Wholecloth Stubby Holder

It took a depressingly long time, but I finally worked out a way to get a nice finish on a stubby holder with the cross stitch cottons.

The trick it seems is to do it with one piece of insulbrite twice the length, and to just quilt with the fancy thread through the half that will become the outside, and then do plain quilting through the other half - quilting through two layers makes it incredibly boofy, and boof both feels odd in your hand, and means there are flat bits that the cold will penetrate through.

Tragically, I used all my velcro on my 4 goes at doing this. Will need to get some more, I guess.

Progress

I think I might be bored with HSTs now. I finished the top of the christmas quilt and pressed it all and thought, well, that was fun, time for something new.

Except, well, I can't really start anything new, since I have a whole lotta stuff still to be done in the next week. I did pretty good today though - after I finished the top I got it basted and quilted - now all it needs is trimming down and binding. I've already got the strips cut, and I've got the strips cut to bind that red and green one I made a few weeks ago to see how much I disliked wool batting, but I'm puting it off. I hate binding.

I got the other three christmas sacks finished today too. We always used pillow cases as a kid and then we would lug the pillow cases around to wherever christmas was that year, so this year I have made us some ones in pretty christmas fabric that are still the size of pillow cases, but have squared off bottoms and handles. Handles are handy, as the name suggests.

I made the lining for Casey's bag, and devoted some time to berating myself for deciding to make hers a fancy bag.  Bags without pockets and with handles that go from one end to the other instead of up the sides are much, much easier, but she wants a little bit of leather from the back of some jeans sewn to hers and for whatever reason, that makes me feel like the bag has to be as fancy as the pants it came off of.

And I made a stubby holder, just to see if I could remember how to do it. I can - yay me!

Unfortunately, at some point while I was doing all this my phone went flat, so I couldn't take any pictures. It's charging now though, so I'll take a heap in the morning.

Stubby Holders

Today I happened to empty the tub that had some insulbright in it. So I stopped emptying tubs and started making stubby holders instead.

I cut the edges really really wide when I was doing the offset quilt especially so I could make a stubby holder.

The ones on the left match my handbag. The one on the right... Can you think of a better fabric to make a stubby holder out of?

It still kinda blows my mind that people overseas don't have stubby holders. They must just have cold hands and warm drinks. Poor buggers - I'm gunna write up a tutorial for them. It's ridiculously easy.

After I got bored with making stubby holders I started on a quilt. It's just big squares of pretty fabrics but I had a fabric selection breakdown halfway through cutting. I'm okay with it now, and it's all neatly laid out in pairs ready to sew tomorrow.

Whoops. I need to lay of the TV shows...

I've just watched 6 straight episodes of Chuck. And as a result, all I've made tonight is Kelsey's stubby holder. Which I can't show you till Friday, cause, it's for Kelsey.

What I can show you is the fabrics I bought today.

The bottom four are to do the back for the mingle twist quilt,  the top ones are for yet another mini stairways quilt. I'm a little bit addicted, I need help.

There's double of the green spotty, cause that's for the Charlie I'm making for Kelsey.

Congrats on getting out, girl. May the diet coke be with you.

He can't bite your finger - he's go no mouth.

I just spent the last hour sitting on the loo, playing jawbreaker on my palm pilot.

I might be willing, for one night only, to admit that the people who think I'm wasting my life, may just have a point.

Thankfully, one wasted hour does not a wasted day make. Instead, in one day I made:

 Charlie

Ellanor

And Alan.

And then, after tea, I made these.

Which is handy, since I've lost the one I took up to Adelaide. It's probably out in the car. Please note the Jim Beam can isn't mine, it's just all that was in the fridge.

I love the idea of selvedge stubby holders so much better than just about anything else made of selvedges. For a start, you need so little - the blue one, where I've shown some fabric as well, used 11 bits of 10cm selvedge, as well as the backing fabric with selvedge attached to be one binding and a coloured selvedge as the other binding. But better than that, it's so much more out-there than a selvedge quilt or a cushion. Because lets face it, anyone who's in your house to see it probably knows you're a quilter anyway, whereas a stubby holder, getting out there in the real world, will let you be recognised as a quilter by other quilters. People you may have known for ages but neither of you knew the truth about the other. It's like a secret symbol.

I make mine velcro up, because it's easier than trying to sew around or closed. Except I get most of it done and can never find my bit of velcro. I need to go buy some more tomorrow before work, so I can go make Kelsey's.

I need to get some fabric too, now that I've tested my new dinosaur/dragon pattern (perfect in every way, except I need to not stuff the arms so much and make sure my feet are at the same height) so that I can make a proper version for Kelsey. Charlie will probably stay living with me and Ellanor (whose design needs a bit of work - she has very bad cellulite) and Alan, who I think will maybe be my first ever toy pattern put online, since he seems pretty perfect too. I'm gunna suggest though - don't do him like I did, interfacing batting to his fabrics and sewing him with it attached so there'd be enough padding in his tail, spending 45 minutes slowly turning him right way out, then hand sewing his lines on and stuffing his head. Use felt, and sew him right side out. It will be about a million billion times easier. Even with the hand sewing.