Laminates Session 5: Vinyl / Oil Cloth Wallet

We're going to start with the oil cloth. So find all of the pieces that you cut out of the oil cloth. You should have two pocket pieces, a backing piece and aligning piece. The very first thing we're gonna do is we're gonna finish the raw edges of your pocket pieces. So you're backing in your lining. You can set aside for now. So, we are only working with one thin piece. So we're gonna brave using some pins here. I'm gonna bring some pins over. And what I want you to do is I want you to fold over one long edge of your oil cloth and crease it. This is approximately a half an inch that I'm folding here. Now the great thing about oil cloth is it takes a crease pretty nice. So if you're brave, you don't have to pin, but I like to get at least one little pin in this side and one little pin in this side like this. That way it's folded over nicely. So we'll put that one aside and we're gonna take the second one and we're gonna repeat that process. We're gonna give it a nice finger press just like that. And then we'll get a pin right there and a pin right there. All right, so this is our first experience sewing with oil cloth. We are just going to top stitch right along this raw edge to keep that fold down. So I'm gonna move these aside. I'm gonna pull my machine in. Now you will notice that on my machine, I have my walking foot. So I'm going to just go ahead and lift this up. Now you can't see very well. However, I am going to put my needle very close to that raw edge that I was showing you, that's right here. So I'm gonna sew a little bit and then I'll show you what it looks like coming out on the other side. Now, before we get going, let's talk a little bit about stitch length. This stuff is sticky. We are using a walking foot, so that's helpful, but there's still a little bit of stick in there. So instead of using a normal stitch length of two and a half, I like to use three. So I'm gonna set this under here and I'm just gonna sew along the edge all the way across. Now, you can see as it's coming out the back side. That I am sewing right along the edge there, see that? Just close to the edge so that there's plenty of seam allowance, but it'll keep that flap down. So we'll pull this guy out. And we're going to run the second one through as well. Second verse same as the first. Now another tip, this part of the oil cloth that's right here on the edge of your machine, it might stick to your machine right here. This particular machine is a little bit of a rough plastic, but if yours is a very slick plastic, the two could stick. So you can always take a piece of printer paper and just tape it over that area so that the oil cloth has a nice place to glide. The second piece is now done. So we have ourselves two nicely top stitched pieces, and we're going to pull the pins out here. We don't need those anymore. And now we're going to bring in our lining piece. You'll notice that the lining piece is the smaller of the two. And you'll also notice that the pockets fit exactly on either end of the lining piece just like that. So I'm just gonna grab a pin and I'm gonna pin through all the layers at the side, just to hold these two on here. Now you can kind of see how our little wallets coming together. These are gonna be some pockets that you can tuck your receipts or your coupons into. So we'll pin this guy at the side and the little pin, this guy at the side, just like that. Now, all I'm going to do is stitch a line across the bottom. Again, very close to the edge, it's only meant to hold this piece to this piece. So we're basically just basting them together. It's a temporary stitch. So I'll pull this in and I'm just going to run the edge of my needle along the bottom. There we go. Those two are sewn together. We're going to repeat with the other edge as well. And you can see when I step on the gas, this thing really moves. This walking foot just does a stellar job of moving the feet fabric. So this one is done as well. Now it is time for us to put the backing on. So let's pull our pins out. Now I want you to notice something. Right here, can you see those pinholes? This is why it's very nice to use the painter's tape because you can see the pin holes here. Now, in my case, this is gonna be inside my wallet. So I don't mind at all. But I do want you to be aware that these pin holes do get created. You can kind of rub them out a little bit. If you get them where you don't want them, or if you can't avoid doing the pins, if you rub them like that, they're much less noticeable. Now we've got our backing piece and we're gonna flip it face down like this. We are going to take our pocket piece and we're going to center it right in the middle there so that you have about the same margin all the way around. Then we're going to start folding it. And again, I'm gonna use pins because it's not too many layers here, it's manageable. So I'm gonna get that centered. And I'm gonna fold my first corner in. I'm gonna fold it just at a 45 degree angle like that, and I'm gonna crease it. And then I'm gonna swivel this around like this. So then I can fold this over along the edge. So you've got the beginnings of a cute little mitered corner there. And I am going to just slide my pin in like so. Then I'm gonna do that with another corner. This one over here. Here and we're gonna fold this over like so, and then I'm gonna get a pin in that corner, just like this. Now I can kind of fold at the middle. I'm gonna pinch it between my fingers and I'm gonna get a pin in there. And now I don't know if you can see these are gapping. See how those were kind of lifting up a little bit. We wanna make sure that all of these are nice and flat. So we'll get another pin right in here. And then we'll get one more right in here. Now here's the next corner. We're gonna fold it over. And now we have a very nice mitered corner right there. So we'll get this pinned. Now, if you, you can see I'm struggling with the pin to get through all of the layers. If you are a regular sewer, you might be freaking out right now. Like, "what's all this raw edge just hanging out. Is that not gonna be closed? Is it not gonna be finished? We're not surging the raw edge. We're not gonna neaten the edge or finish the edge. What about fraying?" Well, if you remember, oil cloth is a 100% laminate. There's no cotton, which means there's no weave, which means there's no reason that you can't leave a raw edge showing. So this is why sewing with oil coth can be a lot easier than sewing with a cotton because you don't necessarily have to finish the raw edges. It just looks adorable. I'm gonna continue pinning in this manner all the way around until I have all of my edges pinned. And then we'll move on to the next part, which is top stitching the entire wallet. Now that we have our entire wallet pinned, we're going to top stitch it. Now, I want you to notice something, see how this margin is a little bit wider than say this margin over here. So this time we don't necessarily want to sew along this edge, and then also sew along this edge. On the outside of the wallet when we flip it over, you'll notice that the margins are different. So what I like to do when I'm top stitching something like this is I like to pick a point on my machine to line up the fold width. That way I am sewing in the exact same margin from the fold all the way around, and it looks uniform on the outside. So we're gonna bring this in. And I am just going to find a place on my foot here that looks nice. I'm gonna start on one of the thin margins so that I make sure that the thinnest one gets sewn. And it looks like at this point, I am actually gonna line up the fold right with the edge of my foot. Now the nice thing is I can move my needle back and forth if I need to come in a little bit. So I'm gonna move it all the way to the right. So that way it's closest to the edge there. So it doesn't matter what size my margin is. Now my stitch will be nice and even. So again, I'm on three and I don't have to back stitch till the end. So I'm just gonna go ahead and stitch all the way round. I'm getting to a corner now. So what I wanna do is we made a mitered corner. It makes a diagonal line. I am now going to walk my foot forward using my flywheel until my needle is right in the middle of that diagonal line. Then I leave my needle down, I'm gonna lift my foot and I'm gonna pivot this around. And when I lower the edge of my foot is right on the edge of the folds so that I know I'm in the right spot, now I can continue. This is my last corner So I'm about to run right into the place where I've started. So I'm gonna aim for that so that I sew right over this section here, drive over it for a little ways, and then I'm gonna perform my back stitch. So we're all done. Now you've noticed that I was sewing over my pins. I like to do this with oil cloth, because it can tend to slip. Now I don't recommend sewing over your pins regularly. Cotton works a little differently. It doesn't slip quite as much, it's not as sticky. It doesn't move around. However, the oil cloth does just please be careful. If you are going to sew over your pins in any situation, it's better that you use a longer stitch length. If you hit a pin with your needle, you could break your needle which is not usually a problem. You just have to rethread and start over and get a new needle, but it can be very dangerous for your machine if part of it breaks off and goes into the machine. So if you're going to do that, just please do it very carefully. There is our wallet. Now check this out. We have raw edges all over the place. Here's a nice big one right there. But we don't have to finish it. We don't have to tuck it under now. With oil cloth it is so difficult to put the right sides together. Sew all the way around and flip it right side out, because it's so bulky. The seams don't lay flat at all. So in this case, when you leave a raw edge unfinished like this, it makes the whole thing nice and flat just like that. See how thin and flat that is, there's no bulk in the corners, none of that. It just looks gorgeous. So this is the first part of our wallet. Now we're gonna switch and work with the vinyl, and we're gonna add zippers to the vinyl so that we can put the see-through pockets inside of our wallet, we're gonna do that next. We are now ready to work with the vinyl part of this project. So I have my two pieces of vinyl here, but before I get going on showing you how to assemble this, let's take a look at what you're assembling. This little piece here is the finished product of what we are about to make in this section. So I have two zippers here on either end, and then there's two pieces of vinyl. Now at the moment, I could reach through the entire thing, but we are gonna stitch right down the middle to our wallet so that we end up having two separate zippered pockets. So this is the goal. I'm gonna bring my two pieces of vinyl back. And I'm gonna set one aside. Well We're only gonna work with one at a time, and I have some seven inch zippers here. I am going to put my seven inch zipper face down like this. Now I'm not sure if you can see very well. But what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna line up the edge of my zipper right with the edge of my vinyl. And I'm gonna pin across the top. Now, if you notice, here are the edges of my vinyl. So my zipper is a little bit wider than this. So I, however, here's the cleat for the teeth. So if I turn it over, you can see that the teeth are a little short of the vinyl. So I just wanna make sure in center that zipper as best I can in front of that vinyl, just like that. So I'm gonna get it centered, and then I'm gonna carefully pick it up. And I'm going to get a pin right in the center to hold it just like that. Then I'm gonna work my way out. I'm gonna put a pin over here, and then I'm gonna put another pin over here. Now, if you have done zippered bags in the past, you will remember that after we pin the zipper to the front part of the bag, that we then have to put the lining over the top of it. That's because we're supposed to hide a raw edge. But if you remember, this is a laminate, this has no weave in it. So we don't have to hide the raw edge. So we don't even need a lining plus we would like to see through it. So we don't wanna lining anyway. So now I am going to stitch this zipper to this vinyl right along the edge. Now I want to use approximately a quarter inch seen. Normally I would put on my quarter inch quilting foot so that I could get a perfect seam. However, we've got vinyl involved. So we kind of have to use our walking foot. So we are just very carefully going to tuck this under here, like so, and I'm gonna estimate a quarter here. It's basically, when you're doing the zipper, you have the teeth and then you have the zipper tape and you basically wanna send your needle right down the middle so that's what I'm gonna do. And I'm gonna get that guy ready. Now I have my walking foot going. I don't need to back stitch at the moment because we're gonna sew over the seam later. So I'm just gonna get that right under there. And I'm gonna sew right down the middle. Again, you can sew over your pins if you're extremely careful. Now, when we get to the zipper head, we have to so pass the zipper head, and we can't really drive around it. So once we get there, I'll show you a little trick. Now because I have a walking foot, even though I'm sewing over the zipper, you can see how much of my zipper is underneath the walking foot. Normally that would make your foot really wobbly, but because there's teeth on the top, it really helps move the zipper along so you can get away with it. So you can see here that I still have a little ways to go right there. I but you, you can tell my foot is gonna run right into this zipper head. So I need to move it out of the way. My needle is currently down, which means I can lift my foot like this, and I'll be able to pivot on the needle and not lose my place. So I'm just gonna pull this pin here right out of the way. So that way I can push this zipper open like this. Now it's gonna run into the foot a little bit, which is fine. So you can either just kind of Jimmy it straight through. I'm gonna turn it a little and I'm just pushing on the zipper pull underneath. So that way I can kind of Jimmy it through. Now, it's stuck on my foot, which is fine. I'm just gonna lift my zipper foot with my other hand. That way it'll go a little bit higher and then I can let it go again. And then I can push my zipper. Now it's at the point where I can kind of turn it sideways like this, see the zipper pull under there? I'm just gonna grab that guy. And I'm just gonna continue pushing it right out of the way, and I'm gonna unzip it. Now, check that out. Now this piece of my zipper is out of the way so I can lower my foot right there, and I can continue to the end without having to swerve and make some weird looking thread path. Right off the edge. So we've got the first part of our zipper sewn on. Let's take a look at that. So I'm just gonna pull out the rest of these pins here, and I'm gonna zip this up so you can see, I have a nice seam all the way across the top. Now what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna fold the whole thing underneath like this. And you can see my vinyls bubbling a little bit. I'm just gonna push the vinyl away from the zipper and get a nice crease in there just like that. So now we've got a zipper attached to one end, however, it keeps wanting to flip over like that, see that. So what I'm gonna do is right along this edge, I'm gonna top stitch just along the fold there to keep that down. So again, because you're not using a particular seam allowance, you're just gonna kind of eyeball it. I'm gonna move my needle over and I'm gonna just make sure that I can kind of see everything so that I'm just sewing right along that edge of that fold on the vinyl. So I'm gonna lower my needle into my work. Now look, what's right in front of me. That's my zipper pole. It's right in front of my foot again. So I'm not gonna be able to finish sewing this edge until I move that guy. So my needles down, so my place is saved. I'm gonna lift my foot and then I'm just gonna sneak this zipper under there, little higher to get past this one part just like that. Now I can flip my zipper pull, and then I can continue to just unzip just like that. Now I can come back, lower my foot and I can continue. I'm gonna trim the ends of our thread off. And now you can see it's laying extremely flat, just like that. We've got a nice top stitch there. And most importantly, our zipper works. So now we're gonna attach this to the other side of the zipper, just like we did the first. I'm gonna lay this piece of vinyl down. I'm gonna lay this on top of it because I have a raw edge of zipper. The raw edge of the zipper is what I now want to match with the raw edge of the vinyl, just like this. So I'm gonna match it up and I'm gonna pin it. And I'm gonna repeat both of those steps to sew this piece to the vinyl, then flip it and push it away. And top stitch that one, just like the first. Now that we have two pieces of vinyl stuck to our zipper, just like this. It's time to get the second zipper involved. Now of course we wanna make sure that it opens that's the most important part. So I can either attach my next zipper to this end or to this end. It's going to end up in a circle like this eventually. So it doesn't matter which side you pick. I'm going to grab my next zipper. Now, this is very important. You wanna make sure for ease of sewing purposes in our last step when you join them together that your zipper pulls are both on the same side. If you go like this, it might make things a little bit difficult. So we wanna make sure that they're on the same side before we put this up at the top. And then we're going to center it so that it matches up with the other zipper as well. And we're just gonna get some pins all the way across this guy. Same as we did before. We're just taking the edge of the zipper. Make sure you put it face down when we sew, we sew with the right sides together, and there is a right and a wrong side of the zipper also. So we're just gonna get this guy pinned like this. Then we're gonna stitch all the way across here when I'm done with that, I'm gonna flip it over and top stitch it. We'll see in a moment. So I have my zipper in the middle. I have a vinyl piece here, a vinyl piece here. And finally I attached another zipper up here as well. So now it's time to join him in a loop. I'm gonna grab the edge of my vinyl from down here. I'm gonna bring it up, I'm gonna make sure that my edges of my vinyl are lined up very nicely. Make sure your zipper is facing the vinyl, or you could zip them in the wrong side out. We don't wanna do that. So we're gonna get these in here like this. So that our vinyl is attached to our zipper and it looks like I'm gonna start sewing at this end. So I'm gonna go ahead and reach in, and I'm gonna open this zipper all the way up to the bottom like this. So we're still pinned and I have one pin to go. So this will actually make it a little easier for me to line up the top here, get that guy in. And then we're gonna get this guy in. So you can see that you're just gonna move your zipper head around to wherever it's convenient to be out of the way. Bring this in, and I'm gonna go ahead and remove that part so that I've got some room we're gonna need that later. And I'm gonna tuck this guy in here. And so my quarter-inch seam all the way down and then I will zip up my zipper when I get to the point where I need to sew past there. That's pretty close. I'm gonna set that down, open this up very carefully, push this zipper past my foot so that I can sew past it. Can scooch it as I'm going here. Here we go. Can pull this over? So that's out of the way I can now lower and continue. So now the hard part is gonna be attempting to top stitch this guy. So let me trim my threads so they're out of our way, and I'm gonna pull out all my pins. Now, I need to somehow let me zip this up, fold this way like so and top stitch through this top layer and get everything under here. But this top layer is in the way. Well, enter the tricky zippers. We're gonna unzip this one and we're going to unzip this one. So now I can kind of turn it right side out for the moment like this. And now I have a clean place to top stitch just like that. So I know that I'm going to sew on this side. So I am going to want to pull the zipper down like this until I get about halfway and then I'll pull it up and I'll keep going. So the great part about this machine is I'm able to take this front part off so I can slide the rest of this kind of underneath and out of the way. Now all the rest of this is gonna get in the way as we sew, but we just have to kind of fight through it. So I'm actually going to turn this inside out again like so. Now what I'm gonna do is my zipper that I have to top stitch on is down here at the bottom. This opening is up here at the top, but look, I also be able to slide it this way if that way is easier for you than sliding it underneath as well. So I know that I want to stitch on this side, so I'm gonna go like this. And this is going to get very weird and awkward in a moment, but this works fantastically. So you just kind of have to push through it. So let's get this flattened out and now we're gonna do our top stitch, here we go. Now this is getting in the way, see this. I'm just gonna keep pushing forward. Now the closer I get to this, the more room I have back here, I can kind of pull this around the foot like that. So I'm just going to pull it this way a little more. Sew a little more, pull it this way a little more. Sew a little more, pull it this way. Now you can see my opening is well past where I have to finish sewing right here, so I've got plenty of room. Just make sure that's laying nice and flat. Well now we have a zipper to contend with on top of all the mess we're in. So I'm gonna put my needle down and I'm going to lift my foot and I'm just gonna lift this front piece here. So that way I can very easily reach underneath. And I'm gonna turn this sideways so I can just scooch this right past the foot, like so. Let's make sure that it's turned back like this. So now we're back on track. We'll pull this back out of the way, open this little piece up, and then we can continue sowing right to the end. Very good. So we made it all the way through. Now we have to get it out of here. Now don't forget you can always push your little lever. Look how much further that raises the foot. And you can slide that. Oops. Now my needles in the way. You can slide that whole mess right out of there, just like that. So let's trim off our threads and let's see what we got. This guy out of the way. So we now have a loop with two top stitch zippers on it, just like this, and they both zip up, fantastic. We're almost there. Now. The last thing we wanna do is we wanna sew the sides. Before we sew these sides up, we wanna make sure that the zippers are right sides inside. 'Cause then we're gonna flip it right side out. But we have to open both zippers to the middle, just like this. That way they're out of the way of the sewing path. And then we'll, there'll be easy to open as we pull them out. So let's line up our zippers just like this. I've got the edge of my oil cloth lined up. This stuff is so thick that really, you only need a pin there and a pin here. Now we're gonna sew with a half an inch seam. You can see the teeth right here. We are going to start sewing right before the teeth. We're gonna do a little back stitch. Sew all the way across up to the teeth, do another little back stitch. And we're gonna do this on both sides. I'm gonna tuck this guy in here. And I'm gonna start just beyond the teeth here, making sure. Now I'm gonna use the half inch line on my sewing machine with the edge of my vinyl. It's probably a little hard for you to see. So I got started just a little bit. And then I'm gonna do a little backstitch then right up to the teeth, do a back stitch one side done, pull it out. Gosh. I just love the way that walking foot moves that vinyl, it's so great. Let's do the other side. Second verse, same as the first. Line it up with my edge. Do a little back stitch, half an inch all the way down. Right up to the teeth. Do a little back stitch. Our pocket is done. Let's trim our corners a little so that when we turn it right side out, it will lay very nicely. So I'm gonna grab my scissors here. Now there's a cleat right here. Please do not cut that with your scissors. That would be very sad. We're just gonna go like that to kind of trim right to the cleat. And also there's one on that side, see it? We're gonna just kind of trim right to there. Just a little bit of the corner stuff off. And then we'll do it the same over here on this side. And also on this side. Now, I recommend you unzip both of these. So we're just gonna kind of reaching here and unzip both of them. And now you're going to spend the next 10 minutes wrestling with your piece to turn it right side out. Record time. So you'll notice at the ends of the zippers here where the pull isn't there. It's just nice and set, but over here, your zipper's kind of laying funny. So we're just going to put our fingers in and just kind of flip this out. So see right here at the corner, I'm just pushing this guy out just a little bit that cleat. That turns that zipper around and makes it flat right there. So we're gonna do that again with this side. Let me open this guy all the way up. We're just gonna flip this guy out just like this. And that makes our zipper lay nice and flat. And once we get this edge out just like this, we've got our double zippered pocket, just like that. Now the last step is we need to sew that to our base that we made right here. So it's gonna go right in the middle, just like this. So what I want to do is I wanna find the middle of this, which I've kind of already done because it's been creased. So I am going to go ahead and put a pin here, just like that and a pin on the other edge of the crease. So I know where to line this up. I'm gonna fold this guy in half also so that I can find the middle like that. And I'm going to put a pin there, and put a pin there. So now I know where are these belong. And I can put these right on here. Now I can see the crease pretty well underneath. So I know exactly where I'm going to sew on this one. But if you're not sure, remember use that painter's tape and put a nice little piece right there. I'm gonna just slide this back in. Now, lucky for me this vinyl is really sticky. So these pieces aren't really going anywhere. So I'm just going to tuck these under like this. And I'm gonna start right on the edge of the vinyl. I'm actually gonna put myself down right on those two pins that are matching up. Once I do that, I can pull them out like that so that they're not in my way. So I'm gonna do a little backstitch, go forward a minute and then do a couple back stitches. And then I'm gonna sew through all the layers, all the way across to my other pins. I'm at the edge of my vinyl. Time to do a back stitch. And now we're gonna pull it out. Like so. Now, because we sewed this line right down the middle, this separates the pockets. So now you have a separate zipper pocket just like that. So you can put coupons on one side, receipts on the other and the whole thing folds up just like that. Now to keep it closed, we need a little piece of elastic. So the last part is to get a small nine inch piece of elastic. And we're going to stitch it on just like this. So you wanna find the middle of your wallet and we're just gonna carefully see how I'm just putting right up to the stitch line, that's about all you need. We're just gonna get this right in there. Then we're gonna put the other one right next to it like this. Now, when I sew elastic, I like to use a zigzag stitch. So I'm gonna set this on a zigzag. I'm gonna make it pretty wide. I'm gonna change my stitch length to about one. 'Cause I really want it to be a closed zigzag so I can scribble all over at the edge of this elastic. Let's make sure it's nice and flat. So I'm right in the middle of that margin. And it's gonna sew all the way across. I'm gonna sew all the way to the edge, just like that. Now I can remove my pins 'cause they're actually stitched in. Now I'm just gonna backstitch all the way back to the beginning. Trim our threads. And now if your receipt wallet or your coupon wallet is gonna end up being a Costanza, you can have a little elastic to put around it to keep it in place just like this. And you've got little zipper pockets. So you can even keep change in there, whatever you think you need in there. So now we made this exterior out of oil cloth, and we were able to cheat a little bit because we don't have to finish the raw edge. We are going to take a look at what it takes to make the base of this in laminated cotton, because the construction is just a little bit different. So I'll see you there.