Tag: craft

Aladdin C2C Blanket – Part 1

Last week I saw Aladdin the stage production here in Sydney and it was amazing! I was so inspired by the visual fair that I decided to put together an Aladdin C2C blanket based on the colour scheme of the production.

Somehow, in person the colours seemed even brighter and more spectacular, and the voice of each of the actors was amazing. For me, as in the movie, the genie absolutely stole the show.

I chose the colours for this blanket from my stash, and even though the wool is 100% acrylic, it works up lovely and soft. I picked the wool up at Spotlight for smaller amigurumi projects but they’ve come in handy for this blanket.

Aladdin Blanket - Colour choices | MeaganMade.com

I’ve been seeing a lot of C2C (Corner to corner) blankets on a crochet group that I belong to on Facebook and thought it was about time that I give this technique a go. I was amazed at how quickly it started to come together, but had to stop because my wrist started to get sore. The colour order that I’m working on is:

  1. Red
  2. Purple
  3. Light blue
  4. Dark blue
  5. Yellow
  6. Light green
  7. Orange
  8. Magenta

Aladdin Blanket - Part 1 | MeaganMade.com

I’m partway through the yellow row at the moment and I need to sew in the ends, but I’m enjoying the process so far. Other than the order of colours, I didn’t do too much planning. I’d like to make the blanket a lap size for the lounge, so I’ll have to judge the size as I go, but think I’ll end up with a few repeats of the set of colours.

Aladdin Blanket - Part 1 | MeaganMade.comTake a look at Bella Coco’s tutorial on YouTube if you’d like to learn this technique! I always find her videos easy to follow, but this video is the simplest that I’ve found to date. If you can make Granny Squares you shouldn’t have any issues with the C2C technique.

I’ll keep you guys posted with my progress on this blanket, and will post updates to my Instagram account too, so make sure you’re following me!

Happy crocheting,
Meagan x

Kindle Pouch Pattern

Have you been looking for a pouch for your Kindle, but not able to find quite what you were looking for? This week I decided to tackle this problem and designed my own Kindle pouch pattern.

I love reading, and with the amount of books that I get through in a week, I don’t have room for hard copies of all of my books so switched to a Kindle e-reader. Last year for Christmas I was lucky enough to get a Kindle Voyage. It has an adaptive side light so I can read it at night without it affecting my sleep, and it goes everywhere with me. I read it to wake up in the morning, on the bus to and from work, and at night to help me drift off to sleep!

With my job I do a bit of travel, and I have been worrying about breaking the screen of my trusty Kindle. While my old Kindle’s case does fit, the power button couldn’t be accessed and it slipped around a bit. I’d been keeping an eye out for new cases but the ones that I liked didn’t ship to Australia. I decided to design and make my own pouch to store my kindle while travelling.

Kindle Pouch | MeaganMade.com

For this pouch I’ve used some of the lovely Tula Pink fabric that I picked up at the Sydney Craft Fair, and since I couldn’t make my mind up between two of the prints, I decided to make the pouch reversible. I have also included a layer of wadding to cushion the Kindle from small impacts.

Kindle Pouch Option 2 | MeaganMade.com

These fabrics are called The Hypnotizer and The Wanderer from the Chipper line of Tula Pink fabrics in the Raspberry colour. Lovely to work with and these colours are perfect for me. I’ve included a list of materials and the instructions to make this pouch below. I have made this with smaller pieces incase you wanted to include different colour pieces for front and back, or if you’d like to quilt some of the pieces, though this would make it harder to turn inside out.

This pattern is designed to fit the Kindle Voyage size, but at the end of the pattern I will give instructions on how to customise it for your device.

Materials:

  • 1 fat quarter of extrernal fabric*  (A)
  • 1 fat quarter of internal fabric* (B)
  • 1/4 yard of cotton wadding
  • Cotton in a coordinating colour with fabric

* I only used about 1/4 of these fat quarter pieces, but if your fabric is directional you may need to place the pieces in different arrangements and use more of the fabric. You could purchase a quarter yard of fabric but this will only work of the pattern is non-directional or the pattern is oriented correctly.

Directions:

Cut the following sized pieces:

  • 7.5″ x 5.5″ main pouch pieces
    • 2 in fabric A
    • 2 in fabric B
    • 2 in wadding
  • 3″ x 5.5″ flap pieces
    • 1 in fabric A
    • 1 in fabric B
    • 1 in wadding

Kindle Pouch Piece Layout | MeaganMade.com

  1. Take the main pouch pieces in Fabric A and wadding and layer them in the following order from bottom to top:
    • Wadding
    • Fabric A face up
    • Fabric A face down
    • Wadding
  2. With these four layers now aligned, sew with a scant 1/4″ seam along the two side (long) edges and bottom edge.
  3. Trim corners and any excess wadding then turn inside out, turning the corners as you go.
  4. Take the main pouch pieces in fabric B and layer them so that the right sides of the fabric are facing each other.
  5. Sew with a scant 1/4″ seam along the two side edges and bottom edge, leaving a 1.5″ break in the middle of the bottom edge to allow for later turning.
  6. Insert exterior (fabric A) pocket into interior (fabric B) pocket, so that right sides are facing each other.
  7. Sew around top edges to join the layers with a scant 1/4″ seam.
  8. Pull exterior (A) fabric out through gap in the bottom seam of the interior (B) fabric.
  9. Top sew along the gap to close the opening. then push lining back inside of exterior fabric (A).
  10. Take the flap pieces and layer them in the following order:
    • Batting
    • Fabric A face up
    • Fabric B face down
  11. Mark a point on the bottom edge (5.5″ side) 1″ from each side. Draw a line to the corresponding top corner to give angled sides. Cut along this line (See red lines in diagram below).Template for flap | MeaganMade.com
  12. Sew a scant 1/4″ seam along all edges, leaving a 1.5″ gap for turning along top edge.
  13. Turn so that right sides of the fabric are facing out and top sew along top edge to close gap
  14. Pin flap piece onto back of the finished piece so that it is attached to Fabric A and the long edge is parallel to the top edge of the pouch, and sits 1/2″ in from edge of fabric (see earlier pictures of finished pouch for guidance).
  15. Attach flap to pouch by sewing along long edge the flap piece (Where you top sewed to close the gap earlier on the flap piece).
  16. When your Kindle is inserted, simply tuck the flap piece inside the pouch and your Kindle is nicely protected from scratches and bumps.

Kindle Pouch | MeaganMade.com

Instructions for adapting pouch to your size requirements.

My Kindle measures 6.4″ x 4.5″ x 0.30″ . I rounded up the height to 6.5″ then added a half inch to the height and width to give me the main pouch piece sizes. Mine fits quite tightly, so if your kindle is thicker than mine, you may need to add extra allowance to the width and height for this. I decided on the height of 3″ for the flap piece and this seemed proportional to the rest of the pouch, but you can change this as you wish.

If you need anything clarified let me know! 🙂

Happy sewing,

Meagan x

Sunset Clutch – Tunisian Crochet

This week I’ve been travelling for work, so I’ve been thinking of all of the projects that I wanted to start, including this Tunisian crochet sunset clutch. You can never have too many WIP’s – Work In Progress – right?! I was able to start designing and working on my clutch, and am very happy with how it’s turning out so far.

I picked up these balls of Hoooked Ribbon XL yarn last year in a small craft shop in Berry NSW while visiting a friend. I had thought that I might make some crocheted baskets and put to the side in my stash. I’d also been seeing a lot of Tunisian Crochet projects pop up in my Pinterest feed lately, but haven’t been too keen to start yet another blanket! After seeing a Tunisian crochet clutch in a friend’s Mollie Make’s magazine, I thought I’d try to design my own, and use up these gorgeous colours of Ribbon XL.

Ribbon XL colours for Sunset Clutch | MeaganMade.com

When I picked these colours I thought they looked nice together, but this week I realised just why – they reminded me of a sunset! I wanted to combine these colours together in the one clutch, and thought this would be a good yarn to try out Tunisian style of crochet.

I’d purchased a set of Tunisian hooks from Amazon and made a test swatch to see if I could actually master the stitch. I was able to get the hang of it, much to my relief, and decided on the size of completed clutch. Bella Coco’s YouTube tutorial was incredibly easy to follow, and if you want to give this stitch a try, I’d definitely recommend that you try following her 2 part tutorial. I’m making the body of the clutch in one piece, and I’ve almost finished that, but I now have to decide if I’m going to use a flap and button closure, or if I’m going to try to attach a zipper instead.

Sunset Clutch in progress | MeaganMade.com

I had originally planned to use wool and line the pouch, but this Ribbon XL yarn results in a thick and quite rugged finish, so I think it will be right without lining. I also like the finish of this stitch with the squares visible on the front of the piece. Ribbon XL is made from recycled cotton and is the lightweight version of their Zpagetti yarn and is fantastic to work with.

I’ll keep you posted as I work further on the pouch, and I am thinking about writing up the pattern… what do you guys think?

Happy crocheting,

Meagan x

Accuquilt Quilt Design – Stage 1

Browsing through my emails last week, I stumbled across one from Spotlight which had the magic word – “Discount”! There was a line of Buzoku cotton with metallic gold highlights (a slightly heavier weight 100% cotton) that I quickly fell in love with, and I knew that I had to try designing a quilt with this fabric.

Fabric Samples | MeaganMade.com

Now, there’s a slight hitch in this plan, I’ve never made a quilt with anything more complicated than plain squares, but with my recent Accuquilt purchase, I was feeling game. The Accuquilt GO! fabric cutter uses dies to cut material exactly to size, every time. Cutting the fabric is my least favourite part of the whole quilting process, mostly because I’m a bit of a perfectionist and it normally involves multiple re-cuts and takes forever.

With this cutter you can cut through up to 6 layers of cotton fabric at once. While it was a bit of an expensive purchase, I think it will be worth it if I do more quilting as a result. I also purchased the 9″ Qube which gives me the option of creating 79 different squares all 9″ in size, and I have been using the Quarter Square Triangle (4.5″ finished square) die.

AccuQuilt Cutter | MeaganMade.com

This was the first time I have used the cutter, and it was quite simple to use. I used a cardboard template that I made to be slightly larger than the triangle, and used the leftover from the first pass to make a second. With one row of fabric I was able to get 14 triangles, and all within about 3 minutes. It probably took longer to square up the fabric and cut the row than to cut all the triangles.

Cut quarter square triangles | MeaganMade.com

The dog-eared corners from the die made the sewing process a little easier. After a few false starts with the wrong sewing foot, I finally got 4 squares with some good sharp corners. I’m so happy with the combo of light and dark fabrics, but I think I’ll need to put some plain sashing between the squares as the patterns are quite busy when put next to each other. I have a die to cut 2.5″ strips, so I think I’ll use those, but now I need to work out what colour. Perhaps dark grey, or maybe gold?

Completed squares | MeaganMade.com

I’m still finalising the design, so let me know what colour you’d suggest in the comments below, and I’ll bring you some updates in the weeks to come!

Happy quilting,

Meagan x

Insulated lunch bag

This week has been so busy that I’ve barely had time to cook let alone craft, so I’ve decided to post about a lunch bag that I made last year! 🙂

I’d purchased a great bento lunch box for work, complete with smaller boxes and separators. There was only one problem – it was huge – so huge it wouldn’t fit into any of my lunch bags! There was only one thing for it – time to get sewing.

An earlier trip to Spotlight had netted me some cool fabric with a modern purple print, but I hadn’t yet decided what to make with it! A search on Etsy solved the problem after I found this great pattern. I contacted the seller as I loved the pattern but it wasn’t quite the right dimensions for my box. Super quick to respond, Robin sent me her formula to modify the pattern of the bag, and it did the trick! Make sure you read to the end for a discount code for this store! 🙂

Insulated Lunch Box

The trickiest thing with pulling this pattern together was the thickness of the layers combined! This lunch bag uses insulated wadding (I bought InsulBright) to keep your food nice and cool. I decided to use a thin plastic tablecloth for the inside material so that I could wipe out any spills and it’s been a fantastic bag to use ever since. (Of course the fact that I could buy it in bright pink just closed the deal for me, my two favourite colours pink and purple combined!)

To get through the fabric, Insulbrite and plastic tablecloth I used a denim needle which is much stronger. This needle powered through the layers and didn’t break, unlike my prior standard needle that I had tried. The tablecloth did bunch in a few corner spots, but it was easier for me to find than oil cloth and has survived many a meal spill.

Insulated Lunch Box - an inside peek

I recently contacted Robin to see if I could blog about her great little lunch bag. Robin has been so kind as to give us a discount code to use in her store binskistudio until the end of August 2016 for 10% off any products in her store! The code is MEAGANMADE10. I’m personally eyeing off those e-reader and wallet patterns!

I’d love to hear what patterns you buy and make, or any other comments you may have! Drop me a line below, and don’t forget to share the post 🙂

Happy sewing,

Meagan xo