Zakka Sewing - 25 Japanese Projects for the Household - Book Review

Today we're going to take a look at 'Zakka Sewing - 25 Japanese Projects for the Household'.  Zakka, as described in the book, means 'household goods' in Japan, specifically hand-sewn tableware, kitchenware, containers etc from natural fabrics such as linen.  There are a lot of Japanese language Zakka books, although this isn't a direct copy of just one of these.  It is a collection of projects from different Japanese designers, that have then been translated into English.

The main reason I got this book was for the project on the cover, I just loved the squirrel tea cosy with it's simple and subtle cute style.  There is a good selection of other projects in the book, various cozies, bags, coasters/placemats, purses and wallets etc, and whilst not all of them are something I would make, I have found that there are a good number that I like.

The book starts with general info on materials, sewing techniques and how to do various hand sewing stitches that are used in some of the projects.  Then you're straight into the projects.  I took some photos whilst I was making one of these, a Bunny Pencil Case.

Each project gets a double page of photos and an interesting fact about Japan and Zakka, followed by a few pages featuring the materials required and instructions.  At the end of these, there will also be any pattern pieces needed.  These aren't full size and need to be scaled up, so if you don't have access to a copier/multi-function printer, then this could be a problem.

There are easy to follow step-by-step instructions, with lots of diagrams to illustrate these.  However, I did manage to make a mistake with this item.  I failed to notice that the stitching line didn't just follow the edge of the fabric all the way around, so when I turned it to the the right way around, my bunny didn't really have a paw.  This was easily fixed by drawing on the bit I missed and re-sewing this small section.

Otherwise, the case came together nicely and I'm pleased with how it turned out.

I've also made a few other items from this book, the first being the squirrel tea cozy.  I found I had to adjust the pattern of this slightly to get it to fit my globe teapot.  The increase in size of 200% was generally okay, I just had to add a little to the width, under the tail, as you can see below.

He's not as smooth as the one in the book, due, I suspect, to the shape and size of my teapot, but still looks cute on our kitchen windowsill.

I have also decorated a ready-made tea-towel with a sashiko embroidery pattern from the book.  It does also include instructions to make the tea-towel from scratch if you don't want to cheat like I did.

And finally, I have modified one of the flower coaster patterns to turn it into a cherry blossom:

So, the projects are generally simple to follow and I think look pretty good once made.  Considering I've already made four things based on projects in this, and can see a few more I'd like to try, I think I can say it's a good book to have in my collection.

If you like the look of this book, it is available on Amazon here:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Zakka-Sewing-Japanese-Projects-Household/dp/1584797207/

March Round-Up!

It's already time for March's round-up of craftyness!  It wasn't quite as productive a month as Feb, but I still managed an average of one thing per week :)  We have a tea towel being decorated with sashiko embroidery, a March themed mobile from a Japanese craft kit, a cute zakka bunny case (both this and the tea towel are from a zakka sewing book I shall be reviewing soon), a wrap around skirt and some little kawaii cut-outs. I know the last one doesn't really class a project, but I wanted to share as I approved of tofu-cute's stand at a show having free crafty postcards.  So, what to make next...

DIY Zakka Inspired Gadget Cozy Tutorial

Today I'd like to share with you a tutorial to make a zakka inspired Gadget Cozy, which can be adapted for a phone, tablet, eReader, DS/PSP etc

Please don't be put off by the length of the instruction, it's actually nice and simple to make!  The tutorial just gets a bit wordy when I'm trying to explain how to work out the sizes you need - I wanted to keep it flexible instead of working to some fixed sizes as every device is different!  If you have any queries about any of the steps, please feel free to ask in the comments.

Materials you will need

• Linen and printed cotton for the outer layer
• Polar fleece for lining - I've used fleece as this can act as both lining fabric and padding in one, but you could use quilting wadding instead, in which case you will also need a lining fabric such as some quilting cotton
• Felt (optional to provide a little more body to the cozy)
• Button
• Elastic
• Matching thread
• Trims such as ribbon and lace

Equipment you will need

• Sewing machine (although this could be hand sewn)
• Tape measure
• Scissors
• Long pins
• Temporary spray adhesive (optional, for working with trims)
• Rotary cutter, Cutting mat and Clear ruler (optional, but does makes things a lot easier)

Step 1 - Measure and cut lining

Use the tape measure and wrap it around your device in both directions, noting down the measurements in centimetres.

Take the shorter of the two lengths and add 6 cm to it, then divide this by 2.  This will be the width of your lining/wadding fabrics.

Take the other measurement and add 1 cm to it.  This will be the length of the lining/wadding fabrics.  Round the measurements up to the nearest .5cm for simplicity if they are awkward numbers!

Example (based on a 3DS XL)

Device circumference is 22cm x 34.5cm

(22+6)/2=14cm

34.5 + 1 = 35.5cm
Therefore the lining pieces will be 14cm x 35.5cm

Once you have calculated the size required, cut this size out of the fleece (or wadding and lining) and felt.

Step 2 - Sew lining

Lay your lining/padding layers on top of each other, felt first, then fleece/wadding, and if you a separate lining fabric, that will be last.  Then fold this in half so that the two short ends meet and the felt is on the outside (in the photos above, my felt is the brown layer and my fleece is the yellow one).
Pin the two sides so that you end up with the folded edge as the bottom of your case and an opening at the top.
Sew along the two pinned sides 1 cm away from the edge.

Step 3 - Check lining fit and determine size of outer fabric

Remove the pins and then check your device fits into the cozy lining. It should be snug, but not so snug you struggle to put it in and out.  If it's too big, sew another row of stitching on one of the sides to make it smaller.  If it's too small, unfortunately you will need to unpick one of the sides and sew it again closer to the edge.
If you are happy with the fit, trim the seams as close to the stitches as you can, without cutting through any of them.
Also check how much excess fabric you have at the opening when the device is inside the lining.  If you feel there there is too much, trim the top slightly.

Now we need to take a couple of measurements again to work out how big the outer fabric needs to be, as the padding layer will have added to the size.  Put your device inside the lining and measure around the sewn edges and add 4 cm, then divide by 2.  This will be the width of the front and back outer layers.  Measure around the other way from the edge of the top opening on one side, to the edge of the opening on the other side. Add 6 cm to this and divide by 2 - this is the length of the front and back outer layers.

Step 4 - Cut out and piece the outer fabrics

Now that we know what size the front and back pieces need to eventually be, we can piece these together from the linen and cotton.  Alternatively, if you just want to use one fabric for the outside,you just need to cut two pieces out that are the size calculated at the end of step 3 and then skip to step 5.

Take the height measurement from step 3 and decide how much of this you would like to be linen and how much the patterned fabric.  Bear in mind that the top 3 cm and bottom 1 cm will not be visible.  When you've decided on how you wish to split your height measurement into two, add an additional 1 cm to each section for the seam allowance to join the two fabrics.

I'm not sure that made much sense, so hopefully this example will help:

Example (based on a 3DS XL)

Device circumference width-wise inside lining is 25.5cm

Top edge of opening on one side, around bottom to top edge of opening on the other side is 35.5cm

Outer layer width = (25.5+4)/2=14.75cm, rounded up to nearest .5cm, so 15cm

Outer layer height = (35.5 + 8)/2 = 21.75cm, rounded up to nearest .5cm, so 22cm

As my print had a large pattern, I decided I wanted the cotton to be the 13 cm at the bottom, so the linen would be the remaining 9 cm at the top (13+9=22cm).  Therefore:
Cotton size: = 13cm + 1cm extra seam allowance = 14cm x 15cm
Linen size = 9cm + 1cm extra seam allowance = 10cm x 15cm
Once sewn together, this would result in a piece 22cm x 15cm, matching the outer layer measurements

Once you've worked out the sizes, cut two of each out of the linen and cotton.  If your cotton has a big pattern, take care to make sure you are happy with what elements of the design will be shown and also which way up they will be and cut appropriately.  In my case, I wanted two different foxes from my print to be on the front and back, central on the front and offset on the back.
Pin the right sides of the cotton and linen together and sew 1 cm from the edge to end up with one front and one back piece.

Press the seam open and iron the two pieces to remove all creases.

Step 5 - Add trims

Now you can add your trims with temporary glue to hold in place.  For my cozy, I took a piece of lace a bit wider than the front and sprayed one side with temporary adhesive.  This was then stuck this onto the front over the seam between the two fabrics, taking care to make sure the pattern repeat was central.  This was then repeated with some ribbon, overlapping the lace slightly. (The scissors in the above photo are just holding my tape measure down, as I wanted to line up a certain part of the ribbon with the centre)

Once happy with the placement of the trims, cut the ends so that they are the same width as the fabric and then topstitch in place along each edge.

Now sew a button to the front for the elastic to go around and then you have finished front and back

Step 6 - Sew outer layer

Pin the two sides and bottom of the front and back pieces right sides together.  Sew around the three sides, 1 cm from the edge.  When you get to a corner, stop when 1 cm from both edges, leave the needle down through the fabric, lift the pressure foot, turn the fabric 90 degrees, lower the foot and then start sewing again.

Turn the outer layer the right way around and double check that it goes over your lining (it will be quite a tight fit) and that your device still fits inside.  Hopefully it will fit, but if there are any problems, adjust the size of the outer layer.

Once the size is okay, turn so that it is inside out again.  Trim the bottom corners, taking care not to cut the stitches and then press the seams open.

Fold top over by 1 cm and press.

Turn the right way around, making sure the corners are pushed out as much as possible (a chopstick or thick knitting needle can help here) and then put the outer layer back over the lining.

Fold the top of the outer layer over the lining into the inside and pin in just a couple of places, making sure the sharp points are on the outside

Step 7 - Add Elastic

Carefully put your device into the case, making sure no pins are going to scratch it!

Take the elastic and thread it around the button and bring it over the top of the cozy so that 3cm of it is down the back.  Pull it just tight enough that it starts to pull the top closed and won't slip off the button.  Trim to this size.

Remove your device, unpin and unfold the top back edge - you should have two fold lines, the one we ironed and another that lines up with the top of the case.  Sew the elastic onto the fabric just above each of these lines.

Step 8 - Attach the lining

Fold the top edge back inside the case and pin all the way around.  You may have to pull it taught to get it flat and lining up nicely

Slip stitch the lining to the folded over edge of the outer layer and then you will have a finished gadget cozy!

I hope that you found this tutorial useful.  It's easy to create variations of the pattern by incorporating some patch work, changing the trims and the linen/cotton ratio as you can see below.  If you make your own cozy following this, then please let me know how you get on in the comments.

Needle felting workshops - Book Review

  

The first book I'd like to review for you is 'Needle Felting Workshops with Jenny Barnett'.  I believe this is a self published book so isn't available at places like Amazon at the moment, but can be bought here:

Needle Felting Workshops with Jenny Barnett

I picked this up from Jenny's stall at the Yarndale show last October in Skipton.  As soon as I saw the book and examples of Jenny's work, I knew I had to buy it, as the sweet style of the animals in it were completely different to any I had seen in a book before.

The book starts by covering the basics of how to needle felt and how to make and work with the basic elements that each of the creations will be made of - bodys, attaching limbs, details such as eyes and whiskers.  It's all done in a pretty, almost scrapbook style, with a combination of text, helpful photos and sketches to illustrate the techniques. There is also an interesting section on posing your animal as one of the things that is different with this book to others I have is that it encourages you to try different poses with each of the animals to give them different characters, rather than just recreating one example exactly.

After these general explanations, there are then 10 workshops, each making a different animal.  I think a key part of reviewing a craft book is to actually try making some items from it and seeing how they come out, so I have made 4 of the animals so far, and I took a few photos whilst I was making the most recent one - a grey seal.

All of the workshops follow pretty much the same format.  First you weigh out your fleece so you know from the start you are using the right amount.  Then you felt each of the separate pieces for the body and the head.  Split in this way, they are quite simple shapes and there's a full scale drawing of each shape you are aiming for, so it's quite easy to get the proportions right.  It gets a little trickier when you come to attach the head as you need decide on the pose you are going to use and then spend a little time attaching it in this pose and building up the neck by eye, which takes a bit of patience - as you can see above it was looking a little skinny to start with!  There are lots of photos of each of the finished animals in all sorts of different poses in the book to give you ideas, so you can pick the one you like the most and copy it.

Next comes creating the limbs and there are more full scale drawings to compare the shape of each of these.  Then you need to decide where these need to be attached to achieve the pose you are after - again there's plenty of example photos to help here.  Within each of the workshops, there aren't step by step photos for putting together each animal, but they do contain clear, descriptive instructions taking you through each stage.  You can also refer back to the start of book were there are step by step photos for attaching the legs and how to add the facial details etc.  This seems fine to me, as there would just be a lot of repetition in each workshop if the steps were included each time since the techniques are the same.

After adding all the details and small tweaks to the shape, I finally had a seal I was happy with:

And here are some photos of the other three animals I've made from this book:

I'm really pleased with this book and with what I've been able to create following the instructions within it.  These were the first pieces of needle felting I'd done that were proper looking animals rather than simplified ball-shaped creatures, yet I was surprised at how easy they were to achieve. I found that they do take a few hours each and I needed to be patient and keep persisting with adjusting the shape of a few things, but I think the results are worth it.

You can get a copy of the book and also kits for the creatures within it from http://www.coriandr.com/shop/jennymade

A fresh start and February Round-Up

Hello there!
I've decided to give this craft blogging thing another go.  I'm hoping to make this a bit more useful than it was, so gone is all the random waffle and I'll instead be focusing mainly on craft book reviews (I have enough to open a small library!), tutorials and help with a few Japanese craft kits.

However, I'm going to start with a Round-Up post of the projects I've worked on in the last month.

At the start of the year, I set myself a little challenge to make something every week.  Here's what I worked on in February, which will also provide a bit of a sneak peek of what things will be coming along on this blog in the near future:

From top to bottom, left to right, we have a Valentines card, a 'Project Wooser' needle felted creation for a birthday present, a finished quilted bed runner which I spent most of Jan making, three felted items from a Japanese book ready for a review, a paper-craft calendar (better late then never...) another needle felted creature from a different book and a gadget cosy which is intended to be my first tutorial...

As you can see, it's been a productive month and I've managed more than one make a week (not sure I'm going to manage to keep that up mind!).  Hopefully more details of a number of these items will be appearing in reviews and tutorials here soon.