3/27: Starting this today.
4/5: Just kidding, I'm starting today.
This is the inspiration photo:
Directions I will be using are found at: http://homemadebyjill.blogspot.com/2009/12/cozy-car-caddy-tutorial.html There are variations of the directions at: http://www.allmylittlegems.com/2009/09/car-cozie-tutorial-and-etsy-re.html
Thank goodness I started cleaning off my sewing table from leftover race car quilt materials. I had only looked in my designated fabric box and was stuck what to use. I found these two fabrics that I had gotten as backup for quilt backing but didn't end up using. Thankfully they are from the same fabric line & coordinate beautifully.
What I've decided to do is to do iron-on appliques for the numbers on the car pockets instead of using fabric paint. I'll be honest, it's mostly a time issue. I don't feel like waiting for 3 separate layers of fabric paint to dry. A quick note on that: reverse image the numbers so they're not backwards when they're right side up. I had to re-draw my numbers but luckily caught it before I ironed the Wonder Under to the fabric.
I ended up recycling leftover red fabric for the car, black fabric for the wheels & numbers, and brown fabric for the road. I had them all leftover from the race car track quilt.
The directions from Homemade by Jill calls for belting/webbing strap fabric. Luckily I had that leftover from a project from years ago. I did have to fold the webbing in half and sew it down flat since the stuff I had was 2" wide and covered more of the car than I wanted.
On the 2 fabrics, I did use fusible interfacing to make it more stiff/heavier (as the 2nd tutorial suggests) than the cotton fabric it is since my original directions were saying duck-cloth and denim--which I don't have either handy and I could resist these fabrics when I saw them. The one with cars will be my inside fabric. The striped one will be for the outside(that the car gets appliqued on) as well as my pocket material. This way I don't have to go the fabric store for anything except some darker yellow flannel or cotton. The yellow I have is too pale.
Things needed:
1 piece of fabric 17" x 10" for the inside fabric(+ fusible interfacing if it's not a heavier fabric)
1 piece of fabric 17" x 10" for the outside fabric(+ fusible interfacing if it's not a heavier fabric)
1 piece of fabric 17" x 6" for the pocket fabric
1 piece of fabric 17" x 3" for the road fabric
Decorative piping(optional--I just used two 1" x 17" pieces I had leftover of the red fabric)
Scrap of yellow fabric for the dashes on the road (1" x 5" is plenty)
Printed off car, wheels and number templates from Homemade by Jill website you need them backwards so the iron-ons are right side up.
Wonder Under for iron-ons (car, wheels, numbers, and road dashes)
6" belting material, ~1" wide. Strapworks.com is a good source I've used in the past.
1" x 1" sticky back velcro --I chose Velcro because it's easier for a 2 year old than tying a ribbon.
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| Fabric, as well as all the iron on appliques cut out |
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| 6" of 1" wide belting material--a quick trick so the ends don't fray is use a disposable pie pan, put the pie pan directly onto a stove burner. Turn the stove on, and lightly press the ends of the the belting in the pie pan. It takes less than a minute each end. Smells bad, but gets the job done without having to fold the edges over. |
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| I had briefly debated on whether to use the brown or use black instead for the road, but chose brown since I like the way it looked better. |
Okay. So after a quick trip to our local fabric store, I picked up a yellow that is more appropriately saturated.
The road is supposed to go in the middle of the top half of the inner fabric. Pin in place. I folded the fabric in half so I could center it. Next, I got a piece of the Wonder Under and ironed on to the back of my yellow fabric(more than I knew I needed). Then cut the pieces down to 1" long by 1/4" wide. I pulled off the back paper with tweezers. They are spaced about an inch apart on the road. I did an applique/satin type stitch around them. On my machine, it's the regular zigzag stitch but adjusted so stitch length was 1.0 and stitch width was 3.0. This goes through the road fabric, and the inner fabric. After I sewed around the dashes, I sewed the edges of the road the same so the edges wouldn't fray.
Next step is to iron the pocket fabric in half, with the folded edge up and the raw edge against the raw edge of the bottom of the inner fabric. I used 1/4" seam. At this point, I ironed on the numbers(I drew light lines 2.75" apart and centered the numbers). The numbers also got applique/satin stitched. Just remember to have the fabric flipped so you are not sewing onto the inner fabric(otherwise the pockets won't work).
After the numbers are appliqued, sew on the lines that are 2.75" apart. I used a triple-straight stitch since they will be getting a lot of use.
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Pull the Wonder Under paper off the wheels & car. Center in the bottom half of the outer fabric--but also fold in thirds since that's where the front and back edges of the car will end up going. Iron on the car and then the wheels on top. Applique stitch around.
Sew the piece of sticky back Velcro to one end of the belting/webbing material. I used the fuzzy side here, and used the triple straight stitch in a X shape to hold it on.
(Not shown) Line up the belting material so it hits the center of the bottom half of the outer fabric. With 1/4" to 1/2" over the right edge, sew the belting material on so the Velcro side is face up (otherwise you will have to take out stitches & redo it at the end because it wouldn't be facing the right way). Put the rough part of the sticky back Velcro onto the middle of the car. Triple straight stitch and X shape.
Put the outer and inner fabrics right sides together and pin. Sew 1/4" seam all around. Leave a 3" opening (mine was at the top). Clip corners & turn right side out.
Iron the unsewn 3" down & sew 1/8" topstitch around the whole car carrier
Fold the carrier in half and then sew down that folded line.
Car carrier is now complete! To fold: fold along the stitched line in the center. Then fold in thirds, starting with the side opposite as the belting is sticking out of. An easy reference point for where the thirds are, is the front & back of the car.
For not being interested in my telling him about it, he sure changed his tune fast!
Got his stamp of approval.
What it looks like folded & stuffed with 6 cars.
1 comment:
I am so proud of you!!!! You are definitely magnifying that artistic talent that you have!!! Great job!!!!
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