Friday, February 17, 2012

Let's make a fabric box

I found some cute box patterns the other day. So i decided to try one of them. this pattern is from Aunties Two Patterns and is called Fused and Folded Boxes. i especially like the magazine one. that was my reason for buying the pattern.


But the first box i made was the other one. it is 6x6x10. the pattern uses stuff i never heard of...Inn-Spire...it is a very heavy duty stabilizer. and i mean heavy....it is very hard to bend it to go through the throat of your machine when putting on the binding. Actually....i was supposed to buy Inn-Spire Plus...which is fusible on both sides...but naturally i messed up that part. so i had an extra step when i used Steam-A-Seam II to fuse my fabrics to the Inn-Spire. got to remember that for the next box.


But the box got made and it is totally cool. i will have to toss that sewing machine needle and put in a new one, also. you have to sew very slowly...and the machine does this thunk, thunk, thunk with every stitch. but my little Janome Gem was truly a gem and sewed right through it....slowly.

Of course, i had to ramp it up a notch....so i made a lid for my box. it cried for one...really.


I wasn't sure i wanted to put the buttons on the side. but once i decided i DID want the buttons....i decided to add beads, too. after all....i have about a gazillion beads and have to use them somewhere. this is one side with beads.



This is the other side. i'm here to tell you....getting that needle through that hole for the buttons was a pure bitch. i tried just a large needle and broke it. i finally used the pointy end of an old school compass ... remember those things? that made the hole and then my needle didn't have a problem.  but that was still hard... i was going through 3 pieces of Inn-Spire...6 layers of fabric, plus the fusible. i have holes in my fingers and hands.


The box sides are folded in ...so the buttons actually hold the sides in. there are buttons on the inside, too. here is the inside. it looked a bit boring to me.



So, i made an insert to go inside the box. it helps to hold the bottom of the sides back where they belong and i think it just looks neater.


See? .... neater. and if you put something a bit heavy in the box....the extra support on the bottom couldn't hurt. in itself the box is a bit hefty.


I finished the corners of the top by just gluing the same fabric that i used as the binding around the corners.


And folding it over into the inside and gluing that also. i'm trying to decide what i want to do to cover up the zigzag on the top where i put the pieces together. it would have looked less conspicuous had i used some thread other than black. LOL i'll probably glue some kind of trim on it.



Here are the inside buttons.


All in all....i really like the box. when i make another i am going to use some other stuff that i have for stabilizer that is not so heavy and tough. the Inn-Spire stuff is pretty expensive. and steam-a-seam 2 is not cheap either. so, counting the cost of the pattern and fabric and stabilizer and sas2....this box cost about $35 to make. hahahahahahaha    how many do you want? hahahahaha

This first one took me most of a day and part of the next day. i figure i'll get faster after i make a couple. i have 2 other box patterns to try out, too. one of them is by this same pattern maker. i'll let you know how that goes

Later

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi,
I just bought this pattern to make the box. I was wondering why the instructions tell you to cut two rectangles of 20"x30"' fuse them together with the inn-spire and then cut them down to 18"x16". Am I reading the instructions right? This seems like a big waste of fabric and that fusible stuff.

Unknown said...

Your work is amazing,

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