Water Bottle Holder/Carriers and Some Knitting

I've haven't been doing a lot of crafting lately.  The Christmas cookie plates have finally cured and I gave Dear Daughter three of the four that I made.  I kept the red snowflake plate for myself.


I dug into my fabric stash and pulled out some bigger pieces to make water bottle holders/carriers.  I already have some water bottle carriers, but I wanted to make some in different colors and bigger sizes to fit a larger bottle.  It was nice to find a good use for this fabric and the insulbrite.  Here are the sizes of the fabric pieces to put this together.

I made these five carriers in the last couple of weeks and I'm loving the bright happy colors just in time for spring and summer.

My waiting room knitting  has been dishcloths.  My daughter and I have enough dishcloths for the foreseeable future, but I need to knit up my cotton yarn, so I continue to make them.  I will store them at my house until they are needed.

Deathly Hallows Fabric

This is a project I couldn't share before.  For our trip to Universal and the Wizarding World of Harry Potter I made my daughter and myself a water bottle holder and a small zippered purse out of this fun Deathly Hallows fabric.  I added a wrist strap and a small loop to the zippered purse so we could hook the purse onto a carabiner and attach it to our belt loops.

When we planned this trip my daughter had announced that she wanted to carry as little as possible into the park so a small purse for cards and water bottle holder would be all she needed.  I worried about how I would do this and decided I could stash stuff in my jean jacket pockets.  Being late November I thought it might be cool enough to wear a jacket in Orlando.

 But two days before we left for our trip, dear daughter decides that she can't possibly travel to the park without a big backpack and all manner of emergency items.  She had decided that she was going to rent a locker for the backpack each day.  She was much happier with this plan and I just wanted us to have as much fun as possible no matter what we had to carry.

The first day we were in the park we bought an small backpack (fanny pack size) because it was way too warm for me to wear my jacket and I needed something to put my cell phone and lip balm in.  We also bought a ticket lanyard, because you have to show your ticket all the time when you go from Universal to Islands of Adventure or to City Walk.  I ended up buying a Slytherin ticket lanyard because I am in Slytherin house and I'm owning it.

Here's a picture of my water bottle holder and purse.

Modifying Another Free Pattern From A Blog

  I love the internet.  I don't know how I did any sewing or crafting before the internet.  I admire the super smart folks that post sewing tutorials with written instructions and pictures on their blogs so we all can make lovely items to use.  When I find a pattern I really like but need to modify, I don't mind taking those clever instructions and adjusting them to meet my needs.  It seems like I have been doing this a lot lately.

    I spent part of last Sunday modifying a water bottle carrier pattern that I found on one of those super smart blogs to accommodate a larger than 16.9 oz. bottle of water.  This carrier will swallow my largest water bottle and it's perfect.

    I had already used these instructions back in 2016 to make a regular size water bottle carrier for a normal 16.9 oz. plastic bottle like a Zephyrhills bottle.  That water bottle carrier is still in use, but sometimes I want to carry more than 16.9 oz. of water and for that I need a bigger carrier.

    When I made that regular size water bottle carrier in 2016, my daughter made one for herself, but she was thinking ahead and she modified the size so hers would be big enough for her big water bottle.  I helped her make that water bottle carrier, but unfortunately I didn't take any notes on the modifications she made, so I had to start from scratch.  That's one of the reasons I have been blogging about how I make my changes so I can just look them up in my blog.

    I started with the instructions at this blog post:   Instruction for water bottle carrier.  

   I didn't bother to measure my bottle because I have two big bottles, a 21 oz Camelbak and a 32 oz. Contigo and I wanted this carrier to be big enough for either bottle.  I figured whatever I ended up with would work fine for what I needed.  Here are my modifications.

  1.   I didn't bother to piece the outside of the carrier with coordinating fabric like the blogger did.  I hardly ever have coordinating fabric and I wanted to use my souvenir Hawaii fabric for these so I cut two pieces of fabric for the body of the carrier (the outside and the lining) 14" (width/around the bottle) x 12" (height/deep)  or you could cut one long rectangle that is 28" x 12" and just fold it where the two pieces would be seamed.  I also cut one piece of Insul-Brite 13" x 11" for the body of the carrier according to the instructions.

   2.   Since I didn't measure and I couldn't determine how big the circle bottom (2 pieces of fabric and one piece of Insul-Brite) had to be I cut mine at 8" in diameter which was way too big.  I ended up trimming this down to about 4.5" in diameter after the body of the carrier was put together.

   3.  I followed the instructions for sandwiching and quilting the body of the carrier and the circle bottom.  I sewed the body up to make a tube and I sewed a French seam here to enclose the edges.  I measured the circle bottom and trimmed my large circle down so it would fit and I attached it according to the instructions.

   4.  This water bottle holder will be holding heavier weight with the larger bottles, so I made my strap from the fabric I used for the rest of the project.  I think fabric straps are more comfortable than webbing and definitely stronger than ribbon.  I cut two  3" strips the width of the fabric.  I sew the short ends together to get one long strip, then I make the strap like the one in this tutorial:  Friendship Gift Bag Tutorial.   This is how I make the straps for most of my bags, wristlets and totes.  They are really sturdy.  One other thing I did was to hem the two short ends of the strap that are being attached to the body of the carrier by turning them up before I topstitched each end.  These straps are not enclosed and hemming keeps them neat.  I trim this strap to be about 56" long, which measures about 26" from your shoulder (taking into account that I used an inch on each end to attach the strap to the carrier).  You can make the strap as long or as short as you wish.  If you find that after you attach the strap that it is too long, you can just tie a knot in it to shorten the length.

   Those are my modifications and here is the final product  Pictures of the bottles in the carrier and pictures of the bottles next to the carrier.  I will definitely be making more of these.

   This took me about 2 hours to make from cutting fabric (not my favorite part of sewing) to final stitch.  That time includes finding the right color of thread to use, filling a bobbin, and moving kitties off my ironing board every time I had to use it. (LOL).

Old and New Tools

      Beaded Stilettos

      I love seeing the pretty beaded stilettos that are being swapped on the Quilting Board.  I got one in a swap a couple of years ago.  I usually use a bamboo double pointed knitting needle as a stiletto because I have a ton of these.  I also have these porcupine quill that I bought because they are so pretty.  I don't always use a stiletto when I'm sewing, but I should.  I moving my stiletto collection to my handy tool box that I keep by the machine.

     Here's my stiletto collection.  

 

      And guess what?  I found a tutorial on how to make beaded stilettos at this link. and I'll be adding that idea to my projects list.

   
    Wooden Ruler Holder

     I just got this cool wooden ruler holder from a seller on etsy.  I've been wanting one for a couple of years, but I needed so many things, it always got pushed to the end of the list.

   

   Mini Quilt Frame

    I had to have this mini quilt frame.  I bought it from Connecting Threads.  I like the scrolly feet and the wavy pattern all the way around the frame.  So cute.  The piece that is draped on the frame is my attempt at a mini quilt that I make last week but I don't love it.  Yesterday while I was reading quilt blogs I found a tutorial to make a small 5" snail trail block, (link here) and I'll be pulling fabrics for that soon. My mini quilt frame deserves something pretty on it.