I chose the same fabric to match my machine cover, but I needed it to be a bit stronger to be able to take the weight of the machine. I used some white cotton drill, which you can pick up fairly cheaply in many places. The amount of fabric needed really depends on your machine, but a metre should be plenty.

You will need:

1 metre of white cotton drill

1 metre each of two different colourful fabrics (you may have enough with 1 metre, but I made bias binding from the solid colour, which always uses more than you think!)

A rotary cutter and cutting mat

Matching thread

Pins

An iron

A bias binding maker (I used a 2.5cm / 1″ maker)

Step 1

Lay out your cotton drill and place your machine in the middle, so that you can bring the fabric up around the sides of your machine. Work out how deep and how wide the bag needs to be and then cut a rectangular shape to size – for my Janome 525S this worked out at two 75 x 54cm pieces. Then I cut out a 10 x 10cm square from each of the bottom corners. These pieces will form the lining of the bag.

Step 2

To make the outer bag pieces, I laid some of the solid colour over the bottom of the lining, so that it covered where I had cut out the squares and about another 12cm or so (to allow for seam allowance) up what will be the side of the bag.

Once you have cut this piece, lay out the lining and the solid colour to be able to work out how big to cut your patterned fabric (allowing a centimetre or two for seam allowance, and then pin them together. You can see the selvedge here on my fabric, so I stitched just outside of it so that it wouldn’t show when pressed open.

Step 3

Press open the seam allowance and iron the outer and lining pieces. Place them together and pin before quilting them to make them really secure.

I stitched between alternate kits shapes on this fabric, like I did with my sewing machine cover. This took quite a while with both pieces, but it’s really effective and will help the bag to be nice and strong. You’ll notice that I only quilted up to the solid fabric, and I think this looks really great, if I say so myself!

Step 4

The next step is to make this into a bag! Place the pieces right sides together, and pin along the sides and bottom. Don’t do anything with the cut out squares yet, but stitch along the other edges with a 1.5cm seam. Trim the excess and press to one side. Then you need to fold each corner so that the short, unstitched sides meet like this:

Pin these short sides together, checking on the insides that the lines of the outer fabrics match up (I forgot to do this, despite thinking about it, so I do have a wonky corner!). I found it helpful to pin the seam allowance to one side too, so that when I stitched along the edge (again, with a 1.5cm allowance), it tucked in the right way.

Step 5

Make your bias binding and then attach it to the top of the bag. I matched my binding to the solid colour of the bottom of the bag, and used matching thread too.

Step 6

The last thing to do is to make the handles. You could use some webbing here if you like, but I wanted my handles to match the patterned fabric as I love it so much! I cut out two pieces of cotton drill that measured 75 x 3.5cm, and then cut out two pieces of patterned fabric that were big enough to wrap around the drill (I just did this by eye rather than measuring).

Fold the patterned fabric around the drill and press it so that it’s all nice and flat. Pin it together and stitch to secure. I folded so that my seams ran down the middle of the drill, and then I stitched either side of them. Fold over the short ends and stitch them too.

Position the handles and stitch them in place. I did this with a rectangle around the edges of the handles, and then a cross in the middle. The cross is key to this, as it makes them really strong. It looks like there is lots of stitching here, but those handles aren’t going anywhere!

Ta-dah! That’s it Your new sewing machine bag is ready to use and take wherever you want to go. No more wondering where the pedal has got to – it’s in the bag!

This is such a spacious bag that even if you didn’t want to use it to put a sewing machine in, it would make a super beach bag!

Have you got any sewing projects planned this weekend? Happy sewing!

The post Sewing machine bag appeared first on Hello! Hooray!.

I matched the guitar colours with Kona cottons (it’s always good to have a reason to get the colour card out!), and it goes with Kona Jamaica (blue), Persimmon (orange), Lipstick (red), Pear (green) and Corn Yellow. I decided to use a dark blue binding to match (this was pre-made).

To make this quilt, you can follow my instructions from my first quilt (click here). I cut 7″ squares, but only used a 5 x 5 pattern to make a square quilt this time. It made sense to do that really, especially as I jut used solids for the patchwork. At first I modelled the layout on my first quilt, but I thought that the colours wanted to be a bit more random than that (although Tom has since pointed out to me that it can’t be random if I planned it…!). So this is the randomly-planned layout:

I’ll definitely be using this layout again – I’ve got one of each colour in each row, which is quite satisfying! I stitched the squares together, and then layered up the quilt. After my first two attempts at quilting, I used a different wadding this time – I went for two layers of Simply Cotton (pre-washed before quilting). It’s so much easier to quilt with, and I’m much happier with it overall so will definitely be using this and nothing else in future! Here’s the back – I kept the quilting simple by quilting in the ditch, which means that the pattern still shows through nicely:

I really must learn from my issues with binding though – after my first two quilts, I told myself that I must stitch the front on the machine and then hand stitch the back. Did I do this? Nope! So a few bits are a little untidy…let this be my reminder for the next one!

The post Another patchwork baby quilt appeared first on Hello! Hooray!.

The Craft Cotton Co. very kindly sent me a lovely fabric bundle to be able to make this bag, and I chose these super blue vintage fabrics to make it. I like the contrast of the ditsy floral pocket with the bolder print for the bag, and there are so many possibilities to make it your own!

You can find the step-by-step tutorial here if you’d like to make your own  I’m the first blogger to be published there, but stay tuned for more exciting projects from other bloggers coming soon!

The post Foldaway shopping bag tutorial appeared first on Hello! Hooray!.

Before you get started and gather your materials, measure how big your drawers are (!!) and think about what sort of size you want the inserts to be. This will help you to work out how much fabric you’ll need for your own template. To work out the size, draw out a square or rectangle the size that you want the bottom of the insert to be (mine was 26cm x 26cm). Then think about how deep you want it to be (mine was 8cm) and add that on to each of the 4 sides, with an extra centimetre for a seam allowance on each side too. So, I cut out a 44cm x 44cm square, and then cut an 8cm square out of each corner to create the template, like this:

So once you have worked out how much fabric you need, you can gather your other materials. You will need:

Two pieces of contrasting fabric, plus extra to make binding (or buy pre-made binding if you prefer)

A piece of thin wadding/batting, the same size as your piece of fabric

Matching cotton

Your sewing machine

Needle and pins

Sharp scissors

Step 1

Cut out an inner piece and an outer piece of fabric from your selection using the template you made, and do the same with the wadding. Place the wadding on the wrong side of the outer piece and then pin the sides of the 8cm square you cut out together. Stitch along each of the 4 edges with a 1cm allowance.

Once stitched, turn it the right way out.

Step 2

Place the lining fabric (right side up) inside the insert, and pin each corner to fit. You might need to make a few little adjustments here, so increase the seam allowance if you need to. Once you have stitched the corners, pin the lining to the insert and then stitch along the top to secure it.

Step 3

Measure the circumference of your insert and then make the binding to the right length (or cut the binding you bought to length). Position it over the top, pinning as you go, and then stitch along the bottom edge.

Step 4

To help the insert stand up a little more, I hand stitched a few small stitches on the top of each corner. It’s really effective, actually – yay!

Ta-dah! Ready to place in a drawer to get things organised. I’m keeping my socks in these (I do have more than one pair – I wanted to show you what they look like in my drawer, although it isn’t the best photo I’ve ever taken…)

What have you been doing to get organised for 2015?

The post Fabric drawer inserts appeared first on Hello! Hooray!.

I asked Tom what he would like his waistcoat to look like. Cue usual answer, which is “I’m not sure, really!” So I suggested tweed because I had secretly wanted to make something with tweed for a while – see what I did there?! Anyway, after a search online we found In Tweed and sent off for some samples (which arrived really quickly). Tom chose this beautiful lightweight Teviot tweed. It took a while to find some satin for the back in just the right shade of grey to match, but after sending off for some samples from Platinum Bridal Fabrics, we decided that the Duchess satin in Majestic Gunmetal would be perfect to compliment the buttons and the tweed. The satin samples arrived so quickly too, so we were very impressed!

So today, I started making this tweed waistcoat – if you follow me on Instagram then you will have seen these work in progress photos already (sorry!) but I wanted to share them here for those of you who aren’t on Instagram. I used the same pattern that I used last time, which is Vogue Men V8048. It all came flooding back to me as I started to make it – as my friend said earlier, it’s just like riding a bike![/vc_column_text][vc_gallery type=”image_grid” images=”6339,6340,6341,6342,6343,6344,6345,6346,6347,6351″ img_size=”large” column_number=”2″ grayscale=”no”][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1415565359563{padding-top: 30px !important;padding-bottom: 30px !important;}”]I am particularly pleased with these buttonholes – those of you who have been reading my blog for a while will know that on my old machine I didn’t have the foot that I needed, so had to adjust the settings manually which was a nightmare! This was a breeze in comparison, and I feel a lot more confident about doing them on other things now.[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”6353″ img_size=”large” alignment=”center” qode_css_animation=”” img_link_large=”yes”][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1415565655897{padding-top: 30px !important;padding-bottom: 30px !important;}”]Making this waistcoat seemed to go really quick – I was obviously in the sewing zone today – and also not doing any embroidery on it helped! I’m looking forward to Saturday when Tom can wear it, and I’ll try to get some good photos if he’ll let me…I keep forgetting that it gets dark so early now, which is nice for cosy crafting but not good for photo-taking.

I hope you have all had a fab weekend! What have you been making?[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

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