season

04.01.2019

0600

Materials:

2 Bath Towels
4 Hand Towels
Sewing Kit
White Fabric Pencil

Tools:

Sewing Kit
Sewing Machine

It’s interesting how we pick up habits from our parents or other figures in our lives. When the rain season comes, my mother has always wrapped an old towel across her car mats to absorb the extra water that would get dragged in by everyday use. To this day, I’ll see her break out the towels around the middle of October.

As for me, I never cared for my floor mats in my car. I honestly never liked my car. The car was bought without my input and I was stuck with it thereafter. But recently I did get new car mats, along with a new car, and since I didn’t want to drag a bunch of water into my car, I too, wrapped my car mats in towels. But I soon realized that the towels would get tugged and moved around from the daily use of them. I had to solve this issue. I didn’t want to constantly re-tuck the towels under my car mats, because sometimes they were already dirty and wet.

The front floor mats were a large size and I knew that bath towels would be a perfect fit. I decided to make some towel sleeves for my car mats. Since my carpet in my car is black, I knew I had to find black towels to create my towel sleeves. With the towels sleeves, it would be easier to catch the dirt and rocks that would be brought into my car, and the towels would be easy to clean, since all I had to do was take off the sleeves and throw them into the washing machine.

I found two bath towels that were 52″ long by 30″ wide. Since my front floor mats are about 31″ long and 21″ wide, I only needed the width of the floor mat sleeves to be about 22″ wide. the size of these bath towels would give me 26″ width. I didn’t mind if the towel wasn’t long enough to cover the length of my floor mat because the mat could stick out a little bit.

I folded the towel in half, length-wise and pinned the edges together, to prepare for the sewing process.

I wanted to leave one of the shorter edges open, so I could slide my floor mats in and out easily. In one continuous line, I sewed along the yellow arrows (in the picture below). For the corners of the towel, where the material was thicker, I angled the long sew line and continued on. I then went back and hand stitched the corners, so they would stay together better.

As you can see, the folded towel was still large enough to fit over my floor mat, and there was still extra room.

In order for the sleeves to fit to the car mats better, I sewed rough outlines of the shape of each mat on each of the sleeves. First, I flipped the car mats over, onto the back of the car sleeve. Then, using my white fabric pencil, I drew rough outlines of each mat. I did this because I didn’t want the white washable pencil to show, when I fit the sleeve over the car mat.

I only outlined the rough outline of the car mats, because I still needed to remove them easily. I created the outlines about 3/4″ from the actual edge of the car mats. I left a bit of a boarder, for the fact that the towel might shrink in the washing machine and also, I wanted the sleeves to slip off easily, when needed. Towards the closed end of the car sleeve, I tightened the outline a bit, but in general, I kept the outline lines straight in from the open edge.

I placed each of the front floor mats into my car, and folded the edges underneath the floor mats accordingly. You don’t have to fold them under, but I chose to.

For the rear seat floor mats, I found eight hand towels to create the set in my car. My rear seat floor mats are 24″ long, by 16″ wide, so I found hand towels that were 26″ long and 16″ wide. The sewing process for these floor mat sleeves follows the previous steps for the front seat floor mat sleeves.

I stacked two hand towels on top of each other, making sure that the tag was facing inwards for both towels. I then sewed along the yellow arrows around the towels. I left one of the long edges open because I wanted to slide the floor mat in easily. For the corners of the hand towel sleeves, I angled the long, linear sew line to complete the stitch, and then I went back to each corner and stitched them together carefully. My machine doesn’t like it when the material gets too thick, because it can’t pass under the needle easily.

These rear seat floor mats had a lot of extra room around the edges, so I knew that I might have extra floor coverage.

This size hand towel seems to accommodate different car brands and the mats still fit really well within the parameters.

Now, when I need to clean my floors, I’ll just remove the floor mats from the towel sleeves and either wash them or shake them out. I might have to vacuum the edges, but that doesn’t take long at all. These towel sleeves makes my life a bit easier, by allowing me to keep my floor mats clean, and that’s always a good perk.

03.16.2016

0830

Materials:

Fabric shower curtain
Shoelace
Metal rings
Binder Clips
Nails (thin enough to fit through the holes of the shower curtain)

Tools:

Hammer

As Spring is rolling in and Summer is around the bend, I wanted to show a design hack that doesn’t require much commitment. I have a small balcony that leads up to my area and it doesn’t have a screen to keep out pesky bugs. I’m a fan of fabric shower curtains for the fact that I like to toss them into the washing machine and hang them up to dry. I have a few fabric shower curtains that I keep around for design hacks such as these.

A shower curtain fits almost the height of a standard door frame. For anyone who lives in a space where they cannot impede on the design structure of the space (ie. due to tenant contracts via landlord), this seems to ease the pain of when your area is overheating during the hotter season. I took 2 tiny nails and hung up one of my fabric shower curtains. Make sure that the nail on the end where the hinge of the door frame is located, is about 6″ from the edge of the frame. This is because when you swing the door open, you have to take in to account the width of the door itself. The curtain must hang easily and without tension as the door is open at 90 degrees. On the door handle side, try to use a binder clip to extend an arm to hook it to any lock hinge with an S hook, or you can simple place a push pin in the wall and hook the binder clip handle to it.

The nail holes are also a simple fix if you decide to move out and need to patch up the holes with caulking. On the open side of the shower curtain I clipped a metal binder clip and on the hinge side of the door, I looped a metal ring. The side with the metal loop tends to wedge perfectly in between the door and the frame on the hinge side. However, when placing the metal ring, try to wedge it horizontally. I actually use a folded up washcloth to wedge under the door to hold it open too.

On the bottom of the curtain, if you want some weight to the curtain, you can simply attach some metal binder clips with a key chain on each (I know you guys have these key chains lying around somewhere). If you don’t have any key chains, try to find a small weight to hang from the binder clips. The reason why I use binder clips in this design hack, is because I don’t want to sacrifice the integrity of the shower curtain itself.

If you still want the curtain to be lower, you can take some extra shoelace/string/rope/twine and create an extension for the top like this:

Because the nails are on the top of the door frame, you have about three inches to give in the distance that the curtain starts to hang. If you add these extensions on, the curtain should fit right under the door frame. But if you do add these extensions, you will need to add another nail so that the middle of the curtain isn’t loose. So it will look like this:

My extensions seem to be enough for me when it comes to hanging my shower curtain and the design on the shower curtain gives a little bit of illuminated art during the day. I don’t add the binder clips or the key chains at the bottom of mine during the summer. I think I like the drastic movement it makes with the wind when it flows through my space. I hope this design hack helps for any of you who may be living in apartments or homes that get uncomfortably hot during the summer. It’s a way to make your own screen without destroying the integrity of the architecture and design or paying for a brand new screen.