Simple Tote Tutorial

Supplies:

cotton canvas 2 - 13x14 inch pieces

coordinating cotton print of your choice 2 - 13x6 inch pieces

lining fabric (cotton or other) 2 - 13x14 inch pieces

1 inch wide cotton webbing (2 strips 18 inches long)

1 magnetic snap (optional)

thread

sewing machine

iron

Cut out all your fabric pieces.  You should have 2 lining pieces, 2 canvas outer pieces, and 2 coordinating printed pieces.

Take your 2 printed pieces (6x13 inch) and fold the top down 1/2 an inch and press.  Repeat for both printed pieces.

Pin the printed pieces to the bottom half of the canvas pieces, lining up the bottom and side edges. Pin along your folded and pressed seam.  Set aside.

Attach your magnetic snaps to your lining pieces.  Centred and approximately 1 inch down from the top edge.  If you've never attached a magnetic snap before, check out this post: 

Once your snaps are on, pin the lining layers together, right sides together.  Stitch all the way around both sides and the bottom, leaving a 3 inch opening along the bottom seam.  I usually double stitch it, just for added strength.  (second seam approximately 1/4 inch on the outer edge of the first seam)

To create a boxed bottom on your tote: Clip the corners.  Then you are going to fold the bottom two corners together, lining up the seams on either side.  This gives you a triangle.  Stitch approximately 1 inch from the point of the triangle all the way across.

 see where my thumb is?  You're stitch line should be horizontal just above my thumb there.

Cut off the excess fabric 1/4 inch from your seam.  Repeat on the other bottom corner piece and you have a nice boxed shaped lining!

Grab your outer canvas piece and top stitch along the folded seam of your printed cotton.  You can do just one line of stitching or do a couple for added detail.

Next you're going to stitch both your outer pieces together.  Place the two pieces right sides together and line up the printed fabric seam so there are even when you stitch it all together.  Stitch all the way around both sides and bottom.  You do not need to leave an opening on the outer bag.

Repeat the boxed corner steps that you did on the lining so your outer bag is boxed as well.

To attach straps:  Flip your bag right side out and measure in 3 inches from each side.  Pin each side of the strap and stitch across.  Repeat for the other side of the bag making sure your straps line up with each other.

Slip the lining over top of the outer bag.  You want the right sides to be together so your lining should still be inside out and your outer bag should be right side out.

Line up your side seams on the lining and outer bag and pin all the way around.  Stitch 1/4 inch all the way around.

Flip your bag right side out through the opening you left in the lining. Press your top seams carefully all the way around the top of the bag.  Take care by the straps especially if you used nylon webbing, it will melt!  Take care around your magnetic snaps if you used those as well, if you iron over top of them you can get a funny spot on your fabric.

Top stitch all the way around your bag and slip stitch the lining hole closed.  You're done!

If you make a Simple Tote please share some pictures with me :)  Feel free to use this tutorial to sell items made with it but please do not reproduce the tutorial or use any of my photos without permission.

Magnetic Snap Tutorial

Ever wonder how to put in your own magnetic snap?  It's really so simple and quick.  Here's my method!

*the method I use is for putting snaps in a bag, you may have to follow other placement instructions for different projects.

Supplies:

Magnetic Snap

Pencil

Utility Knife

Wood block (I use a rubbers stamp)

Fusible Interfacing (4 squares, approximately 2"x2")

Find the centre of your fabric.  I just fold my fabric in half and press.

Apply your interfacing approximately one inch below the top of your fabric and right on that centre line you just made. I like to use 2 pieces of heavy weight interfacing per side of the snap.  If you don't know how to apply fusible interfacing there's a quick tutorial here or just follow the instructions on the package.

There are 4 parts to one magnetic snap.  Two backing pieces (like above), one magnetic side (the thicker one with an indent in it) and the metal side.

Using one of your backing pieces, centre it on your square of fusible interfacing (and centred still down that crease you made).  Using your pencil draw a line in each of the two strips on the backing.  Lay your second piece of fabric directly on top, lining up all the seams perfectly.  Feel for the small piece of backing on the first fabric piece and place your second one directly on top.  Trace your lines again.  This ensures that both sides of your magnetic snap line up perfectly.

Move your backing pieces aside and lightly cut 2 small slits on those lines you just drew.  Take care not to make them too big.  Repeat for each fabric piece.

Take one side of your snap and push those prongs through the holes you just cut.  You want the prongs sticking out the side with the interfacing on it.

Get one of your backing pieces and place it over the prongs.

Using your wooden block or rubber stamp push the prongs in on the backing.  (and yes I took that picture AFTER I had already pushed mine in and didn't notice until later that I have the block the wrong way, that rubber isn't going to be very helpful at pushing prongs in :P)

Some directions I've read for putting in magnetic snaps say to bend the prongs out but I've had bad luck with that.  Even with double heavy weight interfacing I find the prongs tear through the fabric really quick.

finished snap

Repeat for the other side of your snap and there you go!

Product Photography - A Total Non Experts Tips

The other day a friend of mine mentioned  that I should do a blog post on how I shoot my product photography so I thought why not.  I'm certainly no expert and sometimes I shoot the same product three times before I get the shots I want, but I've learned some of my best tricks from other non experts so here you go.

First off I use the best natural lighting in my house, my kitchen.  We have a huge sliding glass door so on a bright day the lighting is a close to perfect as I can get shooting indoors.  I also make sure I have my kitchen lights on as well, it doesn't add much but it sometimes helps to keep that bluish light that comes from outside off my background.

I use plain white foam board and a kitchen chair to set up my backdrop.  If my product is tall and skinny I set it up like above, but usually I have the back board horizontal as well.

Then I angle my chair until I seem to catch the best light reflection, no shadows etc.  I set up my product and start shooting!

So there you go, a complete non experts way of shooting good (not perfect) product shots.

Home Made Lotion

 I made lotion a couple of weeks ago and despite it not turning out quite perfect, I am more than happy with it.  The only ingredients in it are olive oil, beeswax, water, and essential oils.  Totally my kind of thing, the less ingredients the better right?

One of my favorite things about it is it's mild enough to use on my face but moisturising enough to be used all over too.

 

The recipe is from Making It and the only thing that went wrong is that the water didn't totally incorporate into the beeswax/oil mixture.  This means that every time I use some water beads up to the top.  According to the troubleshooting in the book, all I have to do is reheat the lotion and whip it again.  I decided to just leave it this time and hopefully I don't have that same problem next time.

I got my beeswax at a farmers market last summer.  Huge block of it for next to nothing. It might just last me forever.

I don't have a double boiler so I just took a couple of square blocks of wood that Trav made me and placed them in a pot with water and put a Pyrex measuring cup in.  The blocks keep the Pyrex from touching the bottom of the pot, which keeps it from cracking and the beeswax/oil mixture from burning.

Next up I plan to try their version of body butter, and some deodorant.

Raspberry Scones

Whenever I have people over for coffee I feel the need to make scones.  I don't know what it is, we never ate scones growing up so maybe they feel a bit "fancy" to me or something but I love making them for other people.

Anyway, point is, I've tried just about every scone recipe out there and I've now come up with my own basic scone recipe that I can alter many different ways.  Today's alteration is adding in Raspberries!

Raspberry Scones

2 cups all purpose flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

¾ cup white sugar

5 tsp. baking powder

¾ cup of cold butter

1 cup milk

1 cup frozen or fresh raspberries

2 tsp. vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350

Combine flours, sugar, and baking powder into a stand mixer.  Cut your butter into thin slices and add to mixer on low speed with paddle attachment.  Continue to add all the butter until the mixture resembles small pebbles.  (Alternately you can cut it in as you would any pastry crust, with a couple of knives or pastry cutter)

Add in your raspberries and give it a real quick stir then add in milk and vanilla.  Mix ONLY until just barely combined.

Split your dough in half and lightly knead until it just comes together in a ball.  It will still be very crumbly.  Roll out to about ¾ of an inch thick and then cut into 8 wedges.  Do the same with the other half of dough.  (Or you can make 8 large scones by rolling all the dough out in just one piece)

Place scones on a baking sheet (greased, with parchment paper, or a silicone mat).  At this point I like to put them in the freezer for about 10 mins or more.  Or just put them out on the deck because you know, it’s -35 degrees celcius here today.  You can skip the freezing step if you want but it really helps give them that nice fluffy pastry texture.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 20 mins or until golden brown.  Let them cool almost all the way before icing.

Icing:

For plain white icing:

1 cup icing sugar

A dash of lemon juice

Drizzle of water.

Stir all together, adding more water if it’s too thick, or more icing sugar if it’s too thin.

For Chocolate Topping:

I melted about 4 oz dark chocolate and 2 tbsp of cream in the microwave.  I did it at 30 second intervals at 30% power, stirring between until all the chocolate was melted.

I had intended to just drizzle the chocolate on top of mine but spreading seemed to work better and really, who doesn’t like a more even coating of chocolate?

I'm thinking these will get made again for Valentine's day.

New Dress

I made a new dress for Ara this week using this pattern from Sew Sweet Patterns

don't her big brother's shoes go so well with the dress?

It's the second dress/tunic I've made from this pattern and I love how quickly it comes together (less than an hour!)

I changed up the closure on the back this time around, I wasn't a fan of how the dress sat in the back with a button and button hole so this time I just used a button and elastic loop.  Much better and quicker to put on.

button and elastic loop closure

She's not a big fan of me taking countless pictures of her, but every now and then she gives me a quick pose :)