Month: March 2019

Key Ring Pocket – ideal for Mother’s Day

~ guernseyjane ~ Leave a comment

These little pockets fit on your key ring and usefully hold a lip balm or some pooh bags or emergency fiver. I made a bunch of them with co-ordinating tissue pockets (see post from 2015 A-tishoo! A tissue …) for a sweet little handbag accessory gift. The original idea came from Lorrie Nunemaker but I simplified her project a bit.

All you need is a piece of fabric that is 5″ x 9″ plus a 2″ square for a tab that will slide on your key ring. If your fabric is lightweight cotton interface the main piece then fold it in half  (right sides facing and iron it so you have a piece that is 2.5″ x 9″.

Sew around the open edges with a 1/4″ seam leaving a turning gap between 2″ and 3″ from the top.  Clip the corners and turn right sides out then iron flat again.

Now make your tab by ironing the 2″ square in half opening it out and ironing two sides towards the centre fold and then folding in half again so you have a strip that is 1/2″ x 2″. Sew around the four sides of the strip with a narrow seam.

fold the tap in half and push it inside the turning gap  left in your main piece as shown

Now fold the top down to about 1 1/2″ from the bottom to form the pocket

In this picture I have now rotated the fabric 180 degrees – I didn’t poke out that corner very well did I?

Now sew around the sides and top with a tiny seam allowance to finish the pocket and fix the tab in. Take it slow over the tab as it is quite bulky.

If you have KAM snaps this is the time to use them, if not some old fashioned poppers or velcro tabs would work as alternative  fasteners.

Bonus for middle aged users: the brighter the fabric the easier it is to find your keys at the bottom of your handbag!

Oil pulling experiment

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Another experiment that seems a bit wacky… swilling coconut oil around one’s mouth for a few minutes to help remove plaque.

Proponents say that using a teaspoon or so each day is good for mouth health so I thought I would try it. I like coconut oil so wasn’t expecting to gag when I put the cold oil in my mouth and started to swoosh it around a bit like a mouthwash. But the gag reflex soon passed and it became an inoffensive taste to work with.

While swooshing for the suggested 10 – 15 minutes I decided to look up the possible downsides (why not do this beforehand I hear you ask?) and found that inhaling or swallowing could be problematic and that many people recommended keeping the swilling to 3 minutes to avoid dryness afterwards. So I didn’t inhale or swallow and spat out after a few  minutes.

OneGoodThingByJillee suggests adding tea tree oil to the oil to boost the benefits but I am keeping it simple for now.

The research I should have done beforehand also suggested that there aren’t any proven benefits beyond plaque removal and possible halitosis or gingivitus avoidance but just in case the whitening  – without the risks of enamel damage – and remineralising claims are right, the plan is to do this twice a week.

 

 

 

Mini gift basket

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A quick cut project using  the scan n cut based on Applelover53 berry basket (free from her blog cut files).

Ready for Easter or biscuits or to present home made goodies when filled with crumpled tissue paper. I used red liner tape to fix the two top ‘holding strips’ to the sides and the handle to the basket but it won’t be weight bearing. I also added a little felt tag tied to the handle as I have a pile of them to use up somehow …

I guess you could devised your own pattern and hand cut – pieces shown below – but I am grateful to find the file ready to use. For this version I used some Kanban light card which has a two tone pattern on one side and is plain on the other.

quick and simple hot water bottle cover

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So quick yet makes such a difference…

I laid the bottle on the fabric, traced round it leaving a half inch seam allowance then cut out a matching pair of fabric pieces.

With wrong sides facing, I sewed the sides from neck to bottom before flipping fabric right sides out and sliding in the bottle.

On one version I hand stitched the bottle in permanently, on the pictured version I used kam snaps to close up the bottom. With IKEA fleece I don’t have to worry about hemming the exposed edges.

This is a huge success as it keeps the bottle water hot for longer and is nice and cuddly too. Great return on the time spent on this one.