Sip, Sip

When my kids were younger, and someone would crack open a pop can, they'd come running, calling "Sip, sip!". Even though the youngest is about to turn 11 next month, we still all do it.

I was surfing on Pinterest and saw that someone I followed pinned a tutorial for a square based water bottle holder. Well. Back in the summer, after I learned to make  the boxed corners, I thought maybe this would be a way to make water bottle holders faster (even though I can't seem to sell them!). I hate trying to sew in the circle base, and doing the math for new sizes.  So, I searched the internet to find out how to make a narrow cylinder with a squared bottom. And searched. Nothing was coming up. It seemed that when people make wine bottle bags, they just make it two sided, with no bottom. I struggled with the water bottle holder pattern sizing, then made one for my niece who was heading off to summer camp. I knew she had a Swell bottle, and those don't have any sort of carrying loop or handle, so I thought this would be great for camp (I've made her one or two before, they're a very active family).

After seeing this tutorial on Pinterest, I was sure it must be new and maybe they got the idea from my design.  So I came to my blog and searched.  And...it looks like I never posted about it?! I know it was busy then, but crazy. I never posted about another dress I made either! Turns out the tutorial was from January 2009.

So, here it is. 

 This brown fabric was used in the backpack I made for her birthday.  I was disappointed with how the seam lined up, but there's not much you can do about that when it's a narrow circumference. I probably could have tried laying the fabric out the other direction, but 1) I didn't have much left to work with and 2) I wouldn't have thought to check this anyway.

 I used the cute engraved snaps.

 The inside is a bright and fun fabric because I know she likes bright and fun colours. I put a bit of elastic near the top because the Swell bottle is quite a bit narrower at the top.  I don't think I made it tight enough to really do much though. And then I found out she has a Swell Junior. Didn't know that existed.

The bottom! I think it might have been a bit easier to figure out if I had seamed both vertical sides, and also if I did the type where you don't cut the notch out of the fabric, but you sew diagonally over the corner so there is then a flap. I didn't want the bulk of those flaps though--I thought it might make it hard for the bottle to sit upright, especially if the two layers weren't aligned well.

After all this, I'm not sure how much faster this method is. Again, doing the other style would probably make it a bit faster. I might try that at some point, but since I'm the only one here I can get using them, I don't really need more!

The tutorial I mentioned at the start is here....it's always good to read other's instructions.  Mine is sewn by making two separate holders (no batting layer), putting them together, inserting the straps, and topstitching the layers together.  This makes them reversible, instead of the sew the top together and then pull the one layer through and handstitch the opening closed. Oh, wait a minute.  I have vague memories of actually doing some very tidy handstitching on something.  Maybe it was this, to see if it was overall easier.  Crap.  Don't remember. I was sewing a lot over the summer.

I did add some heavy iron on interfacing to the bottom base. That took some figuring as to how to size it, when to do it. Not sure how much it helps.  I also made the strap from fabric, with a layer of heavy iron on interfacing. I was starting to run out and I had to piece it together, but you'd never notice. It really does make a nicer strap.  Now, perhaps if I had new interfacing to cut from, and could just iron on one long strip (or the sewn in stuff), that would add back a bit of speed. I just find the light weight webbing I was using before got all bunchy and wrinkly. The heavier nylon webbing is nice, but I really didn't want to go shopping again, and I want to make these without having to buy a lot of extras.

Apparently I never blogged about the other holder I made in this style. I started it as the tester, then finished it after this one, for our trip. It has some extra features.  It hasn't had it's photo shoot, though there is a photo of it on our trip. Of my daughter using it LOL. They won't carry their own...

New Photos

I took new photos of my stock of water bottle holders, so that they were a little more organized.  It's been hard, because I was making two styles (crocheted, and sewn) and at least two sizes.  This time I put the small, disposable bottle sized ones together, and the larger ones together.

I wasn't happy with the top photo though.  Perhaps the crocheted one on the right should be at the far left.  

These ones are tricky because I don't have enough water bottles in the right sizes.  The crocheted holders really need a water bottle to fill them out.  And neither picture show the insides of the reversible holders.

In other news, I think I finally came up with how to make the sewn straps adjustable, at an affordable price!  Snaps!  I was wondering around the local fabric store, looking for something like "buttonhole elastic" but not elastic.  I saw hook and eye tape, but boring colours!  Then I was in the drapery department, and saw a twill tape with small plastic rings sewn along it.  I thought, if I had something that could hook to...(but it was only white).  The assistant started talking to me, I explained what I was looking for, and she said there was nothing.  As I walked away, it hit me!  Snaps!  I could do one half on the holder, and then maybe 5 spaced along the lower half of the strap!  Bingo!  I even concluded that I could put a snap along the top edge to narrow in the larger holders.  Oh, and how about a loop with a snap to attach your key ring?  (Mine used to be on a carabiner clip, but not now).

So, I came home and started looking at snaps.  The fabric store sells the Babyville pliers, but I had heard, from my diaper sewing days, mixed reviews.  I've been fixing up some cloth diapers for my cousin's wife, and she mentioned that she had gotten snap pliers and was loving them.  She lives just a bit too far to be convenient, so I asked in a local FB WAHM craft group if anyone in my town had snap pliers and could show me the ins and outs so I'd know better what I want, and test it to see if they would hold the weight of the water bottles.  I got two responses, and knew (not well, but they weren't strangers!) them and they weren't far from me!  Yesterday, I went to one of their houses (oh, the lady that did the embroidery for the "Rude Robot" hat!) and she showed me how to do it, etc and let me borrow it.  She didn't have many snaps, and not the complete set in black, so I will probably go buy some more today, LOL, and then order my own snap pliers.

I'm really excited by this!  Snaps might be showing up everywhere!

Water Season

Although you should be drinking water all year round, many people don't carry their water around with them until the warmer months.  I've been on the fence about the sewn water bottle holders.  I like them, and that they're sturdy, and can be tailored to hobbies, men, children, etc.  What I don't like...I'm not a great sewer (as hard as I try to be accurate and precise, it just doesn't seem to happen), and the sizing is not as flexible as crocheted ones.

I had this white and red holder finished last year...but it just needed a button!  I made the strap extra long so it could be worn cross body or on the shoulder, and the button can be placed anywhere along the strap.  Somehow this holder turned out a little wide, which is great for the larger, odd shaped bottles.  Or, you can also tuck other things in with a smaller bottle!

I changed the pattern part way up cause I was bored.  One thing I have problem with is doing double crochet in the round.  I never know where to put the first DC after the chain 2 (or is it ch 3?).  It's really noticeable in the white one, a diagonal line starting from the bottom right of my watermark up towards the left of the holder. 54 grams.

 My niece likes pink and orange, and I knew she needed a new holder.  Although her mom said a "sewn holder because her's broke".  Not knowing the size of her bottle (and the fact that kids often have more than one bottle), I opted to use this cheery yarn, called "Cool Crochet" by Bernat (discontinued of course).  I used it a few years ago to crochet a cardi. I thought it would be good because it's 70% cotton, 30% acrylic, so it shouldn't shrink when washed, and I didn't think it would stretch too much.

 I started with 5 DC for the strap and then at some point increased up to 8, then back down.  But, I realized, that's kind of silly because the shoulder section is different if worn cross body vs on the shoulder.  So I redid it with 8 DC.  And I made a second one for Megan.  35grams each.
I tested it out, and I don't like how much it stretches!!!  I'm going to use some twill tape, and sew it down the backside of the strap, along the edges.  This will mean I don't need to sew button holes, as the button can still go through the strap anywhere.  It's great to have some stretch in the holder part, but not in the strap.  I'll report back later how that works.

I still have some fabric cut up and waiting to be sewn into holders, from last summer.  I like variety.  That's the True Tracy Way!

Yarn In:  1776gr
Yarn Out: 124gr + 3589gr = 3713gr
Balance: 1937gr more USED than bought
Costs:  $97.58 /129 days = $0.76/day

Patriotic

It appeared that summer was going to finally appear by Canada Day, so I wanted a water bottle holder to show our Canadianism.  This one is done in acrylic Red Heart yarn because finding the bright red cotton is really hard for some reason.

This is just a quick iPad photo.  Red is hard  to photograph.  It was done with the bottom in a single crochet circle, then a few rounds of single crochet, then a few of half double crochet, then a few rounds of double crochet, then I did a DC, ch1 (skipping every other DC in the previous round), then the next round was DC in the ch1 space.  This makes for a very stretchy waterbottle holder, but not really lacey.
This time, I made the strap extra long, all DC (I think 4 wide), and I sewed a button on the top edge, opposite the strap.  This way, it can be shortened to whatever length, or worn cross-body with the  strap fully let out. 

No one wanted to take it to the Canada Day activities, so it sits waiting for a buyer in my box of doom...

Yarn In:  5493gr
Yarn Out: 51gr + 2348gr = 2489gr
Balance: 3142gr more brought IN than out
Cost: $307.72/196days = $1.57/day

Another Water Bottle Holder

I thought I'd give making another water bottle holder a try, again to be reversible, and this time to use some aluminum backed foam sheeting I got at JYSK (a cheap, smaller version of IKEA).  The aluminum mat is showed as a sleep pad, it's like what's inside lunch boxes.  The pattern called for batting, which I hadn't used in the first few, and I thought I could use it instead.  I wasn't sure about sewing through it, but the pattern doesn't have you sew through the batting on the side seam anyway.  It's thin, but I didn't want the bulk.

I used some left over scraps from a dress I made a few years ago when I was learning how to do the FBA.  The dark turquoise is from a pair of girls' pants that came from a friend of my MIL.  It's not actually as dark as in the picture; it's quite bright.  I used the pant hem around the top and didn't want to stitch through it  when joining the print, so that's why there's a border.  I had to do a seam in the strap, but oh well.  I keep having this issue where I cut the strap the full width, instead of cutting two straps, each 1/2 the width.

In the end, I couldn't get my aluminum backed foam in between the layers.  I didn't think about needing more ease to allow for that.  Then, I used the foam to wrap hot dogs in Lucy's camp lunch and she says they weren't warm at lunch time.  So, I don't hold much  hope for it.  And anyway, the aluminum is on one side only; once reversed, then the foil is on the other side (hidden between the layers).  One way it would be reflecting the outside heat, the other way it would be reflecting the bottle's temperature.  Would that matter?  I also like how these holders are squishable for packing.  With the foam in them they wouldn't be quite so squishy.

I really like this holder, though I do think the wool ones keep the water  colder!

"True Tracy Design"

First off, is anyone having trouble coming to my blog?  I added a thingy for the MKing web ring, and sometimes when I click on my blog, it's coming up with the webring page instead.  Let me know.

I decided I wanted a water bottle holder.  I'm tired of carrying my big purse just so I can jam my bottle in.  I'm tired of carrying the other kids' bottles.  I'm tired of not having my water because I had no way to carry it easily.  I saw on www.resweater.blogspot.com that she had made a water bottle cozy from a sweater sleeve.  I had somewhat forgotten this when I embarked on my design, but I did use a sleeve.  The sweater had a weird folded back cuff that I had to deal with.  I just used my limited design skills to design a cylinder with a folded down, to the outside, casing for a strap.  I cut a strip off the bottom of the sweater because it had a nice design, folded it over, and also added two additional plain sections that I thought I needed for length, and I thought they'd be hidden in the casing.  Then I made a second one, using the other sleeve.

Well.  Issues galore.  I worried about the strap stretching, and it did.  Big time.  It also pulled up over the bottle, and just looked bad.  You can see that I had just knotted the straps because I wasn't sure about length, stretching, and if maybe sometimes we'd want to tie them to something, or if someone of a different size was using it.
I went back to the Resweater blog and looked at her's.  Well, she didn't have a strap.  Meg then asked for her own, but didn't like any of the sweaters available.  I knew I had to do some googling.  I found a tutorial for a reversible holder.  That would work with sweaters, although I started with sweatshirt material and hot pink fleece for Meg's.
Things started out great.  Then I went to sew the circle on the bottom.  On mine, I had kept the sleeve seam, so I just had to sew the circle on.  I just traced around the bottom of the bottle to figure out the size.  This tutorial has you do (easy) math to make the circle, which worked well.  But then you sew the circle to the flat rectangle before the side seam.  It doesn't really explain how to do this well.  You have to leave 1/4" flap at each end, of the rectangle.  Yeah, not the easiest thing to line up.  As I was almost done sewing on the circle, I had a thought...did I sew it to the right edge of the rectangle--one side was 9", one was 9 3/4", and which was which?  Luckily I had sewn it to the right end!  I made a mental note to always check that.  Then it came time for the straps.  I was skipping the steps with the batting, so I got a little confused...I really don't think the tutorial is written well.  I had this white webbing from a "SSC" (soft structured baby carrier) I was going to sew.  Perfect for this project.  But the tutorial doesn't say how long to make the strap!

 I wasn't sure how it would be reversible, but it worked!  So, I set about trying to re-work the sweater ones  I made.  This was a bit more challenging, since I didn't want to/couldn't undo the sleeve seam.  I also snipped a small hole in the sleeve on the left, so I did a little applique from a piece of the sleevehead--I wouldn't be able to use that part of the sleeve for other projects since it's a set in sleeve.  And, when I was trying to figure out the size of the inner piece, I snipped it, instead of getting a marker, and it turned out to be in the wrong spot.  Just a little snip, once I had it all together, I put some Fray Check on it.

For the bottle on the left, I used a polyester top that I had sewn and never liked so I hadn't really finished it.  For the strap, I cut the neck ties off the shirt, and top stitched them on the original wool strap (shortened).  For the middle bottle, I used some blue/beige seersucker from the stash.  For the strap, I made a tube and thread the original wool strap into it (thereby obscuring the details that were on the original).  These two are not reversible...well they are, but they won't fit onto my water bottle if I reverse them.  It was hard to get the sizing right.  If I were doing this again, I'd slice open the sweater sleeve to ensure the two body pieces are the same size.  These carriers are much better than my original carriers, and I envision more to come.

The reason for the title....often when I make things, plan things, do things, I don't start with the easiest way.  I dive in.  Rob (my husband) often says "....in true Tracy design....." (or "fashion" or "style") when I'm doing something like this, in a way different than how he'd do it with his engineer brain.  Yet, even he acknowledges that it turns out in the end.  I'm thinking of this as my new "business" name  :)