A Sunday afternoon in Fall

We're on Fall break right now.
The weather's not really with us this time: rain, wind, cold, more rain.
Enough reasons to stay inside and make a craft or two, or to read a good book maybe.

Any good book recommendations?

Denim snack bag :: a recycling project

I'm maybe not very original with this project. You can find tutorials for this kind of (snack) bags everywhere on the net. Derived from the paper brown bag, they're very simple to make. When using old pants, however, they're even simpler to make, is what I thought.

I used an old pair of jeans, which were ripped at the knees, and let's face it, which also got a little too tight around the waist... For the strap, I used a thin, orange leather, partly torn belt (the top and bottom layers got separated beyond repair this time).

The project is kind of straightforward and summarized in the pictures below. I probably won't use my bag as a snack bag but rather as a make-up bag. The second leg will be transformed in a similar way, and will hold our adapters, cell phone loaders etc. when traveling.

Just one remark before you get started: the size of the bag obviously is determined by the width of the pants' legs. Hence, I do not recommend using slim pants. Straight leg pants and boot cuts, however, are just perfect for the job!


You will need: an old pair of pants, an old belt, needle and thread, and a sewing machine (although you could do this project entirely by hand).



Instructions:

1. Cut off one leg, just below knee, with adult size pants, about 40cm.

2. Prepare your belt by cutting the following:

- one strap of about 10 cm, buckle included and still attached

- another strap of about 40 cm, starting to measure from the other extremity of the belt (so this part has the holes)

- two strips of about 3cm, each.

3.  Turn the leg inside out. Since the bottom seam will become the top of the bag, we will close the other end. Insert the belt part with buckle, at that end, making sure it's positioned right in the middle. Close the seam, and run a zigzag stitch to prevent fraying.

4. Make boxed corners as shown.

5. Attach the other strap, nicely centered in the back. To make the sewing easier, prepare the leather by making holes using an awl. Next, add the short strips with a couple of stitches. If you're smart, unlike me, you attach the strap and strips before sewing the bottom seam...

And that's it! Hope you like it...

Cheers,

P.

PS: If you made something using a tutorial found on this blog or if you got inspired by something you found here, make sure to post your pictures here.

Folded leather basket :: a minimalistic DIY

I love minimalism, as I truly believe less is more.
I have always loved geometry.
I love figuring out how things are built.

Lately I have been drawn into building shapes, going from something flat to something three dimensional and functional with the least steps involved. The teddy bear key chain is one example.

So, when I came across this fabulous basket and DIY on Pinterest, I couldn't get to my craft's table fast enough. In no time, I made a bunch of leather mini baskets based on the same principle, but instead of using a hexagon I made use of squares. And leather - what else!?



This is an easy and fast craft, which requires minimal supplies:
a (small) piece of leather, a hole punch, rivets and rivet setter, a cutting tool, and a ruler and pencil.

Now if you don't have access to leather, try using heavy weight felt as in the original tutorial, or use foam sheets. Or with the holidays just ahead of us why not try making some baskets out of nice and heavy card stock, replacing the rivets with eyelets or brads. These baskets would make perfect packaging for those homemade cookies.

Before you get started and especially when using precious materials like leather, I recommend making a paper version first, just to make sure you got the dimensions right.

I made two sizes of baskets:
- a 15 cm square results in a 7 x 7 x 4 cm basket
- a 10 cm  square results in a 5 x 5 x 2,5 cm basket

To give you a rough idea: one of the larger baskets is holding (part of my) washi tape collection and the other one a bunch of large paper clips. The small one holds quite an amount of small paperclips. 



Instructions:

1. Make a paper template or download the template here.
2. Cut the leather and make the diagonal incisions as shown (for a 15 cm square, cut 6cm diagonals; for a 10cm square this would be 4cm diagonals)
3. Punch 4 holes as shown in the picture and template.
4. Set rivets (I found the table corner to be very useful for this, but make sure to protect your table appropriately). Shape your basket by inserting the two remaining flaps.

Animal Key Chain :: DIY

Last week, while I was working on the leather key holder, I had an aha-moment. On top of one of H's birthday presents, last summer, sat a cute 3D card stock bear head/tag. Because I thought it was so cute I rescued the little bear from the recycling bin and it'd been sitting on my desk ever since. Until last week, that is.



All of a sudden, I new what I wanted to do with it - make a replica in leather and use it to hang on a key chain. And that's exactly what I did. I tweaked the design here and there and even came up with a little fellow critter. So easy to make and according to my girls very cute (do I need to tell the little critters have been claimed already ?).



Use sturdy leather for this project (I used low grade but rather stiff leather for mine). Besides leather, you will also need a (leather) needle and thread, an eyelet and eyelet setter, and a key ring. Skip the sewing and have your little ones decorate their bear or dog head with markers, if you like. Punch a couple of holes for the eyes. To keep everything together and give the head its 3D shape, slam an eyelet through the top as shown in the template, attach a king ring and you're done.

 

Wouldn't these make cute party favors? Or how about making a whole bunch of them to decorate your Christmas tree. And if you're good at drawing (which I'm not), try making different animal heads. If you do so, feel free to post them in my Flickr group - I'd love to see which animals you come up with!

Note: if you can't find leather, try using other materials like vinyl, or foam sheets, heavy weight felt, ... as long the material used has a certain stiffness this should work!

Leather key chain holder :: a tutorial

 

Quite some time ago, I got M. a cute leather key chain. The design was very simple. What made it special was the combination of materials: leather and rubber, and the color: tomato red. I immediately regretted I only bought one and of course when I went back they were all gone. A good reason to try to make something similar myself. It took me a while before I found the time, but this week I finally got to it. I made several in different colors and color combinations. Since they're really easy to make, I decided to share this project with a short how-totutorial. It's a perfect beginner's project for sewing leather on the machine.

Here's what you need:

- small pieces of leather (or faux leather or any other material which doesn't fray)
- (leather) shoe lace, ribbon, ...
- key ring
- 2 metal eyelets + setting tool
- hole punch
- adhesive hemming tape or vliesofix
- rotary cutter, scissors, cutting mat
- sewing machine, equipped with a special leather sewing needle
- iron



Instructions:

1. Print and cut out the template, which you can download here.
Note: the precise dimensions are given on the template. Make sure the scale of the print-out corresponds to the measurements given, before cutting leather.
2. Trace template on the back of the leather and cut (x2).
3. Punch holes in each piece according to template.
4. Set eyelets.
5. Cut small strips of hemming tape and iron onto one of the two cut pieces. The hemming tape will keep the pieces into place while sewing. Remove paper strips. Position the second piece on top of the first one - make sure to align precisely and iron into place. Next stitch the two layers together, about 0.5cm from the edge. Trim edges if necessary.
Note: (i) if you work with leather pieces of different thickness, iron the tape onto the thickest quality.
 (ii) ironing leather: test on a piece of scrap first or use a cloth to protect leather from the heat of the iron.
6. Thread shoelace through the eyelets while slipping on ring. Attach keys and done!

Optional: you can add a closure at the bottom, if you like (snap closure, button, ...).

Note: From the comments and messages I received, I realize I should have explained how to use this key holder. The design is such that you can wear it around the neck - the keys don't show as the leather pouch covers them. To get to the keys, just slip the leather cover up while still wearing or take off and give the holder a shake so the keys come down... I hope this helps!

As with all of my tutorials, please note, this tutorial is intended for personal use only. Thanks for understanding! 

If you made something using a tutorial found on this blog or if you got inspired by something you found here, make sure to post your pictures here.

Leather and other thoughts

People who have been following // Between the lines // over the years, know I like to work with leather and have integrated it into many of my crafts. It started with small pieces of leather found here and there but over time, as I gained confidence (or so I thought), I also started buying bigger pieces, and by bigger I mean real stretches of cow hides and pig skins and whatever animal skins.
This has resulted in a stash that gets more and more difficult to store or to 'hide' (oh, this is so lame!).
Once in awhile, I'll take out my stash just to look at it and feel it, smell it, but also to think about all the wonderful things I could make from it. And there's the problem. The possibilities are endless and so is my inspiration (have you seen my pin board on Pinterest, yet?), but once a specific project has been decided upon and started, there's no way back. Once you start cutting, you literally cut off the other options.  I don't like the idea of wasting my precious stash, however. That explains why I have leather but no finished projects. I just can't make up my mind. I'm stuck.

A lot of things in life are like that. No doubt there are more important decisions than which bag to make.
Choosing means giving up alternatives or other options, but also moving ahead, getting rid of what weighs you down.
Choosing somehow sets free.

Let's try to remember that...

Work in progress :: seed stitch cowl

I started knitting on a seed stitch cowl during our camping trip (which was absolutely great, by the way).
It's the simplest knitting project thinkable.
Purl, knit, purl.
A no-brainer.