Monday, August 16, 2010

Thread Catcher Tutorial

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I really love my serger but it does have a small problem. The massive amount of shred and thread makes me a little crazy. So today I’m going to show you how I made my thread catcherThread catcher tutorial 001

 Supplies

  • Fat Quarter of fabric for the outside of the bag 
  • Lining
  • Boning
  • Large Eyelets.
  • Screws or Hooks

 

 

Cut two squares from your main fabric of side length 13 and 5 inches. Cut a 12X13 inch rectangle from the lining fabric.  Fold the large square with right sides together sew it into a tube. Fold the lining so that the 12 inch edges meet and sew another tube. Iron your seams flat.

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Iron a 1/2 inch fold on a pair of opposite edges of the small square. Sew the folds down, and iron it in half so that the unfinished edges meet.  Thread catcher tutorial 006

Turn the tube of the main fabric right side out and insert it inside the lining tube. The Liner tube is shorter so just line up the seams and one set of edges. Sandwich the smaller piece so that the raw edges line up with the raw edges of both tubes, centering it with the seam.Thread catcher tutorial 011

Pull your lining off the main fabric so that you have one long tube. Iron it flat. Then tuck the lining inside and line up the raw edges. About a 1/2 inch of the main color fabric will be inside the tube. Iron the fold at the opening.

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Cut a length of boning a little longer than the circumference of the opening. This should be roughly 25 inches long. Make it into a hoop. I did this by siding the plastic about an inch out of the casing and then inserting that plastic length into the opposite edge of the casing. Place the boning hoop between the lining and outer fabric and slide it all the way up to the folded edge. Then sew the boning in place as shown.

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Turn the bag inside out and slide the lining up to expose the wrong side of the main fabric. (If you don’t care about having raw edges in the interior don’t slide up the lining and you’ll cut a few step out of the process.) Center your seam and sew the opening closed.

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I did the bottom corners the same way that I did in the 20-min gift bag tutorial – Fold the corner so that it is a triangle with the seam centered. Line up your ruler to be perpendicular to the seam and cut off a triangle with a height of 1.5 inches as shown.  Thread catcher tutorial 026

Sew this closed and repeat for the other corner. 

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If you sewed your lining in the last section then skip down to the eyelets.  Otherwise pull the lining up, tucking the main fabric out of the way. Center the seam and then sew the opening closed with a 1/4 in seam allowance. Fold the edge over a 1/4 inch twice and sew it down. Then fold your triangle corners again but this time don’t cut it. Push your main fabric back up into the corners. You can’t see it from the picture but my stitching for the triangles is also going through the main fabric. This will hold the lining in place.

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To finish off your lining pull the corners towards each other and whip stitch in place.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Turn the bag right side out and admire the bottom, inside and out.

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Lastly I added some large eyelets to the corners of the flaps. I used this to permanently mount to my table with screws.  Alternately you could put hooks in the bottom of the table so and hang it from that.

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My machines are currently on a table that has already been cycled through two of my friends. I’m probably the last owner so I didn’t mind that drilled some screws directly into it. I placed my serger at the edge of the table and now all the scraps just fall directly into the bag.

Ruth

11 comments:

  1. I need one of these!

    My serger came with a plastic thing, but it doesn't really hold enough, LOL!

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  2. Had to do some searching to find this again- saw it months ago but forgot to bookmark it. I don't have a serger but my trimmings from regular sewing are enough to drive me crazy. May be making this in the next few days to help combat the mess with a few minor tweaks.

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  3. Thanks for the tutorial. I made one while my kids were napping. I sit in my rocking chair and make little felt or crochet projects and had scraps on my little table all the time. I made the strap longer and added some velcro so I could attach it to the side of the wood rocker arm rest. You made it super easy.

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  5. Rita that sounds like an awesome adaptation. I'm glad it worked out for you

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  6. Looks like the best thread catcher on the web. One question, what do you mean by "of side length 13 and 5 inches". To clarify... what are the exact dimensions supposed to be for the main fabric? Rectangle #1 and Rectangle #2.

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    Replies
    1. I'm glad you like it, I need to make myself another. You are cutting 2 squares. So your 2 main fabric pieces will be 13x13 inches and 5x5 inches.

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  7. Wow, that's a really neat idea. Might just have to make one of those.

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  8. I just made this and I think the dimension are off. Mine turned out long and narrow. The 25 inches of boning was to long...

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  9. such pretty and delightful aids to stitching I think surrounding ourselves with beauty is very important...and these are beautiful. Each one unique and clever and even practical. I don't think it gets any better. Creative Bliss Dear.for buy walllet visit our site
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