My Months Long Aloe Vera Project

Fabric aloe vera plant...

It's been mentioned here that hubby and I have houseplants that are over thirty years old. Over the years, I've grown quite weary of watering and tending to them (particularly vexing when we go on holidays, although I must say that during our recent two week absence, my watering setup worked quite well on everything) and have welcomed the fact that several have reached their natural lifespan and given up the ghost, so to speak.

Late last summer, I happily threw out the remains of an asparagus fern that had been dangling from the top of our second floor staircase for twenty-nine years. It had been a housewarming gift and although some people love these things, it was not a favourite of mine. Little leaf "blades" fell from it onto our (carpeted) stairs constantly and the long fronds were actually very thorny and difficult to handle in terms of arranging or pruning.

Of course, once it was gone, the spot where it used to sit seemed like a lonely, empty space. I decided an artificial plant would its place; specifically, one that I had previously deemed something I would never make. From the YouTube channel of Retales de Mil Colores, my choice was an aloe vera plant that would require me to make forty-two leaves!

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Deciding – I made the decision last September – and executing were two distinct phases of this project.

As I found out when I made tulips from that same YouTube channel, I don't have a lot of green fabric. I considered making a denim version for a time, but I ended up searching through my closet for something more suitable to recycle.

A jacket that can be sacrificed for crafting...

Again (as I found out when I made the tulips), I don't have a lot of green clothing. But I did find this little jacket that's a light shade of sage green. (It was part of my work wardrobe and like my pant suits and blazers, this type of clothing just doesn't get much wear from me these days.)

Also – since it's a size 00 – I figure it would have limited appeal as a donated item. So in mid-October, I took my scissors to it and harvested enough fabric to make up over half of the required forty-two leaves.

It's a bit of a time-consuming process no matter what...

The remainder of the leaves would later come from blue/green selections from my Lily and Loom purchase. By the end of October, I had the above plate of leaves all traced out and mostly cut.

At some point in mid November, I gathered up some of my larger fusible fleece scraps and pinned them patchwork style onto the smaller leaves.

Fabric leaves sewn together and turned out with fusible fleece interfacing inside each...

It was December before I pinned the remainder of the fabric to fusible fleece. The pieces were then sewn together along the edges, pinked, turned right side out and pressed.

Doing that for forty-two leaves is a bit of a process no matter how you look at it. Over the course of the first week of December, it got done, slowly.

Pressed and ready for more sewing...

This is one of the few projects I've done that's required an assembly line style of construction, although I didn't quite follow it to the "t". I assembly-lined three groups of leaves. (There are four different sizes, ranging from six small ones to fourteen large ones.) As it turned out, it was a good decision, since my fingers got sore from using the hemostats to turn and the pinking shears to trim.

I did, however, stop after they were all turned and pressed, leaving the final "sewing down the center of each leaf" to be done all at once.

Centers sewn and stacked in "order"...

I harvested fabric from both the inside and outside of the jacket, meaning that some of the leaves had one side that was made out of a (fairly sturdy) nylon satin from the lining. Seven of the leaves feature this fabric on the top side.

The start of the hot gluing process...

The gluing process took place on the weekend of December 7 & 8.

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Here is the finished plant, with all forty-two leaves hot glued together.

Top view...

Even though I scaled the pattern up by 25%, it's nowhere near the size of the old asparagus fern. But it has taken its old place at the top of the stairs. (I imagine that I could add another layer of leaves to make this plant more of a statement piece, but that's a thought for another day.)

I won't have to water this one...

I found a square wooden box that had previously held a fresh flower arrangement as the container.

And it won't drop anything down onto the stairs...

I appreciate the fact that I took another of my unwanted garments and turned it into something else that will give me pleasure.

But for something so inherently simple, this took a long time to complete... not to mention a long time to post! (And further proof that we should never say "never"!)

'Til next... 🇨🇦🍁

Customized "Eggsy" Backpack

My new Eggsy backpack...

Several weeks ago, I posted about a new (to me) YouTube channel that had captured my attention: Miko Craft.

This talented Indonesian bag maker freely offers up quality patterns for our consumption, and it's all done to a level that equals or surpasses many "paid" designers. If you're looking to make a bag and you learn best by video, I highly recommend you check him out.

The project that I'm about to show you was mentioned in that previous post: the Eggsy Backpack. (I'm making the rare move of actually providing a link here.) Under the details section of the video, you can access a PDF containing all required templates.

I chose this design out of his vast catalog of backpack patterns for its sleek, oval, curvy shape. Also, the way it's constructed immediately gave me ideas for how I could allocate my intended fabric selections (which included my own Canadiana Tiled & Mirrored and the Emma & Mila (Field Carbon) that I first used for my eReader case).

Black, white and red would rule the day for this project!

It's a good size...

For the lining, it's a blast from the past: a 2002 release called Black and White and Read Allover by Cindy Taylor Oates. It came from Jake's care package that I received ten years ago. I've said this before, but it's literally the gift that keeps on giving!

Whimsical eye chart fabric (front lining)...

I believe this is only the second time I've used this fabric for a bag; the first was one of my bodaciously basic bucket bag testers. As so many others often do with certain fabrics in their stash, I guess I've always been saving it for something perfect. This is a perfect colour match for my black, white and red Eggsy. (And I still had/have a lot left!)

Further about the fabric, my Canadiana pieces are a lightweight cotton twill, while the Emma & Mila is a high quality (read "higher thread count") quilting cotton. I left the twill as is, but interfaced the quilting cotton with SF101. I contemplated adding some fusible fleece to some of the pieces but ultimately decided against it. None of the lining was interfaced.

This was a lightly interfaced bag...

The end result is a soft finish that holds its shape, but is definitely squishable for packing or squeezing into small spaces. (I mean, don't you just hate it when someone's backpack is sticking in your face while on a bus or in a lineup?) In these photos where you see the bag standing up by itself, it's doing so without any "stuffing" or extra help.

By the way, as I was looking at the photos of the finished project, it also occurred to me that in the absence of the Emma & Mila fabric, I could have used my own Healthy, Hopeful, Happy design to produce a similar item.

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Miko's tutorial revealed a new (to me) technique for making a zippered pocket with a "clean" interior, i.e., no exposed zipper tape under the opening. The existence of this method is not unknown to me; I've just never cared enough to learn how to do it. I guess what I'm reiterating is that he doesn't cut corners in how his projects are designed.

That said, the process for making this pocket is covered – generically – in a different video, so you'll have refer to a second tutorial when you get to this step. I chose to add a second zippered pocket to the back side of the bag, so that's where I used this more professional method. For the interior lining pocket, I actually did two things differently. I used the basic method (with exposed zipper tape), but I also left the bottom of the lining open – actually cut it open since it began as a single piece – and turned (this half of) the bag right side out through that opening.

Using the bottom of a pocket to turn right side out...

This modification let me skip having to hand sew along the gusset to close up an alternate opening for turning (as indicated at 24:17 of the video). Less hand sewing is always a win in my book!

While we're on the subject of pockets, let me describe the other two that I added. One is right along the gusset and the other is attached to one of the side panels of the rounded front part. The latter was a last minute addition, decided on when I saw how wide that area actually was. It will certainly carry sunglasses and will even fit my cellphone in a pinch.

Simple slip pocket added to gusset...

The gusset pocket is similar to the one I added to my Seth bag. It's even more simple here as it's just one long single piece of fabric, seamed to create a tube (to make the pocket self-lined). It's then sewn to the bottom and basted along the sides of the gusset. I created the illusion of a flap by folding the top part of the fabric over and adding a rivet.

Size-wise, you might think it's hardly big enough to be useful, but not only can cards fit in it (it's deep enough that they won't fall out), it'll also accommodate reading glasses – even sunglasses if they're not the big chunky kind – or a tube of insect repellent, lotion, sunscreen, or hand sanitizer.

Water bottle harness attached to gusset piece...

Staying with the gusset for a moment, one of the things I wanted to add – since the bag didn't have an exterior pocket designed for it – was a water bottle harness.

I used a piece of heavy duty wide elastic for this purpose. (Same stuff that I used for our shinto stool cushions, which are still functioning well, five and a half years later.) I measured to make sure that it would have to stretch just a tiny bit to hold a basic 500ml bottle. If it's not snug, it will just slide out.

On the opposite side of the interior gusset, I added a couple of mini straps. I figured they could hold pens or sunglasses (although in the finished bag, they are positioned a little lower than I'd like).

I eventually attached my red and white key card lanyard to one of them.

By the way, I was quite happy to discover that even though a bottle of water takes away from the amount of room (width-wise) inside the bag, the area in front still offers up a lot of room for things like a pouch or some other organizer. (You can't see it in this photo, but my 3 pocket red and white ribbon pouch is inside.)

Two multi-purpose mini straps attached to opposite side of gusset...

Okay, back to the subject of the other pocket. After completing the front part of the bag (12:52 of the video), I noticed that the sides were actually pretty substantial. Substantial enough to add a slip pocket if I could somehow manage to add it artfully.

For ease of access, the pocket would need to be angled; for overall looks, fussy cutting the piece would be best. Having a noticeable break in the fabric's print would call attention to the pocket unnecessarily.

Luckily, I had a big enough matching remnant to work with, one that would allow for seams along three sides – the pocket is unlined – so that it could be sewn on top of the existing panel.

Pressing is important, to ensure that the fussy cut stays true after adding the seam allowances. (While Miko doesn't seem to press anything during his construction process, it's always a good thing to press as you go when you're making a bag like this.)

Adding another slip pocket...

This last minute addition turned out reasonably well, all things considered. One could try to add this pocket to the original panel D, but having extra thickness in that zipper area might not turn out so well.

Speaking of piece D, when I was sewing it up, I somehow got it turned backwards and couldn't figure out for the life of me how to make it fit. (This is 9:57 of the video.) I think it was because the image I captured in my Word doc didn't show precisely the extreme curvy edge being matched up with the zipper tape. For some reason, I just assumed it was the other side.

Anyway, one of the commenters on the video apparently had the same problem and when I read it, it occurred to me that I had done the exact same thing!

Straps done my way...

I pondered for a long time about how to make the straps, knowing that I only had so much webbing (recycled from an old duffle bag) and also that I didn't want to buy gold toned hardware to make them as designed. The reality was that this is my bag. As long as I can use it comfortably, having the straps be adjustable seemed unnecessary.

Then there's the fact that I'm not a big fan of using just webbing; it seems like such a utilitarian choice. It's already a backpack – which is utilitarian in style – so why can't it be jazzed up a tad?

That's how I ended up with my fabric trimmed straps. Once I determined that I had enough fabric to cover one side of the webbing, it was an easy decision. And because I didn't have the perfect amount of webbing (slightly short), I used some of the fabric to make anchors at both ends. The raw ends of the straps were inserted into those anchors, which were then secured by topstitching along both edges of the straps.

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If you've been a regular reader for awhile, you may know that I love to make use of recycled bits and discount store purchases for my projects. This one was no different. (I already said that the webbing for the straps came from an old duffle.) The zipper pulls on the front pocket came from a pair of suede boots that I tossed a few years ago.

Never toss old zipper pulls... especially when they look like this!

Other "danglers" that I added to the remaining three exterior zippers – a red handbag and a lock and key – came from my old cell phone charm and from a pair of shoes (that you can see here).

The gold slider buckle that I threaded through one of the straps came from the same $10 thrift store purse that gave up all of the golden hardware for my customized Goddess of the Sea bag. (If you're wondering what the buckle's for, it's a handy place to hang a pair of sunglasses for quick access.) It's free to slide up and down the strap to whatever location.

Can't have too many places from which to hang bling!

The accent ribbon that's used to trim the ends of the main zipper came from a Michael's discount bin (for a buck). The colour match is spot on. The ribbon was sewn back to back to form the hanging loop at the top of the backpack (instead of using more webbing).

A necessity for every bag I own!

Because most of my hardware is silver toned, I had to pay a visit to my local Dollarama to find a gold keychain. I needed a split ring to thread through one of those ribbon zipper ends so I could attach a lip balm carrier. Usually made with non-fraying materials, I zigzagged stitched my Canadiana fabric to resolve that issue.

For those who want to add a label to the front of the bag, do so at 5:00 or 6:42 of the video.

I typically forget (and really don't much care) to add a designer tag to my creations, but when the bag was finished, the front panel just seemed to be lacking something. I decided to make a maple leaf patch and attach it with double sided tape and rivets. Thankfully, the dual access front pocket made that easy to accomplish, even after the fact. (Oh, and by the way, the maple leaf on this patch came from a different version of my Canadiana fabric; it's a fleece used for these mittens.)

FINALLY – and I do mean finally – I wanted a way to turn this into more of a sling bag. Unless I'm really seriously trekking, I'm probably going to carry this bag on one shoulder with one strap. However, I don't like an unused backpack strap hanging loose; it just makes it easier for someone to come along and snatch it.

An example of a simple but extremely functional modification...

With the help of hook and loop tape and some sturdy black elastic – saved from one of my $1 belts – I sewed up the contraption shown here to help keep the two straps together.

And yes, that was the final addition that I made to this Eggsy. (However, it's not the end of the saga — I'll be back with another of Miko's Eggsy projects before the end of summer.)

'Til next... 🇨🇦🍁

The Paisley Project 2.0

A portion of my new paisley fabric design...

Nine years ago, I designed a collection of fabrics featuring the very retro pattern known as paisley. I did it as a tribute to my mom, who has always been quite a fan of that curly teardrop form.

The project was also the foundation of an extensive learning experience for me, as I took a design that I originally drew on paper and then scanned into my computer for tweaking via Paint Shop Pro.

Back then, it truly was a matter of "tweaking," as I did not use the program's vector drawing tools to reproduce the outlines. (Quite honestly, I wasn't knowledgeable enough about how to use them at the time.)

The painstaking process of vectorizing a hand drawing...

With more years of experience under my belt, I recently took some of those same paisleys and rejigged them into scalable vectors to create a new design for a Spoonflower challenge called Novelty Paisley.

Actually, this time, there was also a first attempt done on paper by hand. My doodling ended up transforming paisleys into fish. At that point, I decided that instead of creating new fishy paisleys from scratch, I would go back to the ones I already had in my archives and turn some of them into koi.

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The vectorizing activity was not quickly accomplished, but it didn't take as long as I thought it might. I naturally turned to my drawing tablet first but found it more time consuming to trace with than the mouse. (It was probably because I have been out of practice using it.) Without too many issues, however, I soon had the following:

Core elements vectorized...

The smaller fish are just scaled down versions of the big one, but I gave myself three unique paisleys to work with. The next step was to throw down a serviceable pattern using those shapes, with the end result of achieving a seamless tile.

As you might expect, the very first version was just a simple line drawing, black on a white background. I experimented with a gray background next, arriving at two versions, one light and one dark.

A light gray version...

To add a bit of dimension, I then played around with the layers, giving some elements greater or lesser intensity.

A dark gray version...

A version of the above design is actually for sale in my shop.

I did ultimately decide that I didn't want grayscale for my entry, however, so I reversed the original drawing and started working with white lines on a black background.

Original drawing reversed...

Those of you familiar with my past projects may know that I like to throw some red in with my black and white combos, so that was the natural progression with this design as I continued to make changes.

Adding some red...

With the colour scheme decided on, it was then a matter of going back and forth, modifying the drawing to add red to different spots and changing the thickness of the lines around various elements, to uploading the changes to Spoonflower to see the results.

Spoonflower used to require designers to proof their creations by purchasing at least a swatch. They now have an online proofing process whereby the design is magnified by A LOT so that we can see even a pixel being out of place. Quite convenient and of course, it reduces the amount of time (not to mention money) needed to put a design out and ready for selling.

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After fifteen iterations, I had my final design, which I decided to call Dancing Paisley Koi.

Final entry...

You wouldn't believe how much indecision I had over whether to choose this one, or the fourteenth one, or the thirteenth one as my entry. Given that no one would ever be the wiser as to the slight differences among them, it was an insane amount of consideration. As a point of fact, from number nine onwards, you'd would be hard pressed to tell what had changed, even if I showed them all to you.

I've never been one to seek perfection – and I wasn't doing that here – but sometimes in these design situations, you just want it to be "just right"... whatever that means.

You can see all of my paisley fabric creations here.

'Til next... 🇨🇦🍁

3 Free Backpack Patterns by Miko Craft

Backpack creations by Miko Craft...

For someone who regularly claims not to like backpacks, I've actually made more bags of that style than I ever expected.

There was the Summer Sling from Sew4Home. There was Cloudsplitter's Summit Pack. There was this Convertible Backpack/Sling Bag from JSDaily. There was even this partially failed project from some forgotten YouTube channel that I managed to rescue (somewhat).

In early March, hubby and I finalized plans for a vacation to Cape Breton Island and Ottawa. (It'll be our third trip out to Nova Scotia and we are hoping for better weather than what you see here from our first trip.)

Not great Cape Breton Island weather...

After all details were in place – getting arrangements made felt like a full time job for a week – I began to think about making a new bag to bring on the trip. Because we might be stomping around quite a bit, I thought that a small backpack would be the best choice, providing the option to go totally hands-free without obstruction.

[Oh, and if you're wondering why I needed a new backpack with all of the previous ones in my possession, I wanted a double strap setup. The only ones I had were the convertible one – which I found a bit cumbersome to use – and the somewhat rescued one, which was just too small and certainly not my best work to select for travelling.] 

Thus I began my search on YouTube on March 27. Within an hour or so, I had seen enough to know the style I was looking for. It was then a matter of whether I could find something gratis versus paid.

This was a paid pattern that I found on Qting Craft Studio's channel:

I like the shape (image courtesy of Qting Craft Studio on YouTube)...

Unfortunately, even if I wanted to pay for the pattern, it was impossible to find. She has a link to a Facebook post from where she sells it, and with me not having a Facebook account, I couldn't even scroll far enough down to see it.

However, I got the feeling that even if I had access to FB, it wouldn't be easy to find, because almost half of the comments from the past year are from people asking about where to get the pattern. In a reply to a similar comment from two years ago, the creator asks the person to email her. Is it just me or is this a horrible way to sell sewing patterns?? (It's not as if the channel isn't active; she continues to post new videos.)

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Fortuitously, my search led me to Miko Craft's channel, where I ended up seeing the absolutely perfect backpack.

image courtesy of Miko Craft on YouTube...

This is called the Eggsy Backpack — and just by the name, it obviously has the rounded shape that I was coveting.

Let me take a moment to salute Miko himself for all that he does and provides on his channel. He is superbly meticulous about everything – to the unexpected bonus of providing free digitized patterns – and he makes everything seem so easy to do. Within a week, I had subscribed (I don't do that very often) and scrolled through his back catalog of videos.

In doing so, I came upon this, which I will definitely bookmark for future consideration:

image courtesy of Miko Craft on YouTube...

It's another Eggsy, but in a decidedly masculine sling bag style. I can totally see myself making one of these for hubby down the road.

I also noted this backpack as a possibility:

image courtesy of Miko Craft on YouTube...

The Abbey has a couple of dual purpose side gusset pockets that come in handy for water bottles and more, but did I want to have those and lose out on the overall sleekness of the Eggsy? Not to mention that snazzy looking (and very functional) front pocket with the double zippered access? (That I immediately saw holding travel docs, maps, and stuff like that.) What do you think? 😜

The title of this post refers to three backpack patterns, but let me assure you that Miko has many more. In fact, I did a search last week and came up with well over twenty. There's even an Eggsy #2 with different pocket structures... but it's not better than the original, in my humble opinion.

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With decision made, here's how I went about creating my own Eggsy. First step was to transfer most of the video instructions into written format. The idea of repeatedly watching a video is neither effective (for me, anyway) nor efficient (for almost everyone, there's the annoyance of the inevitable ad breaks), so my first task is always to take screen shots and paste them into a Word document.

Here are my first two pages:

images courtesy of Miko Craft on YouTube...

I had a slight worry at the printing stage of whether the gusset piece was long enough. It indicates printing on A4 paper (which is slightly longer than North American letter size paper) and even though I used tape to create a long enough page and set my printer to expect A4, the template for piece F still printed incompletely. Luckily, Miko's templates feature a diamond shaped "join," so as long as you approximate the completion of that diamond correctly, you'll be okay.

While I knew what fabric I was going to use for this backpack, it took me days to get around to cutting. (Definitely not my favourite part of sewing.) Then I had to mark up my Word doc with my planned modifications. (What's the point of making a bag exactly as designed??) Among my planned changes were more pockets, a different take on the straps altogether, and an interior water bottle harness.

I'll go into detail about my "Eggsy Experience" in a future post. In the meantime, go check out Miko Craft's YouTube channel. There are some high grade freebies to be found if you're into bag making.

Oh and a reminder – you will obviously be inclined to skip ads when you're watching a video for the first time, but please do let the entire thing run uninterrupted at some point in the future if you've found value in the video. It lets the creator earn some ad revenue and costs you nothing.

'Til next... 🇨🇦🍁