Stashbusting Sewalong 2013

To force myself to stay committed to my blog this year, I am joining the Stashbusting Sewalong 2013 hosted by Cation Designs and EmSewCrazy. I have a giant box of scraps which is NOTHING compared to the beautiful stashes of many of the bloggers I follow, but I should really get around to using what I already have instead of always buying new fabric. I don't even really know the complete contents of my stash (which is a clear indication of how necessary this project is for me!) so I pledged to use at LEAST 10 pieces of my stash, but in reality will definitely use more than that, given that there are 12 months!

Over the course of the year, I will make a themed stashbusting project for each month. The themes of the first 6 months have already been released, and the last 6 will follow eventually (quoted from Cation Designs) :

January: Itty Bits! Sew up those remnants left over from another project, use up some of those tiny scraps that you've been saving... as long as it's less than a yard of fabric, it counts!

February: The Love Challenge

March: Impending Seasonal Change. Regardless of your hemispherical location, the weather will be changing soon... what will you make? Something fun for the coming spring, or something cozy for fall?

April: The Vibrant Color Challenge

May: The Knit Challenge - which will REALLY be a challenge for me!

June: Containment! Get ready for those long car trips, summer outings or some good old fashioned cleaning and organizing. We're thinking bags, boxes, totes, purses, pouches, you name it; this month is all about making things to put other things in.

So that's the plan! I have a good idea for my January project that I will HOPEFULLY get around to this weekend!

Recyclable Coffee Sleeves

Hello Blog World!!

It has been entirely too long since I have posted here, but I started university and found myself with very little time during the semester to craft. I was pressured into lovingly encouraged me to get my blog up and going, because I still craft quite a lot during breaks from school. I have made it my New Years Resolution to post somewhat more regularly.

So, these next few posts (hopefully!) are projects I have done since my last post, but I will not disclose exact dates out of sheer embarassment. The most important thing is that I actually remembered to take pictures!

This Christmas present was inspired by a product Jess, Jenna and I saw at a farmer's market when we were in Canada in the summer of 2010. A stall there was selling reusable sandwich/snack bags and had a couple of these reversible, reusable coffee sleeves. I thought it was a pretty practical way to go green, and this Christmas followed a semester where I had 7:30AM classes 3 days a week, so coffee was pretty much a staple! I kept the coffee sleeve I had purchased at that farmer's market in my backpack at all times, so I could just whip it out at my daily caffeine serving. It's a pretty small act, but it's a good way to save all of those cardboard coffee sleeves that I'd otherwise have just thrown away everyday, and I thought my friends would feel the same.

What you need:

1 Cardboard coffee sleeve
A clean paper coffee cup from desired coffee shop
2 pieces of fabric (coordinating, or identical) large enough to accomodate the opened up coffee sleeve
A piece of batting also large enough to accomodate the opened up coffee sleeve
Coordinating thread

How to do it:

1) I opened the coffee sleeves at the glued together seam and traced around it leaving a 1 cm boarder on the back side of a piece of fabric.

2) I used that fabric to trace onto the back of a coordinating piece of fabric (or identical, depending if you want the reversible side to be a different pattern). Really not the most scientific method, but I wasn't looking for perfection!
3) Roughly cut the batting around the fabric, but this can be trimmed later (advised, so you don't get excess batting on the seam making it bumpy when you turn right-side out)

4) Stack the pieces from top to bottom: one piece of fabric (wrong side up), the second piece of fabric (right sides of the fabric pieces together) and batting on bottom.

5) With ths stack in this order, I sewed around the edge, leaving a 1/4 inch seam allowance and leaving a gap large enough to turn it inside out. (I left mine at the bottom in the middle to make it easiest to sew closed).
6) Turn inside out and blind stitch the opening closed.

7) Top stitch (if desired) around the sleeve with a 1/4 inch boarder.

8) Using the coffee cup to measure an approximate size, blind stitch the 2 edges together to close the sleeve, in the most discrete way possible. You're done!

These are my final products! The first picture is one side and the second picture is the reverse side. They're in the same locations in both pictures, so you can see the fabrics I put together! It was so much fun picking out fabric that I thought would suit each of my friends' different personalities, as it always is when making gifts!