A Handy Case (Tutorial)

A little project of mine required 3" x 5" Q-cards, 100 of them. I looked at the cases available in the store and didn't like any of those plasticky, made-in-China things. Why buy something like that when I can make a beautiful, quilted case myself???


So here it goes, without any math to figure things out, so I'll leave it up to you if you want to make something similar :)

I picked 4 charms from a MODA Neptune charmpack


Sewed 3 of the charms in a row for the outside of the case, scant 1/4" seam on everything, I finger-pressed all seams open (in fact, I didn't turn the iron on once in this project). 1 charm was left for the closing flap. I also cut about 3" of a velcro strip and a little scrap piece to extend the width of the clothing flap (about 5" x 2", the dark khaki in the photo below).


I found some batting scraps (strips cut off the edges of previous quilts), zigzagged two strips together to make them 5" wide and about 14.5" long (longer than my 3 charms in a row; if you're outside fabrics are light, make sure you use a thread colour that blends in with the batting or it will show through!). I placed the outside of the case face up on the batting, then quilted parallel straight lines to give some structure (I had the batting facing down while I quilted - don't know if that makes a difference). You can mark the lines with a ruler or just go wild, like me. I also sewed the scrap piece onto the flap-charm (top left corner in picture below) so that the flap piece is now about 5" by 6.5".


Next, take the hook part (rough) of the velcro strip and sew onto the right side of the flap piece, about 1/2" below the center line (I folded the flap in half lengthwise, then placed the velcro strip below the fold. Next, take a scrap piece of batting to cover half of the flap piece (when folded lengthwise again). Fold the flap piece lengthwise, right sides facing (i.e. velcro on the inside!), place it on top of the batting piece and sew down each side (v. scant 1/4" seam) so it looks like the photo below, where I'm holding the flap piece open. Also sew the soft part of the velcro onto the cover piece. To place it, fold the cover in half, batting side together, then place the flap piece on top, slightly off-center towards the folded edge of the cover (if it's slightly off in the end, it'll still work just fine since the strip is long enough!). Regarding the height of the strip, adjust the soft velcro according to the placement of the hook-velcro on the flap, then move it about 1/4 to 1/2" up towards the top of the case! Oh, how to describe this better...


Turn the flap piece right side out. I quilted some horizontal lines to give it structure.
Use some scraps to make a backing that's at least as big as the cover piece of the case.

Now for the part that made me sit and stare for a few minutes while I got the 3-D thinking wheels going inside my brain...
Layer as follows: 1) lay down the outside cover with the batting down and the velcro strip edge away from you (i.e. the future opening side up).
2) place the flap piece velcro side facing up on top of the outside cover so that the velcro strip is on the other side (see photo). Line the velcro strips up by placing them on top of each other, then folding the cover in half and pinning the flap to the non-velcro side (i.e. the piece of the cover you just folded over) - undo the folding and it should look like below.
3) place the backing face down on top of everything else.
now sew a scant 1/4" seam along the top edge.


If you now flip the whole thing so the batting is on the inside, it should look like this:

Now for the part that gave me a little bit of a head ache (hadn't greased those 3D thinking wheels enough :): Open the thing back up so that you have outside cover with velcro and batting on the left and lining on the right as below, fold it lengthwise as you see me doing in the photo (i.e. velcro strips closed up):


Below is the folded package (don't get confused that it's flipped over from the last photo!). Sew along all the seams indicated by pens and the green seam ripper, i.e. everything except the short edge of the lining (bottom left) - leave that for turning inside out. Use a very scant 1/4" seam on the batting part or the seam will be very bulky! Use a generous 1/4" seam on the lining (also to make it slightly smaller than the cover to avoid bulky fabric on the inside. (Note: my lining bottom edges weren't cropped yet, so I just sewed straight across, then trimmed it to 1/4" later, it's okay in the lining since some of my pieces were wider than 5" when I started... I'm just not big into trimming.)

Here's the hole for turning! Now comes the caterpillar part! (I'm always amazed how this ugly, raw-edge mess metamorphoses into a beautiful butterfl- ah, Q-card case!

Oh, and halfway through turning, you should remember to trim the corners for nice points!


Lastly, handsew the opening in the lining shut by folding the edges inwards and using a slip stitch or ladder stitch (my preference, absolutely hidden stitching! See tutorial in my quilty links on top of this page).

Shove the lining inside the cover piece.


Breathe a big sigh of relief that all the pieces are where they're supposed to be and the velcros are facing the right way :)


Place Q-cards inside...

... and admire!


I wish I had known this when I was a student - studying from Q-cards would have been soooo much fun!

Disclaimer: no guarantees - as I said, I didn't calculate anything, just forged ahead - took random pictures throughout and wrote this from memory 2 days later :)

Bargello Tutorial

Ready to get a CuttingEdgeQuilt-style bargello tutorial??

For the size bargello I did (sorry, I never had a chance to measure it - I estimate that it would fit a single bed), you'll need 20" of 16 different fabrics, plus border, backing, and binding (though I used leftover strips for a scrappy binding).

Pick 16 fabrics and sort them by colour. Can be prints, solids, small or big patterns. I picked half brown and half yellow/orange.

Cut 2.5" strips from each fabric. I'm pretty sure I cut 5 strips per fabric, but since I did my bargello without a plan or pattern, I added sets as I went along...


Lay your strips out in border and align the selvedges on one side (the left in the picture above). Sew the strips into pairs, starting your seam at the left, with the aligned selvedges.

Now sew the pairs of strips together, starting at the other end (where the selvedges are NOT aligned). To save fabric, I held the fabric strip pairs together so that the selvedges on the left were still aligned and then just pinned the other end (where the edges don't align) and started sewing there. That way, the selvedges on one side of all the strips are lined up, but not on the other (see below).


Lastly, I sewed the brown and yellow set together (right sides facing of course) to form a tube that's half brown and half yellow:


To make the joining of all the pieces easier, I worked with two strip tubes at a time. I pressed one one way, the other tube the opposite way (i.e. iron one light colours to dark, the other dark colour to light). Depending on how organized you are, my method will work for you, or you'll need to pin numbers and notes to identify all your strips. I'm much too lazy for that and would rather trouble shoot later than do all the planning work.

Trim the selvedges off one edge of the tubes to straighten out that edge, then start cutting strips off the strip tubes. Cut two strips of the same width at a time from tube 1 (pressedone way), this will be the mirrored strips on each side of your quilt, so they need to be the same width to match seams later! The cut two strips of tube 2 (pressedthe other way) of the same width.

I cut strips between 1" and 3.5" in width. 2" and 2.5" were easiest to work with, gave a nice wave and made the quilt grow quickly. Adding some 1-1.5" and 3-3.5" strip sets in between gives you a pointier (skinny strips) or shallower (wide strips) shape to the curves.


In the picture above, you can see that the bottom 3 strips are laid out with the seams pressed in alternating directions. That's important for matching up seams!

Because I did my first section of this quilt as an experiment, I matched all the seams when joining the strip sets. Big mistake! It looks fine but is a lot of work! I've since been told that you can also offset the strips by half a square (in this case offset by half of 2" (the final width of your 2.5" strips when sewn together)). Instead of ripping open a seam, you cut your strip loop in the middle of one colour. I've never tried this, but I imagine that sewing the strip sets together will be much easier and you don't have to worry about which way seams are pressed since they don't meet!

Here are my sections being sewn together...

I decided on my pattern/layout by turning the strip-loops right side out and arranging them to my liking (bottom of photo below). When I was confident that I liked the pattern, I cut them open at the appropriate seam for a final visual (at this point you can move strips or sew them back together to get a different layout) (see top of photo below).


So eventually you'll have all your strips for each half of the quilt laid out. Number them somehow! Whatever your system is, pins, pins with numbers, pieces of papers pinned on. Know which strip goes on which half of the quilt etc etc. Mind you, I had a few mishaps and they're easy enough to fix - hello seam reipp


Start sewing strips together, matching seams as shown below. Sew into pairs, then pairs of pairs etc. I like to abutt the seams and then pin through them diagonally to catch the raw edge on both sides. I remove the pin when I get to the seam. Watch that seams don't flip over while you're sewing over them - that gets bulky!


I sewed the strips into about 6 large sections (3 on each side of the quilt), then sewed those together to make the big quilt.


One thing I did different on this quilt, were the borders. Instead of attaching them to the center and then basting/quilting, I did it in a quilt-as-you-go style. I did that because of all the seams and the associated stretchiness of the quilt as well as being fed up sewing pieces together and feeling the urge to quilt instead :)

To do this, baste your quilt as you normally would, but leave enough backing and batting around the quilt center to accommodate a border or your choice. I left about 5-6" on all sides.

I then quilted the center right up to the edge. Then I measured the quilt top, cut borders to the right size, pinned them generously (i.e. lots of pins) wrong sides together to the quilt top and sewed through border/top/batting/backing all in one go with my walking foot. It meant that I didn't have to quilt the narrow borders I added and had a nice frame motif on the back. It was more bulk to maneuver through the machine, I have to admit, but I did save me a second set of seams (one to attach the border, the second to quilt them in the ditch or similar.

The borders turned out okay - no major puckers or waviness and it was a lovely feeling to add the borders and be ready for binding, instead of having the whole quilting business still ahead.

I added 3 borders: a narrow brown one, a narrower yellow one and a wide brown one. I added extra quilting to the wide border (the orange floral/leafy print is the back of the quilt):


Now you're ready to bind and label to your liking! If you need help with that, check out my Quilty Tutorial page above!

There you have it, one striking mirrored bargello quilt:


Merry Christmas everyone!

Summer Purse Tutorial

I followed a basic fat quarter purse tutorial and built in some of my own modifications.

What you need:

• about a fat quarter worth of outside fabric (e.g. print)
• about a fat quarter worth of lining fabric (e.g. matching solid)
• about 2 fat quarters worth of fusible interfacing
• a pair of purse handles of your choice

I started by cutting a 2" x 20" strip of my print fabric (the width of the strip depends on the holes in your handles, as these are the handle attachments). Fold it in half lengthwise, right sides facing and sew along the long edge with 1/4" seam. I sewed this red ribbon to the starting end and had it inside the folded crease while sewing along the edge - this will help with the turning inside-out of the tube.

To turn the tube inside out, pull on the ribbon and tug and tease till the tube gets moving.


The start is finicky, after that: smooth cruising.

Press the tube with the seam in the middle (see the piece on the left below), then cut the tube strip in half, and both halves in half again. Mine came out to just under 5" each.

Pull each strip through a loop in your handle, match the ends up and secure them in place with a safety pin.


Switch to the purse body: instead of cutting a fat quarter in half, I cut a two pieces of print and lining fabric approximately the size of the purse I wanted to get. You should have 4 identical pieces: two of the print and two of the lining.

Cut matching pieces (4 in total) of fusible interfacing. Iron the interfacing to the wrong side of each fabric piece (my interfacing didn't stick very well - it was my first time working with the stuff, so I don't know if that's normal or not).


I didn't want a rectangular shape, so I marked 1.5" (the photo shows 1.75", but that looked to steep, so I changed it to 1.5") from the edge of the top side of my print and lining fabrics and cut a wedge off each side.

I cut all my layers at once, to make them identical.

Lay the lining pieces face up and center the purse handles on top as shown below. Decide how far you want to have your purse handles protrude from the purse, taking into account your seam allowance (I used 1/4" for everything). I left about 1.5" from the wooden handle to my seam allowance.

Place the print fabric on top of the lining and handle so that right sides are facing (interfacing on the outside).

Pin the handle straps in place and check that both halves of the purse have the handles positioned equally.


Sew along the top edge (i.e. the edge where your handles are attached) of each purse half only.


Sew over that edge again, about 1/8" closer to the fabric edge, and go over each handle strap back and forth twice to strengthen this seam.


Trim off the excess handle strap protruding past the seam.


It's starting to resemble a purse!


I decided that I wanted inside pockets. Cut identical pieces of lining and print fabric (1 each) per pocket in the size you want your pocket to be. I wanted my pockets to stand out, but if you want them more subtle, use lining fabric only. My pieces are about 6"x4".

Put the lining and print fabric pieces together right sides facing and sew 1/4" seam all around, leave a 1.5" opening. I rounded the bottom corners of my pocket, personal preference).


Turn the pouch inside out and use chopsticks or something similar to gently push the corner out.


Press the pockets so that the opening has the fabric folded in 1/4" - you don't have to hand-sew this shut, it'll be done by machine in the next step.


Place the pocket on the lining of your purse, you can pin it in place.


Sew along the edge, about 1/8" seam, all around the pocket, and enforce the start end end of the seam by sewing back and forth a few times.


Now the exciting part. Place the two purse halves right sides facing so that the linings match up with each other, and the prints on the other side of then handle (the handles should be in the middle of the sandwich. I think it's easiest for turning to have the handles both turned toward the lining, but that's a lot of bulk for sewing - you'll have to do what works best for you.)
Pin all around making sure that the corners and the middle seam (where lining switches to print) match up.


I wanted to add a little label, so I pinned it one one side between the lining layers. (It's just a 2"x2.5" of lining fabric with the sides turned in 1/4" and the whole thing folded in half lengthwise.)

Sew a 1/4" seam around the whole sandwich, but leave most of the lining bottom open so that you can fit your handles through when you turn the purse!


For a flat bottom, pinch all 4 corners of the purse sandwich and sew across the flap. The longer your seam, the wider your bottom. Your purse will stand up this way and have a bit more storage space for bulky items.


Snip the excess tips off.


Now the really awkward part of turning the whole think inside out through the opening.


After the turning inside out step, I managed to sew the opening shut for another 2" or 3" before I didn't have enough space to maneuver under the machine.


I pinned a 1/4" fold to make the hand-sewing easier.


Use the invisible ladder stitch or a similar type of hidden stitching to close the gap.


Almost invisible!


And here it is!


I'm really proud of my first-time purse accomplishment!


I love how the label worked out, you can see it on the left, very subtle.


I love the pockets so I don't have to rummage for keys or a handkerchief.


And I love that it's mine, with one of my favourite fabrics - this one always makes me think of summer and I've had it since I spotted it in a store at the age of 12 or so (way before my quilting days!).


I have a bunch of friends lined up to receive purses - my only problem are the handles - I'm having really bad luck finding nice ones like those sold at Joann's (black and sleek). I'll start searching the 2nd hand stores for old purses, and I might have a chance to visit Joann's in April, that'll be exciting!

So, do you feel like making one? This one took me an hour and a half from start to finish, so you have lots of time before summer!