Chesed

For our craft exchange at Allegany Boys Camp last Christmas, I made a backpack style cinch sack.  It reminded me of one of those easy sewing projects that would have been so much fun as a girl learning to sew.

I thought it would be fun to write a little tutorial with pictures.  If you’re an experienced seamstress, you can skim this article once and head off to your little sewing corner.  But I thought it would be fun to do a spelled out version in case there are any twelve year old girls out there just itching to sew a project on their own!

You will need:

1/2 yard of fabric

1 – 7″x10″ piece of a coordinating fabric

2 – 2 1/4″ x 60″ strips of a coordinating fabric (I used the same for my pocket and strips but you could use three fabrics)

embellishments if you want them

ability to measure, cut, sew straight seams and buttonholes

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To get started, cut 2 large rectangles 16″ x 18″ of the main fabric.

Cut the pocket and the strings.  You can splice fabric if your fabric isn’t wide enough.  Mine was 45″ wide so I had to splice.  To make a splice, line the edges up and sew a seam.

Fold it open and iron it flat.  Most times in a bigger piece you would want to make sure the pattern matches up evenly.  For something this small, I didn’t bother matching.  I figure most people aren’t going to be giving strings the eyeball to make sure all the polka dots look exactly the same. 🙂

To make the strings, iron the strips in half to create a crease down the center the long way.

Next, open it and iron one side into the middle to line up at the crease.

Then fold the other side into the middle and iron it, too.  This was the hardest part of the project because I kept burning my fingers with steam from the iron! Watch your fingers. 🙂

Sew close to the edge of the strip where the two folds come together. You can either move your needle alignment if your machine lets you do that or just feed the edge of the strip in as I did.  This will make a sturdy strap for your backpack.

The strips should be about 60″ long.  Cut a 3 1/2″ piece off each long strip to use at the bottom of the pack.

Now take the 7″ x 10″ piece of fabric and fold it in half the long way with the right sides of the fabric facing in.

Sew along the raw edges at the sides, but not at the bottom.

Flip the pocket right side out. Be sure to use something (you can even use the eraser side of a pencil) to push those corners out nice and tight. Press the edges lightly.

Serge the remaining raw edges together. If you want to embellish the pocket, add whatever you choose now.  You could add lace, ribbon, buttons, or even a fabric flower depending on what fabrics you chose.

I decided I liked this pink ribbon, but it seemed a little wide so I chose to sew it in half to narrow it before adding it to the pocket.

It’s easy to play around with options by laying the pocket on the fabric and then embellishments on top so you can see what it would like.  It’s much harder to sew something on and decide you don’t like it so play all you like, then stitch. 🙂

Once you decide where you want something, mark where it should go with a fabric pen.  I put mine 1/2″ down from the top of the pocket.  Line the ribbon up (this is where a particular seamstress would pin in place, but I’m a bit of a wing it girl so I just make marks and line it up with my fingers as I go) and stitch it in place along the top and bottom of the ribbon. If you’ve been using white thread, you will want to change the thread color to match the ribbon.

You can fold it in under the pocket so the edges are neatly finished.

I considered adding a ribbon bow, but decided against it. I still think a button would have been cute, but I didn’t have one on hand that worked so I skipped it.  But the sky is the limit when it comes to personalizing your own project.

After you’re satisfied with what the pocket will look like, draw a line 6″ up from the bottom of the main piece of fabric.  Find the middle of the fabric and the middle of the pocket. Place the serged edge of the pocket along the line you just drew, matching the middle markings, and pin it in place (or wing it if you’re like me). Then sew close to the edge of the pocket.  I tried to sew just below the serger stitching.

Now flip the pocket up into position and press.  This time you really should pin it, even if you tend to wing it. 🙂 You don’t want the pocket to shift sideways while you’re sewing.

Top stitch the sides of the pocket to the fabric.  I prefer starting from the bottom of the pocket on both sides to keep the fabric from bunching as I sew.

Since I was donating this bag to a fundraiser for camp, I left the pocket like this.  If I would have been making it for myself, I would have topstitched a line to divide the pocket so that one side would fit my cell phone.  I think this bag is perfect for a book, snack and water bottle for a day at the lake and I love to have my cell phone on the outside where it’s easy to get to.

When you’re happy with the pocket, pick up the little 3 1/2″ tabs you cut from the long strips earlier, fold them in half, and sew them onto the other rectangle.  Measure up  3″ from the bottom of the fabric and stitch them to the right side of the fabric.  Just a little tip for neatness.  If the top stitched edge of your tab is toward the bottom of the bag, be sure to do the other one the same way.  It might be kind of like splicing straps and no one will notice.  But it’s such an easy thing to do and it does look more professional when it’s finished.

The two rectangles should now look like this. Front and back.

Serge all around the edges of both rectangles.

Now place right sides together and PIN! See, I do pin sometimes. 🙂

Sew around the sides and the bottom of the bag, but not the top!

Now we’re going to give the bag a flat bottom.  Lay the bag down and separate the front and back from each other at the corner to make a triangle.  Be sure the side seam and bottom seam are matching (you can feel it through the fabric) so that you have an even triangle.  Then mark a straight line across the corner.  I made mine 3 3/4″.

Pin it in place (or hold it very, very carefully) and sew right along that line being careful that the little tabs you sewed on earlier are not caught in the triangle.  Do this on both sides.  The bag should look like it has bunny ears. 🙂

Cut off the extra fabric and serge the edges.

Turn the bag right side out.  Isn’t that cool? We’re almost done.

Now sew two button holes on the back piece of fabric as close to the side seam as you can reasonably do.  Make a 1″ button hole starting 1 3/4″ down from the top of the fabric. This will create the openings for the strings to go through the casing.

Fold the top edge of the bag down 1 1/2″ and press.  Sew along the edge all the way around the bag.

Now you’re ready to thread the strings through.  I used a safety pin, but some of you may have a better tool.  Feed the strap the entire way around the bag, bypassing the buttonhole on the other side and exiting out the button hole you entered.

Now repeat the process with the other string using the other buttonhole.  You’ll have to push the first string to the side a bit as you wiggle past that first buttonhole with the second string.

Loop one strap on each side through the tabs at the bottom of the bag and tie a knot.

If the strings are too long, you can trim off some excess first.  Just remember that it’s much easier to cut some off than it is to splice another piece back on (how would I know?) so make sure you’re happy with the measurement when the bag is open and cinched. 🙂

And you’re finished!

You could use it for school books or a sleepover with friends.  Or maybe you just need something to carry your Bible and journal to the coffeeshop.

If you try it I’d love to hear how it went. Even better, you could send me a picture of your finished bag. 🙂

I’ve been having a blast helping a friend choose paint colors for her house and just last week had someone else message me for advice on the same subject.  I’m far from an expert, but when you do it a lot, you pick up a few helpful tips along the way. Best of all, you start to develop an eye.  A friend of David’s is a professional painter.  I listened in awe as he described one client who gets her house repainted every year before Christmas.  She can flip through the paint color stack one time and say, “this one and this one and this one” and every time it looks perfect.  I’m convinced our only connection must go all the way back to Eve. Then again, I kind of like the obsessing process.

I thought it might be a fun WFMW subject then you guys can chime in with your own advice and preferences.  After all, we all know that painting and decor has as much to do with personal style and taste as it does with anything else.  It goes without saying that everything here is opinion and biased by own experiences. 🙂

Let’s talk paint, first.  I am a huge fan of Benjamin Moore paint.  I love that it is thick, covers well, doesn’t splatter, and best of all, has very little odor.  Most paints leave me eating almost as much as I paint (food, not paint, just in case you were worried) …. I have no idea what they put in those paint fumes, but three strokes in, I’m starving.  Ben Moore? No such problem.  I usually buy the eggshell finish for walls and semi gloss for trim and have not had any trouble with washing walls even though they recommend going to a satin finish for bathrooms and kids bedrooms.  I’ll take a little wear and tear over gloss on the walls, and so far we’ve not had any issues.  The closest knock off I’ve found to Ben Moore is the Behr paint at Home Depot.  It’s thinner, has a little more smell, but it’s pretty similar.  I know lots of people like Sherwin Williams and I have no doubt it’s a good product.  But I’d have to park my painting project next to the grocery store, just saying.

And now, the fun part! I could just about get giddy in the paint chip aisle.  Seriously, if David ever wants to convince me to build another house, he’d be very wise to suggest it while we’re standing in that aisle.  I lose my head when I’m surrounded by all those possibilities and think anything would be fun.

But it can also be overwhelming, especially if you’re looking at a big project.  When we were building our house, I found it helpful to take my known (kitchen cabinets) and work around that.  You  can choose lots of colors or shades of colors, but it’s nice if they flow nicely.  You won’t be jolted walking into a room with lots of color if it relates well to the color next door.  The paint expert where we bought our paint showed me how to line the color chips up so we could see if they were all similarly warm or cool shades.  For example, a cool yellow won’t look as good next to warm tones. Don’t forget the trim color when you’re lining things up! Once I know the colors all belong together, I like to hold them so that I visualize the amounts of each color.  A teeny bit of the white, a little more of my secondary color, and the whole chip of the main color.

Here’s my lineup for the basement.  {You can see what it looks like on the walls here.  Well, kind of.  It’s pretty hard to take accurate color pictures in a basement.  The bathroom is a little richer in real life and the navy might be a little darker, but it’s pretty close.}  I loved this greige color for the main part.  I wanted something just a little bit warmer than grey since it was a basement, but I gravitate toward gray more than tan.  This color was the perfect in-between.

Color names from L-R: van deucen blue HC-156, collingwood 859, white dove OC-17, ocean air 2123-50

David and I gravitate toward painted trim, but we prefer a white that is a little warmer, yet still looks crisp white.  Benjamin Moore’s white dove is perfect for us.  I always keep a chip of that so I can make sure I’m staying in the same tones.  If you prefer a crisper white, Decorator White may be what you’re looking for.

If you see a color you like, ask! It helps so much to see a color on the wall.  Even if you don’t use the same color, it can help you find a color that is similar with perhaps a tiny bit more of another tone you’re looking for.  I loved that for a long time Pottery Barn named the wall colors in their catalogs.  It was so much easier to visualize a room when you saw a picture of a room done in that color.  I think they’ve switched to Sherwin William colors …or at least they did the last time I checked.  Sadly, my catalogs have quit coming.  Probably because it’s been awhile since I made a purchase.  They were one of my favorite pieces in the mail just for the inspiration! I kind of think I could live in their stores!

Sometimes it’s worth the money to buy a sample! A wall of color can look so different from a 2 inch chip! After you do it for awhile, you’ll get better at seeing undertones.  I’m pretty sure David can spot pink undertones a half a mile away and I’m pretty sure he has an allergic reaction to lavender undertones in grays. 🙂 He likes pink.  In a girls room.  Unrecognized pink undertones that get louder on the wall in our room? Not so much. 🙂 We had a bit of a learning curve in Virginia until I figured out how to hold the color against other colors to see different tones pop out.

Don’t be afraid of color whether it’s in large amounts or small pops.  Just think about what you want ahead of time and where you want the color.  My personal rule is, “you can always paint it again.” 🙂 Things like flooring and furniture will likely hang out in your house for a long time.  But it’s not that hard to repaint a few walls (unless you’ve got a second story house with an open foyer) and you can change the look of the room after awhile if you don’t like it.  If the paint store isn’t too far away, I like to order enough paint for the first coat.  If the color only needs to be tweaked a tiny bit, you can sometimes get away with just one coat of the new color.

I still think grays are tricky.  The gray in our living room has far more blue essence on the wall than it does on the chip.  In fact, most people don’t believe me when I tell them that’s the color.  I like the color. It just surprises me.  But at least it didn’t shine lavender. 😉 Which leads me to the next tip.  Check the color in the room you’re planning to paint.  Not outside, and definitely not in the store under the fluorescent lights.  A room that has lots of light will not only look lighter, it may bring out hues you wouldn’t notice otherwise. A small room with few windows will appear darker and you might want to choose the same color in a lighter shade.  So grab those color chips and a good drink and sit in the room you’re going to paint.

You’ve probably heard all the old tips about light colors in small rooms and dark colors in big rooms.  They’re true.  But I think more importantly, you should think about how you want the rooms to feel.  Our house in Virginia had big rooms with high ceilings so I wanted warm colors. A rich gold, yellow in the kitchen that made you think of big, lazy breakfasts (even if they only happened Saturday mornings), a rich grown up blue in the living room, and a dark, red in a small bathroom that made the white towels and shower curtain look fresh and clean. It was warm and inviting.

Our house in Maryland is smaller with typical eight foot ceilings and the sun seems to hide a lot.  Plus, my mental capacity gets maxed out so much I found I craved white space. I chose a much more neutral, light color scheme and even painted some rooms a warm white, barely warmer than the trim color.  Surprisingly, it’s perfect!  I love the way I can add color pops in small accents. It’s easy to change the feel of the room with just a few things and seasonal decor really pops!  I love that it looks restful, clean, and inviting.

You can see the colors in our main floor sprinkled throughout all of our pictures.  Here’s the main floor line up. I wasn’t lying when I said I stayed very, very neutral.  The only wild child on the main floor is the front door. Zara’s room has pink in it, now, but I have no color chip because I mixed white with the pink color I bought. 🙂

From back to front: Ominous Cloud 5044 (this is a Clark and Kensington paint) used in the master bedroom, sea pearl OC-19 used on the kitchen walls and the bathroom walls and the base coat for Zara’s room, stonington gray HC-170 in our living room, and of course the white dove for the trim.

I think this is what is the most fun about creating a space.  Seeing the ways it evolves to hold it’s own personality.  It’s also why I love to visit other people’s homes and enjoy their tastes and beauty.  Our homes are really such a beautiful extension of ourselves and a tangible way we can share with others.

I’d love to hear what goes through your mind when you choose paint colors? Do you get your inspiration from colors you love in other places like the sparkling blues and sandy tans of the ocean or burnt rust and gold as the warm afternoon sun shines through red maple leaves? Or do you automatically think about the colors you love most in your closet?  Do you gravitate toward lots of color or neutrals? But even more, I’d love to hear if the process is fun for you or gives you a bellyache or does both. 🙂 And if you’ve never had a chance to paint, what colors do you dream of painting? Maybe your color scheme will inspire someone else!  Happy Wednesday!

Zara is absolutely miserable with a bad cold.  Actually I suspect she has the flu.  She wasn’t a very happy baby Friday and Saturday when we were in Virginia which I easily attributed to being away from home.  Saturday during the night she spiked a fever.  Don’t you just love that ultimate version of Mom guilt? Hi, we came to visit you and now we have the flu so hopefully we’re only leaving good memories and not germs.  Gah.

At any rate, her fever left yesterday, but she’s left with a cough and a nose that erupts like Old Faithful only I’m pretty sure the timeframe is less than every twenty minutes.

I’ve learned a few things about colds in kids in the last ten years and, not surprisingly, I’m still learning.  Babies really should come with an instructional manual. About the time Adam was born, they pulled most cold remedies off the shelf.  At the time I thought it was pretty unfair. What? They’re just supposed to deal with the symptoms? The past few years I’ve gravitated toward a slightly more holistic approach so I’m not sure exactly where I fit in right now.  I mostly know that I scream prevention and still fail to do all of the things I preach.  Like the fact that my favorite flu prevention is Vit D consumption and we’ve yet to swallow one dose this year.

So did you know that a cold lasts a very long time (10 days to 2 weeks) and that the peak day is day 5? I didn’t either until Zara was a month old and so sick with a cold that I absolutely could not wake her.  We landed in the pediatricians office where she, of course, woke up and appeared more well than she had at home.  He said, “Let’s see, this is day 5. That’s usually when we see babies because they keep getting worse and by day 5 parents are nearly panicked.” To be honest, I think I panicked more when she did not have one wet diaper for a period of almost twelve hours and finally put out a few reddish crystals instead of urine on day six.  Her pediatrician still wasn’t worried and I finally eeked enough milk into her with a syringe to help her revive enough for a semi-normal feeding and suddenly we saw her eyes again.

So there you have it.  Baby is worrisomely sick and it’s day three? You probably need help before she crumps.  Day five and it’s bad but respirations are still normal? Hopefully this is as bad as it’s going to get.

But the best thing I learned last winter is that eucalyptus oil does a beautiful job of helping with coughs.  Unkers and Vicks have been good friends of ours for years.  We slather the kids chests and their feet, then put socks on them when we tuck them in at night.  Adam can handle straight Vicks, but Liam’s skin is sensitive so I either use Baby Vicks or put a very thin layer of Vaseline on his chest and then a layer of Vicks.  I just about can’t bring myself to put even baby Vicks on a teeny tiny baby’s chest, but I would put it on the soles of their feet.  Interestingly, Vicks contains eucalyptus and lavender oil.  After reading an article about oils for colds, I decided to try it.  The next time Zara got sick, I added 6 drops of eucalyptus oil to our regular warm air humidifier and set it next to her crib.  Amazingly, she coughed less when first getting up than she had before she went to bed.  Quite unlike the normal wake up and cough and cough and cough types of scenarios that happen normally.  I loved it because I wasn’t putting anything strong directly on her skin and I wasn’t using any petroleum products. (Told you I’ve been edging toward the other side.) 😉 One of these days I’m going to find a carrier oil we can all use and make my own cough rub. 🙂

UPDATE: Soon after posting this, a friend — thanks, Carmen! — with far more experience in essential oils messaged me about eucalyptus oil and said it’s dangerous in babies with epilepsy. Zara is up and gu-rouchy so I need to do more research but two quick links confirm these concerns.  In fact, after reading [this article], I wouldn’t even recommend putting Vicks on a baby’s feet.  It appears to be more dangerous topically, but is definitely one of those risk way outweighs any potential benefits kind of scenarios and it should not be used in kids under ten. Which makes me very curious why they sell baby Vicks??  So now I’m really serious. What DO you do with your babies?  I find it interesting that Zara has more spasms whenever she has a cold whether or not I use oils.  For example, I didn’t use anything until last night (not even tylenol) and yet, all day yesterday she showed a significant increase in events.  Today is about the same as yesterday, perhaps a little less, but we haven’t hit evening yet either. I’d really like to know causation on colds and spasms for her.  But anyhow, this is one more reason why you don’t follow everything you read online. Also, if you’re like me and just learning about EO, here’s where I’m going to begin my education.

The other thing we try to do when colds happen is to cut back on dairy consumption.  Because milk based products can thicken phlegm, it stands to reason that they can accelerate the cold to ear infection progression.  So we push fluids, just not milk.  We haven’t dealt with an ear infection in years.  Causation or correlation or just blessed? It’s hard to tell, but I’m grateful.

Aside from an occasional steroid inhaler when Adam younger, we’ve been blessed with garden variety cold symptoms.  I know that some of you have tangled with nebulizers and hospitals and far more complicated respiratory issues than we have.  I’d love to hear your tips for staying well #washyourhands #washyourhands #washyourhands and what you do to make your kids more comfortable when they develop respiratory infections.