Monday, September 5, 2011

The quest for the perfect box pouch

[if the term box pouch is not the best, please tell me how to change it]

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I am crazy in love with this little things. In my humble oppinion they are basicly useless :), but I still love them. I had no mood for sewing [probably because I have quite a list for custom quilts waiting], so I needed some instant gratification. What better way, I say, but these little cuties?

The best tutorial I found is here. The pictures are very easy to follow and you're done in a couple of minutes. However, I needed the perfect one. So I started trying.

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With some stiff Ikea home decor on the outside, and quilting cotton on the inside. The box is quite big so it was no surprise that it didn't keep it's shape empty. So I tried again.


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Smaller box, soft home decor on the outside, stiff home decor on the inside. Not better at all, I think is evern softer than the first one and definitey less stiff. So I tried again :).


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Slightly smaller box, soft home decor with some light fusible on the outside, stiff home decor on the inside. Better, still not perfect.
Looking at all three I realised that I don't like the look the zipper has after is beeing cut. The larger the zipper teeth, the worst.

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The one with hidden zipper looked the best. So the next ones are made to fit the zippers I had.




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Next one is made with quilting cotton and poly batting on the outside and stiff home decor on the inside. It keeps its shape very well but has this look that I don't necessarly like, like the free motion quilting. So, of course, I tried again.


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I found some very heavy fusible web and gave it a shot. It really keeps the box in shape, but because I had to turn it through a really small hole [small zipper => small pouch], it lost the aderence and doesn't look so perfect anymore after it's completly done. Plus, they are impossible to iron, way to small for this. Plus, the heay fusible got me with unusable pins and needle for the sewing machine, it worked very very very hard on my machine, there are points where my machine [brother 400] simply couldn't sew. Guess what i did? I tried again, of course :))



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The last one for the day, quilting cotton, light fusible and fleece on the outside, soft home decor on the inside. This was one of the worst ideeas, since the fusible web didn't stay on the fleece and kept shifting, you can see the corners are far far away from beeing perfect.


So? What next, you ask? I lived for 2 years ten minutes away from Ikea. I have a stash and I'm not afraid to use it :)))
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I will also try making two different bags, one for the inside and one for the outside [not like the turioal I just linked to], I also changed the way the zipper is attached, and I will let you know when I'll find the best combination.

3 comments:

  1. you've had patience today for all these!

    for the double combo, works better if you put the interfacing on the outer fabric, and then the batting :)

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  2. This is a very enjoyable tale of your efforts, I am stll laughing. I admire your persistence, let us know how it ends!

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  3. You are waaaaaay more persistent than me - I would've died out after the third one. Oh to live next door to an Ikea. On second thoughts, probably a bad idea and the end of my marriage.

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Who doesn't love a comment? Ok, maybe it's not that much fun when you have hundreds of comments at every post and you wanna answer, but you know what? I don't :)). So I have a lot of time to answer :))) Bring'em on