Shirring (pronounced "sure-ing", not "shear-ing") is a great technique to easily add a comfy, elasticized waistband to a project. You'll be surprised just how easy it is! The only thing you'll need, besides basic sewing supplies, that you may not have on hand is some elastic thread: You'll want 2-3 spools. Sewing all the little bands uses up a bit of the elasticized thread! I've got a dress I picked up at goodwill for $2 that I'm going to make into a skirt. I LOVED the colors and the border print on this dress, just not the top with teeny tiny triangles and the spaghetti straps. (It's hard to find good border prints so I'm … [Read more...]
Tutorial Tuesday: Throw Pillow with Invisible Zipper
Ready to tackle an invisible zipper? Please promise me you won't let what anyone else says about how hard zippers are stand in your way! Ok, ready? We'll talk about invisible zippers and then sew up a pillow using one. (I promise these are so easy, you'll wonder why you haven't started using them before!) You'll need: 16" pillow form 1/2 yard of fabric 1 4" invisible zipper (I get mine from ZipIt on Etsy, she ships fast and the prices are awesome!) Coordinating thread Your machine's zipper foot Let's talk zippers and zipper feet for a minute: My zipper foot for my Janome looks like this: It's got two … [Read more...]
Tutorial Tuesday: Making Chevron from Stripes
As soon as I saw this stripe from the fabulously talanted Iza Pearl Design (Melissa Ybarra) I knew I had to have it! (It also helps that I've had the opportunity to meet this sweet person as I had the pleasure of teaching her a few sewing classes through CityCraft.) I let it sit with my fabric stash for a week or two (along with some of the other patterns from this collection), trying to determine the perfect project to use it on. The first thing I decided to try was to make a chevron pattern with the stripe. It's super easy to do! Want to try? Layout your fabric on your cutting board. Grab your straight edge and rotary cutter for this … [Read more...]
Tutorial Tuesday: DIY Bobbin Clips
If you sew, you know that your bobbins can go from nice and organized to messy and stringy in a matter of minutes. Case in point: Looks pretty bad huh? And I promise that I made them all nice and neat less than a week ago and didn't make it more messy just for a picture! When you go to get one bobbin out, the others just unravel more making an even bigger disaster! I searched online for bobbin clips to purchase. The only ones I found were for a pack of 10 for almost $10 on Amazon.They included the bobbins too, but they were for Brother machines. I sew on a Janome... Although they use very similar bobbins I didn't want to pay $10 before … [Read more...]
