Recycling an ugly skirt part 1 (is it really this close to Christmas?)

First, let me remind you that there is a strip quilted Christmas stocking tutorial on ScrapStitching. You can find it here: Christmas stocking how-to. I hand drew the pattern, but you can trace the edges of one you already have. The question always comes up about whether it should be hung with the toe to the right or left. I don't know the official answer! If you do, holler.

Last year, I went to an ugly Christmas sweater party. I won! I had a sweater vest that looked like someone had thrown up a bunch of undigested Christmas.

What you can't see are the green tights and red shoes. Hah! I don't mess around. The skirt was made with strips of candy cane fabric, hemmed with snowflakes, and had some green/white/red piping at the bottom edge. (That's Susan sitting behind me; she had an ugly sweater on too.)

I knew I wasn't going to wear the skirt again, so came up with recycling idea number 1. I have part 2 planned, but you can't see that yet.

Fast forward to now. A friend purchased her first house and there's a housewarming on Sunday. I will so be there. I really didn't know what would be a good gift. Should I make something that matches her house? Then I remembered my skirt. How about a Christmas pillow? She wouldn't feel obligated to display it all year long and it would be unexpected and fun. So that's what I went with.

I used the stripes as is for one side:

Believe it or not, I used a hat box as a template for the circle. I like to look around and see what I have when I'm looking for circles, rectangles, and squares.

For the other side, I cut 2" strips of the striped fabric and placed it on a circle of muslin using a log cabin design (you can hardly tell it's a log cabin!):

It came out nice and random looking and that's sort of what I was aiming for.

Next came a trip to my Christmas trims box. I kept the red theme and grabbed some red lacy ruffle and added that to the edge.

I think it's kind of cute! And guess what? I don't have that ugly skirt anymore :)

New project!

My nephew and his lady are having another baby. I love it when my relatives have babies. That means I get to design another quilt. I know that daddy is a Philadelphia Eagles fan, so working in that fabric was a no brainer. But my challenge is what to make that would be boy or girl suitable? I've mulled over it for weeks, and here's a rough sketch of what I came up with:

It's a Dresden Plate pattern. The gray portions will be Eagles fabric. The red/orange/yellow/green/blue/violet fabrics are from the Krystal Collection/Michael Miller. I love those fabrics because they're striking and yet muted, and I keep a stash of ROYGBV on hand for placemats, backgrounds for pictures, or whatever calls for a color of the rainbow. I happen to get mine at the Fat Quarter Shop.  They're great to work with and their prices are fair. 

The wedges in the plate will alternate pointed tips and rounded. The center circle will be the Eagles fabric too. I have some baby hands fabric for the back. It's a flannel and beautifully colored. It looks like this:

I am ready to get started and can't wait to see how it turns out. I'll post a Dresden Plate tutorial as I go along. I'm using a pattern from Patterns from History and have changed the design ever so slightly. You'll see!

Want to make some placemats?

Over on the right side of the page is a link to projects I've created over the years. Today, I posted a project for placemats. I worked for Sewing.com for a while and part of what I did was make "stuff" and photograph the steps along the way. I have made placemats like these a bazillion times and decided it was a perfect fit for an online tutorial.

So, while I continue to be on vacation, I'm still playing with some of the sewing projects I've done online. Feel free to make the idea your own!

Updated an older post - Christmas Stockings (teachers and otherwise)

Hey - lookie here - I updated the Christmas Stocking post with teacher's stockings and a link to how to make strip quilted stockings. Never to early to start making this year's batch!

Bee Potholders 2 - How a project progresses

Trial and error - that's how it works, especially when you're either working with no pattern or creating your own. The potholders continue. I consulted the drawing and used a water soluble pen to draw antennae, eyes, and legs for my big bee. I tried a couple different decorative stitches on the Bernina and came up with one that suited the design, stitching the legs per the picture. I created half circles on top of the black piece of the bee to serve as eyes. And then, I did the satin stitch around the whole body.

Looking at the picture above, it looks eh. the legs are not the same length and seem to have a cattywampus placement. That alone wouldn't be a problem, but the antennae aren't quite right either. Check it out in comparison of the drawing.

I didn't stitch the wings on, but did want to see how they looked, so placed them on, trimmed them down to fit so the legs would show, and then stood back and reminded myself this was my prototype and that I get to keep this one. Argh. Sometimes things don't go perfectly the first time! The position of the legs looks even worse with the wings, but there you go. This is how a project progresses. For the next three bees, I'll follow the drawing a little closer when drawing the legs and antennae. I hope that I won't have to cut down the wings any more than just a smidgen; they should be bigger than shown on the piece above.

I'm laughing as I type this because it is really kind of funny the first time you try something and it turns out a little wonky. I'm sharing it with you to show you that you will make "mistakes" along the way and you need to not let them bother you. It's never a waste; it's always a lesson. And I'll end up with a pretty groovy potholder to use in my kitchen. What I won't do with this one is use the bee fabric for binding since I know for sure I'm keeping it. I'll use black bias binding, which will work just as fine. For an item I want to sell, I prefer to use handmade bias binding that matches the design a little better.

Hopefully, the next post will show you the one above completed and one that is a little more like the drawing. I do love the colors and like the choice of bee fabric for wings.

Bee Potholders 1 - How a project happens

I'm back home and after some family health issues, have decided it's time to sew, and that means it is time to post.
People often ask me - "How do you come up with stuff?" Honestly, there is no rhyme or reason to it, but hey, here's a shot at explaining it. What I'm not going to do is go over every instruction for these potholders. You can see the general "how to" for potholders here. I've made them many times and the process is the same.

For many holidays and birthdays, when my younger son was asked what he wanted as a gift, he would respond, "a jar of bees." One birthday recently, I decided to do just that and made him a jar of bees pillow.

I  have leftover bee fabric and it has been speaking to me. So I went looking for bee pictures and found this one:

 

Now I have bee fabric and a drawing of a bee. Hmm, what to do? Potholders! I traced the basic bee parts from the drawing onto Wonder Under and cut the body of the bee out of a golden bandanna and the top and head out of black, but couldn't decide what to do with the wings. I fused the body to an 8" potholder blank that I cut out of recycled denim. Then I used a tight zig-zag/satin stitch on my machine to make the stripes on the bottom of the bee.

It looks kind of plain, but there's a lot of work to be done. I decided right about at this point to use the bee fabric for the wings and then use a satin stitch to give the illusion of veins per the drawing.

I have not yet stitched the wings down as I want to do them last. I'm still thinking on it, but I think my next step is to draw the legs, eyes, and antennae with a water soluble pen or pencil and get them stitched onto the denim. I'll use a water soluble backing when I do the embroidery (I do not have an embroidery machine, so will be creative with the Bernina I do have) for stability. The back of the potholders will be the bee fabric. I don't have enough of it to do the binding, so am thinking of doing a striped length of fabric with the black and bee fabric and cut my bias binding from that.

As projects go, this one is fairly easy. It will be time consuming because of the legs on the bee and the fact that I'm making four of them, but I need a machine project that will take some time. I'm not sure if I will sell these or keep them, but there you go. I looked at a pillow made from interesting fabric and decided it was time to use the remnant. I gathered other fabrics, including the junk jeans, that I already had, hit the internet for a drawing to use for my Wonder Under pattern, and there you go. You could do something like this on jeans or anything you wanted.

Start with something in your stash that speaks to you and just do it. More to come as the design progresses. Hope you have fun with your sewing!

Custom Fabric Covered Light Switch Plate Covers/Plates

I decided a while back to make some light switch covers. Then as I got further into them, it seemed like a good thing to share with others. This is my first set:

It was not my best work, but I got the process down after a few more. Here are some other examples of covers I made:

Regardless of the size of the cover or the shape of the switch itself, you can cover it with fabric using ModPodge or a water/glue mixture and a little imagination. I used an Exacto knife, but you can use scissors or whatever you have for cutting. The basic back instructions look like this:

Want to make some of your own? Comprehensive step-by-step, photographed instructions can be found here. (Updated March 24, 2013.) Now go gather up some small pieces of fabric, some new or old light switch covers, and get started. Way easy.

A couple of notes:

• I painted the screws for each cover to match the fabric. I picked up just a basic set of paints, stuck the screws in a Styrofoam ball to hold them steady, and then painted the heads.
• For light switches with the round fader, cut a circle a little bit larger than the circle itself and turn the fabric under on the back, using the same glue/ModPodge process.
• You do need to let these dry for a day or so before using them.
• They're great for selling on line or at craft shows too using trendy fabrics, holiday fabrics, hand dyed fabrics - the list is endless.

I'm sure there are other ways to do these, but it's the best way I could figure out and now you've got the instructions too.

The Denim Pillows in Pictures

Here are the three pillows together. The single log cabin pillow was supposed to be round. Oh well, sometimes things don't work out perfectly, right? My daughter thinks the light/dark triangle pillow looks like birds flying. I told her there was a Flying Geese pattern that was similar, but this one was not the same. The four log cabin pillow is paned with a piece of denim to allow for the seam allowance. There are no photos of the back, but the backs were made of 6" wide random denim with reinforced seams. Fun stuff.

I mailed these off to Linda and Grace and they'll be receiving them soon. If you do make pillows like this, remember to put them in a pillowcase when you wash and dry them, then fluff them up when they're dry. I used stuffing rather than pillow forms; I've never worked with pillow forms. I reinforced all seams I could because recycled denim tends to fray. You can use any design you like. If you use tiny pieces, though, you may struggle with thick seams.

Projects You Can Make

You can find most of the projects I've done here, with photos and instructions. I will add more as time allows. Let me know if there's something you'd like me to try. (Updated 02/19/10)

And so it's just about Christmas

My daughter has a friend who asked me to help her make a jellyfish costume for Halloween. Well, that never worked out and she made it herself. Recently, my daughter asked me to make a cat Christmas stocking for the friend and I said, hmmm, wonder if I can work in a jellyfish! And guess what, I can and I did. I used striped cat fabric, silver rick-rack, fluffy white terry for the cuff, and some silver sequin fabric and silver rick-rack to make the jellyfish. She posted a picture on her Facebook and I stole it to show you here. And with this stocking picture, I say Merry Christmas to everyone!

One more stocking and then a break

It's about time to set sewing aside for holiday stuff. The Christmas tree needs decoration, the cookies need to be made, the house needs to be readied for guests. I did make one more stocking, though. How about a Hokie stocking?

Just a little something for our Virginia Tech friends. I did try something new with this - I purchased some fluffy terry from Fabric.com and found out that it sewed very nicely. I have quite a bit, so will use it for cuffs from here forward, at least till it's gone. This stocking is two sided, so the user has a choice of which way the toe points. That's the age-old question with Christmas stockings, isn't it? This stocking is not quilted, so it's very simple to make. Cut, making sure your fabric is going in the right direction (this had a one way print), stitch cuff on the top, sew the two pieces with right sides together using double seams, clip curves, turn, bind raw edge. There you have it.

I'll begin on Valentine's Day items after Christmas. By next year, I should be two seasons ahead instead of right on time. That makes for better shows and selling! Whew.

Christmas Stockings for Teachers/School Bus Drivers

I made a few Christmas stockings this week. I used the same principles that I always use - strip quilting onto a backing with batting and then using a cotton back for the stocking. These three have a school/teacher/bus driver theme. I had purchased some school fabric at a yard sale for a quarter and it was basically border fabric that I used to harvest the apples, chalkboard, and other school items in the stockings. They were fun to make. I used some silver rick-rack; red, white, and green rick-rack; ribbons; and made bias bindings for the top of the cuff. It's time to get these made and ready to give, sell, or use!

A sachet you can make - giftie project!

We've posted another project from our days gone by on the web. This one is how to make a simple sachet. I used lacy fabrics over a solid fabric. I also used a leftover lace ruffle. These are filled with potpourri. You could use scented cotton or spices or leave them stuffed with scent-less fluff!

Above are the two from the tutorial, heart shaped, but the instructions are able to be adapted to whatever shape you like. I used to own SewingWeb.com (now defunct) and this is one of the projects I created way back then. Okay, it really wasn't all that long ago, but here it is - Sachet.

Stop me before I make more potholders!

Surprise! I made more potholders. This time, they're very Smurfy. Eeeep! I again used recycled denim and this time did machine appliques of musical Smurfs backed with a Smurf mushroom house. The binding is bias tape made from the Smurf fabric too. These were essentially free since I had all the parts already. Truly frugal. And cute too!

Sponge Bob Squarepants Bib *

This is a bib that I've made a few times with minor variation, and I've had good luck selling them. People love Spongebob, not to mention Patrick! I drew the pattern and used recycled denim for the base. I have oodles of Velcro, so that seemed a nice, easy way to do the closure. I didn't want to do a button for a baby item.
You can use any fabric you like. You can put the crumb pocket on or not. Use store bought bias tape or make your own. Consider themes - Halloween, Christmas, other holidays. Enlarge your pattern and use it for toddlers.
It's all about having some fun with what you have on hand or what you want to buy. And who doesn't love Sponge Bob?
Click here to be taken to our project page. The link will open in a new window.

Denim Strip Quilt - Recycling Denim/Junk Jeans

You can use up untold number of denim scraps from recycled jeans, jackets, skirts, and who knows what else, making a strip project like this. Cut denim into 2" strips and save those in a bag until you have time to make a quilt or a jacket. There is a tutorial here for the quilt. The jacket itself is simply one that we made adding strip quilting to a sweatshirt.
The photos below are of the denim jacket in progress and one of a Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt I made for my nephew's baby. Although this is not strip quilted, it is a great way to use up denim. It's a cute little baby quilt and made to be used and abused.
Recycling denim is one of my favorite things to do. If you have a tutorial to share, lemme know. You can't have too many ways to creatively reuse junk jeans!

I use recycled denim a lot in projects you'll see on here. It's one of my favorite things to repurpose. My ideas are available as are many more on the web and in magazines and books. The possibilities are endless.

Decorated dish/hand towels

This is a project that I did several years ago when I ran SewingWeb.com (sadly, the site is no longer with us). I used new dish towels, added colorful fish, and created hand towels for my downstairs washroom. I've used this process in a variety of projects and you can too. Great for a gift or just a pick-me-up for a boring towel rack.
Click on the link above for instructions on how to make your own machine zig-zag appliqued dish towels!

Project - Fabric book cover

After completing this project, you will have a fabric cover for a standard paperback book. This particular book cover was made with prequilted fabric, a button closure, and a standard paperback book, but could easily be adapted to use nonquilted fabric (either layered with batting or not), a Velcro closure, and any size book at all. Both machine and hand stitching are employed.For this project, WS = wrong side, RS = right side, WST = wrong sides together, RST = right sides together.

Gather supplies for your pattern making. We used a standard paperback, paper, scissors, a pencil and a ruler.	Place your book, face down, on the paper and trace around the edges of the front cover with your pencil. Turn the book up on its spine, and trace the width of the spine. Turn the book so that the back is face down and trace this cover with your pencil as well.
Remove the book and you will have a large rectangle. This is the basic pattern from which you will be working.	It is a good idea to doublecheck the size of the pattern with the edge of your book before moving forward.
Duplicate the original pattern. Measure 3" in from either edge and mark off a rectangle with the three edges of the book and the now-inside edge of what will be the inside flap. The picture has darkened lines where the flap pattern is marked. You will require two of these.	On the full pattern, mark the center of the back cover for the placement of the flap closure (optional). In the picture, this area is enclosed in a circle for you to be able to see where it goes.
The flap closure pattern is made by creating a 7" x 2" rectangle. On one end of the rectangle, mark the center of the width (1" mark). Make a mark 1" down on both sides of the rectangle. Draw a line from the center of the width of the top to each of the 1" marks on the sides, thus making a pointed bookmark type closure pattern. You will require two of these plus one of batting. (This piece is totally optional.)	Pin pattern pieces to your fabric. Again, in our project, we used quilted fabric, but if you use fabric without quilting, you will need two layers of fabric and one of batting if you would like the cover to have some body. Cut one main pattern, two inside flaps, and two flap closures (they will be sewn together and turned).
Additional supplies you may need are bias tape of your choice and a button. Velcro or a hook/eye closure would work as well.	For the flap closure, using two pieces of fabric and one of batting, layer the three pieces RS up, RS down, and batting. (RS should be together in this sandwich and the batting should be on the WS of one of the fabrics.)
Pin and sew in a 1/4" seam, pivoting at corners, and leaving the non-tapered end open for turning.	Trim the seam and clip the corners. Turn and finger press.
Top stitching is optional. We chose to use it.	Mark and make a button hole about 1/2" to 1" from the end of the flap closure (or tack a bit of Velcro to the back side of the flap).
Pin flap closure RST on the back of the book cover. Set this part of the project aside for a bit.	Finish one edge of front facings with bias tape or by turning under and stitching in place.
If using bias tape, stitch RST and turn to WS, pin, and then topstitch the bias tape in place.	Pin facings RST on book cover fabric, encasing the end of the flap closure. Sew around the whole book cover in a 1/4" to 1/2" seam.
Serge the seam or trim, clipping the corners for smooth turning.	Turn and finger press. Do not top stitch. Finger press/turn down the top and bottom seams on the cover between the end flaps, pin, and hand stitch into place.
Insert your book and mark the button spot on the front cover, remove the book, and sew on the button. Leave enough leeway to allow for a bit of a smaller or a bit of a larger book.	Step back and smile. Look at what you made! Give it as a gift or keep it for youself, either way, there you have it, your completed fabric book cover!

Originally created for and posted on Sewing.com in December 2001, when I was doing all the projects for that site.