show me

tutorials are educational, clear tutorials with awesome photos even better. at the request of a fellow flickr contributor i am working on a couple of tutorials for her website, charm stitch. these will be pouches, coin purses, makeup brush bags, etc. it's all really exciting.

laura sent me some fat quarts of fabrics she's featuring, as well as some cording, and two beautiful nani iro buttons. if there's anything i love more, it's fabric.

with the rain we've had the last few days, i haven't really been able to work on them. but today the skies cleared, i had time on my hands, and the sewing gods were in my favor. i just sent over the tutorial for a pleated pouch i finished today, so we'll see how it goes.

yellow sparkles

yesterday i drew out a pattern, cut out fabric, sewed pieces together, added buttons, then glued everything to a frame. at the end of the day i had myself a cute little clutch. the glue was a little stinky; but as chemical bonding often times goes, the smell is fading as it works through the curing process. there weren't any major snafus, perhaps the interfacing could be a little stiffer. i could not have done it so quickly without the helpful aid of u-handblog, and her excellent tutorial.
sometimes it hurts to use a favorite fabric, but then you get something pretty out of it, so it becomes ok. i'm really liking the soft lavender of the lining, it's similar to the wallpaper i made for the bathroom.

ze pillow.

i recently bought a euro sized pillow after drooling over the absurdly large pillows that kirsten dunst was sprawled across in marie antoinette. do they even make pillows that large and fluffy? i wish i had three or four of them, then i could sleep in a fluffy dream every night. yum! so anyway, i bought one pillow (they're pricey you know!), and decided to make a pillow cover from some of the hoard of fabric i collect. i used a print from the the mendocino line of heather ross; a fantastic mermaid and orange-bottomed swimmer against an ocean of palest pink.

the backing is a standard sized pillowcase that lost its mate somewhere. so i seam ripped and ironed mercillessly until i had two hemmed pieces. the pillow back needed some omph in the form of embellishment; luckily that's where my obsessive collecting comes in handy, into my ribbon stash i went. the turquoise blue ric rack matched the blue octopi very well, and now i only needed a closure. i also have a small collection of buttons, and found a large orange one that would look lovely.

when sewing most seams i love to use the french seam whenever possible. one reason is that i don't have a serger, another is that it makes a clean fray-free edge.
i wish i could be more adventuristic with my linens, but there's something about all that white softness. it's like newly laid snow, all fluffy and billowy.

that tab icon doo-hickey...

you may notice that there's a little birdie in your address bar above, don't worry i put it there on purpose. i learned a new html trick today, how to make and add a favicon to your blog. what is a favicon you say? well it's that little birdie.
you too can have an image in front of your web addy. just create a 16 x16 pixel image in your favorite image editing software and make it into an .ico file here. if you want the icon on your webpage just follow the instructions in the included readme file.
however, if you want to use it in your blog you need to host the .ico file on a separate server and change the code. there's two changes you need to do to the code:
#1. put the http address of the hosted .ico image in front of the "favicon.ico" part.
#2. use a "/" before the closing bracket. so it ends up looking like this:



you then want to go into the layout area of blogger, click on "edit html" and insert this code under the head tag. that's it.

you're welcome.

mmmmmmmm, cupcakes

i love the look and feel of tea towels; so decorative and yet so very practical. on a trip through my favorite shopping mecca, @home, i spotted a set of lovely stripped tea towels. however lovely they were i just couldn't leave well enough alone.
i love cupcakes, i love them so much that when i celebrate my 30th birthday i will have a cupcake cake towering in pastel glory, and it will be beautiful. cupcakes go well with tea, tea is in the name, this added to the pastel stripes = cupcake appliqué.

here's a quick and dirty breakdown of how to applique:

gather:
freezer paper
line drawing of desired subject matter
pencil
scissors (paper and fabric)
fabric of choice
iron
dritz fray check
needle
thread

step one: trace image onto paper side of freezer paper, trim to edge. iron onto fabric, shiny side against reverse of fabric.

step two: trim fabric to within 1/4" of paper edge. notch 3/8" segments in fabric edge perpendicular to paper line. iron edges over paper, so that front of fabric is desired shape. if you are going to stitch a decorative edge around a shape you can fray check the edge first rather than notching and folding (like the cupcake wrapper below).

step three: remove paper gently from fabric. place image front side up against desired area. tuck all notches under and pin.

step four: slip-stitch around edges connecting appliqué to background fabric. i usually use the same color thread as background.

step five: pin down overlapping appliqués and attach either with a slip stitch for hidden, or cross-stitch for exposed textural elements. iron to smooth any puffing or wrinkles.

step six: add garnishes such as beads, sequins, buttons, ribbon, embroidery, etc. finito!

to look at more photos visit my flickr account.