That’s always a scary thing. 

I firmly believe in the purpose of this blog.  I firmly believe the importance of being well rounded and exposed to a variety of things. 

I would love to be that mom that could sew a prom dress and bake the best cupcakes at the bake sale, and all the while quote lines from Shakespeare while snapping stunning pictures to document it all.  I would love that,  I really would.

However, the fact of the matter is, I was incredibly proud of myself yesterday when I cut off the bottom half of my son’s britches and sewed a hem to transform them into shorts because of the hole in the knee they had previously sported.  I seriously contemplated posting a tutorial about the whole process, then I realized, that’s elementary my dear watson.  But, like I said, I felt proud. 

In fact, there are few things that I REALLY excel at.  There are, by no means, several things I excel at.  I’m mediocre at a few things, and that’s just how it is.  Mediocre at best.

But back to my thoughts, I was thinking, how much do those things matter?  Those things like sewing, and crafting, and painting, and cooking, and on and on and on.  I think that having a skill and a talent, or even just a hobby is absolutely fabulous, it’s so important to find things that we can be proud of and feel accomplished for, but if I haven’t found my skill, is it really worth beating myself up for?

There is a young mother in my town.  She has six kids.  Her youngest is six years old.  She is full of a fast spreading deadly cancer.  I wonder if right now she is lying awake at night thinking, “I really need to spend more time at my sewing machine!”  I doubt it.

I guess part of being well rounded is to know where your center is.

Before I knew it I was in peril again.  I had packed a pair of skinny jeans and I was unsure whether or not I could pull them off with my postpartum hips.  Again, the petit elefant came to my rescue.  Allison posted a tutorial on this very subject, and she has graciously agreed to let me feature it here.  So, without further adieu:

skinny jeans on a curvy girl.

I’m officially convinced anyone can wear skinny jeans. I mean if I can wear them, anyone can. I’m a size 12 curvy girl and skinny jeans look pretty foxy on me, flattering even.

I’ve tried on a lot of skinny jeans in my time and the only ones, the ONLY ones that look good on me are Lands’ End UltraFit Audrey Slims. They are worth every penny {$59.50} because they make me feel like a rock star. You be the judge. What do you think, skinny jeans on a curvy girl?

~What do I think?  Foxy indeed!

Thanks Allison!

Be sure to visit the petit elefant for everything from how to saddle a horse to how to wear a scarf!

I couldn’t resist posting the following tutorial.  There’s nothing like a little bling bling to make ya feel special!

Monday, May 18, 2009

FuN Washer Necklaces!

Sorry for the not so quality pics…but I just had to share… These are so fun to make!

Today it is my privilege to highlight The Rubber Punkin.  Emily is a master of all things creative.  She started her blog a mere 2 months ago, and she already has a mass following.  Once you see all of her wonderful ideas, it won’t surprise you why!    I asked if I could pick a post to feature, which she graciously gave me permission to do, but I had such a hard time deciding! 

I finally decided that since I have focused my last couple posts on things for little tikes, I had to do something for adults.  I loved so many of her tutorials, but once I read through this, I knew it was the one!

Fabric Flower Bracelet

I have gobs of fabric scraps in my stash, leftover from previous projects. But, most of them are too small to do anything substantial with. I was watching iCarly with my nieces a few nights ago and she was wearing the cutest fabric flower necklace. I’m not a huge necklace girl, but I liked the concept. So I evolved the idea into this. I won’t lie, it took a good hour and a half, but I’m a fan of how it all turned out…

First take some household items of varying sizes that can help you trace out some fabric circle. I used a baby bottle, a Salt City candle, and a spool of thread. Find a color scheme you like, and cut out the fabric circle.

Next, stitch around the outside of circle, being sure to stick close to the edge. If you want to be extra safe, you can even run a little fray-check around the edge of the fabric.

Once you’ve made it all the way around the edge, pull the thread tight until the circle forms a pumpkin-looking shape.

Push your needle through the center of the gathered top, and thread through the back where you can tie off your thread. I even did a few passes back through the top and back down to make it a bit more durable.

Continue this process with all of your fabric circles and press them flat with an iron. Once you’ve finished making all of your flowers, lay them out to find a grouping that works for your taste.

Cut a strip of wool felt that’s wide enough to accommodate the grouping of flowers, and long enough to wrap around your wrist. Start sewing on your flowers. Stitch through the center, and continue to stitch small stitches around the outside of the flowers to make it stay in place. I let the outer flowers hang over the felt a bit so the felt is more hidden.

I embellished my flowers with vintage buttons that I found in a tin from my Grandma Tresa. But, I know most thrift stores have bins of buttons you can buy loads of for a STEAL!

The great thing about working with wool felt is, it holds its own pretty well. So, button holes are super easy. First wrap the strip of felt around your wrist and mark with a disappearing quilting pencil where you want your button hole to be.

Then, take a small and SHARP pair of scissors, and cut a straight slit where you’ve marked your button hole. No sewing is necessary for this step, but I did do a small stitch around the outside of my slit simply for looks.

Sew on your button. I prefer a button that is the same color as my felt, so the flowers, the REAL centerpiece of the bracelet, can take center stage.

And, ta-da! A little whimsical and feminine fabric flower bracelet. Now, do I keep this for myself? Or, give it to my little sister… it’s a true debacle.

~I know, how stinkin’ cute!  I’m also thrilled that I had the opportunity to feature her blog just in time for a giveaway valued at up to 80 buckaroos!  Take a trip on over to The Rubber Punkin to see more.

Thanks Emily, it’s been a pleasure:).

$2 “Ruffle Necklace” Waffle Shirt

 Before: I got these PJ’s for my daughter at the Dollar Store of all places, with the intention of making them pretty, but when I got home I couldn’t find a coordinating fabric that I liked, so I decided to just re-do the shirt!

So I cut a leg off…

Cut it into 5 strips, about 3/4″ wide, and ruffled them on my machine…

Pinned them to the shirt where in a necklace pattern, with the excess all hanging off one end. After I sewed them on, I wrapped the excess ruffles into a rose pattern and hand stitched it with two pearls in the center.

Then I stitched a bow on, made from some vintage ribbon I had on hand. I love the color!

Cutie Pie!!

If I hadn’t been too lazy to go back down to the $ store, I would have bought another pair of pants, and ruffled the bum or something. My daughter really needs jammies! And I’d love to have some that didn’t have a cartoon character on them.

P.S. Sorry about doing ruffles again! I can’t help myself. The blog name should have warned you! )

Thanks Disney!

Her is one of the adorable skirts she made!  She went on to say, in her own words, that the skirts are “actually very easy!’ 

I have a 2 year old little girl, well, actually she will be 2 tomorrow, and she made these little skirts for her 2 year old, so the project just called to me.  My little girl’s 0-6 month tights, that for some reason I keep around,were begging to be transformed into an adorable little skirt, and since the skirts were “very easy” I figured I had nothing to lose. 

I guess this would be a good time for my giant disclaimer:

DISCLAIMER:  I am not a seamstress!  I own a sewing machine which resides in my basement 364 days a year.  I have attempted to make 3 things with my sewing machine in it’s  long life including a set of Christmas Stockings which brought my own mother to tears with laughter!

I took myself on over to walmart to pick up some fabric.  I decided on some silky looking pink stuff.  It was $1.50 a yard.  I used less than half of it so the whole project cost me less than $0.75 because the tights had been purchased 2 years ago (so they don’t count).

(Take note of my professional supplies!)

Then my project began.  I followed Disney’s instructions step-by-step.  Here is a word to the wise, if  you have to google “gathering stitch,” you just might not be ready to do one!  I worked on that darn gathering stitch for at least an hour!  After tugging and tugging with no gathering what-so-ever, I realized that I wasn’t supposed to pull the top and bottom strings at the same time.  Then, once I figured out which string to pull, I would get halfway through the gathering process and the thread would snap.  Bringing me to my next word to the wise, when attempting any project that requires a gathering stitch, don’t use discount thread that has been sitting in your basement for 10 years.  I ended up with this: 

Notice my lovely straight lines which echos my sewing precision!  I don’t know why I didn’t take a picture of it, but I ended up with two more lines of stitches.  I know, bless my heart!

Once I finally got the gathering thing down, I continued on to the next steps, sewing the tops together and repeating with the bottom.  However, when I finished with the bottom, I ended up with this:

It was sewn completely inside out without any vision of the pretty side of the fabric.  At that point, I called my mom in defeat.  She suggested that I simply unpick a small section of the bottom and turn the skirt right side out.  I was thrilled that I didn’t have to unpick the entire thing. Once I had followed through with her suggestion, I ended up with this:

A beautiful fabric donut resembling nothing skirt-like.  At that point I nearly quit, but I hate to cower in defeat, so I pressed on.  I did unpick the entire bottom of the skirt and tried again, and I got this:

No!  Not the belly button. . . the asymmetrical looking skirt!

I then decided to take it a step further and make some little lovelies to try to cover up some of my mistakes, and finally, the end result. . . . . .

So in the end, was it worth it?  For $0.75 I say, Heck Yeah!  And yes mother, I did iron the fabric before sewing it, the poor thing went through a lot to get where it is!

For a full (and professional) tutorial for this project, click here!

How to sew a cushion cover with an invisible zip – A Tutorial!!

Cushion covers with invisible zips – let me show you how!

It has been a very, very VERY long time since I’ve posted a tutorial on this here blog. Truth be told it’s been a long time since I’ve learnt how to do any new and exciting things, until last weekend when Pete’s mum showed me how she made cushions with invisible zips!

They look great, but the thing that excited me most was that it was EASY. Like 10 gazillion times less fuss and hassle than any other technique I’ve tried for sewing zips. So I decided to document the process and share it with you lovely folk. Now I must say that although Heather showed me how to do this, she originally learnt the technique from here, so huge kudos to the Sew? I Knit! Blog!

Step 1) Cut your fabrics to size. I’m making covers for a 45cm cushion so my pieces are 47cm x 47cm including a 1cm seam allowance. I also overlock the bottom edge of each piece where the zip is going to go.

Step 2) Prepare your invisible zip! Pictured below are the sort we buy. They’re “heavy duty” ones, and you’ll see that the bulky teeth side of the zip is the BACK rather than the FRONT like on normal zips. We use a 40cm zip for a 45cm cushion.

Now it makes the sewing process a LOT easier if you iron the zip out flat before you begin. Open the zip completely and see that you can kind of ‘roll’ the teeth outwards to expose some tiny stitches beneath. Iron the zipper with the teeth rolled outwards as shown below, and just go as close to the zipper head as you can. Use a low heat setting so as not to melt the teeth!

Step 3) Pin the zip in place. Open the zip right up and lay it along the bottom edge of your fabric. The RIGHT side of your zip should be facing down, with the RIGHT side of your fabric facing up. The zipper tape should be lined up with very edge of the fabric.

Also, you’ll notice below that I’ve positioned the zip to one side, with the closed end starting right in the corner. I’ll explain this later.

Step 4) Prepare your invisible zipper foot. Okay these are often very weird plasticcy contraptions, but they’re not expensive and you can get them from most sewing places. There’s generic ones that come with various attachments so you can fit them on any machine. YOU MUST USE AN INVISIBLE ZIPPER FOOT. Trying to sew an invisible zipper without one would be very tricky indeed.

Step 5) Sew your zip in place. You’ll see that the invisible zipper foot has two grooves in it’s base. Your folded out zipper teeth will fit in one of these grooves whilst the needle stitches very closely beside the teeth. You’ll probably need to adjust the position of the foot or the needle to get a nice close stitch. Begin sewing where the zipper teeth start and stitch towards the zipper head. Keep the teeth folded out flat as you go.

Sew along the length of the zip, removing pins as you go, until you reach the zipper head. You’ll probably get to about 1cm away from the zipper head before you have to stop. That’s fine. Just do a locking stitch and raise the foot. You’re done with that side!

Step 6) Sew the other side. Repeat steps 3-5 for the other side. Be careful to pin the correct side of your zip to the correct side of your fabric:

Sew along the length of the zip as you did before, this time with the teeth of the zipper in the OPPOSITE groove to the one you used before. Sew until you reach the zipper head and stop, do a locking stitch and raise the foot.

Step 7) Finish off the ends of your zip. If you close your zip completely (ooh it’s so neatly concealed!) you’ll see that the head and tail of the zip are still exposed. Like this:

And this:

But to close these ends off is quite simple. Lay your fabrics together again right sides facing. You’ll see where your zip stitching ends – a few centimeters from each side of your cushion.

Attach a normal zipper foot to your machine with the needle to the right of the foot. Sew in from the side of your fabric and try and get as close as possible to your existing stitches. Hold the ziper tail out of the way so it doesn’t get caught in your stitches.

Do the same at the other end. When working the open end of the zip, make sure that your fabric & stitches are lined up correctly, and move the zipper head along a bit so it’s not in your way.

Step Admire your handiwork so far. Doesn’t it look all neat and tidy? Wasn’t that so much less painful than you expected? Also notice that your zipper ends up being more or less centered because of how we offset it’s position in the first place.

Step 9) Finish it off! Finishing the cushion from this point is a simple affair. Simply lay the cushion front & back fabrics together right sides facing and stitch around the remaining three sides. Make sure you open the zip first before doing so! Then overlock the edges if desired.

Et voila! Here’s the ones I just made for our home:

Cushion with Rooftops and Delft

New cushions hanging out on the couch. Featuring Delft, Rooftops & Birch prints.