Clipped corners, refined it a little, then slid the cut out of the plastic lid into it. Perfect. Set it aside.
Then I did the top layer, realized I’d made it slightly too narrow. That’s fine, I’ll make the hinge section bigger. Cut a piece of a different plastic lid, which wouldn’t have worked if I’d made the top piece as big as the bottom piece, but since I fucked up, the narrower bit of plastic fit. Didn’t bother quilting the sock to the sheet, just sewed the three edges and clipped the corners, flipped it, put the plastic in it.
Now I’ve got two padded fabric boards, slightly different sizes. So I took a third piece of canvas, the same size as the front and the back, and lay that down to be the hinge. Had a narrow strip of sock left, and a narrow strip of the gray sheet. Stitched those down slightly offset from the middle of the canvas hinge piece, just turning the edges under with my thumbnail so that it was a relatively straight section– stitched right down the middle first to hold it all steady, then up the two sides to make it a flat quilted section in the middle of the canvas hinge.
Belatedly, I realized I wanted to stiffen the hinge, so I unpicked a tiny piece of the seams on either side of the center, cut two thick cable ties to the right length, and poked them in, so the hinge won’t be floppy.
Now for handwork, no more machine. This won’t work by machine, because the plastic’s in there now so the needle can’t go all the way through. The nice lady’s tutorial would be better because it’s got all the correct order of assembly, but the bonus of using handsewing as therapy is that you can literally do it in any order because you can always painstakingly scrape your needle through just a few threads and sew a seam completely wrong and have it still work just fine.
I closed up the top of the front and back pieces– there wasn’t enough seam allowance to do it on the machine, and i wanted it good and tight anyway, so I just folded both sides in and did a decorative overcast stitch (a blanket stitch) over the edge. I may go around all of the edges and do a decorative overcast as a final finish, just to hammer home that this fucker’s hand-sewn. I like that kind of shit. If I were doing this again maybe I’d put more padding in, because the plastic’s got some ridges in it and it makes for a weird texture, but I didn’t have enough seam allowance and figure it doesn’t matter. Still, bear that in mind if you can’t find a perfectly flat sheet of plastic either.
I cut a broken hair tie into four pieces– well, get it right. I cut a hunk from it that looked right, sewed it to the larger panel which I decided is the back, and then cut another hunk and sewed it down, and then I had a piece left that looked like I could probably just cut it in half and use both halves, so I did that. Turns out I was right. Here, now I’ve got a photo to show.
[image description: looking down at an object that’s gray on the front and cream on the back, where black elastic loops have been applied at the four corners– you can really only see the top left corner, which is facing the camera. In the back is a very cluttered workspace full of spools of thread and scissors and needles and such. At this angle you can only catch a tiny glimpse of the blue pearl cotton I used for the decorative overcast stitch at the top edge.]
Just kinda poked buttonhole/craft thread through there with a needle until it looked pretty solid.
Holds the Kindle fine:
[image description: a Kindle Paperwhite held by elastic loops at the four corners to a gray surface. Slightly confusing image because so much clutter in back; a loop of a broken hairtie extends above the top of it, and that’s the second broken hairtie I collected for the project and didn’t need. You know, how the elastic comes disconnected and then the fabric still holds but like, stretches out? That’s what I mean, “broken hairtie”. I could pave a highway with how many I have but using one up is a nice feeling. I completely stole that idea from the linked tutorial, so.]
Next I blanket-stitched the top and bottom raw edges of the hinge panel, and then I blind hemstitched the two side edges, because I figured doing the finishing sewing separately from the structural sewing would probably make both turn out better. I started to do boning channels along the cable ties in the hinge, but abandoned that– I’ll do that as a finishing touch once I’ve done the structural stuff. Just to keep things from shifting around and to give it a more finished feel. Not that this is ever going to look like anything but a handmade disaster, but that’s my aesthetic.
I lay out the top and bottom and hinge with the Kindle in it to figure out where everything needed to be, and pinned down the overlapping part of the canvas hinge panel, and then realized what I truly need is to join the edge of the gray panel in the middle of the hinge to the edge of the gray interior surface of the front panel. So I’ve done that, with an overcast stitch or whatever you call that. Ah, no, whip stitch, that’s what it is– joining two finished edges.
Going to do the same for the rear panel, and then IDK what stitch you call it but I’ll have to attach the canvas hinge edges to the canvas layer of the front and back without going through the plastic, so I’ll figure out how to do that attractively somehow. And then I’ll be done.
[image showing all three panels laid out partly overlapping– front panel off the left edge, then the hinge showing the machine-stitched attachment of the gray panel to the cream panel, then the back panel showing the elastic loops and really shitty halfass quilting job where I mostly just wanted to make sure the sock wouldn’t shift around too much while I was sewing.]
Oh, and here’s a shot showing the plastic insert going into the front panel– it’s literally the top of one of those shallow rectangular takeout containers like Mighty Taco puts its Nachos Supreme in, for real. You can see it’s not totally flat, and that might bug some but I am out of fucks to give. It’s flat enough that it won’t break the Kindle, and that’s what I want, the Kindle not to break.
[image description: my fingers holding a piece of clear plastic you can see has been cut by a microserrated edge, protruding from between a cream layer on top, and on the bottom a layer of terrycloth sock and a layer of gray microfiber with a raw edge.]
So I’ll probably finish that this morning, which would be nice, because then I can pack the Kindle in it and perhaps protect it against whatever this trip’s equivalent will be of a stressed cabbie with a concertina.
I also need to borrow some library ebooks onto this thing but. Baby steps. We’re getting there.
Awoke this morning at 4:30, got out of bed at 5, and spent about an hour puttering around in the basement assembling myself supplies to bring with me for a hand-sewing project. Mostly, it’s two bits of fabric remnants that I wanted to make into larger remnants, so I cut them in half along the short edge and plan to join them up along the long edge. I want to use the by-hand bojagi piecing technique to make them be usable from either side with this method. I have no final plan for what to do with them, it’s just that I wasn’t using them in their long narrow configuration either, and so if they’re squares I’ll be more likely to use them as handkerchiefs or tablecloths or something, IDK. I also cut out some chunks of fabric with an eye toward making a tarot card deck container thing, but I haven’t got a pattern, I just figured out the dimensions it had to be and cut enough outer fabric, lining, and then a scrap of flannel for padding if I make it quilted, and I’ll try to find a pattern this morning and figure out what shape I should make it be.
The Kindle case is nearly finished, and I figure I’ll do that this morning too.
Both of us have suitcases packed, and then I’ve hauled out carry-ons for both of us. Dude was like “but I don’t need a carry-on, I’ll have a personal item?” and I was like “I’m making you carry the food and some of the things I don’t want to carry because my bag will be too full otherwise” and he was like “oh. right.”
So.
Behind the cut, I’m going to describe the Kindle cover I’m making. I have some photos, but it’s not like, a tutorial– I didn’t actually take process photos really, and I don’t have any measurements. But anyway. This is my Extremely ADHD Sometimes This Works: Extreme Hoarder Edition method of object construction, for your edification and amusement.
So I wanted this to both hold the Kindle so I don’t keep hitting the off button while I’m reading from it, and to protect it– my old one died in Kyrgyzstan when a stressed cabbie shoved my backpack into the corner of an accordion in the trunk of his cab at three in the morning, so I’m acutely aware that the screens are susceptible to that sort of damage.
I found several tutorials, and had somewhat intended to make this one [https://www.charlottenewland.com/2013/01/kindle-cover-tutorial.html]. But here’s the thing: I am not going to buy fabric, buy plastic canvas, and buy endless rounds of fusible interfacing, when I have a basement chock-full of Mysterious Hoarded Shit.
So I started with a scrap of canvas– actually I think it’s twill? bull denim perhaps?– of unknown provenance– virgin yardage, it’s not picked out of an old garment, but I genuinely don’t recall what it was offcut from. It happened to be the correct width, so I just cut several lengths of it. No, I did not measure, I just put my Kindle down on it and said “that looks right” with no regard for seam allowances or anything. Then I used that piece of canvas to measure everything else. Did this work perfectly? Mm no. Did I get something usable? Sure! Probably. I’m most of the way done and it seems like it worked, so. Score one for Can’t Understand Numbers So Just Looks At Stuff.
It needs padding, I decided, and so I found an old sock with a hole in the heel. Nothing special, an old white sweat sock, which any sane person would have long ago discarded, but I am a hoarder so I had not. I lay it on the scrap of canvas, discovered I could cut off the holey part, and rejoiced. (It’s not that the hole would be a problem, but it would give a weird texture to have either a hole or a mend in the padding layer.) Then I discovered the foot part had enough length to it that I could do another layer, so both the front and back of the case can be padded. Huzzah!
I wanted something to stiffen the case. Interfacing isn’t enough, it’s got to hold its shape enough against the tension of the elastic holding the Kindle in place. So I found a plastic container in the recycling that had a large enough mostly-flat space in the lid, and cut that out. I refined that by holding the Kindle to it, and cutting carefully with my heavy shears so that the corners were rounded and it was exactly the size of the Kindle.
I also dug out a scrap of some old microfiber sheets left over from my Christmas wrapping project, and got enough out of it for both a front and a back.
I quilted the sheet and sock in a layer, for the back of the case, and then sewed a quilt sandwich– put the sock on top, then the sheet, then the right side of the canvas, sewed around three corners, flipped it inside-out, then I had a bag. Clipped corners, refined it a little, then slid the cut out of the plastic lid into it. Perfect. Set it aside.
Then I did the top layer, realized I’d made it slightly too narrow. That’s fine, I’ll make the hinge section bigger. Cut a piece of a different plastic lid, which wouldn’t have worked if I’d made the top piece as big as the bottom piece, but since I fucked up, the narrower bit of plastic fit. Didn’t bother quilting the sock to the sheet, just sewed the three edges and clipped the corners, flipped it, put the plastic in it.
Now I’ve got two padded fabric boards, slightly different sizes. So I took a third piece of canvas, the same size as the front and the back, and lay that down to be the hinge. Had a narrow strip of sock left, and a narrow strip of the gray sheet. Stitched those down slightly offset from the middle of the canvas hinge piece, just turning the edges under with my thumbnail so that it was a relatively straight section– stitched right down the middle first to hold it all steady, then up the two sides to make it a flat quilted section in the middle of the canvas hinge.
Belatedly, I realized I wanted to stiffen the hinge, so I unpicked a tiny piece of the seams on either side of the center, cut two thick cable ties to the right length, and poked them in, so the hinge won’t be floppy.
Now for handwork, no more machine. This won’t work by machine, because the plastic’s in there now so the needle can’t go all the way through. The nice lady’s tutorial would be better because it’s got all the correct order of assembly, but the bonus of using handsewing as therapy is that you can literally do it in any order because you can always painstakingly scrape your needle through just a few threads and sew a seam completely wrong and have it still work just fine.
I closed up the top of the front and back pieces– there wasn’t enough seam allowance to do it on the machine, and i wanted it good and tight anyway, so I just folded both sides in and did a decorative overcast stitch (a blanket stitch) over the edge. I may go around all of the edges and do a decorative overcast as a final finish, just to hammer home that this fucker’s hand-sewn. I like that kind of shit. If I were doing this again maybe I’d put more padding in, because the plastic’s got some ridges in it and it makes for a weird texture, but I didn’t have enough seam allowance and figure it doesn’t matter. Still, bear that in mind if you can’t find a perfectly flat sheet of plastic either.
I cut a broken hair tie into four pieces– well, get it right. I cut a hunk from it that looked right, sewed it to the larger panel which I decided is the back, and then cut another hunk and sewed it down, and then I had a piece left that looked like I could probably just cut it in half and use both halves, so I did that. Turns out I was right. Here, now I’ve got a photo to show.
[image description: looking down at an object that’s gray on the front and cream on the back, where black elastic loops have been applied at the four corners– you can really only see the top left corner, which is facing the camera. In the back is a very cluttered workspace full of spools of thread and scissors and needles and such. At this angle you can only catch a tiny glimpse of the blue pearl cotton I used for the decorative overcast stitch at the top edge.]
Just kinda poked buttonhole/craft thread through there with a needle until it looked pretty solid.
Holds the Kindle fine:
[image description: a Kindle Paperwhite held by elastic loops at the four corners to a gray surface. Slightly confusing image because so much clutter in back; a loop of a broken hairtie extends above the top of it, and that’s the second broken hairtie I collected for the project and didn’t need. You know, how the elastic comes disconnected and then the fabric still holds but like, stretches out? That’s what I mean, “broken hairtie”. I could pave a highway with how many I have but using one up is a nice feeling. I completely stole that idea from the linked tutorial, so.]
Next I blanket-stitched the top and bottom raw edges of the hinge panel, and then I blind hemstitched the two side edges, because I figured doing the finishing sewing separately from the structural sewing would probably make both turn out better. I started to do boning channels along the cable ties in the hinge, but abandoned that– I’ll do that as a finishing touch once I’ve done the structural stuff. Just to keep things from shifting around and to give it a more finished feel. Not that this is ever going to look like anything but a handmade disaster, but that’s my aesthetic.
I lay out the top and bottom and hinge with the Kindle in it to figure out where everything needed to be, and pinned down the overlapping part of the canvas hinge panel, and then realized what I truly need is to join the edge of the gray panel in the middle of the hinge to the edge of the gray interior surface of the front panel. So I’ve done that, with an overcast stitch or whatever you call that. Ah, no, whip stitch, that’s what it is– joining two finished edges.
Going to do the same for the rear panel, and then IDK what stitch you call it but I’ll have to attach the canvas hinge edges to the canvas layer of the front and back without going through the plastic, so I’ll figure out how to do that attractively somehow. And then I’ll be done.
[image showing all three panels laid out partly overlapping– front panel off the left edge, then the hinge showing the machine-stitched attachment of the gray panel to the cream panel, then the back panel showing the elastic loops and really shitty halfass quilting job where I mostly just wanted to make sure the sock wouldn’t shift around too much while I was sewing.]
Oh, and here’s a shot showing the plastic insert going into the front panel– it’s literally the top of one of those shallow rectangular takeout containers like Mighty Taco puts its Nachos Supreme in, for real. You can see it’s not totally flat, and that might bug some but I am out of fucks to give. It’s flat enough that it won’t break the Kindle, and that’s what I want, the Kindle not to break.
[image description: my fingers holding a piece of clear plastic you can see has been cut by a microserrated edge, protruding from between a cream layer on top, and on the bottom a layer of terrycloth sock and a layer of gray microfiber with a raw edge.]
So I’ll probably finish that this morning, which would be nice, because then I can pack the Kindle in it and perhaps protect it against whatever this trip’s equivalent will be of a stressed cabbie with a concertina.
I also need to borrow some library ebooks onto this thing but. Baby steps. We’re getting there.
