Pondering the construction of a reader cover, part 1

Dear bloggy friends,

I know I’m not putting much on here…  I admit that my blog has been ignored more often than not.  If you’d like to follow me on facebook, please send me a friend request here and mention the blog, o.k.?

On to the post……

I purchased my sister-in-law’s nook color a while back, as she was not happy with it.

Secretly, I was hoping to convert it into an android tablet, but right now am happy with it just the way it is.  I finished “Water for Elephants”, and am working on “I am Number Four” right now.

She had purchased a silicone cover for it when she bought it.  It works fine, but I take issue with it as cat hair sticks to it like crazy, it won’t offer any protection if the reader is dropped, and it feels sticky in my hand when holding it.  Being ever the seamstress, I have embarked on a journey of trying to find a pattern to use for making a cover.

I’ve found quite a few designs online, none of them have the exact specs I’m trying to meet.  I’m wanting the following:

• something I can hold to read,
• protect the unit if dropped, and
• wrap around the reader to buffer dings and scratches.

Here are a few I’ve located:

Chica and Jo’s custom kindle cover case seems to offer quite a bit of protection, but the pocket design isn’t going to work with a nook color, as we have a full screen.

Padded case for your kindle might help, but it would need to have some more sturdy materials used to help protect the reader, and I’d have to remove my reader to use it.

Here is a pattern from an etsy seller that you can purchase, that shows promise…  with modifications by adding a flap and using sturdier materials.

Cookcraftgrow has a cover she designed and put directions for online.  I like it, especially the snap around the lower left corner!  But… again I’m concerned about the dropping of my lovely little device.

So, I’ve been exhaustive in my quest to find something to fulfill my “sturdier materials” mantra above…   After dropping a number of things on my tile floor to test (being ever the scientist), I’ve come up with a couple options – chipboard, as found in binder covers, and coroplast (corrugated plastic, which looks like colored cardboard, but is extruded plastic – it comes in many varying thicknesses).  And it just happens that I have a whole bunch of coroplast lying around this house.

Coroplast was VERY popular for making the large elections signs that were used in last November’s elections, and is also used in most of the signage in front of local gas stations for beer and soda.  I happen to have the following in my garage:

• 2 large 4’X8′ election signs from a person who lost a local election (5 mm thick)
• 2 smaller sheets my dad sent back with us from our visit to KS (2 mm thick)

We’ve been collecting it to make the Girly some model remote control (r/c) airplanes as it will weather her crashes and bumps at high impact – yes, it is THAT strong!  There are websites for building planes and trainers from it if you know where to look on the internet…  She really, really wants a flying pizza box! I figured it was perfect medium for building this cover.

My first draft us not quite what I wanted…  Still trying to work out the design before posting part 2.  In the meantime, here are pictures of attempt #1….  I used Beatles Yellow Submarine Fabric, fusible fleece, 2 mm coroplast in both covers(which I found I could sew through!), a snap for holding the corner of the nook, and two kinds of elastic.

The Beatles fabric came from Equilter.com, but is no longer available.  However they have this equally awesome fabric!

The next version will have a flap for securing all sides of the reader, and I need to figure out a better harness that doesn’t slip around…

Chaos – Rest in Peace

Chaos came to us in the fall of 1993, as we moved into our first home.

Chaos has weathered many a storm during his life, and now, 18 years later, has passed on to the great kitty cat-stand in the sky…  In the end, he had been knocked down by renal failure and diabetes.  His last day was on Monday.

Here are some pictures to remember his better times, most taken when digital cameras were brand new.

These pictures are how I prefer to remember him.

Goodbye, my little “cinderblock of love”….

Peace on Earth….

December Sewing…. Part 2 (or, did people really have bodies like this in 1969?)

Girly requested a dress like the Nancy Drew movie for Xmas this year.  And of course, I agreed….

We scoured my pattern stash, and found the following pattern that I received from Pattern Rescue over the last year:

This pattern is a circa 1969, misses size 10, princess cut flared pattern with a 2 piece flared sleeve.  She wanted the green dress in the center. She wanted that EXACT dress.  I couldn’t find a decent green polka dot, so I got her a reversed olive green dot on an ivory background from the Amy Butler Lotus collection.

Note the two ladies on your left – and their dog-ear collars.  I’ve been trying to find photos of people actually WEARING this style, and have had no luck. I’d love to see these on a real person.

I made a muslin of the dress, as is.  I am sooooo glad I made a muslin of this dress.  I had to take 3.5″ from the bust line, raise the neckline 2″, add 2″ to the hips, and shorten the whole thing 3″.  At this point, I began to ask myself why I was even using a pattern and not hand drafting it!  This little blog was a big help in adjusting the bust line, as I couldn’t find instructions on adjusting a princess cut anywhere else…  Also, do you see any puffiness to those sleeves on the pattern?   There was ALOT of ease in the sleeve cap, and I still ended up with a bit of puffy sleeve – I’m not certain what the artist was thinking, but the sleeve on the cover is not the same as the sleeve in the pattern.

The adjustments made me envision what the woman who could use this pattern right out of the envelope looked like, and I envisioned Barbie…  with short arms.   Admittedly, I was adjusting a pattern to fit a 12 year old, but still, I’d have thought that arm adjustments would have been necessary as well.

Photo of the cutout, and the fun matching of polka dots that ensued.

But, the matching paid off:

 

I made her the scarf out of a cream chiffon (excess dots were really too hard on the eyes, and this gives it a little holiday flair).

 

And the final result is this:

She was totally thrilled with the dress, and she totally looks like she belongs on the cover of a Nancy Drew book.

December Sewing…. Part 1

Sewing this month has been stop and go.

I originally planned to make me a lovely dress out of burgundy stretch velvet, and this pattern.  I finished the dress with no fabric to spare, and then realized that it was much too low cut.  Though, it looks good on my dress form, as long as I don’t take off her cover.  Without her cover it resembles a hoochy mama ren-faire dress (excessive bra showing is not my idea of holiday cheer).

Forgive the graininess of the photo.  Given that I had no fabric left to rework the front, and the use of a different fabric to fill in the issue seemed fruitless, this dress was scrapped. (If I make this again, I will be raising the front neckline approx. 3 inches – yes, friends, it was “that” bad.)

I then turned my sights to this dress pattern, and began anew with some purple rayon lycra.  This was the first time I used the pattern, and made no modifications.  Here is the result:

Next on the sewing table is a purse pattern from Square Rose.  But, next on the blog is my foray into sewing with vintage patterns.

 

Just call us crazy cat people….

Hubby’s coworker’s wife found a baby kitten at work one day, and as they were strictly a doggie household, the baby has ended up with us.

He is about 5 weeks old now, and has been named Cheshire.

The vet told us to give him a couple weeks before we vaccinate the little boy.

He still misses his mama, and seems to have an oral fixation on a fleece blanket.  Gus has taken to him and plays well with him, so he has a pal.

 

 

A little bit of this, a little bit of that.

I’ve been woefully slow on writing much on here – most everything is now going on facebook….

Here are a few snapshots from the past month of sewing/crafty musings:

Girly has a new found love for needle felting.  Here she is at the American Sewing Expo, after I had bought her a starter kit:

Thanks to Kimberly, she has tried dying alpaca with koolaid/vinegar, and has had a grand time!

 

I’ve gone over the edge on working with wearable electronics.  I’m making the girly a star skirt for the pirate ball.

I fell in love with this “skirt full of stars”, and have been following her instructions on how to make it.  I’ve been having some trouble with some of the electrodes and the conductive threads – the y axis isn’t actuating, and a couple of LED’s have needed replacement – but it is well on its way to being one of the best halloween costumes ever!

This is the sewn circuit with the Arduino lilypad as it stands now.

I hope to have more pictures of it once completed.

 

Amazing what you can do with a square of fabric! Tutorial included

A couple of weeks ago when we bought Glitter Glue Princess’s shoes for cross country, we came across a rack of these fabric head/neck coverings.  They were beautiful.  She pined for one……  They were $24.  Cough, hack……  For someone recently unemployed, THIS was not an option.

I mean, this was just a tube of fabric.  Admittedly, they were made in Spain, it was a seamless tube, they are made of microfiber, the company has a great marketing department (they are used on the Survivor television show), and they had stringent quality standards, but COME ON!  I couldn’t justify $24 for a tube of fabric, with unfinished edges.  I did some quick analysis for size (in other words, held it up to my arm for approximate length/width measurements).

We headed to the local dutch fabric store after picking up the shoes, and bought bamboo lycra, microfiber knits and cotton knits, at 1/2 yard cuts.  We went home and scoured the stash for the same.

Here’s how I made them:

I cut squares 16″ X 20″.  (see NOTE below.)

Cut so that the 16″ side is cut on the side parallel to the finished edge of the piece of fabric, NOT the cut edge (fabrics with 4-way stretch will not need this precaution – this keeps the edge from rolling up too much when worn).

Then, I serged the 20″ side and tucked the loose thread ends back into the seam. That is it!

You could also sew these using a sewing machine, but use a zig zag stitch and STRETCH the fabric when sewing it to prevent thread breakage when using.

For adults, I’d go with an 18″ X 22″ square.

NOTE:  Of course, this will need to be adjusted based on the % of stretch your fabric has – increase the longer length to accomodate this, as this is the side that will stretch around your head).

Easy-peasy!

Here is what you will have:

Here are demonstrations on how you can wear them:

So…..  for about $13, I made 5 headscarves, with enough fabric left over to make 5 to 10 more!  Something tells me that most of the girls on the cross country team will end up with one of these….

Hope this helps other make their own as well!

Maker Faire Detroit, or…. girls who dig science.

We spent the day yesterday at the Henry Ford, at the Maker Faire.  We met up with our friends and had a great time.

The girls did screenprinting:

They did some crazy activities:

Saw some crazy stuff:

But…  The highlight was the performance of Coke Zero and Mentos by Eepybird!

Here is the video!

A big thank you to my friends at IFT

If you are reading this due to a card I gave you in Chicago, I want to thank you for your support, and feel free to contact me here, or at the email address I provided you.

I originally intended this blog to communicate events in my family’s lives to my long distance families, but it has become much more than that to me – more of a calendar of the events of my life.  Today belongs here as well.

I believe that there are times in your life when things happen for a reason.  This is probably one of them for me.

I also believe that who you know is just as important as what you know.

You, my friends, are some of my biggest assets, and I appreciate the outpouring I received today.

Thank you all, a hundred times over.

J