Wrench Rolls!

Hold onto your hats, friends, this is a loooooong post!

I made wrench rolls for my husband for Christmas. I am very pleased with them and they seem to be working well for my husband, so I thought I would share how I put them together.

A few pictures of the finished product to help you understand what we're working with...

I started off by measuring my husband's existing plastic, flimsy wrench rolls and cutting up some old jeans into the sizes I needed. These weren't perfect by any means, I definitely made some adjustments to them as I worked with them. Every set of wrenches is slightly different, so you will need to start from an existing holder. Sorry.

First, I sewed up my binding. There are lots of great tutorials out there, on this, but since we don't need very much, I just sewed my few pieces together rather than doing a fancy method.

I ironed the raw edges under and pinned it down to stitch it. I did the pockets' binding first, pinned the pocket to the main piece of fabric, and then prepared to stitch the binding and the pocket on at the same time.

After doing the pockets' binding, I realized that it was easiest to align the binding as I went since I was just doing the first side.

Then I flipped the binding over to the other side and pinned it down all around. I did do mitered corners on this project, but I'm really bad at them, so I'm not going to show those off. ;)

Yes, the stitching from attaching the second side of binding does show on the other side, but it looked nice enough to me that I left it. You can always use a bobbin thread that blends in with your fabric if you want to hide it better.

Now that you have the pocket and binding attached, it's time to sew the individual pockets for the wrenches. I measured the individual pockets and wrote down each size. As you will see later, I ended up with an extra pocket at the end of each roll--better too much fabric than too little! I also found that the fabric stretches a bit, so making the pockets a bit smaller (up to 1/4 inch) than the original holder's pocket size worked well.

I used my little hem ruler to set the distance of my quilting guide bar from the needle. If you don't have a quilting guide bar, then drawing the lines on your fabric with fabric chalk or a disappearing ink would work (possibly better, actually).

Stitch those lines--I did from the lower edge of the binding of the top of the pocket into the binding at the bottom of the roll. Do what you like.

Almost done! Make a tie from matching fabric, I just folded the binding over and sewed it up. I kind of guessed at the length, but they're nice and long, probably about 40 inches total, if not more (no, I didn't measure).

Now, if you don't want to label the pockets, roll it up and you're done!

But, if you want to add labels to each pocket, read on... Copy all the numbers you need and type them up. Mess with your font size until you're sure all the numbers will fit on the pockets. I had to print 3 or 4 versions of my numbers until I got it right. Once you have the right size, then you can print directly onto some freezer paper (the dull side!) if your printer will let you or you can just lay the paper under your freezer paper as a guide. Cut it all out with an X-acto knife. Yes, this is a big pain. Iron on your number stencils and you're ready to paint.

These fractions were a pain and a half to get the sizing right and to cut out...

Up close.

Now, here is where you do what I say and not what I did. I just went ahead and painted on my white paint, forgetting that the first layer of paint tends to soak into the fabric. So I ended up with something like this.

I had to go back with a dark paint and touch up every number so that they were readable.

INSTEAD, start with a paint that blends in, like black in this case.

Let the first layer dry well so that there's no mixing of colors and then paint your contrasting color over top. You might need to do two layers, but I didn't.

It came out MUCH better that way.

Once all your paint is well-dried, heat set the paint according to the paint's instructions. Mine call for ironing on a hot setting with a cloth over the paint.

Wrap them up, tie, and you're all done!

Whoo-hoo!

~Regina

Summer Fun

It's been a busy couple of weeks. Between keeping up with our 2 1/2 year old, completing some much-needed sewing projects, and having my parents come to visit, I'm pretty exhausted. :) But on to the goodies...

Every afternoon, I've been trying to do some "big" activity with our daughter. Three times a week, it's swimming, but the other days it's something creative outside. Stuff like sidewalk paint...

 To make sidewalk paint: combine equal parts cornstarch and water, mix well, add food coloring or liquid watercolors...

 Regular painting on big sheets of paper...

 And liquid water colors...

 Which can be turned into fun things like butterfly garlands!

I've also had some fun sewing projects, like my husband's Father's day present: a "Don't Panic" beach towel! I learned how to machine appliqué with this project--time consuming, but not difficult.

 A new nightgown for our daughter. I had a pattern for this style, but the sizing was too small, so I used a stretchy fabric and used the pattern simply as a shape guide.

 I think it turned out wonderfully and can't wait to make another one for her! :)

 And curtains for our living room. I've had this fabric for over a year (lived in 3 different houses since buying it) and finally used it!

 The curtains turned out nice, but the slightly stretchy crinkle cotton was a pain and a half to work with. BUT I did learn how to use my rolled hemmer foot while sewing them, which I'm thrilled about.

And, finally quite a few cooking or baking projects, like homemade strawberry jam using apples and lemons for pectin rather than store-bought pectin.

 Mmmmm! I made this jam a month ago and we've already eaten almost 3 out of the 4 8oz jars.

And a totally random zucchini coffee cake using bisquick. I put 3 cups of grated zucchini into the bisquick recipe for an 8x8 pan. Next time I'll only do 2 cups of zucchini.

 I even put zucchini into the topping, too, which made it really wet...

 So I swirled it into the batter.

 I also had to bake it 15-20 minutes longer than called for (totally expected). So it bake for a total of 40-45 minutes. Oh, and yes, this is a 7x11 pan and I wouldn't use a pan any smaller for the zucchini-added cake.

 Yummy! The very bottom of the cake has that slightly pudding-y feel to it, which is nice, but I think that means I put in a bit too much zucchini.

So, there's a sampling of what I've been up to over the past month. Busy, busy around here!

~Regina

Alphabet Bean Bags!

My daughter is obsessed with the alphabet, so for her birthday (which was actually 4 months ago) I decided to make her an alphabet toy that she can really play with. She also didn't have many toys that she could throw inside, so I thought bean bags were the perfect solution!

It was a pretty simple project, though somewhat time-consuming. Making myself a template to cut along helped a lot. Mine was 4 inches square, but I think that I might make them slightly larger if I make a similar project again.

I re-used t-shirts that my husband and I don't wear any more for whatever reason. I did make sure they were in good condition.

Black fabric for the consonants, red fabric for the vowels. I cut a few extra of each color just in case I messed up later.

I took a while to find a good font for the letters and, unfortunately, I don't remember the name of the one I used--it wasn't one of the common ones, though. I found the right font size (they printed 2.5 inches tall, I believe), set them to print outlines only (save ink!), cut my freezer paper to 8.5x11 inches, and printed the letters out on the NON-SHINY side of the paper. (Be careful not to print on the shiny side or you'll have a yucky mess. This also will only work in inkjet printers--laser printers will melt the freezer paper.) Then I cut them out, being careful to safe all the centers.

I ironed them on (medium to high heat, no steam).

Yay, ready to paint!

And started painting. What I found with the jersey material (and vivid colors of the fabric) was that the colored fabric paint (I use Plaid folkart) would soak into the fabric and not show up very well. I ended up doing a coat or two of white fabric paint first, before putting the color down.

What I should have done, I realized after completing the project, was to put down a layer of the intended color to soak into the fabric and fill in gaps under the edge of the freezer paper and THEN put down the white on top of that first layer. This would get rid of the white outline and edges that I ended up with on my finished letters. Oh well, live and learn!

All the colors down!

They look so pretty! I let them sit and air dry for 24-48 hours, then ironed them (per the instructions on the paint bottle) to set the paint.

Then it's time to sew them together! Make sure that the upper and lower case letters don't get flipped upside down in relation to each other. I used about a 1/4 inch seam, leaving a gap for turning and filling, and clipped all the corners.

Turning them was pretty easy, but filling wasn't. If I had been using rice, then filling would have been a breeze, but I was using kidney beans and a home-made funnel (from paper--no pictures, sorry) and it took a bit of work to get the bags filled. Be careful not to overfill the bags or you'll have a hard time stitching the gap closed. I did not topstitch around the entire edge of the bags because I felt like that would be a huge pain.

All finished! No logical order to the bags in this picture, just colors. If you click on the picture, you should be able to see the bags in more detail (including the white edges that some of the letters ended up with).

My daughter loves them and I'm pleased with how they turned out. I may make a few more later on so that she has extra letters to spell her name and other common words.

~Regina