My husband and I have quite a few electronic devices and organizing and keeping track of the various charging cords has been a hassle. So I wanted to have some type of wall hanging with pockets that would help to keep all of the cords. On one of my favorite sewing blogs, Sew4Home, I found a tutorial for a 9-Pocket Door Caddy. Perfect!
It took me about a week to finish this project. Last weekend, I went to Joann's to look for fabric. I had learned from the previous project not to get something that matched too much. I wanted something brown because that's the color of the walls and some of the other decor in the room I plan to hang it. I found this lovely dark brown fabric with teal decorations on it. For the trim fabric, I was going to go with a completely different color, but after trying a few out, I found this fabric that was also brown and teal, but more of the teal and less brown. I debated for quite a while about it (although I knew that I needed to hurry home soon because my son would be hungry), but decided that although they were the same colors, the density of the colors were different in each fabric and the patterns were also different enough. Looking at the finished project, I think I did a much better job this time around with picking the fabric.
So I started by cutting out all my pieces and that's as far as I was able to get that day. I started with the pockets first (I had gotten the wrong interfacing so had to go back to get some more and so skipped over the first section until I could go get more). Just like the previous project, this one called for me to stitch the ditch. That was challenging last time, but this time the instructions were different. Instead of folding and pinning like the book said, the blog said to place the pin in the ditch itself. This made so much sense. By doing this, I could look at the back side and actually see whether or not I had caught the fabric on the back side in my stitch. This was so much easier than doing it the previous way and so this is how I will remember to stitch the ditch in the future.
Placing the binding was the easy part of the pockets. The next step was to do two pleats for each pocket panel. It was my first time to do a pleat, but Sew4Home had excellent instructions so I feel that I handled it okay. But doing the first pocket panel took quite a while so that was all I got done that day. The next day I was able to complete the two remaining pocket panels. It got a lot easier to do since I had already gone through the steps once before.
On Tuesday, I was able to get back to Joann's to get the correct interfacing. On this day I was able to sew the main body pieces together (the first section of the tutorial). I tackled the binding for the body the next day. For doing the corners of the binding, I actually preferred the method used in the Stitch by Stitch book, so I used that instead of the one on the tutorial, although they were very similar.
Then I came to the spot where I felt the tutorial was confusing and I got lost. Joining the two ends (start and finish) of the binding together (steps 10-15 of this section). I read the instructions several times and twisted and turned my two ends of binding, finally deciding which was to sew them. But when I cut down the ends, I realized that I had sewed them more as a mobius strip instead of flat. I went back to the instructions and just couldn't get it. So I just ripped it out and tucked the ends under. I think that had I been able to follow the tutorial, it would have made a very nice join, but it turned out okay. Perhaps I'll try this section of the tutorial again in the future (or maybe see if there is a video or another set of instructions for this technique). Pictures would have been very helpful for this section and is my only criticism of this tutorial.
I didn't get a chance to sew on Thursday and I didn't think that I would on Friday, but after my son went to bed, my husband wanted to play a computer game so I found myself with a little time on my hands. I decided to sew on the pocket panels. The most difficult part of this process was placing the panels. The instructions are very clear, but I was having problems seeing my chalk lines (since it was evening, the light in the room wasn't as bright so I was having a hard time seeing period), so I just eyeballed some of it. Then I sewed the pocket panels on and it was almost complete. I just had the grommets to add at the top. That turned out to be pretty simple (once I figured out which two pieces of the grommet to use--at first I had two of the same pieces instead of two different ones and couldn't figure out how they were supposed to snap together).
I'm so happy with how this project turned out and I can't wait to have all the charging cords organized for once!
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