As mentioned in a previous post, I’m in the middle of making some gifts for family and god-children. One of the gifts to be given to my younger godchildren will be a Notebook-&-Pencil holder.

Here is a completed holder:

And the holder opened up:

This is quite a straight-forward gift to make and I thought I’d provide a tutorial on how I went about putting this one together. Please note that I am no sewing expert :-) so please excuse my rather barbaric methods and lack of proper sewing vocabulary :-) Please also note that this is an image-heavy post, so allow a few minutes for all the images to load up.

This holder has been made to comfortably fit an A5-sized 100-page notebook. You may need to alter the dimensions for larger notebooks.

What You’ll Need

• A 40cm x 28cm piece of fabric for the outer cover (I used a heavy-weight canvas cotton print)
• A 40cm x 28cm piece of fabric for the inner lining (I used a light gingham)
• A 40cm x 18cm piece of fabric for the pocket (I used the same light gingham as the lining)
• A 40cm x 28cm piece of interfacing
• Two strips of ribbon, each 30cm in length
• Materials for embellishment e.g. felt, buttons, etc

Instructions

1) According to the instructions for your interfacing, attach interfacing to the wrong side of the outer cover fabric.

2) On one longer side of the pocket fabric, turn in the edge 1cm, then turn in again 1cm to make a clean edge and sew down hem. It helps to iron it down before sewing to keep it in place.

3) Putting the ‘sandwich‘ together.

a) Place the lining fabric down with the right side of the fabric up. Then place the pocket fabric on top, with the right side up also, so that left and right edges line up with left and right edges of lining fabric.

b) Place the two pieces of ribbon across the lining fabric, just above the top edge of the pocket fabric. Ensure that one edge of one piece of ribbon slightly overhangs the left edge of the lining fabric, and one edge of the other ribbon slightly overhangs the right edge of the lining fabric.

c) Place outer cover fabric on top with wrong side facing up and ensure the edges of the ’sandwich’ are all lined up. Pin in place, making sure ribbons are securely pinned in place.

4) Starting in the middle of the top edge, sew the sandwich together using a 7mm seam allowance. Leave a 10cm opening at the top edge.

5) Clip the corners (if you want pointy corners) and turn inside out. Slip-stitch opening closed and iron out flat. You can skip this next step if you prefer, but I like to stitch around the edges (about 2mm in from the edge) just as an added step to secure the sandwich together.

6) Marking & sewing in the pockets. This holder has been designed to hold pencils so if you are planning to include larger pens or textas, you will need to adjust the following measurements. For standard pencils, from the left edge, mark 2cm in, and keep marking every 2cm until you have marked 10 pockets for the pencils. Mark at the top and bottom edge to ensure a straight line and mark in the lines (they are hard to see in the picture below but I have marked them in with eraseable fabric pencil).

7) Sew down the lines from top to bottom. Ensure that the thread you are using to sew in the pockets matches both the lining and outer cover as it will be visible on both sides. You should end up with 10 thin pockets for the pencils and one large pocket for the notebook. This is what the outer cover looks like after sewing down the pocket lines (and before I clip the excess thread).

8) Embellishment. I decided to feature the recipient’s initials so I cut out the letters in wool felt.

I stitched the initials and some cute buttons on a circular piece of the yellow gingham and appliqued that onto a piece of wool felt. I then stitched it onto the upper corner of the outer cover. Please note that if you do embellish, you will have to keep it towards the top section of the cover so that you don’t accidentally sew over the pockets!

9) And finally, apply some Fray Stop (or similar product - available at craft stores) to the raw edges of the ribbon to prevent then from fraying.

And there you go - a simple Notebook-&-Pencil Holder! I hope this tutorial was easy to follow and understand.

Variations include making a patchwork cover (rather than using one piece of fabric), or converting the holder into a pencil roll by shortening its length and width, sewing pencil pockets all across the width, and attaching both pieces of ribbon to one side only so that it can be tied around the roll.

Please feel free to leave a comment if you have any questions about the instructions or any feedback on improvements. And please let me know if you do end up making one - I’d love to see it!!!

Just a note if you use Bloglines. Bloglines hasn’t been correctly tracking updates to my blog or new posts. I have checked my blog feeds and they are working properly, as they are being correctly picked up by other Blog Feed Aggregators such as Google Reader and My Yahoo. I have contacted Bloglines and they are trying to resolve the problem.

So on with the rest of this post! One of my goals this year is to make (rather than buy) a Christmas gift for all the females in my immediate family (Mum, Mum-in-law, Sister-in-law), for my 2 girls, and for all my female god-children. For the males, I hope to buy something handmade and will hopefully take up the challenge of making them something next Christmas :-)

I’ve started on the list (and just in case my family or god-children do happen to come upon this blog, I won’t be saying who the following gifts are for). I’ve always wanted to try my hand at making the wonderful patchwork handbags from Machine Made Patchworks (Vol 1).

These bags have been floating around the craft blogs for a while now and you will see a great example of its versatility from Blair’s Wisecraft Etsy Shop. After my fairly successful first attempt at making a bag, I approached this patchwork bag pattern with some degree of confidence (although the pattern is all in Japanese!). And after a bit of umming and ahhing at some of the diagrams, here are 2 (out of 3) that I’ve managed to finish.

You may notice that the ones I’ve made are smaller than the original bags in the book - the original bag has 8 panels on each side, while mine has 6 panels and is shorter. My aim was to make a more ‘purse-sized’ bag - just big enough to hold the essentials and not too cumbersome to carry around. I used a variety of my favourite cotton prints that I used on both sides of the bag; just arranged differently for each side.

The top bag is lined with dark blue linen (handles are the same fabric), and the bottom bag is lined with chocolate wool flannel (handles same fabric also). You’ll also notice that the handles on one are longer than the other due to the different heights of the future recipients :-)

While I was working away on these bags, I did have another (more simple) bag pattern floating around in my head. So I quickly put one together - again, this one is made of dark blue linen, a cotton print and some girly lace trim.

So flat on the floor, it looked okay . . .

But not so good hanging on the wall (or on ones’ arm)!

I actually skipped the interfacing, which wasn’t a good idea. So I’m thinking I’ll undo a seam, turn it inside out, and try and sneak in some interfacing that way. I’ll let you know how it goes :-)

I’m just about to complete a Notebook-&-Pencil holder for one of my god-children and I hope to post up a tutorial on it later on in the week.

Still fighting this flu bug and still no crafting - but I am thoroughly enjoying catching up on all of my favourite blogs :-)

As promised, here are some images from “4000 Animal, Bird & Fish Motifs: A Sourcebook” by Graham Leslie McCallum.

1. Aegean - Cypriot; 2. Aegean - Greek; 3. Aegean - Greek; 4. Chinese;

5. Chinese; 6. Nomadic Steppe Culture; 7. Chinese; 8. Byzantine; 9. South American Cultures; 10. Medieval;

11. Medieval; 12. Japanese; 13. South American Cultures; 14. Art Deco; 15. Japanese; 16. Aegean - Mycenaean.

The book is organized in the same fashion as the Pattern Motifs book.

As the name of the book suggests, there is noticeably more bird and fish motifs than any other animal but I think I will be going back to this book time and time again as I’m finding there’s always something new that catches my eye. All images are copyright-free with a detailed index at the back to help you find a particular animal. I’d highly recommed this book as a one-stop place for animal motifs. It’s currently available via Amazon UK.

P.S. Please ignore the ‘pinkish smudge‘ on some images - that’s just the by-product of my sloppy scanning!

UPDATE: I have had the pleasure of being contacted by the author (Graham Leslie McCallum) and he has directed me to his website, Columba. On his website, you will learn more about this enormously talented Artist/Designer/Author/Painter, and you will have access to a sample of his plant and animal motifs. This is a website to bookmark and return to often!

Having the flu + trying to teach my almost-3-year-old to use the potty = a week of no crafting!

But I did receive some great mail over the last few days to brighten up my week.

1) The very talented Coryn surprised me with this generous parcel of fabric pieces - they will definitely be making their way into some upcoming patchwork projects! Thanks so much Coryn! Love them all!

2) A few weeks ago, another very talented Aussie, Dani, offered up one of her original pieces of art for free to her blog-readers! I couldn’t pass up the chance! And here it is - so striking and love the glitter accents! Thanks so much Dani!

3) I’m a fan of Chelsea’s bird collages and while I save up some cash to actually purchase one, I did ask her whether she was going to have postcards made of her work (good for sticking up on the inspiration board, framing, or sharing!). When she did have some made, I was delighted to snap up a few of the Strawberry Jam Sakura Postcards Prints:

4) My Moo Flickr cards actually arrived a few weeks ago. I love how they turned out and have used them as business cards with my details printed on the back of each card. Good value!

Hope you are all well and will hopefully post up some animal motifs in the next few days.

And thank you so much to Si for kindly posting about One Red Robin on her inspiring and full-of-eye-candy blog, Cuteable :-)

Thank you all for your kind words about Shazaam the Shmerpi Pirate :-)

While my 2 little girls are asleep, I thought I would quickly post up some photos from one of my latest book purchases: “Pattern Motifs: A Sourcebook” by Graham Leslie McCallum.

I originally purchased the book for inspiration and ideas on embroidery and embellishing future projects like bags and quilts. The book has over 1000 original pattern motifs and all are copyright-free images. Patterns are broken down into area of influence, e.g. “Stone Age Europe”, “Greek”, “Byzantine”, “Gothic”, “Japanese”, etc. You could literally spend hours gazing at each pattern but here are a just handful that caught my eye:

1) From the “Mesopotamia” chapter:

2) From the “Eygptian” chapter:

3) From the “Byzantine” chapter:

4) From the “Japanese” chapter:

5) From the “Art Deco” chapter:

I also bought “4000 Animal, Bird & Fish Motifs” book from the same author and will post up pictures soon. I highly recommend this book for pattern-lovers and those who are looking for some freash new ideas for embellishing their craft projects - it’s well-organised and has a wealth of inspiring patterns. It really is visual feast (with very few words!).

And if you’re interested as to where I purchased my copy, I found it on Amazon UK as it was not yet available on Amazon.com when I checked a week ago.

Since I finished him up earlier than expected, I thought I should put up a few photos of him clowning around in my studio while I tidied up :-). Given that I was making stuff for The Petticoat Pirate, I couldn’t pass up this opportunity to actually make a pirate (the petticoat bit was a little too challenging for me!).

I used my larger Shmerpi pattern (which I originally used for the Shmerpi creatures I sumbitted to Morphe II). The trickiest part was making those little pirate pants. He’s made with ribbed polar fleece, cotton prints, lace trim, wool felt and buttons.

Here he is relaxing with his best bird-friend. I found some cute novelty buttons a few weeks ago - a little fish button on his eye patch, and a red apple button on the bird’s wing.

And here is my faithful sewing machine, all covered up for the first time in a long time.

I’m giving her :-) a much needed break this weekend, while I go on a date with my 2-year-old daughter and take her to see this. Oh, and I hope to catch-up on some inspiring books that arrived a few days ago. Hope you all have a wonderful weekend ahead.

Thank you for all your comments here and on flickr about the owls. I can truly say that they were a joy to work on and I do hope to make a few more in the future but I would like to try other animals as well (like Clara the Cat - perhaps a rabbit, dog, and maybe even a duck!).

Here is Seahorse #4. I found a scrap of chocolate-brown flannel at the local fabric store and knew hat I just had to make a seahorse out of it (plus everytime I look at it, I have a craving to go out a buy some chocolate!). I used some of my favourite fabrics on this one like the red fabric with Japanese kanji, the print of a cat on one side of its belly, and a print of a geisha on the other side - all 3 are from Alexander Henry (yes, I’m a big fan!).

(We’ve been having some wintry weather here lately - at the tail end of Spring no less - so it’s been hard to take decent photos). I used a pair of vinatge gold buttons with a rose motif for the eyes.

The cute pom-pom trim around the neck was a sweet surprise from the wonderful Ellia who sent it with these super-cute decal postcards that I purchased from her shop.

Tomorrow I’ll post up the final softie I’ll be sending off to the Art Stuff-ed Plush Show - a Shmerpi Pirate!

And here is the other owl off to the Art Stuff-ed Plush Show. I was going to post about another seahorse but she still needs a bit of tweaking :-)

Oberon is made from wool herringbone, wool felt, buttons, and various new & vintage cotton fabrics. The print on his head and on his feet is vintage 1970’s rayon polyester. He has a blue/orange colour scheme going on.

And here’s a close-up of the patchwork on his belly (it also features under his wings).

Some have asked/commented about the fabrics I use. Let me start by saying that I actually have a reasonably small fabric stash compared to some crafters. Small enough to all fit in a 60cm x 60cm x 60cm box. When I do look for fabric, whether thrifted or new, I try to go for fabric that has widely spaced, interesting and colourful patterns/illustrations so that if I were to cut it up into strips, each strip would be highlighting something different about the pattern.

When I was still working full-time a few months ago (before going on maternity leave and therefore having a bit more pocket money for fabric!) I had a little shopping spree at Cia’s Pallette and at Reprodepot. I have noticed that some of the fabrics I have now are no longer sold by either of these online stores, which is a bit of a bummer. I must add that I am tempted to splurge on fabrics from Superbuzzy but I think that will have to wait until I go back to work early next year :-)

Anyway, here are the 3 quilted patchwork owls together - certainly not a posse to be messed around with!

Okey dokey, will post about Seahorse #4 tomorrow.

I thought I would share each softie as I complete them rather than do it all in one huge post, which would end up being quite image-heavy and therefore, could be very slow to load up. So here is my second quilted patchwork owl - Othello.

He’s made from brown wool-blend suiting, new and vintage cotton prints, shell buttons, and wool felt.

Here’s a close-up of the patchwork belly (it also features under his wings).

He and another 3 softies will be heading to the Art Stuff-ed Plush Show being held by The Petticoat Pirate during the month of December in Greenvillle, North Carolina (USA). When I was invited to participate, I jumped at the chance thinking I could whip up 6 softies for the show. However, no matter how hard I tried to work on them at every spare moment for the last week, I have only managed to come up with 4 - so 4 it will be! Speaking of 4, tomorrow I’ll post up Quilted Patchwork Seahorse #4.

I also wanted to mention that I have added a new section in my Links titled “Inspiration” - these are the websites I go to when I’m looking for inspiration on colour, form, subjects, and themes. Do visit them when you have a chance - you won’t be disappointed!

Hi! Just dropping in quickly to say thank you for all the comments I have received. I truly appreciate each one! And I do hope to start responding by towards the end of this week.

I’ve been happily working away on these:

1) Two little fellas with wings pinned and waiting to be sewn in -

2) This little pirate -

These softies need to completed by the end of this week as they will be participating in a soft toy show overseas next month. More details to follow soon!

Hope you all have a peaceful and productive week ahead!