making travel more interesting

I keep a list of items I'd like to try and make out of tshirts. When Jimmy and I finally got our passports for our trips to Canada, I thought a passport cover might be cool. I decided I would make the first for my sister, Liz, in honor of her first international flight to Japan. And besides, the Japanese flag was was easy to embroider, and I figured if it didn't work out with the tshirt material I could always cross the idea off the list.

I really liked the way the cover turned out, but I had one small problem - it was a little too small. It turns out the dimensions I used from a tutorial I found on the internet were for using a quilting cotton fabric. I didn't take into account the extra bulk from the knit tshirt material. I was really disappointed when I couldn't get the passport into the cover. Then Jimmy took a look at it, and after he manhandled the cover a bit (which made me almost pass out - I was sure he would pop the stitching), the passport actually fit inside! Then I started womanhandling the cover (much more gently than Jimmy), pulling and stretching the fabric a little here and there, and now the passport fits without a struggle. And the best part is that you can't tell we were a little rough on it.

I am going to start working on some other flag patterns and will be selling these in my Etsy shop once I get the dimensions modified a bit. My next attempt will be flags with vertical stripes - France, Ireland, Italy. If you have a specific country that you'd like to see me make, leave me a comment.