I bought a laptop this weekend, so now my mind is in overdrive thinking of accessories I can craft for it. Firstly, I saw that Tom Bihn sell a laptop keyboard cover to protect the screen from picking up dirt from the keyboard when the laptop is closed. Here’s my version:

Maui approves, and my keyboard is protected from excess cat fur!

I made the cover from moleskin fabric so it’s really soft. Very quick and easy to run up on the sewing machine, and now my screen is safe.

One down… next up, a laptop sleeve so I can stick the laptop in a backpack without it getting scratched. Stay tuned…

All the pinning I did when I was converting my skirt into a dress for the whiplash competition made me realise that I could really do with a pincushion, and preferably one that I can easily take to the mirror to make adjustments while I’m wearing something. I made this pincushion last night to (hopefully) prevent more pins from falling onto the floor and getting lost. With the pincushion on my wrist, my pins will always be at hand when I need them.

The pincushion body is made from two identical squares of cotton with a cute pig print. I offset the squares by half their width, so the midpoint of a side on one square lined up with a corner of the other square, and then sewed the squares together. It was a little fiddly but I ended up with this interesting shape – octagonal if viewed from the top – with the seam zig-zagging around the sides of the cushion. I don’t know if this is a common design or not; I made it up but I’m sure it must have been done before.

I stuffed it with fiberfill and used a yellow glass bead in the centre – I didn’t want to use a button as it would have obscured the pig’s head. I made the wrist strap from some 20mm twill tape with white velcro to fasten the ends.

The August whiplash challenge is called ‘wardrobe surgery’ and involves refashioning an exisiting piece of clothing by deconstruction/reconstruction or embellishment/decoration.

I looked through my old clothes and found this long skirt that I used to love in the mid ’90s, but now it’s hopelessly high-waisted and really doesn’t do anything for my body type:

Yuck! I hope it didn’t always look this bad on me! It’s so unflattering…

Here it is laid out on the floor (inside out) so you can see the shape of it: 

How did I turn this into the cute strapless dress shown below?

First I took in the side seams between the original waistband and the new hip area. I added two vertical darts at the front between the bust and waist to fit the bodice more closely, and then added two more vertical darts at the back from the shoulder blades to just below the waist, to fit the curve of my back.

I turned the old elasticated waistband inside the dress (which helps to keep it from falling down – always a risk with a strapless top), and took the bottom of the dress up by 12cm to bring it up to knee length. I used the excess fabric cut from the bottom of the dress to make straps, but the dress looked better without, so I removed them again. I was also considering making a fabric flower to accessorise, but I think the dress looks classy the way it is, so I’m going to keep it simple.

I love the fit of this dress! I can never buy dresses because of my pear-shaped figure, but this does exactly what a dress should do – fits around my top half, and floats over the areas I don’t want to emphasise. It took a lot of pinning and re-pinning (and in some cases unpicking seams and trying again) before I got the dress to fit like this, but it was worth it!

I’m entering this into the deconstruct/reconstruct category on whiplash.

I haven’t done any crafting this week, as we’ve been on vacation.

Before we left, Dave asked me to make him a detachable cushion for the observing chair he’s made to use with his telescope. Previously, he had stretched black vinyl over the foam padding and tacked it to the base of the seat, but it looked a bit messy and stopped the seat from folding away properly.

I reused the old foam, and we had still some black vinyl after making the previous cushion, so the project didn’t cost anything. I found online instructions for how to make a box cushion and used them (modified as I didn’t need a zip) to figure out the size of fabric pieces I would need to cut. That was the hardest part – after the cutting, it took about 10 minutes to run the whole thing up on the sewing machine. I didn’t even pin the pieces – the vinyl surface is a sort of mock-leather look, so it wasn’t slippery. I just held the 2 pieces right-sides together and fed them through the sewing machine to make each seam.

I left one seam open to turn the cushion right-side out and insert the foam, then I hand-stitched the final seam. I bought a curved upholstery needle for the task, but the holes it left in the fabric were too large and I didn’t want the cushion to lose its water-resistance, so I used a regular needle and had to push it through the vinyl with a thimble, which was hard work! There’s probably a better way to do it, but this worked fine as a one-off.

Finally, we attached self-adhesive velcro to the seat of the chair and the underside of the cushion, so the cushion will stay in place when in use, but is easily removed so the chair can be folded away.

I’m pleased with how it turned out, especially as it was so quick to make. It’s already been field-tested (literally – in a field!) and rained on while we were on vacation, and Dave seems happy too. I think I need to find more ‘quick’ projects like this. I like the instant gratification.

I’ve been thinking of crocheting a bag for a while, since I saw a bag pattern on the Bernat site. I didn’t like how thin the strap was in the pattern, or that the bag had no way to close, so I knew I’d have to make up my own pattern. The July whiplash challenge to make a bag came along at just the right time to get me started.

I wanted a small bag to hold essentials (purse, keys, phone, etc) that wouldn’t be too bulky for when I go out in the evening, but that wouldn’t look too ‘dressy’ for everyday use. 15x15cm seemed about the right size.

I crocheted the bag with black size 10 crochet cotton and a 1.5mm hook, using a modified cross treble stitch. I wanted an open crochet pattern so that the lining could show through, and the gaps around the ‘X’ stitches worked out well for that. I made up the pattern as I went along – decreasing the Xs to make the flap of the bag was an interesting challenge.

I used a small piece of gorgeous periwinkle blue satin for the lining, and covered the button with the same fabric to tie everything together. The strap is 350 rows of single crochet stitches, crocheted tightly for strength.

The materials for this bag only cost $5, but crocheting all those Xs took a long time! I think it was worth it though – I’m really pleased with how well it turned out and I’m looking forward to using it.

I’m entering this bag into the whiplash contest in the skill category.

I just bought a sewing machine last week, so I’ve started to make my way through the pairs of trousers I’ve bought and never quite got around to taking up to fit my short legs. I hate to throw away anything that may come in handy later, but I’ve never been able to think of anything to do with the leftover bands from the bottom of trouser legs.

This is a bit outside my comfort zone as I usually plan everything before I start a project, but I was struck by inspiration after hemming a pair of jeans, so I decided to try to make a hairband from one of the remnants.

The cutoff.

I folded the raw edge over twice and hemmed it. I used black thread, so it doesn’t really show up in the photo.

Here I have just started embroidering. I backstitched a freeform design using 4 strands of DMC embroidery cotton.

Here’s the finished embroidery.

I’ve been wondering what to do with these yummy mixed berry shade beads I picked up a while ago. I stitched them on with nylon monofilament so the stitches wouldn’t show.

Here’s the finished article in use.

Thanks to whipup for inspiring me to start this blog!