Tutorials
7.14.2014Wahoo! It’s Gifty Galore time. I’m super excited about the projects this year, so excited in fact that I somehow ended up signing up for 4 of them! You will see me a lot! My first project is from FairyFace Designs Blog and it’s a quick & easy, FREE Phone Cozy Tutorial. It was actually a lot of fun to put together and would be very easy to size up or down for different size phones, camera’s, etc. It would in fact make an excellent gift for tweens who are often times difficult to buy for. Below I will be showing my journey through the tutorial but please don’t just follow me blindly; I don’t always know where I am going!!
Here’s a picture of my finished phone cozy and below is how I got there; well, at least the parts where I remembered to take photos 🙂
I had a ton of fun picking out my fabrics for this project. The solid was easy since I had just bought some Quilter’s Candy Solid in Charcoal. This just took a small amount. Next I pulled out my leftover scraps from an earlier project that used the Nana’s Pantry collection. I auditioned them all, trying different color combinations and patterns until I was thoroughly confused and ended up just picking whatever was closest since I couldn’t remember the other combinations I had already tried. Hey, it’s scrappy! I’ve learned to stop being so rigid and try to go with the flow in these situations.
I won’t bore you with a million pictures of my piecing; the instructions cover this portion pretty well. I should caution you that you should read the directions when you are piecing. I didn’t pay attention to that on the front. The top and bottom pieces are different sizes and on the back, the bottom solid piece is larger than the other two. Of course, I noticed it after I was done quilting it, so I had to add a bit to the bottom of my back. Makes it more custom right?
You can see where I added the fabric when you look closely from this angle.
But from this angle you can barely see it! It’s all how you angle the camera!
I had the most fun quilting this. It’s nice to get more practice straight line quilting. It’s a quick and easy project so there is no pressure. It’s just a fun way to practice different ways to start and stop and width variations.
Another tricky part is making sure that the loop gets pinned properly and sewn in place.
Then she has you trim any excess batting & fabric so that it isn’t bulky at the top.
Once you’ve gotten the lining attached to both pieces, it’s time to join it all together. Once I pinned the raw edge of the handle in place I tucked the other end of my handle into my button loop to make sure I didn’t sew that part into the seam as well.
I left a good amount of space unsewn for turning. I knew I was going to use my machine to sew the lining closed so it made sense to leave a generous opening rather than fighting with it to get it turned right side out.
And just like that, I was a covered button away from being finished. I decided to use a covered button but using funky and unique buttons would really be another way to jazz up your cozy. This really was a fast, fun, and easy project and a great way to use up scraps. I will definitely be making more of these as gifts (as well as for myself so I can have one to coordinate with different outfits!) I have an IPhone 5 and it fits into this phone cozy perfectly, still leaving enough room to put my Starbucks card, debit card, and cash for a quick coffee run in the morning.
A new Gifty Galore project will be posted each Monday through December 8th. To keep track of all of this year’s Gifty Galore projects, click here. We would LOVE to see how your projects turn out. Join the Gifty Galore group on Quilt With Us (QWU) and post your pictures there for everyone to enjoy. If you’re on Pinterest, upload your picture and tag it with #GG14. Of course, we would also love to see your pictures on our Facebook wall!
Please post any questions about this project below in comments and we will respond.
