James Loves the Firefox Pouch :)

Result! James loves the pouch! In truth, although I was very pleased with how it came out ....... can I confess to being ever so slightly 'worried' that he may be ...... well ...... underwhelmed by it? After all, it is 'only' a little pouch! The materials weren't all that expensive to buy ...... just my time investment!
However ...... no need AT ALL for any such thoughts. He was totally wowed by it! When someone just out of being a teenager uses 'awesome' as a description ...... well, guess that's a serious result :)

Even as I type, he has posted photos of it here, there and everywhere. I guess all I can say in turn is that his response is totally awesome! I am so glad I made it for him :)

I realise I didn't get round to blogging about the final bit of making the pouch up. However, firstly, I definitely owe the Radical Cross Stitch site another big Thank You for posting the free cross stitch pattern of the Firefox logo. I posted about stitching the design in an earlier post.

Making it up was much easier than I thought it would be. I hunted round loads of sites on the Internet looking for a pouch-like pattern but nothing really 'hit the spot' until I saw a Kindle cover tutorial at The Sometimes Crafter. I have based my pouch on her approach.

When I set about making the pouch, the idea was to make it somewhat bigger than the hard drive. We 'borrowed' it from James when he was out and I took the measurements. I used felt for the outside and used thin fusible polyester batting to pad it out for the protection of the hard drive. Now ...... I hadn't used my sewing machine for a VERY long time. In an earlier post, I mentioned how back in September I had to have the poor beastie repaired/serviced. So, did I feel brave enough to start with the pouch itself? Might it be better to have a trial run on something else? Oh .... blow it! Just go for it! Thankfully, my nervousness was unfounded ...... I decided using a sewing machine must be like riding a bike ...... not something you forget :)

Then another snag...... the felt I had wasn't really big enough to make it bigger than the drive in the way I initially intended. So, a quick review of the measurements ...... a bit of light maths ...... a bit of wetting a finger to test which way the wind was blowing ..... even a tiny prayer? You will notice that there is a 'design feature' of a seam where the flap folds over. Well ..... 'design' my eye! That was actually because I had to join two bits of felt together :)

The lining material was a nice bit of modern material I bought from Gone To Earth which was also where I bought the fusible polyester lining. Incidentally, the only place in the UK I found who sells fusible, not too thick batting.

The self-covered button came from Blooming Felt, covered with the same material as the lining material ...... and also with a little bit of the batting to pad the button out a bit. Doing the button was an experience! I had wanted to produce a self-covered button for some time as they look so cute! This project was an idea opportunity! These buttons were much cheaper than any I'd seen anywhere else and as I was also buying some felt from them, it seemed like a good idea to buy the buttons at the same time.

However, the little tool required to actually cover the buttons didn't come with any instructions. Still ...... how hard could it be? So, I carefully cut out the little circle of the lining material ...... ironed on the little bit of batting ........ got the tool ........

Could I work out how to use it? Could I hell!!

Consulted with my engineer husband ........ he couldn't work it out either! Sent Blooming Felt an email, but then went away and had a lie down in a darkened room and thought ........ this can't be this difficult, surely? Let's approach this logically ......... managed to work it out but discovered that what I was lacking was some serious muscle power to 'click' the backing in place ....... the husband came in handy here!

So ...... stitched on the badge. All done! But ....... remember, I had to reduce the size. Would the hard drive fit? A small white lie to James as to why I needed to 'borrow' the drive and, miracles of miracles, it is a lovely snug fit!!! Phew!

PS You may wonder how on earth I have had the time to write all this on Christmas day? Well ...... no cooking for me today :) Going to our niece in a little while. I have made her a little surprise present as a 'Thank You' for 'doing' Christmas. If I get the same response from her it will be a seriously awesome day for me :)

Might have made me go blind!

This project is possibly a salutary lesson in how not to do something, although I am pleased with how it has turned out!

One blog I like to regularly check out is the Craftzine Blog. This blog is fantastic as it alerts you to a wide range of interesting projects on all sorts of websites and blogs. One of their entries described a Firefox Logo cross stitch pattern at a site called Radical Cross Stitch.

As soon as I saw this pattern, I immediately thought it would be a good design to do for my son. James sometimes (gently!) ribs me that IE sucks and that Firefox is much better. I thought I'd make him a felt pouch for his external hard drive and embroider this like a badge to sew onto the closure flap.

So ....... how did I approach this one? Well ..... having decided that I didn't want it to be too big, I decided that using some 28 count linen and stitching each cross stitch over one thread would make the logo about 2 inches in diameter ..... ideal! I bought all the flosses at the Alexandra Knitting and Stitching Show. I then hunted round at home for a small embroidery hoop! Now, for many years I have always used frames! Could I find a hoop? Could I heck! Found a large one that proved to have broken at some point! Further digging ....... found a rubberised one that is supposed to double as a frame but found that hard to stretch the linen over. I'm sure I have a small one somewhere ....... heaven knows where!

In the end, I used a freebie from the Cross Stitcher magazine from a couple of months ago!

OK ...... ready to go! Now to decide how many strands of floss to use? Did a couple of stitches using two threads. You can see these little red stitches in the second photo. This seemed to be OK, so two threads it was! However, sewing over just one thread makes each stitch VERY small! In fact, the stitches are so small, I don't think you can even see that they are cross stitches! I'm not entirely sure what I looked like, but the stitching was done with me peering over the top of my glasses! I must confess to feeling a little bit of eye strain so doubt I'll do something this small again! I did mis-count the pattern at one point and didn't discover until much later! Never mind, I just slightly adjusted the pattern and I don't think anyone will ever notice. Having completed the design, I think I could have got away with only using one strand of floss for each stitch. However, it makes a very firm badge and I am pleased with it.

How long did it take? Well, I think it took about three weeks.

Having finished the design, I want to cut away the excess fabric but obviously don't want it to fray. What to do? Well, another blog I love following is by Ruth O'Leary. Ruth's work is stunning! At the moment (2010) she is working on an amazing project to produce a St Cuthbert's Banner for use in Durham Cathedral. She is making up the design on the banner by individually sewing the motifs and these will then be sewed to the main fabric of the banner. Because each motif will need to be closely trimmed, she's using blanket stitch round the edge of each motif!

Eureka! Of course! Use the humble blanket stitch!

Having completed the cross stitch, I decided to use the dark blue floss and with three strands, make tiny blanket stitches all round the edge as close together as I could. You can see in the second photo that I also sewed a small little blanket stitch circle and cut out the centre, just to see if it really would stop the fabric from fraying. It appears that it does!

However, as you can also see in the second photo, I didn't get the blanket stitches quite close enough, despite my best efforts. Initially, I thought this looked OK, but the more I looked at it, the more I realised that I wasn't happy with the gappy look to the edge. So, I went over the blanket stitch by over sewing with three strands of floss as you can see in the first photo. This looks much better I think.

I now need to pluck up the courage to cut the fabric as close to the stitching as I can! Oh .... and make the felt pouch to put it on!