I can see clearly now

I finished my eyeglass sleeve and after various challenges, I'm very pleased with the result.

Pattern: My own.
Materials: Bits of two fat quarters. Lightweight quilt batting. 25mm bias tape maker. All materials from Purl Patchwork.

My initial plan was to fold my long piece of quilted fabric together lengthwise and bind the side and top edges in bias tape. Unfortunately, this resulted in a really messy edge and I couldn't figure out how to miter the corners or make the bottom of the long edges look neat. I wound up with a chicken-and-the-egg problem where I would tuck one thing, creating a raw edge at one spot and then I'd instead tuck the other thing in creating the reverse of the initial problem. Hard to explain, but trust me, it was a mess.

My solution was to edge all the way around the piece while it was flat and then ladder stitch up the sides. This resulted in a very neat finish. My sleeve will be the perfect way to tote my reading glasses around the office!



This project was also a great chance to continue practicing my quilt binding technique without committing to a whole quilt. I again used the one-step technique in The Modern Quilt Workshop. This time it came out much neater than my double-pointed needle case. I learned from the ladies at Purl that I needed to pin the edging down every inch or so and I learned from my sewing machine that I should wait until the pin slid right up under the presser foot (but BEFORE it got up to the needle - no sewing over pins!!) to remove the pin, which resulted in the fabric staying where it was meant to be. There are definitely some imperfections, but I can see how the technique will keep improving.

I'm committing today to some stockinette and to dreaming up my next sewing project.

I've got problems

I found out a few weeks ago that I need reading glasses - it seems 10 hours a day of staring at my computer and fine print has taken its toll. I was mildly bummed, but quickly realized this was just a great opportunity to get some cute specs and craft up a handy eyeglass case! The glasses came with the usual clamshell-type case but this was too big and too noisy to snap open and shut in meetings - I need a quiet and stylish sleeve.

Last weekend I made this quilted panel for the exterior. The plan was to fold this long piece in half and do quilt binding on the long edges and along the top. The binding took several iterations to execute, but let's put that aside for the moment to discuss the lining debacle.


My initial thought was to line the case with one of the eyeglass wiper clothes they gave you at the optometrist. Little did I know, these things are unsewable! My machine spit, sputtered and then tried to jam the whole piece of fabric into the needle well as punishment. Oooookay, I get it. One possible explanation is the fabric is a dense jersey knit, not woven, and I definitely don't have the right needle. But putting that aside, I think it's made of polyester or plastic (or steel?) and imbued with some cleaning chemical. No dice.

The next idea was to fuse the mutant fabric down with some double sided fusible interfacing and not sew it into the side seams. I'm sure you know what happened - it refused to fuse. Perhaps I could hand sew it? No, getting pins through was as hard as sewing.

Next stop: cotton lining. I cut it out this morning and went forth to iron it. My recently-purchased and generally fabulous iron proceeded to belch brown crap all over it. I decided (sewing perfectionists look away now) that it was just in the lining so who really cares, right? I then proceeded to destroy the lining fabric anyway by sewing and trimming it 300 times. First I basted the wrong side of the lining to the wrong side of the exterior, folded the whole sandwich lengthwise, and tried to bind down the long sides. Although I folded in the edges, this still left a raw edge that at the top and bottom that just didn't look finished. I undid all of this and decided to sew the right sides together and turn it inside out. Of course, by this point I had trimmed way too much from the edges to have enough width to be able to then sew up the side seams. Out that came! Sorry I have no pictures of this saga; I was too busy madly ripping things and cursing at the iron.

Now I have a new plan and it's working... hopefully tomorrow I will have a finished eyeglass sleeve!