Diaper Bag Bloopers

Blooper #1 - Elastic too short

I made the elastic too short for the gathered pocket. This made the entire side of the lining piece pucker and was impossible to work with. I ended up ripping it apart and starting over. Just make sure the width of your elastic matches that of your lining fabric (in my case, this is the striped fabric).

Blooper # 2 - Piping doesn't line up

Despite the fact that I thought everything was perfectly aligned when I pinned together the right sides of the diaper bag, my piping doesn't match up. So, this means that either a) the piping truly wasn't lined up when I started or b) something shifted when I started to sew.

Either way, I'm not so concerned that I'm willing to go back and rip the thing apart. I'm far too lazy for that. Plus, I'm hoping the gift recipient won't notice. Is that wrong?

I'm sure there are more bloopers than this, but these are the ones that are quite obvious and I felt the need to document.

Diaper Bag - Part Deux

To make the lining, I started with: (I don't have one, nice neat picture of all my supplies, so forgive the multitude of pictures)

2 - 15 x 13 pieces of the striped fabric.

1 - 20 x 10" piece of the floral fabric (this is for a gathered, elasticized pocket)

1 - 15 x 10" piece of floral fabric (this if for a flat, sectioned pocket)

1 - 15" piece of 1/4" wide elastic (not shown)

Start by making your gathered pocket. Take your 20 x 10" piece of fabric, fold it in half, the long way, so it's 20 x 5" and press with an iron.

Since I am using 1/4" elastic, I sewed a line at 5/8" from the fold. This creates a casing in which to put my elastic.

Now, put the right sides of your fabric together and sew along the long edge, making a tube. Once you're done sewing, flip it back so that right sides are facing out and press with an iron. *You could easily reverse the order in which I did the last two steps. You could make the tube first and then make the small casing for the elastic. Either way, it works. This is what it looks like when you're done.

The next step involves your piece of elastic and two safety pins. Pin one of your safety pins to the elastic at one end. Make sure the pin and elastic are going the same direction. Take the 2nd safety pin and put it in the elastic, only this time make it perpendicular to the elastic. Make sure the safety pin that is going the long way is small enough to fit through your casing.

Take your fabric and start pushing that safety pin through the small casing. You inch the fabric along the safety pin and gather it as you go. By the time you get to the opposite end of your fabric, the pin that was perpendicular should catch and not slide through the fabric.

Very carefully, grab your elastic and match it up with the end of your fabric and stitch several times to hold in place. Remove the other safety pin and do the same at the other end. It should look something like this when you're done. It won't look quite so gathered, though. (See my "bloopers" at the end of this post)

Lay your pocket on top of your lining piece and pin in place at the top and sides. I placed my pocket 4 1/2" from the bottom of the lining piece.

For the bottom of the pocket piece, you will need to create gathers in order for the pocket to fit within the 15" of the lining piece. Making sure that the bottom left and right sides are lined up, figure out where you want your individual pockets to be and what size you want them. Run a stitch from the top of the pocket to the bottom. Continue to do this until all of your pockets are created. Now, to finish the bottom of your pocket piece, create gathers on either side of your pocket stitching and run a stitch along the bottom. This will be very bulky due to the gathers. Hopefully you can see my gathers in the picture.

I was making this gathered pocket late last night. My very tired brain couldn't take it, so I decided that the 2nd set of pockets on the other side of the lining would simply be flat. It starts the same as the gathered pocket, though. You fold the 15 x 10" piece of floral fabric in half the long way so it's 15 x 5" and press with an iron.

Now, instead of creating a tube by sewing the long end, I decided to simply sew the edges of the pocket to the lining piece and then flip it up to create the pockets. This is hard to explain since there are no right and wrong sides to the folded fabric.

Here's how I did it. I measured 4 1/2" up from the bottom of the lining piece and drew a straight line with my water soluble pen. I lined up the raw edges of the pocket piece (not the folded side) with the line that I'd drawn and pinned it in place. I then sewed a 1/4" stitch along the raw edge.

Flip your pocket piece up toward the top of your lining piece and press. Now you have clean edges without having to create a tube. Pin your pocket in place at the sides.

Figure out the spacing of your pockets and use your water soluble pen to draw lines. I made mine approximately 3 1/2-4" apart. Sew along these lines to create your pockets. Then sew along the sides and bottom to finish it off.

We're almost there. I now have two lining pieces. One with a set of gathered pockets and one with a set of flat pockets.

Take the two lining pieces and put them right sides together. Pin in place and stitch around the three sides, leaving the top open.

Clip your corners, but don't turn the lining right side out. Now you need to box the corners just like you did for the outer part of the bag.

Put your hands in each corner of the bag and then bring your hands together to create two triangles. Mark a line 2" across (see blue line) on each triangle. Take this to the sewing machine and sew a line following your blue line.

There! Now your corners are boxed and you can turn the lining right side out so you can view your handy-work.

Here is the gathered pocket...

Here is the flat pocket...

Now that you've viewed your handy-work, you're going to have to turn your lining piece back the way it was - with the wrong side facing out. This is because you are going to put it together with your outside piece of the bag. As you can see, I've put the lining inside the outer part of the bag, turned the raw edges inside and then pinned all the way around. Woo hoo, we're almost there. Now just the handles...

To make the bag handles I used two pieces of the striped material 5" x approx. 27 ". You can adjust the length to suit your tastes.

Take both strips to the iron and iron them in half making sure you have a strong crease. Use your center crease as a guideline.

Fold in both sides to meet the center and press. Like this...

Now take this piece and fold it in half, like so... Repeat theses steps with other handle. Take both handles to the sewing machine and sew together getting your stitching as close as possible to the edge.

Place your handles in between your lining and outer piece and pin in place. Be sure to make sure that both handles are equidistant from the side seams on both sides and that they fit comfortably inside one another at the top (where it would rest on your shoulder).

Now, simply sew around the top of the bag as close to the edge as possible. This secures the lining to the outside of the bag as well as encasing the handles. You can backstitch over the handles if you want to make sure they're secure. I also ran a 2nd line of stitching 1/4" from the first line. I felt this gave it a more finished look plus added extra security for the handles.

Voila! Finished diaper bag. (Pardon my messy work area) Doesn't it just scream Spring?

Diaper Bag - Part Uno

I should preface this by saying that I am a novice sewer with a capital 'N'. All of you pro sewers out there will find multiple mistakes, no doubt, but here is my version of a diaper bag. One of my neighbors just had a little bundle of sugar and spice. I'm hosting a shower for her at the end of next month. (I'll post on that later.) In addition to the shower, I wanted to make her a few baby gifts. I've made a few tote bags in the past and had good luck, so I thought I'd try my hand at a diaper bag.

I started with 3 fabrics; a floral, a stripe and a solid pink. Aren't these fabrics luscious?!

I cut:

2 - 15 x 9" pieces of the floral for the outside, bottom of bag

2 - 15 x 5" pieces of the stripe for the outside, top of bag

2 - 15 x 3" pieces of the solid pink to wrap around the piping (shown folded in half)

2 - 15" pieces of piping

2 - 5 x 6" pieces of the stripe for a pocket (not shown)

I had never done piping before, but I love the look so I thought I'd give it a try. I'd never even used the zipper foot on my machine before! It turns out piping's not all that difficult. You start by folding your two 15 x 3" strips in half and press with your iron (see above). You then place the piping inside the fold, pin tightly against the piping. You need to change the presser foot on your sewing machine to the zipper foot. You then sew the piping into the folded fabric getting the zipper foot up as close to the piping as possible. Repeat with the other 15 x 3" strip.

Voila! Piping is (almost) done. You need to cut down the "tails" of the piping (the excess fabric) to match what your seam allowance will be. I cut mine down to 1/2". (Sorry no picture of that.) Now you're ready to assemble the outer pieces of your bag. Don't remove your zipper foot just yet!

Once your piping is cut to the size of your seam allowance, you align the cut end with the top of the floral piece. Use lots of pins because the piping will want to pull away from the edge as you sew. Use your zipper foot and again sew as closely to the piping as you can get. Repeat with the other floral piece and piping, as well.

With your iron, press the seams as best you can. This will be a bit tricky because of the roly, poly piping. Next you will add the top, striped portion of the bag. With right sides together, pin the striped fabric to the floral fabric with the piping sandwiched in between. Again, you want to pin tightly against the piping. Using your zipper foot, sew as close to the piping as possible.

Press open your seams and ...Presto! Get it press-toh, Presto. Dumb, I know. I'll move on. Cute, though, right?

I decided that I wanted to add a pocket to the front - more for decorative purposes than anything. Sorry, I don't have any pictures of the pocket-making process, just the finished product (see below). Don't forget to switch back to your normal presser foot from your zipper foot for this part.

When I make a pocket, I like the inside to be as finished as the outside. Therefore, I cut two 5 x 6" pieces of the striped fabric, put right sides together and sewed around three sides. I think I used a 1/4" seam allowance. I clipped the corners and turned it right side out. I then turned the raw edges inside and stitched around the entire pocket. For a little panache, I hand-sewed a cute, bright pink button onto the front.

Sew the pocket onto one of your outside panels. I simply tried to follow my original stitching on three sides, leaving the top open.

Hang on, we're almost done! Next is bag assembly. Take both bag pieces (the one with the pocket and the one without) and pin them with right sides together. As you can see in my photo, for some reason my top edges are not lining up. I'm not super concerned about this because I can trim them up later and because I'm adding a lining to the bag. I can hear the collective groan that all of you sewers are letting out. I'm sure I did something wrong along the way and that's why my edges aren't lining up, but there's no turning back now!

Sew around three sides, leaving the top open, using a 1/4" seam allowance.

One more step and we're done - whew. Leave the bag just as you've sewn it with right sides together. Put your hands inside each corner and then bring the corners together. This gives you two triangular shapes with the side seam in the middle of each triangle. As shown below, measure 2" across and mark. Do this to both sides. Take the bag back to your machine and sew on each of these lines making sure to backstitch at the beginning and end. This simple little technique gives body and shape to your bag.

Turn your bag right side and your done! At least for now....

Tomorrow...Tune in for lining and straps.

Not exactly trash, but a treasure

I've been on a bit of a crafting binge lately. Last week I went thrifting and found 3 shelves like this one. This is the big one. There were two smaller shelves, but the wood was a different color. They weren't cheap at 3.99 per shelf, but I had been searching for shelves like these for a while and was tired of searching.

Here is the finished product. After a light sanding and a couple of coats of black paint - voila! I'm not sure why the color on my picture came out so yucky. My bathroom is actually a beautiful Benjamin Moore color called Harvest Bronze - it's a rich, spicy color. This makes it look like a nasty yellow. I guess I'll have to work on taking better photos.