Every computer should travel in style

Hello people of the internet! I haven't harassed you all in a while, and some harassment is overdue. (That's right, you thought you were free of me. Hah.)

So recently I decided that I wanted to try my hand at dying fabric. You know what this means: time for a trip to the salvation army for cheap materials! While there I found a couple 100% wool coats (for someone much larger and taller than I was) for $4 and $6. Well, I figured that I'd botch the dye job at least once, so why not buy them both, right?

Miracle of miracles! The first jacket dyed perfectly. It's now ready to be hacked up into a costume.

So what about the other coat? The woman who runs our salvation army promptly stopped speaking to me once I told her my plans for said coat, so bringing it back was out of the question. It had to become a new project.

Well, lo and behold: A laptop tote! Now I can stop storing my laptop in a lunchbox!

The Outside!

The Inside! Not terribly pretty, but effective!

So if you happen to have an old coat lying around and want to turn it into something neat, you should give this a try! (Or you can buy actual fabric if you want. I won't judge you.)


Things I used:
»Needle
»Thread
»Sewing Machine
»Scissors
»Straight Pins
»Rules
»Tailors Chalk
»Seam Ripper
»A Large Mens Jacket (or fabric of your choosing)
» 6 Buttons from the Jacket (or from wherever)


Now, with the exception of the jacket, I had everything I needed on hand. Of course this kept my cost down to $6 for this project. However, if you don't have your sewing basics then this project might rack up a considerable debt for you.

The other thing you might need (and I will reference this a lot) is this PDF I mocked up of how I wanted my tote to be assembled.

 You can download it »HERE«

On this PDF I've labeled the pieces that you'll have to draw as pieces A-E. Hopefully this will help you and not confuse you.

So, in order to make this laptop bag there are some sets of measurements that you'll have to keep track of. You may want to write them down.
First you are going to need your 'x' and 'y' measurements, which will be the length and width of your laptop.

To take your measurement for 'x' lay your ruler like so:

'X' Value

If you need to, round to the nearest quarter of an inch for ease of use.

Now take your 'y' measurement by laying your ruler in the other direction.:

'Y' Value

At this point I wrote down those measurements and did all the math I was going to need. (IE: x+1, y+1, et cetera) I wrote them all down on a sticky note to keep on hand. My measurements were as follows:

My computer is tiny!

Having it all written down like that just made everything easier for me.

Next I disassembled my jacket into its body and sleeves:

Jacket pieces

This made marking my pieces less cumbersome and allowed me to plan which pieces I wanted to take from where. (For example, I cut the straps for my bag from the sleeves.)

So, you've got your measurements and your materials. Go ahead and cut out all the pieces that you need!

1 of A, 2 of B, 4 of C, 2 of D

I didn't cut out my straps until after I had assembled the rest of the bag because I had no idea how long I wanted them to be. However, if you already know then, by all means, hack away.

I went ahead and applied fuseable interfacing to all of my pieces to prevent stretching, but it's not a necessary step.

So first thing is first! Fold your edges over and pin them down on piece A to make a hem. I did a one inch hem.
When you get to the corners you're going to want to make them peak like so:

Corners of piece A

Then simply cut that bit off:

Nice and flat!

I used a sititch that has this icon on my machine:

I don't know what it's called but it's similar to my overlock stitch and it looks like this on fabric:

Super overlock, maybe?

I use this "super overlock" for the entire project because it will be able to handle more wear and tear than a regular ol' straight stitch.

Pin and sew!

Next I attached my four piece C's to the corresponding sides on the two piece B's like so:

You know the drill. Stitch them down!

Then pin the two piece D's to their corresponding sides on the two B pieces.

D Pinned to B

Now this part is a teeny bit tricky. You want to sew piece D to piece C where the edges meet up. Pin them together like so:

Starting at the stitching you made before sew C to D but stop at the second pin (which is 1/2" in from the right edge). This will leave a bit of a flab for when we attach everything down to piece A.

So once you've sewn C to D all four times you should have two laptop-sized pockets. Congrats! If you're a worry wart like I am, slip your laptop into these pockets to make sure it fits.

Pockets!

Now we can start the assembly portion of everything. Place your pockets on the inside of piece A and move them around until they're positioned the way that you want them to be. Mine are two and a half inches down from the top on either side, but use a measurement that works for you.

Pockets in place

Make sure each pocket opens up toward it's corresponding hem like shown in the picture. Otherwise, when you fold up this bag your laptop will be trapped inside! No one wants a suffocated laptop.

Pinning and sewing these suckers can be tricky. I'm not gonna lie, they gave me real issues, but this is what I managed to do. First I measured how long piece C was from edge to seam.

C: edge to seam

It was about an inch and a half. So, using that measurement, I pinned the edge of piece C an inch and a half in from the hem of piece A. on both sides

Pinning the sides of the pockets

Do that for the sides of both pockets and sew them down.

Pockets pinned, ready to have their sides sewn.

Now for the bottoms of the pockets. Measure from the top of your bag to the seam where B and D are joined. For me that was about 13".
Pin the bottom edge of the pockets however many inches from the top you measured. (So I pinned the bottom of my pockets 13" from the top because that was my measurement from top to seam.)

Bottom edges pinned.

Now stitch them down.
That's the gist of how the inside is going to go. Slip your laptop in and make sure it fits!
If you want, stitch up the middle of one of the pockets to divide it into smaller pockets for your laptop gadgets (charger, mouse, et cetera) like so:

Pocket divided!

Time for detail work! Fold your bag in half as if it were already finished and mark two inches from the top and two inches from the bottom. Then add another mark directly between the two you just made like so:

2" from the top!

And 2" from the fold!

I don't have my middle marks, oops!

On the inside of the bag, where those six marks are, sew six largeish buttons. (I ripped mine off this jacket.) Fold the bag in half again and mark where your corresponding button holes will need to go. If you're fancy, you can use a button hole foot on your sewing machine to make the button holes, but I'm partial to Disney's method from "Ruffles and Stuff." Her tutorial can be found HERE.

All buttoned up!

You're almost done! Now we just need to make the handles!
Cut your E pieces to whatever length/width you want (don't forget your seam allowances!) and pin two of them together with the right sides facing each other like so:

Sew the two long wides and one of the short sides. For this you can use a regular old straight stitch. Repeat on the other handle and turn both of them right side out.

Now press or topstitch the edges of your handles (I topstitched).

Top stitching!

Pin them to your bag where you think you want to go and put your bag over your shoulder. Everything seem okay? Got the length right? Good! Stitch it down. (I used the "super overlock" again for this part.)

Once you've done that go ahead and trim all those pesky threads that you know you missed before, load up your bag, and rock on. Your laptop can now travel in style!

In the immortal words of Tigger: TTFN! Ta-ta for now!

Happy Crafting!
-Rae

Black Swan Inspired Earmuffs!

So there's this great new movie out. Maybe you've heard of it. It's called "Black Swan" and it's a fantastic psychological thriller starring the always lovely Natalie Portman.

Isn't She Stunning?

I went to see the film a while back and absolutely fell in love with the costumes they had. However, I'm no ballerina, so you won't see me squeezing into one of those itty bitty tutus anytime soon. However, I can wear those awesome little ear coverings the swans got to wear.

Aren't they cute?

Of course, I'm not one to make something simply for the sake of wearing it. (Okay, sometimes I am. But not this time!) So, I turned them into earmuffs! Perfect for the 2°(f) day we had in New York today!

So do you want to make a pair, too? Of course you do! Why else would you have read this far? So let's get on with it!

 What you need:
»Needle & Thread (White)
»Glue
»Earmuffs that go behind your head (Black)
»Stiff Feathers (Turkey Flats)
»Smaller Feathers (Turkey Quills)
»Felt
»Gemstones
»Glitter (Optional)

 

STUFF!

Seems like a lot of stuff, eh? Yeah, it is. I bought everything (except the earmuffs) at Michaels, so I found I needed two packages of the turkey flats, but was fine with just one package of the quills. I also only needed one square of white felt (even though I bought two just in case). I also already had glitter and gemstones on hand from earlier projects, so that helped keep costs down. The earmuffs, however, cost me a pretty penny at $18 from JCPenny, so if you can find someone to donate a pair to you, or if you didn't care about black ones like I did, look for a cheaper pair.

Anyway, enough rambling. Let's get going!

So the first thing I did was cut two teardrop type shapes out of my felt.

Now pin these to your earmuffs so the points aim toward the base of your skull.

Yes, this is wrapped around my leg.

And sew it down using any stitch you like. I used the whip stitch. Take care not to go through both layers of the earmuffs. You don't want to feel all of that stitching against your ears!

Fantastic! It's not the prettiest thing in the world, but we'll be covering it up anyway. This is just to give the illusion of more feathers than we're actually going to use.

Now comes the fun part! Take a turkey flat, cut it to the size you need for your earmuff, and sew it on to the felt. I used Elmer's glue-all on the spine of the feather in addition to sewing it down at about four points. Like so:

Now, as you can tell, that one is still too long. After sewing it, I cut it down further. Always make sure to cut it into a point. The earmuffs are like a teardrop shape, so cut your feathers to reflect that.

Now that you have your first feather down (hooray!) start cutting and placing two more (One on either side of the central feather) like this:

And trim them to round out the shape a bit. We don't want lumpy swan feathers!

Once you feel those feathers are secure enough/the glue is dry enough (I didn't wait for the glue to dry since I had sewn my down enough) it's time to add the little feathers! Now, be careful when you open the bag of these. They will fly everywhere. They will stick to you. You will get feather in your mouth. Accept this as truth.

Have you accepted it? Good! Now we can start sewing and gluing the smaller feathers the same way we did with the bigger ones. Work from the middle to the outside.

One feather...

Keep going! I'm cheering for you!

It's coming together!

Trim the fluffiness down to that teardrop shape if you need to. I know I did. My feathers had a mind of their own.

Now for the shiny bits!

I used glue because I couldn't think of a way to sew these down. I had toyed with the idea of bedazzling it, but I didn't want to feel those metal backs against my head. However, if you know of any other way that might work, by all means try it! And please comment, I'd love to know your ideas. Anyway, put gemstones down however you'd like. I like to be uniform so I went for a sort of grid style:

Here is where you can add glitter or glitter glue if you want. I had intended to, but ultimately changed my mind because I hate how glitter gets on *everything* I own.

And let it dry! I had a glitter ball from borders that I wrapped these around while they dried. But anything would work. Large soda bottle, harry potter book, your own leg. Even the back of your computer chair!

Now repeat on the other side, and wear with pride!

Now you're a famous ballerina! Go forth and dance like the swan that you are! And don't fall on your face like I did.

Until next time!


Happy Crafting!
-Rae

Because Drifloon is the coolest pokemon.

Okay, actually, Drifloon is a terrifying Pokemon.
According to Bulbapedia a Drifloon can be interpreted as the ghost of popped balloons. So, I checked my SoulSilver game to see what my Pokedex said, and it told me this:

"It is whispered that any child who mistakes Drifloon for a balloon and holds on to it could wind up missing."

That's just creepy.

Anyway! As you may or may not know, yesterday was the first day that people in North America could receive the shiny Raikou from Gamestop stores. So to celebrate a friend and I made Pokemon hats! Namely, a Drifloon one. And I want to walk you through how we did it! (Don't worry, I took pictures this time!)

Now, you don't have to make a Drifloon. I would completely understand if you thought the hat would try to spirit you away. Feel free to modify this to fit whatever Pokemon you want! Or don't. Whatever works.

The actual hat is a pretty basic design. I simply looked at a hat I already owned to see how it was put together and copied it. (It's also how I measured to make sure this hat would fit.)

So! Let's get started!

What I used:
» 1/4 Yard Purple Fleece
» 1/4 Yard Yellow Fleece
» 1/4 Yard White Fleece
»  Scrap piece of black felt
» Thread in Whitre, Purple, Yellow, and Black
» Poly-Fil stuffing
» Sewing Basics (Sewing machine, pins, scissors)

Total Cost (Not counting my sewing machine) Over ten dollars but under twenty.

Now, I got all of those things at my local Wal-Mart because there are no fabric stores where I live. However, I reccomend going to a fabric store instead of Wal-Mart if you can because Wal-Mart can be very hit-or-miss about what color fabrics they carry.


In case you don't know, a Drifloon looks like this:

Cute, huh?

So like I mentioned, I found a beanie-style hat I had received for Christmas (that I knew fit me the way I wanted) and measured it's height and width to figure out what measurements I wanted to use for my pattern. And then I sketched it out on the wrong side of my fabric. I'm going to be adding a 2 inch band to this project, so when I sketched the height of my hat piece, I subtracted those two inches. So:

(So, when I say sketched, I mean "try a million times until it's right")

The next part is easy. Cut two of those out. (Don't forget to leave a seam allowance!) And then use the pieces you cut out as a pattern to cut out two liner pieces that are the same size. I used the white fabric as my liner.

I cut notches in the purple half-circles because the hat I modeled these after had notches in it, too.So in case you don't know, after you cut the notches, just fold the half circle (like the one in the upper right of the image) and sew the notch you just cut shut.

Now, sew up your liner pieces:

Simple, huh?

Next I cut out a band for my hat. Because I want it to be 2 inches wide, I cut it out as four inches wide, and twice as long as the base of one of my half circles, like this:

Now place your two purple half circles right-sides together, pin, and sew along the line you drew earlier. (Or, in my case, *one* of the lines I drew earlier) If you're confident as a sewer, feel free to sew over your pins. I, however, don't because they tend to break and fly back at my eyes.

Now fold the band you cut earlier in half (right sides together) and sew up the side seam. I've marked it in red on this image because I forgot to take a picture after I sewed it up.

The next thing I did was cut two ovals out of the black scrap felt for eyes. I interfaced the back of them for durability, but ultimately found it wasn't necessary. I pinned the eyes down on the hat where I thought they should go.

Now, using a zigzag stitch, I went around the edge of the circles to secure them to the face (and to give it a nice finish). The settings I used were a 4 stitch width and a 0.4 stitch length. The number 7 just refers to my machines zigzag stitch, so don't worry about that. 

The eyes should look something like this. Use a hand needle to pull the extra thread through to the other side and knot it.

At this point I sewed the band on. it might sound tricky, but I'm sure you can handle it. What I did was I placed the hat so that the inside the opening of the band and the bottom edges of the hat lined up (right sides of the fabric touching) and sewed it together. You could also put the liner inside at this point if you wanted. I did.

Pin and sew together, then open it all back up. It should look like this:

We're getting there! Next, cut a plus sign/x-shape out of the yellow fabric and pin it down between the hat's eyes. Sew it down using the zigzag stitch the same way you did for the eyes.

Now it's looking like a creepy ghost balloon, eh? This next part is easy. Flip the hat inside out and fold the band down so it lines up with the seam between the band and the hat. Sew it in place, taking care not to sew over the yellow X (I marked the edges of the X with two pins so I didn't sew too far) I also pinned down two black strings on either side (for the Driflloon's... hands?) and sewed over them, too.

Sorry, that's my thumb in the corner

The main part of the hat is done! Stop and do a small victory dance!
Okay, enough dancing. Get back to work.
Cut out four small yellow hearts that are the same size.

Sew two of the four hearts together, leaving the bottom of the heart (the pointy bit) open so you can turn it inside out. Then repeat on the other two hearts.

Stick the ends of the strings in the openings of the hearts and sew those babies up!
Know that I am resisting the urge to make an open-heart surgery joke right now.

Now, for the last part, take two pieces of the white fabric you used for a liner, and sketch out a poufy cloud type shape. Cut it out and sew it up, leaving the bottom open so you can turn it inside out.

Now turn it inside out and stuff it with the poly-fil!

Okay, this part you'll have to hand sew. Get you needle and your white thread. Now sew the cloud bit onto the top of the Drifloon's head.

And you're done!

Wear your hat with pride! However, watch out for pokeballs, and don't spirit away children. It's probably illegal to do so where you live.

Thanks for joining me and I hope you enjoyed this project!
Happy crafting!
-Rae

PS: Drifloon and all other pokemon-related items mentioned above are copyrighted by Nintendo.