Travel in style part 1: How to make a comfortable eye mask

With vacation time approaching, it is time to organize trips, be it by car, train, plane or other. I would often like to sleep while travelling, but daylight is a major reason I hardly ever succeed to actually do so. I tried several eye masks, but they were uncomfortable, touching the closed eyes, or even putting preasure on them.
Let me show you below, how to make yourself an eye mask that will not touch the lid of the closed eye, but that will fit nicely around it leaving it free from preasure, and that's therefore a lot more comfortable to wear than most of the commercial variety.
By the way, click here for the tutorial for a matching cover for inflatable neck cushions or here for custom fit neck cushions (will be online soon).

I will use cotton fabric and fluffy polyester batting plus some dark fabric (inside the mask) to make sure, light doesn't filter through.

First prepare your template, cut the shape from paper, and start with a bigger piece slowly cutting it to the correct size for your face. When your are satisfied with your template, place it on the wrong side of the fabric and trace the exact size of the template (the line is where you will be sewing later).

Turn the template around and trace a second, mirrored image. Cut both pieces adding the seamallowance in the process.
Cut one piece of batting following the same procedure.
You can cut your dark fabric in the same way, or simply use a big enough strip from your scraps as I did.

Additionally you will need: two 2 inch wide strips of your fabric, elastic and velcro dots. The two strips will be joined to the sides of the mask in order to fix it to your head.

Start by ironing the two strips in half lengthwise, wrong side outside.

Then close the long side of the strip sewing a straight seam close to the edge.

Now close one of the short edges, fixing the elastic into the seam.
Then turn the strip out through the opening so that the right side of the fabric faces out and the elastic is inside the tube. Cut the elastic to the correct length for your head (plus seam allowance for sewing it to the mask and about 1cm for the velcro dot) , push the excess fabric onto the elastic and fix the end of the elastic to the end of the fabric tube with a safety pin (so that the elastic doesn't disappear into the tube).

Sew the velcro dot to the closed end of the strip.

Prepare the second strip in the same way.

Now prepare your layers placing the batting on the table, the strip of dark fabric on top, then one of the fabric pieces right side up, followed by the two strips, with the whole strip and closed tip with velcro dot inside the mask and only the raw edges just outside the seam and finally the second piece of fabric right side down.

Here is a detail of how to place the strips:

When all layers are in place, pin everything together and sew all pieces together right on the line you traced on the back of your fabric (the last layer of fabric is facing wrong side up so the line should be right there for you to follow).

Leave a short opening on top of the mask and fix the stitching at the beginning and the end with a few backstitches.

Turn the mask inside out through the opening and close the opening with blindstitches.

The mask is practically ready, but, as most others, it touches the closed eyelids when your wear it. To avoid that, put the mask on and feel where exactly your eyes are. Trace a circle (with a suitable removable pen) where it touches your eyes.

In order to flatten the area for your eyes simply quilt the circles. You can do spirals or any other pattern you like to quilt just the area you circled.

In the quilted area, the layers are compressed while outside the mask is larger and fluffy. If you quilted the right area, the mask will no longer touch your eyes and be much more comfortable to wear.

 Have you made a project following this tutorial? Let me know what you think. Did you like it? Was it easy to understand and to follow? Do you have any suggestions?
Write a comment or send me an email using the contact form at the bottom of the page.


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How to make an english-pieced grandmother's garden mug rug

Today, for a change, I will show you how to make a small project that is done manually. English piecing is a way of hand paper piecing that uses simple shapes (mostly hexagons, diamonds or triangles) to create beautiful effects achieved through the choice of fabric. Today we will make the pattern called "grandmother's garden" that is made entirely of hexagons.

As you can see what we will construct is a flower made of hexagons.

You will need:
two fabrics for the top
fabric for backing
thin batting with one fusible side or thicker fusible interfacing with one fusible side
paper
scissors
pencil
needles
basting thread
sewing thread
a paper clip

First you need to prepare your templates. You can either prepare and print them on the computer or use a stencil to trace them on paper. Cut 7 hexagons of exactly the same size.

 The stencil is an advantage if you have larger scale prints and want to fussy cut your pieces (for more information on fussy cutting, click here).

Now prepare the center piece with the fabric of your choice. Place your template onto the fabric and cut the shape with seam allowance on all sides.

Place the template in the center of the fabric piece, fold over the seam allowance on one side and pin in place with a paper clip.

Fold the seam allowance on the following side over and start basting the piece fixing the corner first.

Continue to baste all the way around the piece, folding all corners in the same direction. Start basting from the right side of the fabric, leaving a knot visible on the front and leave a longer thread without knot at the end, like this it will be easier to get the basting out later.

Continue by preparing another 6 pieces for the flower petals using the fabric of your choice.

Now it's time to join the hexagons. Take the center piece and one adjoining piece and place them right side on right side. With a coordinated thread sew the two pieces together using a whipstitch on one side only. Fix the thread at the beginning with a knot that you hide inside the fabric folds.

At the end fix the thread with one backstitch and one knot (make second backstitch and put the needle and thread through the loop of the stitch).

Then proceed to attach the following piece in the same way. You will now be able to sew two sides of the new hexagons at once, attaching it to the center piece as well as to the adjoining piece with one seam. The last piece will be attached to three pieces in order to finish the flower.

Attach all pieces until the flower is finished.

To finish the mug rug place the top on fusible interfacing (fusible side down and right side of top up) and trace the outline. Cut the interfacing along the traced line.

If, like me, your piece of interface isn't big enough, you can join two pieces. Just place them side by side and then sew them together (I use the sewing machine) with a special stitch, if your  machine has one, or a zigzag that goes once into one piece and then into the next.
 

Now iron the interfacing onto the wrong side of the backing fabric.

Then cut the shape adding a 1/4 inch / 0,6cm seam allowance all the way around.

Now make small cuts on the backing from the edge to just before the interfacing so that you will be able to fold the seam allowance over onto the front of the fusible interfacing as shown below.

Then take the top and take all basting threads and paper templates out.

When done place backing and top right side on right side and pin together, opening the seam allowance so that you will be able to follow the fold as it shows you where the seam should go.

sew all the way around (you can do this by machine if you prefer) leaving an opening of about 5 cm. Fix the seam at beginning and end.

Now turn the rug inside out through the opening and close the gap with a simple blindstitch.

Quilt as desired, I quilted "in the ditch" following the seams between the hexagons.

And here's your finished mug rug.

If you want to make a bigger project, simply add more hexagons. You can either keep on going in circles around the center or join different flowers to each other, with or without a common background (simply add a background hexagons between all flowers),  to create all kinds of effects. Or you can abandon the flower and create other stunning effects, just use your imagination.


Have you made a project following this tutorial? Let me know what you think. Did you like it? Was it easy to understand and to follow? Do you have any suggestions?
Write a comment or send me an email using the contact form at the bottom of the page.

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How to make a garden seat cushion

Today let me show you how to make seat cushions for your garden chairs.

 

First you need to measure the seating surface of your chair. Mine measure 18.5 x 21 in.

Therefore I will need a square of the same size of batting and two squares of of my fabric.

I want the cushions to be a bit more fluffy, and thus, instead of just using one layer of batting, I will use two.


I want these cushions to match the tablecloth you see in the picture below, and as I couldn't find the same fabric, I settled with a fabric that has the same colours but a completely different design.

If you want to be able to fix the cushions onto the chairs, cut 4 strips measuring 25 x 2 cm and iron them in half lengthwise.

Then sew the strips closed on one short and the long side and turn it inside out through the opening on the remaining short side.

To turn this thin strip inside out I use a pin with a bigger round head and push it between the two fabrics into the seam at the tip that has been closed.

Then I start moving the needle downwards inside the tube, so that the head grips the end and pulls it through.

In the beginning carefully move the folds over the head of the pin. You will find that after the first inch has been turned over, the pin will slip through easily.

Let the pin slide out through the tube and iron it flat.


Now it's time to assemble the cushion.

 Place the layers of batting on the table, then place the first fabric piece on top right side up and then add the second piece of fabric right side down. Place two strips, one next to the other, with the raw edges just outside the cushion between the two layers of fabric (the right sides of the fabric pieces will be outside, as will the strips if you place them between these two layers), on the side of the cushion you want to be close to the backrest of your chair, near one corner and the other two in the same way, close to the other corner.

Pin the layers together and sew a straight seam all the way around, starting near the middle of one side and leaving an opening of about 4inches. Fix the seam at the beginning and the end with a couple of backstitches. Clean the edges cutting away all excess fabric and batting and leaving just the seamallowance.

Now turn the cushion inside out through the opening so that the batting is inside and both pieces of fabric are right side out.

Close the opening using a blindstitch and thus finish your cushion.

Have you made a project following this tutorial? Let me know what you think. Did you like it? Was it easy to understand and to follow? Do you have any suggestions?
Write a comment or send me an email using the contact form at the bottom of the page.


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How to make an embellished guest towel

Today I want to show you how to make another quick and easy project that makes a great gift or decoration for your bathroom.

All you need is a towel and one or two fabrics for the embellishment.

First measure your towel. Mine is 15.5 inches wide. Therefore my main fabric needs to be 2 to 3 inches wider and so I cut an 18 x 8.5 in rectangle (finished height of the strip will be 8 inches). For the ruffles on the bottom cut a strip that is twice as long as your towel is wide and twice as high as you want your ruffles to be plus 1/2 an inch for seam allowance. My strip is 32x4 inches. To figure out the right height of your main fabric and the ruffles lay your towel on the table and place the fabrics on it. Measure the heights when you like the proportions and remember to add seam allowance. You can match fabrics like I did or just use one fabric for both pieces.

Start by ironing the long strip in half lengthwise.

Then sew two parallel lines of straight stitches at at least 4 to 5 stitch length close to the rough edges.

Now use the bobbin threads on both sides to ruffle the fabric until it is of the same length as your rectangle (for more information on how to make ruffled strips have a look at this tutorial).

When done pin your ruffled strip to a long side of the rectangle right side to right side and sew in place.
Remove the two parallel stitchings you used for ruffling the strip.

Iron the seam allowance of the rectangle towards the inside on the remaining three sides.

Place the rectangle on your towel right side up and pin it in place. Make sure that the seam attaching the ruffles is covered by the towel and wrap the remaining fabric on both sides around the edge of the towel.  

Sew the rectangle in place with a simple straight stitch close to the edge all the way around the whole piece and fix your seam at the beginning and at the end with a couple of backstitches.

 When done fold the edge of the ruffles into a hem so that the raw edge is hidden inside the double fold and stitch closed.

 I like to use matching threads and therefore match the colour of the upper thread with the the fabric on the front and the bobbin thread with the towel on the back. 

 Here are two more examples
 of finished towels.






Have you made a project following this tutorial? Let me know what you think. Did you like it? Was it easy to understand and to follow? Do you have any suggestions?
Write a comment or send me an email using the contact form at the bottom of the page. 


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