2012 July 19

Pet Rock Carrier Tutorial

You might remember this one… A couple months back I shared this tutorial on Stephanie’s Blog, Hugs Kisses and Snot! I thought I’d share it here on my blog today! But if you haven’t, please check out Stephanie’s blog!

Today is just a day of hunting for pet rocks with me and the kiddo. And what do you need on a pet rock hunting mission? A pet rock carrier, of course!

Would you like to know how I made it? Great! ‘Cause that’s why I’m here! To show you how I made it…

Step 1. Materials

Fabric

Clear Vinyl

Interfacing

Thread

Scissors and/or Rotary Knife

Pinking Shears

Step 2- Cut pieces.

Circles- Cut (2) 4.5″ diameter circles for the bottom and (2) 5″ diameter circles for the lid. These dimensions include the seam allowances.

Trim pieces- Cut (2) 2.5″ by 13.5″ strips for the bottom and top trim pieces. Cut (2) 2.5″ by 14.5″ strips for the lid trim pieces.

Clear Vinyl- Cut (1) 9″ by 13.5″ piece of vinyl. Yes, there is actually something in the picture, but it’s kinda hard to photograph clear vinyl, so you’ll just have to trust me on this one!

Strap- Cut (1) 4″ by 30″ piece for the strap.

Interfacing- How much of this you use depends on the weight of your fabric. I used it for the top trim on the bag and between the bottom and lid circles. I didn’t use it on the lid trim or the bottom trim because of the heavy weight of the fabric I was using.

Step 3- Prepare the top trim piece. First iron on the interfacing. Then iron the strip in half. Next iron the edges over 1/4″.

Step 4- Sew the top trim piece to the vinyl. Insert the vinyl all the way into the folded and ironed trim. Top-stitch.

Step 5- Prepare the strap. Iron the strip in half and then fold over the edges to the inside fold. You’ll end up with a 1″ wide strip.

Step 6- Set up the bottom trim piece and strap. I use hair clips instead of pins. Love this!! I use it for quilting, too. Anyway…. Layout the bottom trim pieces, right sides towards the vinyl, 1″ from the bottom edge of the vinyl. Next, layout the straps. I located mine as shown above.

Step 7- Stitch along the bottom trim.

Step 8- Fold over the bottom trim and top-stitch. I didn’t iron the bottom trim pieces back, but you can if you want. The vinyl can be iron, just be sure to use a low iron setting and use a piece of fabric between the vinyl and the iron. It doesn’t take much heat to distort or melt the vinyl.

Step 9- Sew down the strap. Sew up from the bottom to about 1″ away from the top trim. You don’t want to sew them all the way to the top or else the lid won’t be able to fit on! I added a little rectangle piece at the top, just for a little extra strength and design! The second piece of this is to also continue to sew up one side of the strap to close the strap.

Step 10- Fold over the bag body, right sides together and stitch together!

Step 11- Add interfacing to one layer of the bottom circles and sandwich them together wrong sides together.

Step 12- Pin the bottom to the bag body, right sides together. The bottom piece that will be on the outside of the finished bag, will be inside the bag at this point.

Step 13- Sew the bottom and the body together. Use pinking shears to trim the exposed edges.

Step 14- Turn the bag right sides out. This will probably wrinkle and maybe even put some kinks in the vinyl. NO fretting! Iron it out like I mentioned in Step 8 and you’ll be fine! The bag is done! You can stop here or continue on (kinda like those Choose Your Own Adventure books back in the day… Do they still have those? They do!!) OK, sorry, back to the tutorial at hand!

Step 15- Ahhh… You’ve decided to continue on with this adventure, have you… Great! The lid! As with the bottom, add the interfacing to one layer of the lid. Then sandwich the two layers together.