Whether you're the kind of quilter that loves to stay at home in your own studio or
hit the road and take classes from goof balls like myself, I've got a great project for
you. It's an under the sewing machine tool caddy. Let's get started.
As you're preparing yourself for today's project please just dive into the description
below and print out your free printable. I've got a nice little diagram and all your cutting
instructions in case I get going a little fast and mess up some of the numbers. It's
my insurance policy and I think you should have a copy of it. We're using Bequest from
RJR Studios. It's a beautiful blue and white line. And like so many of my projects, I like
to build stuff using a pre cut size in case you have pre cuts at home that you're already
in love with and you want to use them. So feel free. These are ten by tens. . And we're
going to use a couple in, I'm going to say about six of each to build out our little
tool kit here. Now as we get ready to get started, let's just describe the names of
the parts we're going to talk about. We're going to have basically the body inside and
the body outside. Then we're going to have the pocket here. And then we're going to
have the very cool and removable trash bag with velcro so you can take it and dump it
when you need. So that being said you can probably see how we're going to start doing
this.
This is going to be the beginning phase of the inside. And here's the fabrics I've
chosen for the outside. And I just want to point out, I am using the white on the interior
just because it's lighter fabric and it makes the tools and everything easier to see.
So that was intentional. But it's also fun to take one of your ten inch squares. So this
was a, let's get this out of the way now, sorry. And we'll move this too. I might
need it for those notes, so. So this right here was a ten by ten. But it's been trimmed
down to ten by eight. These little pieces are eight by 1 ¾ and so when these get sewn
together they're going to look like this. But let me show you how over at the sewing
machine. All of my math today in this project is going to be the finished size math we need.
We're not going to be trimming as we go along. Some of my projects I like to have
you sew on a piece and trim it off. But today I cut accurately because the sizes are going
to be what you need. And I size this for us just to fit so when you're sitting at your
sewing machine, it falls off the table nicely but it's not really hitting our legs and
we're not having a problem, you know, with it being in our way like the toolbag itself
because I didn't think about that at first. My phototype, my first one was really long
because I've got some really cool big tools. But I realized I don't need those tools
right at the sewing machine. I just need a seam ripper and a stiletto and maybe a little
purple thang and a glue stick or something like that. So it's a small little caddy
for us today. And I hope we almost stalled long enough to get those little 1 ¾ by eight
pieces put on our ten by eight. And we're going to come and iron this out. And what
I was starting to point out too with these side pieces, is when I cut all of the side
pieces out of one square that was a ten by ten so that they're going to match up here
as I get ready to sew this together. And then also I want to point out it's the same print
for the outside and the inside of the caddy.
So we're going to go right sides together for a center seam here. Line up those little
skinny edges we have. And I'm backstitching and I've got of course a quarter inch seam
going today and cotton threads. You could use poly as well, it's gear. Make sure this
seam finishes nice over here as well. Ok, now I'm just going to take a moment and
press this also. And we're going to do this to create the interior and the exterior as
I said. And then we have one last step to prepare the interior. So this is my exterior.
I'm just going to set it aside, ok? Now the interior piece here, what I'm going
to want to do is I'm going to want to put in two pieces of the bosal foam. So we've
got the inner foam here and it's a wonderful foam stabilizer. And you can get it that has
fusible sides. At least use the part that has one side fusible. If you have two side
fusible at home you can use that, even better. So there's a rough side and I'm going
to put that fusible side on the back here of my interior fabric. And if you'll notice
what I've also done is trimmed my bosal so I've got a quarter inch seam allowance
all the way around so that I'm not fighting against it later on when I go to turn these
things right sides out, right? So now that this is in place what I'm going to want
to do is I want to hold it or maybe even pin it. I'm going to bring it over to my ironing
surface here. Because I find that that bosal foam being so nice and thick I need to iron
from the top side to activate the glues. So I'm coming in here and I have the steam
in my iron nice and hot. And I also left a little bit of a gap up at the seam allowance
where the two pieces, these two pieces touched each other. And I did that on purpose because
I want this to fold nicely off of the table at the sewing machine. So we're just going
to hold this, let that anchor. And now we're going to let that sit and cool while we move
on to creating the pocket part. We're going to build this section right here, ok?
And it uses two pieces. We're going to construct them the same. And these here were, eight,
excuse me, ten inches across. 1 ¾ again but it's 4 ¾ to the top there. I was just adjusting
the pocket based on the size of the handles of most of my tools. You can see I've used
the same ten square for the center here. I used the same print that was on the strips
here so that this will match up just like that. Excuse me, in case you're really paying
attention, this piece is going to match up just like this. Because you'll notice we've
already stitched in the velcro. And that velcro piece is going to be the companion to what
matches up to our little trash holder there later on. Ok so the velcro piece is about
three inches long. And if I remember correctly it's over an inch and down ¾. So there
is that velcro stitched on to one piece. And on the back of that I've also ironed the
iron on interfacing, not fusible web but fusible interfacing. And I love the Heat N Bond Featherlite
product for that. And that's going to give a little stability to that front pocket. So
I've made this part basically twice. And now we're going to get ready to go ahead
and do right sides together, and it's along the top seam. And you know where the top seam
is, it's where the velcro is. I"m just going to sew on through real easy, really
easy construction today. Ok? And now what I want to do is I want to go ahead and press
this to prepare for a topstitching. So I'm going to go ahead first and kind of press
up against the seam opposite of where that fusible interfacing was. And then I'm going
to fold this over and press again to get a nice crisp edge. And then we're going to
go to the machine and I like to topstitch from the side that will the exterior or the
facing side. Oh and this is a great time to check and make sure your velcro is up there
along that top seam because if not you would want to repair it now versus after you do
this row of topstitching. If you've never topstitched before what I'm doing is I have
the needle running right along the edge of that seam. And it just makes a nice look.
And actually secures it. And when we're putting our tools in and out of this part,
it's going to keep it from getting kind of sloppy and snagged on things like our stilettos
or maybe seam rippers that have sharp points. So it's actually a construction technique
as much as aesthetics for us today. We've got that done, super easy.
Now what we're going to do is we're going to go back to my interior that I have here.
Remember you have your bosal foam already ironed in place back here. And on the interior
now I'm going to set this pocket so that my finished edge is up, my velcro is up. And
then I'm just going to secure these side edges. I'm not actually going to worry about
the bottom but I am going to secure the sides. And I'm going to start from the top and
sew down. So I want to make sure that my bottom corners are all aligned. I will catch all
of this again in my seam allowance. So I"m going to do a little bit narrower than my
quarter of an inch just to hide my threads. So I'm just using the presser foot now for
my guide. And I'm going to sew off and stop. And now that that was lined up on the first
side corner, I can safely line it up on the bottom corner here. Remember a little narrower
seam allowance . And we're going to roll that right up to the top of the pocket. Now
in the printable I had given you my measurements that I've used. And these are stitch lines
that are just going to stitch through the pocket here and that's going to form through
the gaps for your tools so of course you can customize these. But I have like a 1 ½ inch
gap where I've used four of those 1 ½ inch gaps. And a little narrower one, a one inch.
Sometimes that's nice for your small tools like a purple thang or a stiletto, ok? And
then I also have stitched along the edge here of these seams but this is what I'm trying
to show you is I've left a big wider pocket that fits in right behind the trash to catch
your bigger wider stuff or maybe note cards or some of those fun plastic cheat sheets
or tool sets. So one of the things you can do is just get your seam guide out of the
way and then start down here at your bottom. And the first seam I'm doing is just right
through where that cool little companion fabric is. But I want you to make sure you do a couple
backstitches at the top of each one. And for that because it's to secure for the tools.
Then from that portion on what you're going to want to do is you're going to come in
here and you can use your ruler to mark it out and then a little bit of a chalk pencil
and my chalk pencil I had was right here. And I'm not sure if I'm going to be able
to see this or not. My guess is not. But here's a new trick. I'm making up right here live
on camera today. Let's hope it works. Let's just grab some straight pins. And these are
going to mark over here 1 ½. And I'm just going to put a pin down here at the bottom
because what I don't really want to do is I don't want to use something so dark that
it leaves a residue. And I didn't prepare any other colors of chalk yet today. So I'm
just going to do what we would do if all we had was a bowie knife, a sewing machine and
a box of straight pins. So I'm marking my 1 ½. So that was one, two, three, four, of
those. The next one was one inch. And the rest of all those are just fun little gaps.
So now I'm just going to bring this over here. And I'm going to come at the top.
And I'm just literally eyeballing this. It's no big deal. I'm just going to take,
but now I'm going to lock in that thread. A couple of backstitches to really secure.
And I'm going to sew aiming down to my pin that I just put there. Now I'm going to
pull that pin out so I don't sew over the top of it. And now at that point I can either
use an edge marker or just do the same thing but it's so much easier because I already
have a line of stitching and I can see where I'm going and it's a little easier to
stay parallel. There, and so we're going to sew down here.
Ok as I said, super simple. They look pretty dang good. There they are. I've got several
little fun pockets in there. And so basically we are ready to put this thing together right
sides like yay. And we're going to sew around all the other pieces. But let me show you
how to make that pocket first, that little trash catcher because it's really fun. I've
got a sample here, oop, in some of the parts and pieces now. So I took one of my ten inch
squares and I basically cut it into a five by ten inch rectangle. And that is this piece
you see here. And now I've put the other side of velcro, the piece that wasn't on
the pocket is over here, it's been placed onto my little five by ten. And it is again
¾ of an inch down and an inch over from either side. That way it's a three inch piece,
super simple. And that is this piece you see here. And now I've put the other side of
the velcro, the piece that wasn't on the pocket is over here. It's been placed onto
my little five by ten. And it is again ¾ of an inch down and an inch over from either
side. That way it's a three inch piece.Super simple.
Now what we're going to do is we're going to take this right sides together to basically
make a little five by five square and we're going to sew both sides of this. I like to
start at my corner. And I'm going to use my quarter inch seam allowance so let's
just bring that right back around for us. Super simple. I'm going to box out my corners
for this bag. I have a lot of videos where I've done that in a little bit bigger format
so I'm just going to kind of blast through it real quick. If you need a little more help
maybe drop us a comment below and we'll see if we can't maybe make a quick tip on
boxed corners or something like that. But for right now I've just set my edge guide
to ⅝ of an inch. I"m going to take my bag, I'm going to pop it open like this.
And now I want to sew over this corner and over this corner. So I'm just going to try
to make it and that bottom seam where the fold was is kind of straight parallel. There
and I'm literally just going to sew. But I am going to backstitch because I'm going
to trim the corner off. So there's one like that, flip it over, line it up. And again
this is a tiny little trash catcher so if it's not exactly 90 degrees we will forgive
you. And forgive yourself, please. Ok, as I said now as those are secured little corners
down here we can come back in, we can just kind of slice that off to take out some of
the bulk like yay, ok?
And now we need to do that to both pieces so we have a liner as you can see, we have
a liner and an exterior. So one of the pieces I've already made was my liner and I've
already done which I showed you here. So let's go ahead and take the liner and turn it right
sides out. And then that liner is going to go inside the bag, the velcro is at the top.
I'm lining up my side seams. And now we're going to go ahead and we're going to sew
around the top about 75% of the way. We're going to slide a little piece of boning in
later to keep that opening open. Back to my quarter inch seam allowance. Just kind of
lining up and make sure everything looks good up there. Oh and I should have started the
opening back where the velcro is because the velcro is at the back of the bag. If you really
want to make all of your work invisible as possible always start at the back of the seam
so you can hide any starts and stops. So I really should have started back there. I started
at the corner. It's not important. But it's a good idea. Coming around. And I want to
leave a small enough opening that it's easy to work my boning in but a large enough opening,
I should say use a large enough to get the boning in, small enough that it's not a
pain in the rear to seal up later. So it's about two fingers. Something like that. And
I've got a little opening in here. Now what I want to do though is I want to turn my bag
right sides back out. I'm just going to kind of pick at this for a second. Here it's
coming. There comes out velcro. Perfect, ok. So now that I have everything as to be constructed.
We're going to fold it back together, massage it nice. And we're doing that there so that
we have the velcro on the outside. Now what we're going to do is we're going to do
is we're actually going to run a row of stitching one inch from the top along here.
And that's going to form the bottom of our casing that holds the boning in place at the
top of the bag. You can use your velcro as your marker. It should be about there about
one inch. And what I'm going to kind of do because I don't have a free arm on this
bigger machine is I'm going to sew it with the bag up here. And I'm just going to set
this and if I want to use my edge guide to keep everything accurate I will. And this
is just to keep consistent. Your boning is about ⅝ wide, the one I'm using and so
the edge guide gives you the room you need to put it in there. You could go a little
narrower if you choose. It makes it easier to put it in there, I found. The first casing
I made was a little too narrow. I always love prototype day. Prototype day is always a little
stressful but a lot of fun because you're never sure how it's going to work. Now this
row of stitching is going to go 360. We're going all the way around because we're just
forming the bottom row to hold that boning in place so while I'm talking to you I should
let you know I am sewing all the way around. But I still have the opening at the top. Perfect,
got right on top of that velcro where I wanted to be.
Ok so here's this now. Now my boning piece here is cut at 12 inches long. And what I'm
going to do now is I'm going to come into that opening I left at the top, where did
I leave my opening at the top. Here it is. And I'm just going to feed the boning in
and around. And one of the things I have found with this boning, we are already going to
go ahead and in case it. So once I've cut it down to my 12 inches I actually can slide
it out of the tube it came in that way if that's a little bit easier to work with.
I think it's going to be here especially with my caffeinated fingers moving here. So
now we're going to slide that in and comes around. Now where the seam is you haven't
sealed it but you might have some bulk in there so be careful not to burst your seams
as you come around that way. And what I've done is I've created it with an overlap
so that it keeps it kind of spring loaded. So what we're going to have to do is pushing
through here and get that other piece in. As I head over to the sewing machine now we're
going to topstitch this. You don't want to sew in the boning. That's the other reason
I've given us a little bit of an extra gap. And I'm just going to start actually where
that opening was because the number one job of the topstitching in this situation is to
close the opening. Second job is to look pretty. Perfect. And away we go. Here we go. I've
got a lot of bulk. Not quite moving so I'm just giving a teeny bit of encouragement from
the rear. Always be careful when pushing or pulling on your fabric. It's a great way
to break a needle and you don't want to have to do that because I just spent that
time getting lined up. Now I'm just working my fingers slow. The foot's up against the
boning. Everything is fitting perfect. Just making a cool little casing. I'm very pleased.
Excellent. And this little trash catcher has turned out perfect. As you can see you've
got your velcro in there. She's all sealed up. And the boning and I do love the velcro
because you can just take it off and take it over to the trash because it's a little
hard to get your hand in there all the way down into the bottom.
But now that you have all of your detail work done, your pockets done and everything else
it's time to complete our construction of our tool caddy. So we're back onto our panels
and just a reminder here. There is that pocket. There's the velcro that the little fun bag
is going to catch on. You've got your little pockets here. And what I'm going to do now
is I"m going to jump over on the sewing machine and I'm going to sew these fabrics
right sides together. So I"m first kind of lining up the center seam as I go here.
And then what I'm actually going to do is I'm going to go to the machine with the
bosal foam portion upright. Because you can see when I press a little bit of it shifted
to one side. I want to be able to manage this as I sew all the way around. What I'm going
to do I'm going to go opposite the side of where I put in the pockets and I'm going
to start here and then I'm going to go almost all the way around. And I'm going to leave
it so I can get my hand in there about a hand's width this time. Dog ear my corners and turn
it right sides out. So let me head over to the sewing machine. But I'm feeling like
a good cup of coffee coming up pretty soon so let's jump into caffeinated mode and
we're going to do all of our sewing at a quarter of an inch ¾ of the way around this
bag. Let's get rolling.
Ok now as I'm coming into that last corner I do want to point out one thing, I am sewing
all the way off of the corner just like when you're playing softball on Monday night,
run through first base. And then I'm pivoting and coming back around. That helps keep all
my fabric aligned in a project like this where I've got lots and lots of layers. And now
as I come in here I'm going to go ahead and lock that stitching in so that I can come
back out. I have that hand's width of a gap here. And again we're going to dog ear
our corners. And that just helps us get a nice crisp finished project. And then we can
just reach in and grab to the back edge and I'll start to pull it out because we left
such a nice large opening. And the last portion of the project will just be to simply topstitch
it closed. And then of course fill it up with your favorite goodies as you go through here.
So I'm tending to that corner, tending to that corner. And look at how great, look at,
I wish I didn't have my hand in there but isn't this cool how the whole seam and that
extra little piece of fabric, that coordinating fabric lines up there. So you can do a lot
of cool things with the patchwork like this. And that's one of the reasons I do love
working with the pre cut fabrics is you've got a lot of great options that are coordinated
to match, right? And it's just a fun easy way of making it look super sharp but also
fun and quilty and patchy. Ok so there's a couple things we can do with this as topstitching,
the first thing I want to do is seal this edge. But the next thing I might want to do
is go across the middle so it's secure. And then we can go all the way back around
for fun. However you want to do it, I'm going to go ahead and fold this under and
get that topstitching started up.
Starting just past the corner. And then as I come to that opening now I'm really taking
the time to use my fingers and fold it. Make a really nice finished project. And my other
little trick is I'm kind of pulling a little extra pressure at those back corners, the
corner down here. Keep a really nice edge. And this time I"m not sewing off because
it is topstitching. I"m just coming around the corner because it's part of the decoration
now as well as the construction. This corner has got that extra little bosal. This is the
one where it had shifted a little bit so I'm slowing my machine down but I'm letting
the momentum work. The bosal foam is incredibly easy to stitch through. And by topstitching
it I'm actually knocking down a little extra bulk that was in there also. And we are in
the home stretch folks. That running through first base is turning into a home run today
as I come around. And what I'm going to do is get that last little knot right where
I started from. And we are finished ladies and gentlemen.
We have a fantastic tool caddy to place underneath our sewing machine. If you want to come back
in here and topstitch you most certainly can. I've got my cool little removable trash
bag to set on there. And I am dying to get it all set up and start on an entirely new
project for you right here at Man Sewing.
Oh, hey are you still in here. I thought you would have been checking out some of those
other great videos. You know we've got a link there, over there. And hey don't forget
to subscribe. Make sure you never miss a minute of the action. We'll catch you next time,
at Man Sewing.
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