Travel Sewing Kit {part 1}

Remember a couple weeks ago when I was complaining about needing a travel sewing kit? Well over Christmas vacation, I launched into it. My key items were bag for notions and fabric, bag for machine, easy way to carry all small notion-like items, and something for cutting/ironing. Not a lot right? And it needs to be decently portable. Ok so. First, I set out on an easy task, make a pin cushion.

I got this cute pattern by Little Jaybird Quilts for Christmas for a quick and easy one, so I thought, hey, lets do this.

hello awesome instagram photo!

Ummm.....my pin cushion is huge. Good I guess, but huge nevertheless. I also chose to weight it because I HATE when you try to put a pin in a pincushion, and it tries to get away from you. Huge pet peeve. It was rather simple and easy to adapt to any pincushion pattern. Just sew a little pouch, fill it with rice or lentils or beans, and insert when you are stuffing your pincushion. Boom!

Next was my carry/organizing device for my notions.

This, I am proud to say, I created and designed by myself. I know there are many versions of it out there in the world, but this particular one used no pattern at all. Yay creativity! My main needs were zip pockets for small things (needles, bobbins, pins, thread, binding clips, ext) and sleeve pockets for my rotary cutter and scissors.

Great success! It is super cute when it is all folded up too!

Now, last time I was in Columbia, I bought my super cute teeny tiny cutting mat. I also had plans to make a tiny ironing board using a small piece of wood, an old towel, fabric, and a staple gun. However, I received this awesome Omnigrid cutting mat and ironing board for Christmas, and so the homemade ironing board got put on the back burner.

This sucker is cool and I can't help but love it more than I probably would my homemade ironing board. It is so portable with its ability to fold up and convenient little handle. Yep, its awesome. It comes in a couple sizes, mine being the largest one I think. If you are considering purchasing something like this, it is worth every penny.

O, and um, if you can't tell or didn't notice, I'm back in my hotel. Lots of free sewing time this shift to finish up the scrappy trip along and my travel sewing bags!

Getting Organized

I am taking the opportunity in setting up a new sewing room to attempt some organization. I found a 12 pack of mason jars at Walmart for only $7! Mason jars alone are really useful, but I wanted mine to be cute as well. This is what I came up with.

 

I am pretty positive I am not the first person to think of this, but I like the idea! I also figured out a pretty simple way to do it. All you need is a mason jar used for canning (meaning the lid has 2 separate pieces: top and ring), a hot glue gun, a scrap of beautiful fabric, a little pillow stuffing, and some scissors. 

I cut my scrap of fabric with a radius approximately one inch larger than the top of the jar. The fabric needs to be bigger than the top of the jar because it is going to end up being 3D rather than flat once it is filled with stuffing.

I will warn you in advance, I don't have a helper, thus I could not take pictures of myself gluing or actually performing some of the steps. If you are trying to do this and anything is unclear, do not hesitate to ask questions!

Ok so, I found the easiest way to go about this was to place the fabric on top of ring (right side toward the ring) and then the stuffing on top of the fabric. We are not gluing anything yet because you want to make sure you have enough stuffing to make your pin cushion appropriately dense. 

Then you push the 'top' piece of the jar lid down on the other layers. This should sandwich your fabric and stuffing between the two layers of the jar lid. In my picture, I am pushing it onto a hard surface. This was merely to allow me to use my other hand to take the picture. It works better if you hold the ring in one hand and push the top with the other. That way the fabric and stuffing are free to push out the other end. Make sure to push the top in until it sits firmly up against the ring. If you don't feel that you have enough stuffing, add some more and test drive it again until you are satisfied with the shape and density.

On to gluing. After you are comfortable with the amount of stuffing you have added, you want to tack the fabric down to the 'top' part of the jar lid. It is best to do this while it is inside the ring to retain your shape. Just dab hot glue underneath the edges of all of the fabric that is sticking up. The end result should look something like this.

Now, we still have not glued what I refer to as 'the poof' into the ring itself so you should not have any trouble popping it out like so.

You can then quickly run a line of hot glue around the inside of the ring. You will see that there is a lip that your poof (or normally the top of the lid) would sit on. This is where you want to put your hot glue. Then you quickly shove the poof back into the ring, and press it firmly against the lip of the ring until the glue sets. When you flip it over, it should look like this!

Once that is done, the jar is free to be used as decorative storage! These are great for thread, scraps, buttons, beads, zippers, you name it. You don't even have to use the 'poofs' as pin cushions. They can be labels or identifiers so that you can keep your jars organized. Personally, I can never have enough places to stick pins. I find myself desperately searching for anywhere to put them while I am mid project. Haha. Hopefully you'll be able to create some great storage solutions with this fast and easy project!