Snack bag tutorial


Ok, yes, there are a million snack bag tutorials out there. But after I borrowed one of my friend’s I knew I had to reverse engineer it and make some up myself. I haven’t seen a pattern quite like this out there, so I thought I’d post a little tutorial. I’m not going to lie; once I finally figured out the construction of this thing I felt like a FREAKING GENIUS and may have shoved snack bags in everyones faces. So much so that when I started saying, “I have something to show you…” my crafty friends would say, “um, it’s not that snack bag is it?” Obviously I’ve exhausted everyone around here with them, so now it’s time to show all of you!
The bags are about 6.5 x 7 inches finished (and closed). To start you need two pieces of fabric both measuring 8 x 16.5 inches. One piece is going to be a fun quilting cotton and the other waterproof fabric. I know the easiest of that stuff to find is PUL, commonly used in cloth diapers covers, but I found that did not work great. For being waterproof yes, but it made the bags kind of poofy and made the one step (ironing the edge over) very difficult. I found some random waterproof fabric at Fabric Depot in their outdoor sale area. Of course this means it wasn’t marked, but basically one side is plastic lined and waterproof, and the other is a little shimmery. At two bucks a yard I decided to give it a try and it worked great. I know the Rain Shed in Corvallis also has lots of waterproof fabric (and they sell online).
Also a 6.5 inch piece of 5/8 inch Velcro. And a fun bit of ribbon for the tab (I love jacquards for this).

One edge of each fabric needs to be ironed under, about 3/8 an inch (I watched my temp here with the plastic lined fabric). The most important thing is that it is the same amount. For this project the non-plastic side of the waterproof material is the “right” side. It should feel more fabric like, that is the side your food will touch, not the actual plastic lining on the “wrong” side.

Next sew on the Velcro. On the print sew the rough/grippy side of the velcro about 1 1/4 inches down from the fold you just ironed. On the waterproof fabric sew the soft side of the Velcro about 3/8 inch from the non-folded edge.

Next is the crazy part. They way you sew the layers together is one of those magic things. Fold each layer so that the right sides are touching (print right side to print right side and waterproof right side to waterproof right side). The ironed folds must line up and the soft velcro must stick up (about an inch and a half).

I hope this picture makes it a little more clear.

If you want a ribbon tab add it now before you pin!

Pin all the way around the three raw edges. This is where you will sew, about 3/8″ in from the edge. I double back at the start and stop. So in this picture you start at the bottom left and sew all the way up and over the top, and back down the other side. Snip the corners and turn inside out.
I forgot to take a picture of the top stitching you’ll need to do over the folded edges you ironed earlier. It will be completely obvious where this needs to happen when you flip the bag around.

Finished bag! The main difference (that I really like) between this bag and other snack bag tutorials is that the Velcro is hidden, and not just at the top of the bag (if you like that style here is a good tutorial for that type). Also using a thin waterproof material works well here since it gets folded over and is the top of the bag.

(opened so you can see the place you need to top stitch)
Easy to care for too. Simply turn inside out to wash. You can dry these, but it really depends on your waterproof material, so be careful on temperature. Otherwise just hang to dry. If they are just full of crumbs inside I simply rinse/wipe them out when I’m doing dishes.

And yes, I have made a lot of these bags. I’m thinking filled with homemade crackers for Christmas presents? Let’s just say if you know me, chances are you’re getting one.

Happy Birthday!

Did you think I meant a little baby? Hehehe, nope. But I have been doing a lot of pre-baby prep that has nothing to do with baby. Like stock piling cards. I made a bunch of my new go-to thank you cards, and decided to whip up some birthday cards too. My computer is, sadly, in pieces, so I’m typing this up on my little presentation laptop I use with clients and I’m not too sure of colors so if things look wacky, well, you’ve been warned.

I am loving this glitter paper from American Crafts, called POW! It is super thin and easy to punch and Tuesday and I totally fought over this blue piece when we were scrapbooking together. I caved and gave her a chunk of it because it doesn’t shed glitter at all and is actually thin enough for her to cut (she has a mini trimmer in her “stash” and a pair of safety scissors). Did I mention that I gave up a drawer in my craft room so she could have her own stash. I am the nicest mom EVER.

Also I found this easel in Grandpa’s stuff when we were getting ready for the garage sale. It’s so cute and little and I totally love it. I wonder why he had it?

The labels are from Martha’s line at Staples (thanks Sarah!), which I ran through my typewriter. My desk looks totally old school with a massive typewriter sitting there instead of a computer. I am actually getting a lot done with out it though. Like some actual layouts (these were the scraps). I do wish I had it to get caught up on Project Life though. I’m afraid if I don’t before the baby I am in trouble.
Do you stock pile cards, or other handmade things? I love doing this because it’s so much easier to get things done all at once rather than pulling out all your supplies for one card.

The (new) Baby Blanket

I thought it would be nice to make something up specifically for this baby. I have lots of wonderful handmade things that the baby will use, but almost all are hand me downs from Tuesday’s time as a little one. I don’t think there is anything wrong with that at all, and it has made prep much easier, but I figured something special just for this summer baby would be wonderful.

I was VERY inspired by this quilt from Blue Elephant Stitches. In fact she has an Etsy shop and I thought about just ordering one from her, but my stash is seriously too big to justify that (however if you’re not a quilter and want an adorable heirloom check out her site!). So I decided on the same type of big log cabin blocks with fabric from my stash.

I even used a little bit of old clothing and some vintage sheets. I love how it turned out (it’s about 55 inches square). I loved the rainbow of fabrics so much I decided to piece them in color order down the back.

Here is a little better view of them:

It’s a little hard to tell how I quilted it from these pictures, but I just did simple squares of various sizes around each block. I also did a big grid going through the edges of the nine blocks.

The one thing I did have to buy was binding fabric. I had my heart set on stripes and I just couldn’t find anything that was right. I tried ordering a few different multi-colored stripes on line, but nothing worked. Sciarrino picked me up a blue stripe at Fabric Depot, but it wasn’t quite right. I finally found this when I went to A Common Thread. I wanted to point that out because I had no idea they had such cool fabric. It’s not the biggest place, but a well curated collection I would say.
I want to do a quilt like this again. It came together super quickly and I love using the center of the blocks to show off prints or fussy cut something. Also I used plain white flannel as the batting. Not only is the quilt lightweight, but I didn’t even baste it because the flannel is so grippy to the fabric.
Ah and this reminds me, thank you for the sewing machine advice. I have my heart set on a Bernina now. I’m looking for an older used one, at least to have as a back up, and am going to wait to see what they come out with later this summer (and how much sewing time I get in with two kids!) to make a decision on something bigger for quilting specifically. I used my mom’s Pfaff to quilt this and it went pretty well.
 

Nailed it!

Oh man. Have you seen those so funny “nailed it!” posts on craft fail? With Pinterest I go into every project with a lot of inspiration and quite a bit of expectation too. So when I decided to whip up a couple of easy chocolate covered bananas I thought, no problem! How hard could they be?

(source: epicurious)

Oh my goodness this was so hilarious. Tuesday and I went about prepping. Her sweetly smashing peanuts and testing sprinkles while I slowly and carefully melted chocolate and butter in my double boiler. And then it all started to go wrong. The chocolate started “seizing” and I quickly added cream, which made it into a kind of fudge. After attempting to dip the frozen banana halves I decided to just grab handfuls of the chocolate and try to smoosh it onto the bananas. I gave a few to Tuesday to try and decorate but everything was happening too fast. I had to stop and write down what Tuesday was saying while she watched me perplexed.

“You’re just cooking with your big belly.”

“I think you should let papa do this part.”

“Mama, you don’t need to bake. You can just relax.”

and my favorite

“Why is that poop on the floor?”

Holy cow it was funny. I did put them back into the freezer and try one during rest time. I’m not going to lie, I think the only reason I finished it was because I was craving the banana chocolate combo and couldn’t let the idea go. It was bad. Not as bad as Magic Mike (but that’s another story). So in case you’ve ever thought all my projects turn out great over here you can rest assured that is not the case. I can not bake, and apparently candy making is out of my future too. Have you had a crazy craft fail? Embrace the hilarity and tell us about it!

Sunset Spin

I have had this fiber on the bobbins for so long! I found a picture of the fiber (at least I think this is it!) from September of 2009, but no pictures of me spinning it up.

Luckily I was obsessed with keeping track of my stash in Ravelry at this time so I know it’s 8 ounces of Corridale wool from Sunset Fibers. Maybe this was a gift from Carmen? I can’t remember. But I love the juicy colors. I actually had spun up this fiber, all that I needed to do was ply it. I had to put on my jumbo bobbin and head to ply so that must have been what was stopping me. Well Bj put it on for me the other day and I plied this stuff up. It’s soft and squishy and I love it! It turned out to be striping, at least a little bit I think, so I might have to do something for the baby.

Ideas? I think it will knit up well on size sevens, so a bit of bulky something probably.

Another banner day!

Oh man, I’m addicted to these sweet skirts! I want to make one for myself, but Sciarrino told me she was a bit unsure about that; maybe with more mellow fabrics. Until then I’ll work through every little girl I know, starting with the birthday girls for this month.

For a two year old and six year old. They don’t know each other, so I decided to save time and make up two similar ones. I don’t have the girls’ exact measurements so I used this great chart. It’s actually part of a wonderful charity sewing project going on right now called Skirting the Issue. Click on the link to find out more info. Basically Project Run and Play is working on getting as many people to donate skirts to local foster care agencies as possible. You know foster care is dear to my heart so I love this. I haven’t had a chance to make any skirts for this drive, but hopefully I will soon!
Back to my skirts. I made them exactly as before, with Jill’s 60 degree template. I made one special triangle on my god-daughter’s skirt. It’s out of the same fabric from a dress I made her when she was one. Ah time flies. There is also a triangle to match the initials on the shirt I made to coordinate with the skirt.

I used my Silhouette to cut the letters out of fabric (after I ironed on lite heat and bond on the back). I haven’t done this in a while and I finally remembered to try interfacing behind the letters before I sewed them on. NIGHT AND DAY. Oh my goodness it is so much easier to sew around them like this! I just used a scrap of lightweight interfacing behind the letters, but I think they make special tear off stuff too. I want to make up another shirt for the other little girl, but haven’t found a great tee-shirt yet. I scored the striped one above at the Rack for five bucks. Even though it’s a 7/8 I almost kept it for Tuesday. It’s so soft!
I swear I’ll try some other skirt pattern soon…
 

Mint Chocolate Chunk Ice Cream

I made ice cream again! I got a sweet little Cuisenart ice cream maker for my bridal shower and haven’t used it a whole lot (it was like this, which it doesn’t look like Cuisenart makes, so I’d guess this is the most similar thing they have out now). I’ve made a couple sorbets and more than a couple frozen cokes, but as far as cooking ice cream and doing it right like that, no. Tuesday was playing with my Ice Cream card deck and I decided to make up some strawberry ice cream with her. We did it at my mom’s and she was very focused on her strawberry crushing, so it was a good first ice cream activity. And the results were yummy! As I mentioned I made a bunch of granola and ended up with egg yolks, from Erin’s girl’s eggs no less, so I couldn’t let them go to waste. I decided on a mint chocolate chunk ice cream, but the directions in the card deck were way wrong and I wanted to use ingredients I had, like the fresh mint in my yard, so I made up my own.

This was almost a double batch for my ice cream maker (it’s a 1.5 quart).
1.5 cups half and half
1.5 cups whole milk
1.5 cups heavy whipping cream
2 large handfulls of mint leaves
3/4 cup sugar
6 egg yolks
1 large bar Ghiradelli bittersweet chocolate, chopped
I got a very cute glass double boiler on my thrifting weekend with Sciarrino so I used that to slowly heat up the milk, half and half, and whipping cream, along with the mint leaves. I didn’t do anything to the mint leaves, besides rinsing them, just tossed them in with the dairy and slowly kept mixing everything together. The water in the double boiler was just about to a full boil, a little more than simmering. While that was happening (takes forever), I whisked up the eggs and added the sugar. After the dairy was all warm I took a cup out and whisked it into the egg/sugar mixture. Then I pulled out all the leaves with tongs and put them into a mortar and pestle. I added the egg mixture back to the dairy and let that get warm again (stirring occasionally).
With the mortar and pestle I ground up the leaves a bit, and poured the resulting minty goodness back in as well. After all the liquid was poured out I went ahead and squeezed the left over part of the mint right over the double boiler and got a lot more mint flavor in. This all worked well as the ice cream tastes really minty with out having to use any extract.
The mixture is done cooking when it coats the back of a spoon and is custardy. Then you put it into a waiting ice bath (float a stainless steal bowl in a bowl full of ice water) and let it cool down. Put it in the fridge to chill, then add to ice cream maker. I had to do it in two batches, but it worked out well, and I did it without re-freezing the bowl between, I just worked quickly. The last minute of each batch I added some of the chocolate to mix it in.
*Tip! I never let the bowl get all the way unfrozen. I just wash it out with hot soapy water immediately after use and then dry it completely. I stick it back into the freezer and it’s ready to go in a lot less time than it would be if you set it out and let it defrost completely.

After an overnight in the freezer it was ready to eat (probably would have been done sooner, but this was a late night project). When we got to my mom’s for the forth of July Bj said, “I thought you were going to bring that ice cream.” Um, no, this is for the food stash!

Bernina? Sewing machine help!

Remember when I got my Babylock and was so in love with it? I’m sorry to say but I FREAKING HATE THAT MACHINE. I had so many issues with it, that after taking it in SEVEN times the dealer finally admitted they couldn’t fix it and gave me a new (but same model) one about three months ago. I’m sorry to say the new one isn’t much better. It’s not that this one is faulty, like I believe the other one was, but just that it does not sew to my liking. The stitches are not straight, the tension is always an issue, and basically I’m so over this machine. Insert major sad face here because I was sure this was going to be my lifetime machine. I remember my mom’s Kenmore, she had it for 20 years. I told the dealer that is what I wanted, a machine I could have for years. That is NOT what I got. To confirm my suspicions I sat with a repair person at another shop and had them watch me sew for over an hour. I was hoping I did something crazy that made my machine act they way it did. Sadly no, I do not have any bad sewing habits. I mean that’s good, but it would have been one thing for me to fix some way I sew, and another for me to get a “new” machine, which is what I’m looking into now.
The staff at the new place I went basically said I’ve outgrown my machine and they suggested a Bernina if I wanted something really solid. I’ve been hearing this from my quilt guild members too. My mom’s friend has a couple of Berninas and was sweet enough to lend me this 20 year old beauty to try out:

I do NOT want to give this machine back!!! The thing sews like a dream! It is so smooth, and the tension is dreamy.

People I had white thread in that bobbin, WHITE. Let me tell you this is not possible with my machine at all.
So I have a few questions. Do you have a machine that you love? What is it? If it’s a Bernina what the heck is the difference between all the models? I’m almost ready to get a used one of these, but I would love more room to quilt. I’m not going to get one right away. I’m a little unsure what to do with/about my Babylock. I still have a year to go on the service contract, and hate to waste that. But the frustration I feel with the thing just escalates! I’d love any advice or input about it. I’m going to see how much time I have to sew after baby comes, I’m guessing not as much as now! So I might wait a while if that’s the case, but I’d love to know what my options are and be on the lookout for good used models.
Thank you, thank you!