Tutorial for my weekend cosmetic bag (made from laminated fabric)

This Cosmetic Bag has been very helpful when I was traveling in the past two years - I use it for all my cosmetic as well as cleaning utensils (my shampoo, tooth brush, mascara, etc.). It is big enough to carry all the necessary items and therefore perfect for my weekend travels.
The best thing is that if I spill anything while traveling, I can clean this bag quickly: Ijust hold it under running water and clean it with a little bit of soap. 

What you will need:

·         Laminated cotton (width is 44”) for outer side: 12” for non directional prints, 18” for prints that need to be cut according to their pattern (e.g. when stripes need to run down and not across the bag)

·         Laminated cotton (width is 44") for inner side: 12” for non directional prints, 18” for directional prints

·         Zipper: at least 13" / 33cm (or longer)

·         Sewing Machine, rotary cutter or scissors, thread, about 2 hours

·         Read through the whole tutorial and make sure to understand all the steps before starting to cut and sew.

What you will need to cut from your outer fabric:

·         1 piece: 11 ½”  x 17 ½” / 29cm x 44cm (width x length for directional prints)

·         2 pieces: 4” x 7” / 10cm x 18cm (width x length for directional prints)

·         1 piece:   2 ½” x 4”  / 6cm x 10cm (only if your zipper is longer than 13”/33cm and needs to be cut to the correct length and then covered at the end)

What you will need to cut from your inner fabric:

·         1 piece: 11 ½” x 17 ½” / 29cm x 44cm

·         2 pieces: 7” x 4” / 18cm x 10cm

·         1 piece: 11” x 11 ½” / 28cm x 29cm

Seam allowances are ¼” or ½ cm.

1.        Take your inner piece (11” x 11 ½” / 28cm x 29cm) and sew the longer sides together using a ¼ “ or ½ cm seam allowance thus creating a tube that is 11 ½” / 29cm long. Press the seam open with your finger and turn inside out. 

2.        Position the seam you just created so it is in the middle of the rube and finger press the edges. Lay the part with the seam facing down on the middle of your bigger inner fabric rectangle (11 ½” x 17 ½” / 29cm x 44cm). Make sure the edges of the 11 ½” / 29cm long sides align.

3.        Pin in place. I used paper clips for that because needles will leave permanent marks and are also difficult to use on laminated fabric. Others have had success with gluing seam allowances in place or using hair pins.

4.        Now turn this piece around and draw two lines on the back of the rectangle. Both are supposed to be 2 ½” / 6 ½ cm from the middle line. Sew along these lines. Also make sure to secure the layers by sewing down on the seam allowances where the fabric pieces meet.

5.        Take a look from the right side.

6.        Now draw two lines down from one of the sewn lines to the edge. The spacing from the edges should be 3 ½” / 9 cm. This will create 3 pockets where you can store smaller objects later. If you prefer to keep one larger pocket then you are done with this step. If you prefer to have another three small pockets instead of one large pocket, repeat this step on the other side.

7.        Take a look from the right side.

8.        Take all your smaller rectangles and a round water glass or circle the width of these rectangles. Position the water glass on one side of a rectangle and align the edges. Now draw half way around the water glass and cut along this line so that all four rectangles now have a round edge on one side.

9.        Mark the middle of this rounded edge.

10.    Lay the middle of the round edge on the top of the middle of your finished larger rectangle (the one with the pockets). Start sewing them together slowly. You can use pins/ clips to put your fabric in place but it will be easier without.

11.    Just sew a few stitches, keep the needle down, align the layers in front of your sewing foot and sew a few stitches again. Don’t stretch your fabric.

12.    Don’t sew all the way to the edge of the smaller rectangle but instead stop 1” / 3cm before, leave your needle down, fold over the edge of the smaller rectangle to the left side about ¼” / ½ cm and the sew to the edge.

13.    Start from the middle again for the other side of this end of the cosmetic bag.

14.    Repeat step 10 to 13 for the other side.

15.    Repeat Step 10 to 14 for the outer fabric.

16.    You can chose to finger press your edges in direction to the bigger rectangle and then topstitch (from the left side) to make your seams stay in place better. But it really isn’t necessary.

17.    Now pin your zipper to the edge of your inner piece. Make sure to fold over ¼ “ / ½ cm to the left side just before the start and end of your zipper.

18.    Now sew in your zipper. Backstitch at the beginning and end.

19.    Take your outer piece and pin on top of inner piece aligning the edges along the zipper.

20.    After sewing turn the bag inside out.

21.    Topstitch along your edges, joining the loose pieces from your inner and outer fabric.

22.    If your zipper is too long for your cosmetic bag, then cut it to 13” / 33 cm now. If it is just long enough skip this step. If you don’t like the finish as seen on the first picture, skip the following steps, you have a finished bag.

23.    Take the small piece of fabric left and sew it to the cut end of the zipper, right side facing the left side (facing downwards) of the zipper. Align the end of the zipper with the 2 ½” / 6cm side of the fabric.

24.    Sew with ½” along this edge. 

25.    Now fold the fabric over this seam and the edge of the zipper. Fold the side edges inwards so that zipper is covered. Finger press the seams.

26.    Now take this small tube you created and fold it over twice. Stitch on top of it to secure your zipper end.

27.    Congratulations, you have a new cosmetic bag.

If you make a bag with this tutorial or have any questions, suggestions or improvements, please leave a comment.
You can find the printable version by clicking here. Make sure to set your settings to "fit to page" if you are not using a Din A4 paper format.

Thank you and have a wonderful start into the new week!

Johanna


Linking up with Monday Makers
 

Radiant orchid quilt challenge entry

Good morning!

Apparently I only post four times a year anymore :)  I keep thinking and hoping that will change but I guess it won't in the foreseeable future.
Well,  you are here for the pictures, so without ado:

 

 This one is huge, 2,3m x 1,9m (about 90" x 75") and it is made with Heather Bailey's Lottie Da. 

And thank you to my dear quilt holder, I know it is a very heavy quilt and telling you to hold it higher was not nice of me :) 

I originally only selected the orchidy fabrics but soon found that I prefered more balance and took the other colors in as well. It is more purple in real life, the pictures don't show them too well.

  

The pattern on the front is Camille Roskelley's Lucky, the star on the back after a tutorial found at Better of Thread. Two quilts in one, it seems like I just can't do "normal" quilts anymore.

I accidently made the star on the back too big so the front had to get another border. 

The quilting was made with a template because my sewing machine is determined to not let me fmq and I wanted something other then straight line stitching.

I am quite happy with how it turned out and am hoping that in time it will find a new owner because two quilts in my sleeping room is more than enough :)

What's your limit of quilts? Do you have one?

I am linking up to the radiant orchid challenge over at Play Crafts.

 
 Have a good day!

Greetings from Munich
Johanna

A new pillow

Hey everybody!

Long time no see :)

I haven't been particularly productive but I did manage to make this pillow for Lola during round three of the SWAP°PEN pillow swap. SWAP°PEN is a group for German quilters and it was so much fun to see all the pillows that other quilters made. 

 If you recall, I participated in round one and made this pillow.
Aylin is the mastermind behind this group and she organizes it all. I don't know how she does all she does, maybe she doesn't need sleep like the rest of us mortals :)

 

I had asked on Flickr if there was a need for a tutorial but I need to ask here again: would you like to see a tutorial for this pillow? It isn't traditionally nor paper pieced and doesn't use open edge or freezer paper applique, so I am guessing that my approach is a bit different that the one normally used in the quilting communinity.

Just let me know and I see if I can come up with one in december.

Picture taken by Lola

Have a good weekend!

Johanna

Updates and a quilt like fruit salad

Good morning everyone!

I hope your summer was fun! Mine was spent in libraries, conference rooms and my appartment and I couldn't be happier. My thesis is coming along, not as fast as I was hoping and not with the amazing results I was dreaming of but isn't it always like this?

I finished the quilt for my brother which I have been working on for quite some time. The letters were all made by my friends from Bee Europe so most of the work for one side was already done and I just had to deal with the other side. Oh, and quilting!(which looks quite adventurous in the pictures but in person, it is actually quite ok)

I think the colors look like fruit salad, so I might call it that way. Up until now, it was J.'s quilt but I am guessing he's ok with having a fruit salad quilt :)

Thank you to everyone who helped me with the survey and to everyone who is still reading this blog (even though I post something once in three months)! I would love to say that posting will get better but I still have one month on my thesis left and then there will be THE final exams... So blogging and sewing will most likely be at the end of my list for another 6 months.

On another note: I was planning some giveaways but haven't found the time for getting everything ready/taking pictures etc. so that will have to wait until after I am done (I know, another month!). Sorry! But I promise it will be fun!

Have a great weekend! What are you up to? I hope you find some time for sewing!

Johanna

More on my survey

An online newspaper wrote about my project (in portuguese! Scroll down to the next post to see me talk about it in English).

Si vous êtes ici pour le sondage sur les usages linguistique des jeunes d'origine portugaise in Luxembourg, cliquez ici pour le petit article sur mon projet (en portugais) et pour le sondage (en francais!).

Thanks a bunch to everyone!

Hope you are all having a great weekend!

Johanna

A cry for help

Today’s post is a bit different than usual.

As you all might know, I try to not talk about my personal life here; truth is that there is so much going on, I would not know where to start :)

But today I would like you to help me.

As some of you know, I am studying linguistics and sociology. More precisely: French, Spanish and Sociology.

Currently, I am finishing up my master’s degree and right now I focus all my energy on my master's thesis.

Together with my professor who I adore (because she is great!), I picked out a subject we both thought would be interesting to research and write about: language use of students at secondary schools with Portuguese background in Luxembourg.

Yes, at first sight that might look like another one of those scientific topics that everyone but the writer finds – well – boring but bare with me and you’ll see that it is actually quite interesting.

• First, we consider the overall linguistic situation in Luxembourg: throughout Europe we have countries that have exactly one language as their official language. All of Europe? Well, not entirely. One small country named Luxembourg has three! Yes, that means that children grow up with Luxembourgish, a dialect a bit similar to German, then German and then French. And since we are in Europe, we need at least one “normal” foreign language, which tends to be English.

Now, as a linguist, I adore that constellation!  Luxembourg is a small country, at least compared to Germany - which in turn is tiny compared to the states.

Of course, not all people who live in Luxembourg are trilingual but let’s just assume that this is the norm.

• Second, there are quite a bit of immigrants living in Luxembourg, in some regions up to 50%. Now it’s the turn of the sociologist in me to rejoice! How does a country manage to integrate that many people? Their cultural identity is in some cases very different from that of families who have lived in Luxembourg for generations. Other countries face a ton of problems regarding integration but apparently, Luxembourg seems to deal with it just fine.

• Third, immigrants from the same country seem to always form a community when living abroad. I know quite some German communities in Spain and some friends live next to a Turkish one in Germany. They deal with language and cultural issues on their own and help each other. On the other hand that doesn’t really facilitate integration for their children. Now, the Portuguese communities seem to not have that problem at all. There are a lot of Portuguese organizations in Luxembourg but students seem to succeed in school like any other trilingual raised students. Even though they are probably learning four languages just for their daily life.

Now, I already have trouble with my four languages and this already includes English (for students with Portuguese background that would be five languages!) so I can’t really imagine that those students still use and practice their Portuguese.

And this is where my thesis comes into play. Some studies suggest that Portuguese is well alive within Portuguese communities in Luxembourg but those studies were made among adults. But what about their children?

Now, I need your help!

If you (or someone you know) know anyone who is Portuguese or lives in Luxembourg (or both! Yay!), would you please show him/her this entry/the link below and ask them to ask them to invite anyone they can think of?

You can find the survey here (in French because I don’t speak Portuguese) : https://fr.surveymonkey.com/s/portugais

Once I get results I can use for my thesis (hopefully in about a month), there will be a massive celebration here on this blog (with quite a lot of giveaways). Hope you are having a great week and thank you, thank you, thank you!

Xo, Johanna

Dani's Quilt

Hello everybody,

a few weeks ago I got an email from a reader saying that she had used my tutorial for the diamond quilt to make her daughter a quilt. I took one look at the pictures and just had to ask her if she was okay with me posting them here.

Dani is such a talented quilter and sewer and put together the most amazing color combination. The quilt is just perfect for spring (which is what we seem to be having right now) and I am sure that Dani's daughter will forever love her first quilt! I know I would!
If you love the quilt (and her model!) as much as I do please tell Dani so in the comments; she doesn't have a flickr account or blog but I am hoping that we will get to see more from her in the future :)

I hope you are all having a great day!

Johanna