Scrap-Buster Project #2 - Burp Cloths!

My recent absence has not been because I've had Button (I wish!), it's only been because I ran out of thread while working on my lattices quilt, and the store hasn't re-stocked the right colour yet since I cleaned them out last week, so I've been trying to come up with some new projects, but I'm really bad at committing, especially when I don't have that much of a fabric stash to play with.

Fancy burp cloths!

So today's project happened because I'd gone to get lots of nursing shirts at the local Mothercare and Kiddicare, and I happened to find some terrycloth nappies on sale, so I got a bunch because I'd seen some examples of burp cloths on Pinterest that looked really easy and fun. You can also probably use just a cheap bath towel or pre-fold nappies, or the Mio Bambino nappy inserts would probably be great too (and much less messy to work with!), but probably more expensive. So depends what you like and what you want the finished product to look like.

I didn't really use a pattern for this, so I'll just go through what I did. The finished size of my burp cloths were dictated mostly by my scrap sizes and by the size of the terrycloth nappies, but they're roughly about 7 x 20.5".

1. Cut out your fabric in 7.5 x 21" rectangles (or desired final size plus about 0.5" on each side for seam allowances). 

I used 2 terrycloth layers because I felt that just one layer wasn't thick enough, but I wasn't sure how my machine would handle 3 layers, so I decided to go for 2. If you like a thinner thickness, by all means layer them how you will. If you do decide to use more than one layer, as I did, I'd recommend sewing them together around the edges first, as otherwise the layers tend to move around and everything ends up squint.

2. With RIGHT sides together, pin your fabric to your terrycloth and trace the curved edges (I used the top of an ice cream container as my guide). 

I traced out the full shape in that picture because due to my lack of rotary cutter my pieces were by no means straight edged.

3. Sew around your tracings, making sure to leave a gap for turning, and then cut off the excess fabric.

I like to use pinking shears for cutting as I think it reduces fraying and excess bulk. However, be warned that if you're using terrycloth, you will get terrycloth 'droppings' EVERYWHERE. I was literally covered in tiny white bits of terrycloth after this. I need a decontamination zone between my crafting area and the rest of the house. Sorry husband dearest! :P

4. Turn burp cloth right side out, iron, and fold in the seam where the gap was, and then edge stitch around the whole thing.

5. Fold cloths into thirds, and sew 2 straight lines to divide it lengthwise into thirds. This makes it easier to fold the cloths, and also helps keep the layers in the right place.

There you have it! Easy as pie! I cranked out 5 of these in about 2 hours. It's really easy and requires minimal sewing skills. They'd make great baby shower gifts. You can also embellish them with ribbon or embroidery or appliqué or other things if you like, but these are just for me, so they're not perfect, they're a little wonky in places, and they're fairly plain. I have lots of leftover terrycloth, so I might make some more and try to fancy them up a bit, but we'll see if I can find some other creative uses for them first!

A stack of finished burp cloths! Tie together with some matching ribbon for a nice gift!

Scrap-Buster Project #1

Today is my first day of maternity leave. Yay! I decided rather than jump straight into my next quilt, I'd make a small project I'd seen on Pinterest awhile back - the Skinny Pincushion. It's adapted from a free pattern you can find on Green Bee Designs.

The Patch Smith's finished project - cute right?!

Basically it's a combination of a pincushion and a mat for underneath the sewing machine. I thought this would be particularly good as when I moved my sewing machine from the dining room table earlier (it's the only big enough table for sewing!) there were depressions in my nice new padded tablecloth, which I want to avoid in the future. Plus, as the table is really the only place in the house I can craft, it'll allow me to slide my machine around more easily as everything competes for table space.

This project is a perfect scrap buster. The pincushion itself really requires minimal amounts of fabric, and for the mat underneath you don't see it much, so you can just use really any old scrap. I happened to have a bunch of scraps left over from making a sewing machine cover, so I decided to make a matching/contrasting pincushion mat.

First, measure the base of your machine, or however big you want the underlying mat, and add 1/2" to each side for seam allowances. I used my new quilting and binding skills that I acquired from making my Stacked Coins Quilt, plus some of the leftover batting to make the underlying mat.

I just used a simple straight quilting, just because it's quick, and I didn't want it to be too lumpy underneath the machine. Now, the important part of the adaptation, which I didn't do properly and thus had to add extra fabric on - your pincushion should be WIDER than your mat. Otherwise it makes it a total pain to finish off at the end. So you need to make sure you add enough fabric to the template pieces to make this work. My finished width of the mat was about 33cm, so I should have made my pincushion about 35cm PLUS SEAM ALLOWANCE.

These are my original pieces, without extra fabric added on. Sew this right sides together along three sides (assuming you've measured correctly). Flip it right side out and sew one side to the mat with about 1/4" seam allowance (I recommend sewing the side you want to be the bottom first). For the second side, you can either sew it by hand to finish it off really nicely, or if you're like me you can just fold over and top stitch with the machine. Remember to leave a space unsewn to stuff it! I used just standard polyfiller. You want it to be really really full and firm so it holds the pins. I then stitched the rest closed. It probably would have been easier to do it by hand, but I'd already started at that point, so had to basically overstuff the middle part so I could then get the end under the presser foot. Then I had to sort of squish and knead the filler so it evened out a bit.

My finished project. It's a little bit wonky as my seams didn't quite line up - this is something that is a constant issue for me! The filler is also a little bit lumpy, but I'm hoping that as I use it the filler will even itself out over time. This will be perfect for when I'm removing pins during sewing, because I'm constantly leaving my other pincushion at the other end of the table or in the other room depending on where I'm doing my piecing.

This was a nice and easy morning project. I think in all it took me about 3 hours or so, with plenty of tea breaks! Now.... what's next?!