Hidden Magnetic Purse Closure

I had an idea late last night on how to make a hidden magnetic purse closure. I didn't want to use sew-in ones (bleh, too much work for a quick tote bag project), and the more typical magnetic clasps require extra reinforcement for the metal pieces that go through the fabric.

On our fridge, we have a bunch of Mighty Magnets*, which are ridiculously strong for their size, and extremely effective. I was thinking it would be easy to slip them into a little fabric pocket, sew that into my bag with a machine, and voila! Hidden magnetic purse closure. Check out this super simple tutorial!

yardage.info

I routinely find myself in fabric stores, ogling yards of bolts of fabric, and more often than not will buy some without a clear idea of a project. I used to buy just one yard, but then through practice, found that one yard wasn't enough for a lot of the projects I wanted to make. Now I'm up to 1.5 or 2 yards, depending on the cost.

Last year, I had an idea for a little web application where one could estimate how much fabric would be necessary to do different projects–an on-the-go fabric shopping aid, if you will. I registered a domain and never really got around to building anything until this past weekend.

You can find it at yardage.info.

Isn't that a cute domain name?

You can select different categories, and various project characteristics will pop up to give a slightly more accurate estimate. Right now it's heavily focused on women's clothing; eventually I'd like to include menswear and accessories.

UFOs and WIPs and queues

I meant to write a post for today about rolled hems, as I took some related photographs a while ago... but got completely sidetracked by minor disagreement I had with my serger, which is still unresolved. I feel that the needle threads ought to be catching all of the lower loops, yet my serger seems to be of the opinion that it can avoid catching every tenth loop or so.

I am confident I will prevail, if only because a full cleaning and rethreading is going to happen, and soon.

In the meanwhile, I thought I might post some pictures of recent and current projects, because as a true crafter, I never have just one!

Stonemountain and Daughter

I lived in Berkeley for two years, and somehow never was able to get my butt over to Stonemountain and Daughter. In my defence, we were never really set up for me to sew while I was doing my degree, but now I really regret not going!

I finally had reason to go last week, and took a few photographs while I was there.

Basic Hem 2: Knit Boogaloo

Continuing the theme of basic hemming, here's some photographs from a tunic I made using some very cute two-way stretch fabric.

Knits don't really unravel like woven fabrics do, so you can often get away with not hemming them. But that doesn't mean you should–hemming will give your garment a nice, clean edge, and in many cases may look better than your best effort to cut a straight line.