I chose the felt for it based on liking the color contrast and shape of the patch. After that, by coincidence, I found I had both bright green buttons (from my late grandmother’s stash) and bright green elastics (the cut off ends of no-tie shoelaces). The denim is the last remains of my wedding jeans, including the coin pocket.

It is messy and where the elastic ends are stitched down there are wads of top thread on the wrong side, but it works for me. The main body is three 6″ x 9″ pieces zigzagged individually, butted end to end and joined by zigzag, and then zigzagged around collectively in a sort of double figure 8. Everything else is stitched flat on top of that. The inside button that doesn’t hold the felt is mostly there for decoration; I don’t know that it accomplishes anything in terms of holding in the scissors. I may find a use for it later. The elastic that holds it all shut has two knots so it can be strapped around the roll at multiple sizes – tuck four full-size spools of thread into the innermost end and you’ll need a longer strap than with a few embroidery floss bobbins.

I always seem to have more than enough crochet to fill the evenings my husband and I spend hanging out and doing nothing, so with some exceptions embroidery and hand-sewing get postponed indefinitely. I’m hoping craft nights will help me get through more of my handwork.

The post Travel Craft Case appeared first on ReveDreams.com.

I decided to put the cards in their own box and keep the stickers and die cuts together in another container. I thought about some kind of plastic envelopes in a binder, but found they were priced above my pain point. There were kinds that were a bit cheaper but didn’t have the panel with hole punches for a binder. Finally, when looking for ideas on making things “binder-able,” I stumbled upon an Instructables about making a pencil pouch. Essentially, you cover a shortened gallon zip-top bag with duct tape. I wanted to be able to see what was in the pouch, though, at least a little, so I bought generic unprinted bags and applied duct tape just around the edges. That should improve the longevity and help avoid the bags getting crumpled up.

To make them the right size for a binder, instead of cutting off the bottom I folded it up: first to the top of the hole-punched panel, then that section in half, and then the whole folded section up again and taped near each end. That should keep any stickers or die cuts from getting pushed down into a sticky section. The small bags, of course, are just as-is, taped around the outside and with a duct tape extension at the bottom for the hole punches.

The tape along each side is a single length folded over, and the tape along the bottom is full width, two lengths stuck to each other. I didn’t take a photo of it, but when I duct-taped the gallon bags, I made sure the tape came up a little above the folded part.

Note that if you use scissors on your duct tape you’ll be saying goodbye to them for the duration of the project. In fact, if you make as many bags as I did (20 of each size), you’ll need to clean the scissors at least once during the project, because they’ll get too sticky to use. I used Citrasolv, which worked wonders, and then dish soap because the Citrasolv left them oily.

One roll of patterned duct tape will do just over 9 gallon bags, or (I estimate) at least a baker’s dozen sandwich bags. Ten gallon and ten sandwich bags took most of two rolls – the photo below shows what I had after finishing the first 20 bags, done with most of two rolls of duct tape.

Next up is my favorite part: reorganizing the contents. I also need to figure out a new storage system for my cards.

The post Storing stickers appeared first on ReveDreams.com.

Parquet….. butter.

There are two pieces of velcro sewn inside, and when I clean it I will remove the hook side. I plan to leave the loop side in, just in case I want to attach something to it later.

I wasn’t sure at first I wanted to drop a fin on it. What finally convinced me to get it was the goose on the left. It looks like the beading was done by a robot – on the unbeaded side you can see there is a wide white line around the goose, but what human would outline it like that?

It goes well with my travel tool kit, a small clutch I bought eons ago because I liked the stripes (fine irregular stripes are my favorite color). It’s long enough to hold hooks and pens, and just the right size for everything I need, including a few skeins of floss when I’m embroidering.

My old project bag was a freebie from Self magazine (my mental junk food for several years), but in conjunction with my travel tool kit I looked like I was obsessed with pink stripes, and they didn’t even coordinate well. The new bag has more internal pockets and is roomier.

You can often see my hubby’s thrift store finds on his zine blog, including a winner from this week.

The post Found project bag appeared first on ReveDreams.com.

When I first learned how to knit, several years ago, I made needle and hook cases out of wool and calico. I still think they’re among the most attractive functional objects I’ve sewn:

However, they leave a little to be desired when it comes to accessibility. I quit knitting because it always felt like a chore, but the hook case has stuck around (and will continue to indefinitely, for travel purposes). If I ever pick up Afghan/Tunisian crochet the needle case will be useful for those hooks.

More recently I crocheted a lemon and stuffed it firmly with yarn ends to use as a pincushion.

Unfortunately, blunt needles have quite a time with it, and even the sharp pins can’t be inserted just any which way.

Then I found the Tower of Babel. This is the answer to my dreams: a long tapered strip, rolled into a tiered cylinder. Between the tiers you can insert hooks, needles, pins, even scissors, storing them visibly and at hand with a very small footprint. Certainly I still expect the current hook(s) to be lying around on the end table, but my most commonly-used hooks (E, F, and the 2.75mm steel) can live there. I made it in a day. As a bonus, I was able to use some wonderful cotton yarn whose colors haven’t worked for amigurumi.

The post Hooks on parade appeared first on ReveDreams.com.

And so, next time I went to look through all of it, I did!

It is so much easier to find things, and to know what I have available. Now I just need a way to store spools of thread so I can see the colors, and yet not have them in the light. Suggestions?

The post Fabric Files appeared first on ReveDreams.com.