Bento Bag

I really love these linen bento bags. They're great for farmers markets and lunches. I also really enjoy the challenge of looking at something and determining the construction. I could tell these were simple in that lovely origami and inside out kind of way that sewing often is — but it took a bit more experimenting and researching to figure this out.

As far as I can tell, there isn't a really good tutorial (I found a couple confusing and incomplete ones) online for making these. I'm happy then to get this out there! All the steps, photos and diagrams after the jump.

Small Pouch, Pencil Case

I could have sworn that a while (as in years) ago I posted on making little zipper cube pouches. I thought this was about to be a sister post, for a rectangular pouch, but I see no trace of this other post. This, then, is long over due! I recently bought a yard of fantastic red and white linen and then went to town sewing up my favorite quick projects and using it all up in a day and a half. It was so great to spend that much time sewing. I love these pouches. They take very little material and make great gifts, too.

Instructions after the jump!

Quick Drawstring Bags

I've posted on a few kinds of drawstring bags already (here and here), could there be more? Of course. These are about as quick and dirty as it gets. It's also a good way to use up extra fabric (that you buy and buy without a project in mind and then you end up moving it across the country and promising yourself to find ways to use it and store other things, like air, under your bed). Instructions after the jump!

Skirted Tablecloth

Our guest room just got a budget makeover. Since our roommate moved out a couple of years ago, the room has served as my sewing and craft room, a place to store a million books (unartfully arranged in a closed Ikea cabinet), and the threshold for that most abhorred of things, the pre-fab aluminum sunroom that we call the Abomination. (It is referred to as such so often and exclusively that we can tell friends, "There are extra chairs on the Abomination," and no one blinks.) The room continues to serve all those roles - but recently with more panache. We moved out the industrial shelving and Ikea cabinet and replaced it with this bookcase from the Ballard's outlet in Atlanta, where the manager knocked off another 20% (just ask). That made this sturdy, hardwood, easy-to-assemble bookcase about the same price as a particle-board number from Ikea. I arranged our prettiest books on it by color, added a few knick-knacks with no other home, and the room was already greatly improved.



But there were other issues - none as pressing as the rusty steel industrial shelving once used (somewhere) to display Doc Martens, and then our books, and which now resides more appropriately in the garage - but issues nonetheless. We've been substituting a bedside table with a charming old pedestal table that I spray-painted glossy white - but it didn't look or feel like a bedside table.

Enter an old TV shelf of Allen's that never suited the house (but, y'know, the Doc Marten shelves totally did). This post on Erin Ever After inspired me to make a skirted, tailored tablecloth for it. Probably everybody with an attic (or an Abomination) has a sturdy, functional table or cabinet that they're just not crazy about. The TV stand was, on its own, enough to make me ponder a yard sale several times a month - I do hate having things around that we just don't use. But I'm glad I didn't pawn it off, because this tablecloth was a fairly straight-forward Saturday project that made a big difference in the room.

Envelope Case for Sunglasses

This fabric envelope is a total rip-off of a lovely one that Jessica made me, which I use as a wallet. Since it's not meant to be used as a wallet, and it has no billfold, coin purse, or cardholders, I'm constantly fumbling through it, dropping credit cards, tearing dollar bills, and exclaiming to cashiers about all the Sacagawea dollars I just found in there (!). And I still love it, which means it was a great gift.

I sized this up and elongated it so that it fit my old plastic sunglasses, which I've now broken, and it's slightly too small for the new aviators I just got on sale. (Which will soon also break.) So scale accordingly.

Making Laundry a Teensy Bit Easier

Let it be said: I am no laundry role model. I do not do it often enough, and when I do I have to take it to the nearest (cheapest) laundromat about 6 blocks away and either a) walk by the tourists at Cheers or b) walk through the Public Garden. Not only is it farther than I'd like to walk but also those are not the two places I'd like to go through with a big bag topped with my underwear. Also because I do not do it often enough I always have a ton of it to carry when I do. It's heavy. I'm on a 5th floor walk-up. All of this is to say, the last thing I want to do is also lug around a big jug of detergent. My simple solution: use a smaller container. I know this isn't revolutionary, but it didn't come to me for a while and now that it has, I'm not looking back.

I took an old dish soap bottle and removed the label (you'll have to get some goo-gone action on). Next I put a length of (pretty) tape down the side. I took my detergent and poured it in the cap to get the measure for one load. Pour that into your bottle and mark the amount. Record the length of that measure and repeat it up the side of the tape. BAM. Look how many loads I'll get before I even need to refill it. Laundry: a teensy, weensy bit better.

diy: leather CD case

This is a instance when my excessive love for prettiness wins out over practicality, utility, and common sense. I already had a CD case - a perfectly good one I'd had since high school. But its cover was nylon and plastic and - well, not hand-tooled leather. This is a makeover, and an impractical one at that - not a made-from-scratch project - but it sure is nicer to reach for a "How to speak Italian" CD in the car now.

Read on for the straightforward instructions.

Re-purpose: T-shirt to Shoe Travel Bag

Unfortunately, this shirt lost a battle with butter and/or oil in the kitchen (an apron is on my to-do list), but I wouldn't let it go in vain. From it I got two travel shoe bags. Here is how.

Organizing: Embroidery Floss

My embroidery floss was a hot mess. Fact.