Bottle blues 2

New morning, and I'm finishing the project heck or high water. Or, more likely, eye strain.

Finally got the fabrics somewhat attached. Cut them out, as stated before, and came across yet another thing that the instructions just seemed to make too hard. It says to cut a tiny hole to attach the snaps. Tried that. I could cut through the vinyl, but the felt just shifted and slid out of the way.

My fix? Paper hole punch. Like butter, right through them both.  

Next was the sewing the openings - the top and bottom edges. The instructions say to edge stitch everything, but honestly, it looked like crap. So instead, I fiddled around with my sewing machine until I found a basting stitch I liked. I also learned that the felt wouldn't work on the bottom - the feed teeth just rubbed the felt, not pushing it through. I'm too used to having lining side down, it weird-ed me out, but I had to flip it so the vinyl side was down. You can see the basting on the picture below. Looks mighty fine, much better than the edge stitch. 

Handy trick #I-Lost-Track: When hammering in snaps, do it on an old cutting board that you don't care about too much. That way, you don't also hammer dents into your kitchen table. 

BTW, Sorry, honey. 

And here it is: your first view of THE MOST AWESOME REMNANT EVER. It's a tan leather like vinyl with a gold splatter pattern. I love it! I found snaps with an antique brass finish, and I had some old golden yellow thread I could use for the stitching. Looks pretty sweet, huh?

First time I've ever attached snaps to anything. I think it went fairly well. They survived my tests, anyway. 

I did the same stitching along the belt piece, black thread on one side, gold on the other. This picture shows how the light can play with the gold splatter, and how nice the stitching looks. It gives it a decent edge - the edge stitch kept the ends too raw. The basting really erases all the tiny imperfections my cutting left behind. 

Then the trouble started. 

The stitching that worked so well, and looked so good, when used on 2 layers of fabric, couldn't handle 4. I did everything I could think of. I tried it with pinning stitches. I tried using paperclips to hold things together, tried having thick scraps behind to level out the foot, I did everything I could think of to avoid it, but there was none. 

I had to hand stitch.

The whole bloody thing. Well past sunset. 

But, once it was finally together, I did a test with the bottle. I think it looks pretty good, if I do say so myself. :) 

I decided to not sew in the stitches on the sides by the handle. It makes sense for tapered bottles, like your standard plastic variety, but it didn't make sense for my non tapered bottle.

Remember before when I expressed that I had an evil plan involving the strap? First off, if you have the fabric, don't bother following the instructions and cutting out 2 pieces just to sew them together later. No one wants a seam in their shoulder if they can avoid it - just makes extra work. Second, the holes for the strap to go through, though reinforced, are not super huge. Plus, there is a large area where the strap will be 4 fabric thick, where it gets sewn together. So why not only have it 3 fabric thick? I left extra on either side of just the vinyl - the amount the pattern says for the fold and the attachment. I lined where the felt ended up with the top of the bag, folded over, and stitched the heck out of it. Still a finished end, but not as thick, so it moves through the opening easier.

Here it is! the final, finished product! 

This below is with the flash, really shows off the shine of the gold. :)

There you go! What do you think? I have plenty of THE MOST AWESOME REMNANT EVER to make another project of similar size, or even a bit larger. Thoughts? Suggestions?

Perspiration Pattern 1

I am so pleased that y'all found the last Not Really How To, if not helpful, at least interesting. 

My next project is one that I am having a lot more fun with. :) As many of you may know, I'm rarely without my reusable water bottle. It goes everywhere with me. Which means I leave it everywhere. Also, my favorite bottles aren't insulated, so on a warm day, with cold water, it sweats. A lot. Plus, carrying it can be quite hand numbing. So... I am making a water bottle carrier! Specifically, this one: <https://butterick.mccall.com/b5936>

Reading the instructions, and buying the supplies, I realized a few ways to make this easier, so I'm going to share them with y'all, because I'm nice like that. :)

So first I cut out the patterns from the super flimsy tissue paper, and ironed them, which didn't seem to make them any smoother, just more staticy. The pattern has a spot for expanding it, but doesn't explain how. So I guess I will. 

First, I measured my fave bottle. I want the cap to be just above the bag, so I've measured this at 8 1/4 inches.

I took this out of the fridge and quick shot the picture, and you can see the condensation already forming. It's only 60 in here today. This bottle sweats more than I do in the summer!

Next I measured the pattern, placing the 8 1/4 at the pattern neck, so I can clearly see that the extra I will need is 1 5/8 inches.

Time to get out the Paper Backed Fusible Webbing, and on the webbing side, I carefully laid out my pattern, laying them all face down. I fiddled around with placement for a bit, deciding how to lay it out. I next to never use the layout suggestions in the instructions - they waste so much fabric! A little pre-cutting Tetris can save a lot of usable stuff from ending up in the trash. Once I had it where I wanted it, I taped them down lightly with masking tape, being careful not to get tape on other patterns - the tissue will tear long before the tape will let go. I didn't tape down part 3 yet, though. Need to do something else first.

Now, flip everything over, and trace the entire pattern onto the paper backing, keeping all the special bits. This way, when I'm done, I will have new copies of the pattern, in a more durable material. :)

When I got to the "Adjust Here" line, I stopped tracing. I got out my measuring tape, measured the 1 5/8 inches, drew a dot, repeated on the other side, flipped the paper, and moved the pattern accordingly. This picture is taken from the webbing side, showing how easily you can see the pencil through the paper. 

Once pattern 4 was lengthened, I could position 3 to waste the least amount of webbing, and make sure I avoided the small tear. I didn't find any webbing at the store that didn't have any tears, so I needed to be sure I could maneuver around it. Hence, doing 3 after 4. Also, it didn't show before, but I have 2 copies of the belt 5, like the instructions say. However, I'm not following the instructions for the belt's construction.

Wish I could iron this flat like the pattern tissue, but... yeah. probably not a good idea.

Now I'm going to iron the webbing to the lining -some lovely black & white felt I got on sale. Not only is it made from 100% recycled plastic bottles, it is surprisingly absorbent for, well, plastic. I also find it appropriate/funny to make a reusable water bottle carrier out of other people's recycled one use water bottles. :)

This is the 2 belt pieces - it doesn't make any sense to me to cut 2 separate belt pieces and then sew them together. I have enough fabric, I'm just going to make it one solid piece. I ironed the one on the right down first. Once it was secure, I pulled up the paper just a tiny bit, to make sure there isn't any gap in webbing, and then ironed the second bit on. 

Now, the cutting! Using the webbing as an iron on pattern cuts out the entire step of having to trace anything onto the felt - just cut along the paper. Easy, and time saving.

The instructions say to not cut out the holes for the belt till WAY later, but I know cutting out something this small, once the 2 pieces are fused, is going to be a pain. Instead, I'm taking advantage of how the paper stabilizes the felt, got my trusty knife and cutting mat, and easily sliced the tabs out.

I compared the belt against myself, and it was just a tad to short. Perfect. Why perfect, you ask? Well, you'll have to wait and see. ;)

Finally, I'm arranging the felt on the back of THE MOST AWESOME REMNANT EVER. Seriously, this fabric is amazing. I find the most awesome stuff in Joann's remnant area. Oh? You want to see what it looks like? Well, you're just going to have to wait. 

BWAHAHAHAHAHAAA! 

Sorry, got a bit carried away there. 

Why are you going to have to wait? Good question. Well, apparently, felt is a really, really good insulator. I ironed these to the fabric backing for AN HOUR and they still didn't completely seal to the main fabric. The felt was hot to the touch, but the heat wasn't transferring well to the webbing. This is great news for my cold water in the future, but a serious headache now. 

This battle ended up taking the last of the daylight, as a hail storm decided to roll in, and I've learned from my eye strain - only sew during daylight hours. 

So the rest will have to wait till tomorrow. However, I can say that I hope you see how this will be the same as the paper - just cut the fabric, exactly like the paper on the felt.