My little black dress…

We all know every girl needs her little black dress, before now I actually did not own one – shocking I know,  this being one of fashion’s MUST HAVES it is hard to believe that any female would not have one.

Me being me, I use any and every event as an excuse to sew, usually leaving the project to a week before it is needed to be on me, this one being the worst procrastination to date… making the dress the day before – with no back-up dress so I have every possible thing crossed that it turns out great.

A dress fit for a night out with the ladies – Jade’s Bachelorette!

Oh and if you are questioning the hair in the above photo, we were requested to wear the brightest, most vibrant wig we could find, our little fun way of not losing each other as the night went on and of course to help the bride and her girls stand out in the crowd!

Pattern challenge – Simplicity 2648

After searching the fabric store for material for almost an hour I realized why I don’t own a little black dress, to be blunt they seem quite boring. Each plain black material I looked at, it was just that… plain. Boring. After not being able to pick one I decided I would sneak a little sliver into my ‘little black dress’ and after that decision was made finding the fabric was easy. I bought a black stretch cotton, a silvery satin, black lace to overlay the silver and let’s not forget the super cute, a little pricy buttons!

Being an ‘amazing fit’ pattern allows you to get that perfect fit for your body type, however this does making finding the right pattern pieces more complicated and more difficult to read, but not impossible so don’t hesitate because they do give you that great fit!

They can really cram a lot of information on those pieces!

Simplicity does a great job describing how to chose the proper fit for the bodice, but I was a little upset that they didn’t do the same for the skirt, when I had to chose between slim, average or curvy I had no idea how to figure that out based on my measurements so to play it safe I just stuck with average fit.

Noteworthy: I am not sure if I mentioned this before, but a while back I purchased artist drawing paper from Currys Art Store  so I can start tracing all of my purchased patterns. This is a little more time-consuming however worth it because now all of my patterns can be reused at any time and as any size. Best thing I have started doing to date

I now have all of my pattern pieces traced and cut out I have also sorted them so that I know what pattern pieces go with what material.

All cut, LET’S SEW!

The only ‘tricky’ part of the cutting out I would say was making sure when I cut out the lace that the pattern was all facing the same way – if you have flowers or some sort of design on your lace you want to make sure it is cut proper or part of it might end up upside down!

OH! I also don’t think I mentioned my new scissors before either! This post just has all sorts of new goodies to talk about! I got these babies for Christmas from my parents and let me say they totally ROCK!

Haha but in all seriousness they are by far the best scissors ever. I am sure you all understand  what a world of difference it makes to have the proper tools, and while yes I did have a great pair of sewing scissors I got for Christmas about 5 years ago that still cut great, they are much heavier and larger so a little more difficult to manipulate while cutting. I used to not be able to go in and cut notices with ease but look at these beauties…

Moving on with my project, I marked the wrong side of all the black cotton pieces so it would be IMPOSSIBLE for me to get the right and wrong side of the fabric confused… those that know my sewing know how bad I am for that when the right and wrong sides are so extremely close in appearance… I always struggle when that is the case – but I REFUSE to struggle this time – I don’t have time I need this dress to be ready in just under 24 hours (I know, I know – my own fault).

So when prepping my material for sewing I had a little issue with my bobbin, no idea why it did this… but a bobbin should NOT look like this

It even tangled all around the bobbin holder!

After a little work I managed to pull out all the tangled thread

and once I detangled the mess and tried again it my bobbin turned out perfect

An issue I ended up encountering… When I removed the pattern pieces from my bodice fabric I seen why…
1 – I prefer using my pattern weights over my pins and
2 – that I DEFINITELY need new pins.

My pins pretty badly damaged my satin material

Thankfully the lace will hide this but before I sew my lace onto my satin I am going to try and fix the pull by softly pulling it and flattening it out and by using the iron on the proper setting to smooth everything out the best I can.

Now it is almost like it never happened but goes to show you how important it is to toss all your old pins and replenish frequently. You can still see it a little but like I said once the lace is on top you won’t – if I wasn’t using the lace this would have ended bad.

To start I am going to use the same process I used when making A Touch of Lace dress and sew the lace pieces to the appropriate satin pieces. Remember to sew the wrong side of the lace to the right side of the satin so both the right sides will face out.

I always love the look of the bodice coming together

The skirt isn’t shaping up too bad either. I really like the fabric I chose for the shirt, it sews and presses beautifully!

I really wanted to play around with this dress and do some simple yet decorative features that I haven’t played around with much, so instead of serging the entire seam off I serged just the edge not removing any extra fabric so there was still about 5/8″ seam that I pressed towards the front of the skirt.

Once that was nicely pressed I pulled out my double needle and using grey/silver embroidery thread I did a double top stitch on only the front seams. I chose silver so that it would tie in the silver satin with the pure black skirt.

This is what the double need looks like for my Brother Machine:

This is how my machine sets up to hold 2 spools of thread, you will see that an additional thread holder fits on top of my bobbin winder spot:

You thread both spools exactly the same way and just thread one thread per needle:

I love how straight and professional the double top stitch looks, I will definitely start using this more often.

I used embroidery thread instead of the regular thread because it is shinnier so it just looks a little more decorative than regular thread:) I tried 3 different silvers, one which was a metallic silver and it looked awesome but didn’t match the silver satin… definitely need to find something in the future to topstitch with the metal silver though!!!

Onto the bodice back – this allowed me to use another ‘new’ tool to play with. I say ‘new’ in quotation marks because this is actually a tool I have had for a very long time I just never attempted to use it before… I can see this being something I use all the time now that I have found out how amazing it is!

The tracing wheel. I used this to trace my darts. What you need is the tracing wheel and tracing paper.

These items you can find at a sewing store or even a craft store. This is an extremly simple method of tracing your pattern marks and I honestly don’t know why I have never used it before!

What to do:

Place your tracing paper down with the whiter side down and the black side up

Then place your fabric wrong side down on the black side of the paper and your pattern piece on top of the fabric

Lay your pattern piece on top of your material and using the tracing wheel trace over any markings you want transferred onto the wrong side of your fabric. Use a back and forth movement of the wheel.

Ta-da!

Please note – do this on the WRONG side of your fabric, I have not tried to remove the marks to date so I am not sure how easily they remove from the material, if they even remove at all.

The zipper was where I got a little stuck and probably strayed from the pattern at this point. However it worked out nicely:) I did have to remove the seam in the skirt back once the zipper was in because it was no longer laying proper but I was able to make it work with a new seam!

Hidden Zipper:

Zipper revealed:

For the neck facing: I sewed the neck facing to the neckline but I did not serge this, I used a triple stitch to make it extra sturdy and then clipped through the seam allowance all the way around so that it would lay flat. You won’t see this seam as you will fold the facing in and top stitch it in place – this will hide that not so pretty clipped seam.

I was initially going to use the satin for the neck facing but didn’t have enough left so I made it out of the cotton, which I think this was a really good thing because it helped me get a really nice flat finish – how gorgeous is this neckline?!

Now onto the sleeve (flange): I have never made a flange before but I can’t even describe how excited I am to do this! I have a feeling this is going to be a super easy and cute chic sleeve for some feature projects of mine!

This is what the pattern piece looks like

You fold it in half and sew on – done! LUV it!

So cute right?

After this all that was needed was a beautiful handcrafted label (tutorial coming soon!) and a nicely done blind hem stitch and I was read to party!

Until next time ~ happy sewing!

 

Be mine… Valentine…

Nothing brings out the giddy girl within better than a pink glitter heart sweater, and no better time to do it than for Valentines Day!

I came across this sweater on Wobisobi and as soon as I saw it I knew my niece and I would have to make one… so a craft day was planned.

I went out and purchased all the supplies beforehand so that everything would be here and ready for us to get started. I found most of what I needed at Walmart:

Sweater – $12
Fabric glue – $10
Masking tape – $2
Glitter – $1.99 for all 3 colours

I found the glitter at Cambridge Surplus. Walmart had glitter but they wanted $7.49 for a package of 3 colours, I felt that was too much so I thought I would try my luck at the Surplus store. Sure enough they had the EXACT same colours and brand as Walmart for only $1.99! I was thrilled, what a bonus.

First off we cut off the ribbing on the sweater (collar, cuffs and band around the waist). I only did this on my niece’s sweater because the sweater was so large on her, on my own I cut off just the collar.

Now time to make the heart template!

We went online and found a heart we liked by googling heart images, once we found one we printed it out as large as we could make it on a letter size piece of paper.

Cut it out the heart and discard, you only need the piece that the heart is cut out from.

Tape your template in place:

To make the stripes even we started by first filling the heart with masking tape and then going back to remove the strips of tape that we wanted glittery.

Once that is done you can get ready to start the fun part, and by fun I mean messy, very messy!

Be sure to insert a scrap piece of cardboard inside your sweater so the glue doesn’t go through to the back.

I did the glue part while my niece did the glitter. The glue was a little difficult to work with, it was thick and didn’t spread that well so I used a cheap art brush which really helped, the glue was also quick drying so we had to work quickly.

We had 6 stripes to fill with glitter so we started at the top and worked our way down one stripe at a time. We did two stripes per colour until the whole heart was done.

We poured quite a lot of glitter on to ensure we would be well coated:) Plus I bought 4 packages of glitter so we had lots to work with.

Let dry for 30-60 minutes and then carefully shake off the extra glitter outside. Then proceed with a second coat.

Put glue overtop of the dried glitter and sprinkle more glitter on top!

Once you are done let dry for another 30-60 minutes and again carefully take it outside and shake off the extra. It doesn’t seem to matter how careful you are, glitter still seems to find its way through the entire house.

Once your sweater is dry and all the extra glitter is shaken off you can carefully start removing the tape and paper template to reveal your super sparkly heart.

After clean-up we let our sweaters dry for 48 hours before attempting to wash them. I washed my sweater alone on extreme gentle cycle and let it hang dry. I lost some glitter in the process but it still looks great. I don’t think you would be able to wear it without washing it first or you would definitely leave a trail of sparkles wherever you went.

This was definitely a great small craft project that both my niece and I enjoyed. I love the sweater and it was easy enough the my niece could help. Highly recommend. I might have even discovered a new love for clothing that sparkles I am still trying to figure out what else I could do that involves glitter!

Have you done any glitter projects yourself? Please share.

 

Modern to Victorian

If we can have Christmas in July, why not Halloween in January?!? My way of saying once again a little late on this post… but better late than never

A week before Halloween I finally buckled down to figure out what my costume was going to be for 2012.

Those that know me know that Halloween is by far my most favourite holiday so of course I have been thinking about it weeks prior… I had gone to the Spirit Halloween store several times, was on the website even more than I can count but still couldn’t find anything that jumped out at me.

Those of you that have also hunted for a pre-made costume know that it is extremely hard to find a non-skimpy version of anything these days. I find it almost comical how they can create even the most random costumes ‘sexy’.

My first purchase for Halloween this year was a pair of red contact lenses. I can’t even describe the excitement or anticipation I had waiting to wear them!

LUV THEM!

That was the start of my costume… I had decided to build a costume around red eyes. The best and most obvious choice was of course vampire.

Though a vampire is the most over used Halloween character, I figured I could still make it my own.

First I had to pick what ‘time’ I would be from. I could have simply chosen a the typical all black gear, but I wanted something a little more unique and challenging!

It started with tearing through my closet one day, I came across an old bridesmaid dress I still had and figured it would be a perfect start. My goal is to take a modern dress and turn it into a Victorian dress.

Now I have my theme I need to take a trip or two to fabricland and get some material to help this transition. I really should have had some sort of plan before hunting for fabric but of course I didn’t.

After a couple trips to the fabric store I had several miscellaneous meters of black fabric ranging from fabric with black spiders on it, sliver spiderweb fabric, black satin, few meters of black elastic, black tulle, black ribbon trim and some black netting.

But still no clue what I wanted to do with any of it. I had too many ideas running through my head at once to actually put together a single step. So I decided for once to sit down and try to illustrate what I saw in my mind, and this is what I came up with…

Ok now I have a plan, I think this could actually work!

Here is what I ended up doing and remember all ‘terms’ are not to be taken literally, a lot of the ‘names’ that I gave items here are probably completely made up

Let’s begin!

Cut open top 2 layers of original dress to make it split on one side

Make ‘frill’ above left breast:
I cut a piece of the satin material 12” long by 3” tall. I hemmed the top and both sides. I cut a piece of elastic 6” long and while sewing it across the 12” length of the satin I pulled the elastic tight so that it would force the fabric to gather once the elastic went back to the 6” length.

My next step is to make the ‘puffs’ of the skirt. I measured from the waist of the dress to the floor and this was about 42”, knowing I wanted 4 puff layers I divided 42 by 4 and knew each layer needed to be 10.5” long – to make life easy for me I just made it 11”.

I wasn’t exactly sure how to make these ‘puffy’ so my plan was to make each layer double (so 22”) fold it in half and between the layer put stiff interfacing so that it would stay puffy. Below I have added step by step of this!

I am going to make these out of the spider material and spider web material (2 layers of each).

How I made each one:

I cut my material to be 36” wide and 22” tall. I have lined this will the black satin (so my satin piece was cut the same size). I then sewed these two pieces together. I only lined my material because the Halloween spider material was transparent. If I didn’t line it you would have seen the interfacing through the layers which wouldn’t have looked too pretty.

I cut a piece of interfacing 36” long by 4” tall and ironed that exactly in the middle of the fabric.

I then folded the fabric in half wrong sides together. You can see in the picture that where the fabric is folded it has a bit of a puff now from the interfacing.

I still don’t feel this is the effect I was looking for… so I thought I would try gathering…

my piece being 36” long I figured simple math is always the best and divided 36 by 4 and every 9 inches I gathered the fabric from the fold to the top where the raw edges meet.

Now that I have done 4 gathers in my layer I now had 4 pockets so I stuffed them with tulle and this gave a signifant puff on each layer! I proceeded to do this 3 more times for a total of 4 layers.

Due to gathering sections of each layer my length of the ‘puffs’ was shortened quite a bit, so I had to add a 5th layer which I didn’t gather and I didn’t stuff, this was just to provide the length that I required to hit the floor. I then hemmed that layer with just a normal hem.

Now that the base is done it is time to sew that in place! This might be more difficult than I thought as 1) I am sewing onto a finished garment, and 2) I have to sew underneath 2 other layers.

It was pretty difficult, the dress was becoming quite large and pretty heavy to maneuver through the machine!

Look how small my machine looks compared to the dress! I eventually ended up having to pull out my old Janome as my Brother could no longer handle sewing through all the layers! This was my first sewing machine given to me for my 15th birthday I believe from my Mom It never fails me.

Sleeves:
I used a pattern piece from a pattern I had here to make my sleeves. I could only use this pattern piece as a starting point.

I wanted to make my sleeves match my puffs so I used the black spider material and the silver web material lining them with the black and red satin. Using the pattern piece I folded in the parts I didn’t need (the shoulder) and then folded the pattern piece in half so I could cut 2 of each material so that when sewn together I will have each sleeve in both materials.

Once I finished the sleeves I trimmed all the raw edges of the dress with black lace, and other than minor adjustments my costume was finished!

I am happy to brag say that all my work paid off and I won best costume at work for 2012

Scary at work:

And dressed to party!!!

 

Touch of lace

I can’t believe how fast the past year has flown… I keep telling myself I need to make more time for this blog which in return would mean more sewing time, which I desperately need and want… however the months seem to pass by faster than I realize and the weeks even faster!

With that being said it is time to reveal a piece I finished in August of this year, the results had me so thrilled I can’t even put words to it.

Back on August 4 I had a wedding to attend, which meant I had a dress to make. While knowing this a couple months in advance I still only left myself the week before to actually make something.

I spent some time searching through patterns online and the design I chose to use was Simplicity 1876.

Before running to the store to pick up what I needed, I shuffled through the small stockpile of fabric I had to see if anything would be of use. I ended up finding 3 meters of a gold satin I originally bought to make a dress for New Years 2012 that was never used and knew it would work perfectly.

There was more than enough fabric to make the dress but when I draped the material around me to see how the colour looked I felt it needed something more… My initial thought was to make a few of the pedals on the skirt in a bold graphic fabric while the others were made from the gold in attempt to create texture, but once I started my hunt for something that matched I ended up finding a beautiful black lace instead. I had no idea how this would work or how I would piece it together but I could picture the finished product and that was more than enough to make my decision to purchase it. 

The above picture shows you what the lace looks like overlapping the gold. Excited yet??

For a small dress it seemed like I had a small mountain of fabric once I cut out all the pieces! Between the gold satin, black lace, interfacing and lining I had a large number of pieces to try and keep organized!

Now the real fun begins – Let’s Sew!

My plan: Add lace to the bodice, top right pedal and bottom left pedal.

Starting with the bodice I wanted to sew the satin and the lace at the same time so the raw edges of both would be sewn in the same seam; to make this easier since the satin is slippery I machine stitched with a large stitch length (baste stitched) the wrong side of the lace to the right side of the gold satin all the way around the edges so this would technically create a single piece with one right side and one wrong side.

In the above picture you can see the baste stitching I did to combine the satin and lace as one piece. I did that with all the bodice pieces and then sewed the bodice together as instructed.

Create the skirt: I wasn’t changing this at all so I simply followed the instructions and constructed the skirt.

The dress was moving along smoothly and my excitement was growing quickly!

Pedals – the skirt bottom: each pedal had 3 components to it, a front and back made of the gold satin and interfacing. The pedals that I chose to do with lace had 4 pieces to them. Once you have these all sewn together they do add quite a bit of bulk to the dress with the layers.

To make the lace pedals: Place the wrong side of the lace to the right side of the front of the pedal (gold satin), stitch together using a long stitch length and stitch within your seam allowance (same as I did for the bodice). You need to really pay attention to what you are during in these steps as the pedal pieces all look very similar and if you end up sewing the lace to the back of the pedal piece you won’t see it. This took me a little pre-laying out and using my dress form to see where the pedals would fall so I made sure not to do the same two pedals with lace. I wanted them staggered.

Here is how it was turning out:

I did the same thing as I did for the first to pedals to the last two pedals, only opposite and pinned them in place.

Tip: be sure to clip your seam allowances on all the pedals before turning so once you press your pedals they should lay flat and you will have much smoother curves!

This next part was a little tricky for me as now I actually had to sew the pedals into place. To do this you need to sew the rows of pedals together making sure to match your markings properly so your overlap is in the right place. This may sound difficult since you have to sew onto the skirt that is already constructed but remember we haven’t put in the zipper yet so your back is completely open:

The above image shows what the back of the dress looks like prior to the zipper. You need to keep this open so you can easily sew the pedals onto the skirt.

This is what your bottom row will look like once the left and right pedals are sewn together:

Once you have those together for both rows you have to sew them onto your skirt. Your markings that you transferred from your pattern pieces should show you exactly where to place the bottom row of pedals. Make sure you add the bottom row first so the top row covers the top of the bottom row.

Once your bottom row in sewn in place you can attach the top row of pedals to the waistline.

As you can see I used a ton of pins here. With the amount of layers the dress was getting a little heavy so I was trying to avoid any movement from the material while sewing.

Once the pedals are sewn on you are ready to sew the top of the skirt (with pedals attached) to the bottom of the bodice matching the raw edges, right sides together.

Only day two into the project and I have made great progress with little error or confusion.  At this point most of the dress was constructed and all that was left was the lining and zipper. If you have made it this far the rest is easy!

Put your lining together in the same manner as the dress, minus the lace. Sew that to your dress and put your zipper in as instructed. Be sure not to skip top sewing along the top of the bodice when you are finished. It will really help the heart shaped neckline lay nicely.

There you have it, make the matching belt and find the perfect shoes and you will feel like you belong on the red carpet!

 

Room to Create…

I find it hard to believe, but it is actually complete!

I smile the moment I walk into the room, I can’t help but run my fingers across the length of my desk… it is almost unreal to me what I started with and what is here now. After many long months and more hours than I can account for, I am thrilled to reveal my new sewing room!

To really appreciate my new creation I feel it is necessary to show before, in progress and of course the after shots as I walk you through.

This before shot was actually taken when I was walking through the home for the second time prior to buying.

The start of this was way back in April.

After taking an entire day off work to be available for the lawyers to call so I can pick up my keys, the call didn’t actually come until about 6pm on the evening before Good Friday and from a different location then I expected – how I love you Murphy By the time I had keys in hand and walked through the front door it was about 7:30 at night! I did my initial walk through to take it all in and then stood in the middle of my soon to be sewing room imagining the possibilities.

As you can see from the before shot I had some beautiful wood paneling to work with… needless to say it didn’t take me long to decide there was no way I could live with it.

Without wasting anytime I had started ripping down the paneling by 9pm that night and by 1 am I found myself sitting in the middle of the room, wood paneling thrown everywhere looking at what seemed to be some sort of chip board with about 100 year old gold paisley wallpaper stuck to it.

I laugh now when I share the story because it is so like me to just dive right into something without considering what might happen or what the results will be. I remember sitting there, tired from running around all day, emotions soaring high and a million little cuts on every inch of my hands from tearing down paneling with no gloves or tools, only to reveal the reason why the prior owners put the paneling up in the first place.

But sitting there alone at 1 am not a single belonging had yet to make it into the house I sat there in a room I have just torn apart smiling knowing what I could turn it into.

Knowing I would need to actually call in help for the next part I finally decided to call it a day.

The next day I called a friend to come in and drywall… I thought about taking it on myself but decided it was better left to someone who actually knew what he or she was doing.

The next couple of days moved a little slower for me while I tried to be patient, the drywall was being installed, taped and mudded., which left me free to move all my boxes from the old place to the new.

Once the drywall was up and the mud was sanded it was time for me to get back to work. I had already bought some drywall primer – which if you have never painted new drywall be sure to ALWAYS prime or the drywall will just soak up the paint! It only took me 2 nights to prime and paint the walls with a couple coats and re-stain all the trim work. My window is also all wood and wasn’t in the best of shape so I threw a couple coats of paint on there too! Already the room looked completely different!

Now the framework as I would call it for the room was complete it was time to start on my desk. Yes you heard me, time to pull out the power tools! I have never actually tried building anything before that didn’t require fabric and a needle so I really wasn’t sure what exactly I was doing but I was excited!

I started with drawing what I wanted the desk to look like; I thought that was a good start

Once I had my drawing it was time to take a trip to the local Home Depot and start wood shopping!

I had decided on using 2 x 10’s for the top and 2 x 12’s for the legs. I wanted the desk to be 12ft long by about 18” deep so I had bought two 2 x 10’s that were 12ft long and cut them so they were 6ft long. This made the top part 4 pieces in total. Once these were cut all I needed to do was stain them, I went with a red mahogany and protected them with 2 clear coats of polycrylic.

Onto the legs…I measured my dining room table to find out how high I needed the legs to be which was 28” high and cut my 2 x 12’s into 8 pieces that were 28” high. I painted these white and again protected them with a couple clear coats of polycrylic. Once the legs were dry I drilled the holes to put the little metal shelf holders in (yes this is my technical term). Ok I googled it for those who might actually want to know and came up with this name ‘Shelf Support Plug With Steel Pin’.

With the legs and the desktop complete it was time to piece the whole thing together. I had bought a pile of L braces and started drilling away.

Once the desk was put together and sturdy it was time for the shelves. I bought a white melamine, cut them to size and slide them into place!

Desk is finally complete!

Hmmm when I write it out sounds pretty easy. The whole process definitely took a lot more work, time and effort then the 2 minutes it took me to blog about it!

We now have walls, made beautiful with paint and a custom hand-made desk that turned out better than I could have imagined, seriously I am so in love with this desk. Now it is time to complete the desk with chairs!

Yes my chairs, I love them too… ok I guess it is fair to just say I love the whole room just so much

I found these chairs at Goodwill for $5 each no tax which I thought was an awesome price. I picked them because the backs of the chairs were different than your standard 4-legged chairs. They were in pretty rough shape, paint was chipping and the cushions were beyond stained but I knew with a little knuckle grease, a bottle or two of spray paint and some fun bright new fabric they would be as good as new!

After those hurdles were tackled the rest went really fast, one afternoon I painted the magnetic chalkboard on the wall above my desk,

Found these great red shelves at Rona for 25% off!

Found this old school mirror on kijiji for only $15

And found the wall bars with hanging baskets and bucket at Ikea

All the baskets found on the shelves and in the desk were all dollerama finds!

And everything else I already owned and was put in place!

 

Pop in

It is hard to believe that the days have turned into weeks, the weeks to months… So much twisting and turning in such a short time. It’s crazy and scary how quickly life passes by.

This just a quick pop in to let you all know I am working on some new posts and fun things to share!

I just recently moved so that is the main reason for my disappearance. Look for my new sewing room soon (I hope).

Life has also had some major ups and downs which has slowed the new sewing room process, but I promise it is coming… It has to because without my one true love I am seriously going crazy!!!

So hope all my readers have been doing well and getting their fix with past posts. I’ve been keeping up on all your blogs too when I get down time!

Looking forward to getting back into the sewing game soon – missing sharing and reading your comments.

Until next time happy sewing and thanks for following!

 

Who wouldn’t love a little Pooh…

I have been working on a new project recently and wanted to pop in and give you all a sneak peak of what is to come. Also I ordered some new Pooh and Friends embroidery designs and wanted to share how that experience was.

I am working on a baby quilt! The progress started a little slow but now that I have it figured out we are moving right along! The reason for the slow start was I was trying to make the quilt with 5.5” x 5.5” squares but because that is slightly smaller then my embroidery hoop it was causing random issues with embroidery so I had to scrap what was done and make the squares 6.5” x 6.5” which is going to make a larger size baby blanket.

I have always been a fan of the classics when it came to baby stuff so I saw this as a great opportunity to order some Winnie the Pooh machine embroidery designs. I found a fantastic website called ‘Save On Designs’ and they had a 500+ Winnie the Pooh Machine Embroidery Designs set for only $14.99. I was able to select delivery method as download so I had all the designs within an hour of ordering them.

I was a little disappointed that I couldn’t see what the designs looked like prior to putting them on my machine and thought I would email the company to see if there was another way. To my surprise I received an answer in less then an hour on a Sunday night via email from their support team telling me they would set me up with a viewer so I could see what all the designs!

Needless to say I got started right away to see how these would look and here are just a few:

I will be back with more once I finish the quilt to reveal the entire project.

If you haven’t ordered from ‘Save on Designs’ before I highly recommend them. The Designs are well created and their service was excellent. Not to mention they have a great selection of embroidery designs, file types and the prices are amazing.

Do you have any favourite embroidery design websites?
If so please share!

 

Passion 4 Fashion

Well it is official!

Today the Spring 2012 issue of Life in Clarington came out and what will you find in freshly laid ink? That is right – me!

Ok so before you get as excited as I am, I am the designer for this magazine so it wasn’t so much of a big deal that the publisher asked me to contribute by writing a small piece. However, none the less I was thrilled. It is my first published piece as a ‘Fashion Designer’ and it will be displayed with pride in my sewing room:)

I of course have known about this small spotlight for a few weeks now and have been dying to share it with you!

You can check out the article online at the Life in Clarington website.

I am also reposting the writeup here:

ARTICLE FEATURED IN LIFE IN CLARINGTON:

Passion 4 Fashion

You likely know me as the Art Director of Life in Clarington Magazine. As much as I truly love being a part of the Life in Clarington family, Graphic Design is actually not my first love. My one true love has always, and will always be Fashion Design!

As a child I had the old-school fashion plates (yes I realize I just dated myself there) which I was absolutely obsessed with, and which eventually led to my carrying a sketch book everywhere I went, so I was always prepared whenever inspiration took hold! In my teens I used to make pants out of our bed sheets, which thrilled my mother when she came home from work to discover me wearing our “converted” linens.

But then college came and went and I became so busy with life and my career, that sewing became a thing of the past. Years went by without much thought to my much loved passion until about a year ago when I decided I was going to try and bring sewing back into my life.

I created a little nook in my house for my own little sewing den, and a year later sewing is a huge part of my life again! In the spring I will be starting a 2 year ‘Dressmaking and Design’ college program, not for career purposes but to grow and expand my passion.

So it was with thrill and excitement that I accepted Susan’s offer to share a little bit of my passion with you; in this issue of Life in Clarington!

My very first published fashion piece – of which I can say with pride that I am sure my parents will hang on their fridge!

Michelle Koehler, Life in Clarington Art Director

The Ultimate Recycled Purse?

Make a cute, chic purse in an afternoon using an old pair of jeans! 

Step One:
Grab a pair of jeans. If there are any large rips or tears above the crotch patch them.

Step Two:

Cut the legs off at the crotch.

Step Three:

With right sides together sew across the bottom.

Step Four:
Create straps out of the leg material. Any size you want.

Step Five:
Create a lining with scrap material or skip this step and sew on your strap!

Step Six: DECORATE ANY WAY YOU LIKE!

For more detailed instructions on this project or other sewing fun you can turn to my sewing blog at:

http://SewForTheLoveOfIt.wordpress.com

 

Raglan Star Quilt ~ Guest Post

It is my pleasure to welcome a guest post today written by Francine Koehler. Francine will be walking us through how to make a raglan Star Quilt. She will be introducing ‘new to me’ tricks and tools that I can’t wait to try out myself – and trust me this will be a project I plan on tackling when I find some time!

So get ready to be inspired to make your couch nice and cozy during these cold winter days…

These quilts are nice for sitting on the couch on a cold winters’ night. This pattern is my own design using some known techniques and my new toy the Big Shot from Stamping Up.

Let me first introduce my new toy, the Big Shot. I got introduced to this little gem while attending a greeting card workshop and then discovered it also cuts fabric. That did me in; at that point I had to have it!

This machine is used to cut out different shapes and designs, depending on the dyes you select. The designs can then be used to create many different projects from cards, to quilts, to bibs etc. In today’s project I used it to cut out star designs that I’m going to appliqué on my quilt.

The big shot is so simple to use; layer the plexiglass sheet, the dye (this is what cuts the fabric), the fabric and the second plexiglass sheet and run it through the big shot manually by turning the handle. Voila, you have a perfect design.

NOTE:  the layering technique will change depending on what dye is selected. The machine comes with instructions on how to layer each dye.

To start this quilt you will need to select four coordinating flannel fabrics. I used flannel for its warmth and its great ability to fray. I selected a green and beige plaid, a red and beige plaid, a plain green and a plain beige flannel.

My quilt measures 42” x 42” in size. This is a great size for a couch or even as an extra blanket on your bed. To start, I cut out 72 – 9” squares. Broken down as follows:

• 18 green plaid squares
• 18 plain green squares
• 18 red plaid squares
• 18 plain beige squares

I then cut out 36 – 6” squares of quilting batting and several 6” squares of both the red and green plaid to use for cutting the stars. I needed 20 of both the large and medium size stars in the red plaid and 18 of both the large and medium stars in the green plaid.

Now, the work is over and the fun begins. With everything cut, you are now ready to start putting the quilt together. The positioning of the squares and ultimately the design of the quilt is all up to you. You will want to decide how many star squares you want and how many plaid squares. Also, think about how you will place the squares in each row to make your design. I actually built the quilt one row of squares at a time and determined what the pattern for each row would be as I went along. I made the squares for each row as I got to that row. All 72 squares were layered together, but I didn’t decide how I was going to sew them until I needed them.

With the 72 – 9” squares, you want to layer a plain square, batting and a plaid square together to make 36 squares in total. I layered the green plaid with a plain green flannel and the red plaid square with a plain beige square.

For the squares that will not get the stars appliquéd on them, the plaid side will be the front of the quilt. To make these squares, I used a straight stitch and sewed through all three layers from corner to corner, making an X on the square.

For the squares that will have the stars appliquéd on them, the plain flannel square will be the front of the quilt.

Now I have been using the term appliqué. What I mean by this term, is sewing a separate piece of fabric on to another piece of fabric.

I used a zigzag stitch to apply the stars through all three layers on the plain side of my squares. I used 2 large stars and 2 medium stars for each square. You could use whatever you want – the design is all yours.

For the plain beige squares I used red plaid stars, for the green plain squares I used the green plaid stars. Again, the choice is yours.

*REMEMBER*: you need to sew through all three layers, the plain fabric, the batting and the plaid fabric and you want to sew around the design, in this case the star.

Remember; think about your quilt pattern before you make up all your squares so you make enough squares of each pattern. As I indicated before, I put my quilt together one row at a time making my squares, as I needed them. My quilt is made up of 6 rows of 6 squares arranged in the pattern below. The squares are sewn together with the seams to the front of the quilt. These seams will be cut up at the end to make the raglan look.

PATTERN

Row One: green plaid square; plain beige square with red stars; red plaid square; plain green square with green stars; green plaid square; plain beige square with red stars

Row Two: plain green square with green stars; red plaid square; plain beige square with red stars; green plaid square; plain green square with green stars; red plaid square

Row Three: green plaid square; plain green with green stars; red plaid square; plain beige with red stars; green plaid square; plain green with green stars

Row Four: plain beige with red stars; green plaid square; plain green with green stars; red plaid square; plain beige with red stars; green plaid square

Row Five: red plaid square; plain beige with red stars; green plaid square; plain green with green stars; red plaid square; plain beige with stars

Row Six: plain beige with red stars; green plaid square; plain green with green stars; red plaid square; plain beige with red stars; green plaid

When sewing the squares together, sew each square to the next with a 1/4” seam allowance to the front of the quilt. Attach each row together the same way. Once all the squares and rows are together, sew around the whole quilt using a 1/4” sew allowance as well. I used a fancier stitch for my border but that option is all yours; a straight stitch works well too.

Now for the fun, take a pair of scissors and snip the seams all around the quilt and around each square. This is done to provide the raglan look. Be careful while doing this so you don’t cut through your seams. Make each snip fairly close to the next, about 1/8” apart. When finished snipping around the quilt and around all the squares, wash and dry the quilt and you are finished. Your quilt will have a great frayed look on the front and a very nicely finished back.

ENJOY!!!!

 

Winter Fun Accessories!

Let’s have a scarf party!

Ok so party is probably not the best word as a party usually consists of more than one person, however when you are a party of one you can still have a lot of fun!

This post is going to show you how you can make some of the most must-have scarves available this season, at a fraction of the cost and in literally just minutes! I hope you enjoy these popular, quick, fun and very affordable fashion accessories to keep you warm this winter!

The snow took its time getting here but we all knew it would come. It has been awfully cold the last couple of days and I found myself looking more and more like a homeless person when it came to my fashion choices to keep me warm. Being bogged down with layers and layers of clothing, the cold and lack of sun leaves me feeling less motivated to put effort into the way I look and I realized I need to find some cute girly fashion accessories that will keep me warm but will also make me feel feminine again! There is no reason why we can’t find beauty in our oversized sweaters and comfy boots!

Here I have made 4 different types of scarves that don’t require a pattern and won’t take you long to add cute chic accessories to your winter wardrobe or to add that much needed splash of colour!

So without further delay lets have a scarf party!

Scarf #1 – The Bandana Scarf 

Version 1

Version 2

This scarf can be very versatile! Depending on the choice of fabric it can be a super cute lightweight scarf to add a little something extra to your outfit. Or you can make it out of heavy fleeces, cottons or flannel and it is a great scarf to wear out on the hills if you enjoy boarding or skiing! The bandana scarf is warmer and stays in place better then your typical scarf!

What you will need:

• Fabric
• Contrast fabric if you wanted one side to be different
• Thread
• Seam binding (optional)
• Velcro
• Sewing Machine

Cut a square that measures 20” x 20”

I did make my own pattern for this one so my triangle would be even.

This is how I made my pattern:

I took 6 pieces of regular letter size paper and taped them together:

Then marked 20” wide and 20” high and cut the paper to be a 20” x 20” square.

Fold the square exactly in half and cut the paper along the fold – Now I have my triangle!

This is the pattern for my bandana! Your longest side should measure anywhere between 26” and 28” to fit an adult. Using a 20” x 20” square made my longest edge 28”.

Use this pattern piece to cut your fabric. Do the same with your contrast fabric if you are using two different fabrics.

I am going to show you how I did both the above versions of this scarf.

Version 1:

Using seam binding.

Take your two triangles and with wrong sides together sew all the way around the triangle.

*Tip for sewing around corners: sew along your edge and when you reach the corner lift the pressure foot with the needle down (through the fabric) turn your fabric, then lower the pressure foot and start sewing again.

Once you have sewn all edges and both triangles are completely sewn together take your seam binding wrap it along your raw edges and sew in place. This covers all your raw edges!

Cut a piece of Velcro that measures 4.5” long and sew it on the right side of your bandana. Take the opposite piece of Velcro and sew it on the wrong side of the opposite corner.

Once this is done your scarf is complete!

Here are other versions I have done:

Back:

I tried to use my seam binding foot to create my own binding out of the fleece but I was unfortunately disappointed. I was unable to get it to work as I did before, maybe due to the fabric being a lot thicker then the fabric I used in ‘A treat for my sewing bag’. Due to frustration I gave up on the foot and created my own binding by hand with great success.

Option 2:

No seam binding.

This option will be faster because you won’t be using seam binding which I find can take some fiddling and extra care in sewing to make sure you catch both the binding and fabric!

Take your two triangles and with right sides together sew all the way around leaving a small opening on one side.

I found the best place to leave the opening was on the top edge (your longest edge). This is where the Velcro would go so it helps in hiding any imperfections when hand sewing.

Do not leave the opening right at the corner! Instead sew around the corner and continue sewing about an inch in then stop jump over about 2” or so and then continue sewing. See below picture to show where I left my opening (opening is between the two pins):

Once sewing is complete make sure to trim your seam. If you have a serger you can use that to trim off the extra fabric.

Also be sure to trim your corners like so (trimming avoids bulk once turned right side out):

Take the bandana and pull it through the opening you left so that it is right side out.

Tuck the edges of your opening in and hand stitch the opening closed.

I used Velcro in this version, however, I would suggest using a snap or hook and eye instead – it would suit the lightweight fabric much nicer. Sew that on and you are done!

Finished product:

Scarf #2 – The Snood Scarf

I was only recently introduced to this after searching the internet for ‘how to look good while staying warm’… Yes I do google these things when I am board but yet too lazy to get up and actually be productive. I guess this is what happens when you don’t have cable

I came across this cute fashion video ‘How to dress for winter’ and it introduced me to the snood scarf.

A snood scarf is a super cozy tube of fabric that can be worn as a bulky scarf and is also large enough to pull up over your head like a hood when going out into the blizzard.

What you need:

• Fabric
• Thread
• Sewing machine

I cut the fabric 40” wide by 30” long.

Fold it right sides together so you have a rectangle.

Sew along the long edge of the fabric. You now have a tube where the top and bottom of the rectangle are left open.

Turn right side out and voila you are done!

Depending on your fabric choice you may have to hem the top and bottom so your fabric doesn’t fray.

I  made up the size and it is a little on the dramatic side for bulk when wearing it but I still love it. Play around and make it any size that you feel suits you!

Scarf #3 – The Infinity Scarf

Chunky Knit Version

Vintage Silk Version:

We have all heard of this one I am sure. The infinity scarf is a great addition to your office wear – add a splash of colour and a little extra warmth while still looking professional.

I made two versions of this as you can see in the above examples.

What you will need:

• Fabric
• Thread
• Sewing machine

I cut my fabric to be 60” long by 21” wide.

Fold your fabric in half right sides together along the longest edge.

Sew along your longest edge. You will have a tube like you did in the snood scarf tutorial, however this one will be much smaller and you probably won’t be able to fit your head through it;)

Press your seam open (see image below) and then turn it right side out.

Fold in half with raw edges matching and seams matching – right sides together and pin.

Sew along the raw edges. Leave about a 2” opening – don’t sew all the away around!

Once you have done that pull the scarf through your opening so that it is right side out.

Once you have your scarf right side out find the opening you left and fold the raw edges in and pin – hand sew shut.

Both versions turned out amazing and have very different looks to them, I can’t decide which one I love more <3

Scarf #4 – The Chunky Faux Bandana Scarf

What you need:

• Fabric
• A large button
• 1 – 13mm snap
• thread
• sewing machine

In my example I am using two fabrics so I measured 11” wide by 60” long and cut both fabrics that size.

If using only one fabric measure it to be 22” wide by 60” long.

With right sides together sew along all raw edges leaving about a 2” opening – I suggest leaving the opening somewhere along the middle of your long edge, this will least likely be seen and it will make it easier to pull the entire scarf through the middle verses pulling through one end.

Once sewing all raw edges, minus the opening is done then trim your seams and corners, turn right side out and tuck in the edges of your opening – hand sew shut.

I used snaps behind my button because I didn’t want to go through the trouble of making a button hole – my button was too large for my button foot and I didn’t want to risk ruining my scarf trying to make a button whole without the help of my button hole foot.

How I determined where to put the snap and button:

I draped the scarf around me and fit it the way I liked. I then marked where I wanted the one side of the snap, secured that snap in place then sewed the other end of the snap and the button onto the corner edge closest to my face. And that is it!

These are just a few alternatives, By far my favs are the chunky knits! Both the black snood scarf and the purple infinity scarf suit my style! There are so many different looks and fabrics out there so go out and discover your new best fashion accessory for this winter!