Convert a dish towel into a multi-pocket case to keep some of your devices, chargers, cords and accessories neat when you are on the go. Short trip or long trip, you can adapt how you use this organizer readily. You can also adapt the size to accommodate your collection of ‘stuff.’

The concept is to fold a towel (or other fabric) and do some sewing in such a way as to create two rows of pockets and a covering flap.  If you start with a towel there is no edge sewing treatment to do.

The diagram below illustrates how the towel (fabric) is folded.

A little math and the length of the fabric for a desired pocket size can be calculated OR the pocket size for the length of a piece of fabric (maybe a towel) can be calculated OR forget the math and just experiment.

Total fabric length =  (5 times rear pocket length) – 2

example for 7 inch pocket – - (5 x 7) – 2 = 35 – 2 = 33 inches  fabric length

OR

Rear Pocket length = (length of fabric + 2) divided by 5

example for 28 inches of fabric – -   (28 + 2) / 5 = 30 / 5 = 6 inch rear pocket

I started with an 18” x 28” kitchen towel purchased at Sam’s Club. As you can see from the photos, the stripe design in the towel worked out very well…… I was lucky this time. No measurements are made to the stripes.

How To:

1. Place the towel wrong-side up on your workspace. A ruler along the edge makes it easy to mark where the folds should go. My cutting mat is marked in inches. You might want to use a yard stick instead of a marked cutting mat.
2. Place a pin at the 12 inch, 18 inch and 24 inch marks.
3. Fold the bottom edge at the 24 inch mark.
4. Secure the fold on both sides with pins.
5. Flip the towel over and fold at the 18 inch mark (towel is folded back onto itself).
6. Pin both edges to secure the folds.
7. Flip the remaining 12 inches back over the other folds.
8. Pin all the layers together on both sides.
9. If you folded the towel correctly, it will have two long pockets — one 4 inches deep and the other 6 inches deep.

10. Pin and sew along both sides.
11. Create eight pockets total by marking three seams with pins, spacing them as desired.

12. Sew the pocket dividers.

13. Fill the pockets with your electronic gadgets.
14. Fold the top of towel over pockets.

Optional — sew two lengths of ribbon to the top and two lengths of ribbon to the bottom edges for closures.

Glitter heat set vinyl has been around for a while. Owners of a Silhouette Cameo cutter have been able to cut simple and complex designs in the vinyl and  fuse them onto cotton, polyester and cotton/poly blend textiles. Embroidery machine owners can use the technique described in this blog to produce a limited range of – but still pretty spectacular – glitter bling designs with this vinyl – no vinyl cutter needed.

The secrets of doing this are revealed below – - – -

Glitter vinyl is a heat set product. When a design is cut with the Silhouette Cameo, the design must be cut with the carrier sheet and glittery (is there really such a word?) side down on the cutting mat. To get the correct final results, the design must be cut as a mirror image of the finished look. The cut design is placed glitter-side up on the fabric and heat fused with an iron or heat press. But, we digress…

Secrets revealed

The glitter applique may be only part of the ‘artwork’ that you want to put on a particular piece of fabric or garment. This technique may not be compatible with designs that require multiple hooping where the vinyl would have to be clamped between the inner and outer hoop rings.

1. Stabilize and hoop the fabric as you would normally for an embroidered applique design.

2. Stitch the placement line of applique design.
3. The vinyl material is a bit expensive, so cut a piece large enough to cover the placement stitch and outer satin stitch, but avoid overly generous borders. For the secret vinyl embroidery technique, remove the heavy plastic covering (carrier sheet) from the cut piece of the vinyl.
4. LIGHTLY spray the backside (hot melt glue side) with temporary spray adhesive.

5. Cover the placement stitch line with glitter vinyl, glitter-side up.

6. Stitch the design. Note – the outer boundaries of the design must be a satin stitch.

7. Tear away excess glitter vinyl.
8. Note – Before removing the stabilizer from the project, the vinyl must be heat set.  Follow the remaining directions.
9. Though some form of a heat press with temperature control and a clamping mechanism is preferable, you can use a household iron to fuse the vinyl to the fabric. The results will not be as consistent when an iron is used. If you have a choice of irons, pick the heaviest and highest wattage iron for this job.
10. Place the project applique-side up on a firm padded surface that can take some heat.
11. Cover the glitter vinyl and surrounding fabric with a Teflon press sheet.
12. The iron/press should be set for a temperature of 315-320 degrees F (typically HIGH for an iron).

13. Press the iron straight down, apply ‘medium to heavy’ pressure without moving the iron sideways for 10-15 seconds.
14.  Remove iron and let the materials cool until you can handle the materials.
15. Remove stabilizer.
16. Admire your work.

Care Guide:
Turn garment inside out and machine wash with cool/warm water temperature.
Line dry.

Credits for Embroidery Designs Shown:

BIKE lettering created with TT Fonts in Floriani software.
Bow design created in Floriani software.
Baseball applique from Anita Goodesign

Floriani has released a new software product – and there should be a market for it. I have been teaching computerized embroidery machine software classes for years. I realize that many of the people who attend these classes just want to create their own in-the-hoop quilt blocks.

With this new software, beautiful and elegant designs can be created with just a few clicks. If you like to do applique, trapunto, stippling, echo, or crazy patch blocks, you will be interested in what this software can do.

Using some of the many built-in designs, in about 5 minutes on the computer, I created my own mug rug and coaster designs to get a feel for what this software does. If you want to see how this software works, contact your local Moore’s Sewing Center.

With a design in hand (actually a computer file on a USB memory stick to be more precise), let’s take a look at the sew out process for the coaster.

Supplies:
This supply list is for one 5 inch coaster.
Top fabric – one 6 inch square
Batting – one 6 inch square
Backing fabric – one 6 inch square

Water soluble stabilizer

Directions for making a coaster:

1. Hoop water soluble stabilizer.

2. Sew the placement stitch.

3. Place batting over the placement line.

4. Cover batting with fabric.

5. Sew the tack down stitch.

6. Stitch out the center design.

7. Remove hoop from the machine, but do not remove stabilizer and fabric from the hoop. Turn hoop upside down.

8. Use tape or temporary spray adhesive to hold backing fabric on the back side of hoop. The backing fabric needs to cover the placement line.
9. Replace hoop in machine.

10. Sew the tack down stitch.

11. Remove hoop from machine, but do not remove stabilizer and fabric from the hoop. Trim the front fabric, the batting, and the back fabric close to the tack down stitching line.

12. The trimmed coaster should look something like this photo.

13. Replace hoop in machine and sew the background fill, followed by the satin stitch. Note – in this photo, the white space outside the satin stitch is the sewing machine base showing through the stabilizer.

14. Remove the coaster from hoop and trim away excess water soluble stabilizer.

15.  Remove any remaining stabilizer with a wet sponge.

16. The finished coaster.

Examples of other designs created with the My Decorative Quilter software:

If you have problems with too few and too little usable flat surfaces in your sewing area as I have, you might be interested in this multiple-use device that is a combination pincushion and thread end collector. The pincushion occupies a small area (that might already be occupied by a ‘standard’ pincushion) and holds up the thread end collector in a location that previously was just ‘air.’ The pincushion is weighted to keep the entire assembly from winding up on the floor. There is a fundamental limit to the weight that the thread catcher can reliably support. We won’t go into the calculations that involve the weight of the pincushion and the surface frictional (not fiction) qualities of the pincushion material and flat surface material which ultimately determine how much weight in the collector will cause the entire device to descend to the floor.  Resist the temptation to put ‘heavy’ objects in the collector – just put thread ends into the collector (which should be placed in a location convenient to your machine) rather than trying to throw the thread ends across the room to the local wastebasket.

Supplies:
1 – 16 1/2” x 8 1/2” main fabric – collector bag
1 – 16 1/2” x 8 1/2” lining fabric
1 – 16 1/2” x 8 1/2” medium weight fusible interfacing
2 – 3 1/2” squares main fabric – hanging tab
2 – 6 1/2” squares main fabric – pincushion
2 – 6 1//2” medium weight fusible interfacing
17” of boning or other stiffener for top edge of the collector
filling for pincushion – crushed walnut shells, rice, or your favorite ecologically safe material that will not dull, contaminate, or create a sticky surface on your pins

Instructions:
Sew with a 1/4” seam allowance unless otherwise noted.

Hanging Tab:
1. Sew together the 3 1/2” squares right-sides together, on two opposite sides to form a tube.

2. Turn right side out and press.

Collector Bag:
1. Press interfacing to wrong side of main fabric
2. Fold main fabric in half with right-sides together and short ends lined up.
3. Sew down side seams.
4. Repeat  above steps 2-3 with lining fabric.
5. Press seams open.

6. Fold sides to form triangle at bottom corner.
7. Pin corner and mark a line 1 1/4” from bottom of corner.
8. Sew along marked line.

9. Cut off corner piece 1/4” from stitching line.
10. Repeat steps 5-9 with the lining fabric.

Pincushion:
1. Fuse interfacing to wrong side of both 6 1/2” squares.
2. Place right-sides together.

3. Between the layers, center the finished hanging tag.
4. Sew 1/4” around all edges leaving an opening for turning.
5. Turn and press.

Putting it all together:
1. With the outside fabric collector bag still right-sides together, mark the center of the space between the seams , approx.. 4”, on one of the  raw edges .

2. Center the remaining raw edge of the hanging tag over your mark from step 1 so the pincushion is lined up with the bottom of the catcher. Pin the tag to the collector bag.
3. Turn lining fabric collector bag right-side out.
4. Place lining unit inside the main bag with right sides together.
5. Sew around the entire opening, leaving about three inches open for turning.
6. Turn the collector bag assembly right-side out and press.

7. Create a casing by stitching around the entire cylinder of the collector bag about 1” from the top.

8. Insert the boning in the casing.

9. Stitch all around the top about 1/8” from top edge.
10. Fill pincushion with approx 1 ½ cups of filler.
11. Sew the pincushion opening closed, either by hand or machine.
12. Your completed pincushion and thread end collector should look something like this when viewed from above.

Nothing says Spring like baby chicks, even when they are the type you stick pins in (No live animals have been harmed in the creation of this blog). Make these chicks in different sizes and colors. Use them as a center piece for your Spring table or add pins and send them off to live with your sewing friends.  Some of your chicks might be versatile and able to hold different jobs at different times.

Supply List:
Two 5” squares fabric for the body
One 3 1/2” square fabric for tail
One 2 1/2” square fabric for tail
Felt for the comb and beak
Polyester fiberfill for stuffing

Instructions:

1. Cut beak and comb shapes from felt. Think of the shape of a beak and add an extra 1/4” or so to the back of the beak for the seam allowance.  Apply the same concept to the bottom of the comb.

2. Lay out one of the body pieces right side up and arrange beak and comb pieces as pictured.
3. Pin to secure beak and comb in place.
4. Place the other body piece right sides together over the comb and beak.
5. Stitch along three sides leaving a small opening for turning.
6. Leave the the last side open.

7. Prepare the tail pieces, aka prairie points.
8. Fold square, wrong-side together,  to form a triangle.
9. Fold again.

10. Repeat with the other tail fabric piece.
11. Place the smaller triangle on top the larger one and pin.
12. Align the top and bottom seams of the body – this will form the pyramid shape of the chicken.
13. Center the tail relative to the opening, push the tail into the opening, and pin all layers.  NOTE – the smaller triangle tail piece must be against the seam that  holds the comb.

14. Stitch the seam closed.

15. Turn the chicken right side out through the small opening.
16. Stuff with polyester fiber fill.
17. Hand stitch the opening closed.
18. Add the eyes.  These can be rhinestones, buttons, large-head pins, sequins, beads, or – - – - use your imagination.