Misadventures in DIY: Two down, a million to go

Okay, maybe not a million projects, but I have a lot on my list, but I crossed two off in a week!

The week before last was my birthday we went climbing with a group of friends at our local bouldering gym. Seeing as I've been sharing a bag with my SO for the past year and a half, I decided to sit down and make my own.

I also got a gift card that was hefty enough that it knocked down the price of something that I've been coveting for a while: a serger. Now, last Thanksgiving I made a round table cloth and swore to myself that I'm not going to make another round one again unless I get a serger. And I did. So I made a table cloth to cover our table.

There are a few progress shots of the chalk bag (including two really horrible flash pictures) and a final of the tablecloth, and a preview of what will be the next post! I'm sorry about the instagram-tastic photos for some of them. I have yet to completely figure out the SO's older camera, and I don't have a nicer one of my own aside from my camera phone.
Tablecloth

About 8 months ago, I purchased 108" wide quilting backing to make into a tablecloth.

Less than a week ago, I purchased this:

It's a Janome 8002D 3/4 serger. It's simple, and it's pretty small (18 lbs) but it does what I need it to do. After testing a few swatches, I made a tablecloth

It's just a simple square, and the wrinkles are still smoothing out, but it's done!

Chalk Bag

The one problem with being a climber is that your gear adds up after a while. I was lucky enough that a lot of my gear was either was given to me as a present or I got it on sale (helloooo 100 dollar rope that was originall 200). Chalk bag sales usually don't happen or I don't like the designs. After my first time making a chalk bag using a DIY pattern online, I decided to make my own.

This was the result

I used fabric from my stash that I had bought for a yoga bag design (to be made later). I decided to use the blue and dotted fabric as the main body and the striped fabric as the accent.

After fiddling around with a simple rectangle, i got this. I stitched a 1/4" hem at the top first to keep things neat. I used the same design sans hemming for the inner pouch using black flannel that I had left from the SO's halloween costume.

I decided to use overlapping circles as the chalk guard rather than a drawstring (mostly because I don't like my current grommeting tool). The design was a test, and it actually works out fairly well, aside from putting chalk in the chalk bag. If I do decide to make these to sell or as presents, I may include a ziplock baggie of chalk inside already.

The accent strip is for the inner rim of the bag. I actually made it too long and had to fold it over again when I was stitching everything together.

This is everything pinned together for the inside pouch. Sorry about the super crappy flash lighting.

And then tucked in and pinned together for stitching together. I lined up the back hems together to keep everything neat.

 I made a set of loops out of the same accent fabric and tacked them in place equally spaced on the back seam. The black you can see up near the top is adding a black border to make things neat.

 And the final product! I need to get some black webbing and a clip to really finish it off. It currently hangs on the smaller of my locking carbiners on the side of my harness because I don't have a chalk loop. Derp.

So, that was my DIY week! I think my next post will be some swatches of my rapidly growing make up collection, starting with these beauties:

Happy misadventures!

Kaye