Handmade Gifts

I can at last post these because they have now been given.

I made these clutches for my sisters and for Kyle's cousin's wife whose name I drew in the gift game.

I used this great tutorial from Anna to make them and even learned zippers in the process!

Kyle helped me with that one haha

The first picture is of the first one I made. This one was a bit crooked as you can see, but it was amazing to see how much I improved on each one! Very encouraging :)

The one above is the third I made and the picture below is an inside view. These clutches were complete with a divider pocket and card holders. They were a fun project, I highly suggest this tutorial!

This is def not the last bag you'll see from me. I have some ideas and plans floating in my head ;)

Excited to share later!

Christmas Tree Skirt

Before Thanksgiving I started my tree skirt tutorial.
I had posted part one and planned on finishing it that night, but life happened and it didn't get done
so instead of making a part two I just edited the first post to include the whole tutorial.
So check the tutorial out here :)
I love how it turned out.
So worth the time and it was great practice for my quilting!

Christmas Tree Skirt with Tutorial

I've been up to elf business :)

love love love Christmas time!

I've been dreaming of a peppermint candy stripe tree skirt with purple pom pom trim...and this weekend I got to work! Here's a little step by step of what I did in case you're interested in making one too. It's fairly simple and probably way easier for you seasoned sewers out there - I'm just a newbie! Sorry for the awful tutorial pictures, I worked mainly at night so no beautiful natural light.

Here we go!

(Be sure to read and understand directions before beginning and feel free to ask any questions!.)
**also read the update on the bottom because I found another tutorial that has some great ideas to make 
the tree skirt sewing more simple!

I want a large skirt so my diameter is going to be 57 inches.

Cut your red and white fabric so that it is 60 inches long. Place them right sides together.

Pin one long side together.

Just sew a straight stitch down the one pinned side: backstitching at both ends.

Iron the seam down to the red side.

Lay your now half white and half red piece of fabric on the floor, straighten out all the wrinkles and tape down to floor (I didn't think of taping it down then, that made it much harder to measure and keep flat so be sure to tape!). Mark the Center of the seam (half of our diameter 57 makes our radius of 28.5). From the middle point measure out 28.5 inches several times in each direction in order to draw a perfect circle then cut it out.

I wish I had a good picture to show you what we have now but it is just a large circle (57 inches in diameter) that is exactly one half red and one half white. I want to end up with 6 candy stripes in my skirt. Print a printable protractor off, cut it out and then also make a whole in the very center. (The protractor I have linked here is actually different than the one I used and is a 180 instead of 360 degree protractor, so instead of having to cut a whole in the middle just line it up with the red/white seam).

Mark at 60 and 120 degrees to make 3 equal stripes (really more like pie slices).

Now just turn the protractor so that you can mark the other half.

Now line up the center of the skirt mark with each of your four degree marks and draw the lines to make an "X" in the middle so that you have 6 equal stripes/slices (there will be six if you imagine the seam as a line too).

Now we just have to cut out the center slice of each color and switch them so that there will not be the same color in a row. Here it is in a picture:

Now place the white piece you cut out onto the red piece beside it so that the right sides are facing. 

Pin together.

Do the same with the red piece you cut out.

Then stitch where you pinned.

Iron the seams down over the red side like you did your first seam.

Now you should have this shown in the picture below.

There are only two open sides now.

We want to stitch one of those up but leave the other open so that you have a way to place it around your tree. Fold the skirt top in half and pin one of the open seams together. In the picture you can see that the left side is pinned.

Stitch that up on your machine and now you should have only one opening.

Cut a circle in the center that is 6 inches in diameter so that there will be an opening for your tree.

Now here's our Tree Skirt Top all complete!

You can just barely see in this picture that the only seam not stitched together is the one on the bottom left.

Click to enlarge to make it easier to see.

Next, place your batting under your skirt top and cut it out.

Then, the same thing with your backing fabric.

Pin the three layers together...

and attach your binding. I used white bias tape on the white stripes, and red on the red stripes.

I used a piece of purple bias tape longer than what I needed for the middle so that I could stitch up both ends to make a tie.

The last step is gluing on your trim. Almost there!
The picture below is of the back of my skirt so that all you see on the front are the pom poms and little strings.

And here's the lovely skirt all finished!

Love the little trim :)

It was hard work, but worth it!
Be sure to iron and lent brush when it's needed.

 Please feel free to ask about anything that seems unclear!

**Update**
Since I've made my skirt I've run into other tutorials that have some great ideas to make it more simple and quicker. Check out this tutorial from Smile and Wave. She made cutting out the circle easier by using a ribbon as her measuring tool. It's the first step in her tutorial so be sure to check that out for more details. She also used felt as her backing to give it a little structure. I used batting and backing fabric but felt or something else like fleece would give it good structure too. I do love how mine feels with the batting in the middle so I wouldn't change how I did that step if I could go back but I thought I would share my findings for you all! I would definitely do the ribbon trick though if I made another skirt :)

Karissa's First Quilt - Part One: Helpful Sources and Prep Work

As I mentioned last week, I started my first quilt this weekend.

I'm using the scraps from my wedding napkins so I'm having to make 4x4 inch squares for my patchwork quilt. I have a feeling the smaller the square, the harder. Let's hope it turns out straight and all.

I thought it would be really fun to invite you into this journey with me. Anyone want to try a quilt too? Have you made a quilt before? If so I may need some pointers! At the end of this blog I will share with you some sources I'm using but first what I did over the weekend.

Always wash and dry your fabric like how you will wash your finished product.

I've heard several horror stories of finding this out the hard way...

Iron out your fabrics.

I did this part while watching football with Kyle :)

I like to take a little time staring at my nicely ironed fabrics dreaming of what is to come (humm)

Tools needed:

My first cut on my rotary cutter. Those cuts bleed pretty bad!

My squares stacking up... I'll post Part Two after my squares are cut out and perhaps a little sewing done.

Now on to websites that have helped me out:

Oh, Fransson! by Elizabeth Hartman and Diary of a Quilter are both blogs all about quilting that I like to look at for how to's and inspiration. Each not only have great info on quilting but also other fun tutorials.

Here's a Finish your Quilt Guide from Allison Harris at Cluck Cluck Sew. I think this guide will be very helpful when I get to this stage of my quilt and her blog is really great too so check that out.

Here's a quick little guide on machine quilting over at The Purl Bee.

This guide of choosing the right sewing needle will probably come in handy also from Quilt Bug.

There are also tons of patterns out there on the world wide web for quilts. Some I have found that I like are the Rainbow Bunting Quilt from A Pretty Cool Life, the Quilt in a Day tutorial from Floating On Cloud9, the Crayon Box Quilt from Sew Mama Sew, and Moda Bake Shop has so many patterns in their tutorials section.

I've just added all these links in my Bookmarks under my folder Quilting so they're easy to get to.

Hope this wasn't linky overload! I think you'll find these very helpful.

Great Sewing Books

These are some sewing books that I plan on getting soon (and when I say soon I mean like within a year maybe ha). Some of these I just saw and liked and some I've heard are really good from other peoples reviews.

Weekend Sewing by Heather Ross is one I saw a while ago and it was just love at first sight.

One-Yard Wonders looks like it will be packed with lots of great projects. Plus they're all one-yard or less which means light on the pocket book! 

I know, who says pocket book these days? It just sounded good in the sentence to me...

I've heard that Bend-the-Rules Sewing by Amy Karol is great for beginner sewers and it sounds like it helps you think outside the box. This may need to be the first one I get...

I heard about Anna Maria Horner's book, Seams to Me, from The Cottage Home. She had this post back in August of her favorite sewing books. I was excited to see that the ones I have been wanting were on her list! I read her description of this one and thought it should be on my list too.

This next one, Crafting a Meaningful Home, isn't a sewing book obviously but I love projects for the home so I just had to include it!

You may notice they're all pretty books...I must admit...I judge books by their cover.

But I read ugly books too :)

Like I'm reading Untamed right now. Ugly book but great content!

Another thing, I'm starting my first quilt ever this weekend and thought it might be fun to blog about the journey, so look for that coming soon :) very excited to get started!

Director's Chair Tutorial

Kyle and I got this lovely chair from friends who cleaned out their attic. They had left a bunch of stuff on their carport for people to just come by and pick up. Kyle actually picked this baby up out of their trash pile ha :) It needed a little working on as you can see from the picture below (crack in one of the legs and missing back panel). Kyle thought this chair would be perfect in his office so he picked out the fabric for it on our amazing Hancock trip. He picked this blue Moda Home Dec Fabric pictured above.

So here was our revamp process:

Use Liquid Nails (or a similar adhesive) and glue the broken pieces.

To help it set tight tie a rope around it and let it set for 24 hours.

We hammered in two nails to make the leg even stronger after the glue set.

Of course you may not have to do this step if you are working with a chair that isn't broken.

When picking your fabric choose a strong fabric, home dec weight preferably.

To make your new seat use the seat you already have as a pattern.

Measure length and width (the fabric we were using was already the correct length)

Your seat should be double layered for extra durability and support so cut a piece of fabric that

is twice as long as the length. Also keep in mind how stretchy your fabric is, you may

want to cut it just a little bit shorter to make room for that factor.

Once you cut your fabric sew the ends together so you have a loop of fabric.

(Note: I didn't have to hem the length raw edges because my fabric was already the correct width and came hemmed,

if yours is not though you should hem raw edges before you sew the ends together to form your loop)

 

These wooden pieces are what goes in the side of our chair to make the seat stay in place.

Put the pieces in the edge of your fabric and mark with pins where you need to sew for the correct fit.

Once you have sewn your seat and placed the wooden pieces in them

put the bottom of your chair together.

Now to the back part of your chair.

Notice the grooves where the back of the seat go. Measure that to see how wide your seat back needs to be. Our seat back was missing but if you have yours you can just measure the width of that like we did with the seat. Also measure length, allow for a double layer and keep in mind stretch of fabric.

Once your fabric is cut, hem the raw edges of the length and sew the two ends together to make a loop. Place on back of chair where it goes. Now mark on the inside of your fabric (because you don't want the markings to be seen on the outside) where you need to stitch to make the places for the back pieces to go through. I ended up making mine about two inches.

Once you sew that and it fits correctly you are almost done.

Either serge or zig zag stitch where all your straight stitches are to make the seat stronger.

Now enjoy your new, comfy seat!

Most importantly, have fun :)

(just had to include this pic, i married the most fun man ha)

Kyle wanted something simple for his office but there are so many directions to go with this project!

I think it would look so cut in a kids room.

Amy Butler
Paradise Garden

Daiwabo House Designer
Elephants in Ivory

For a little girl I would love this print Paradise Garden with the chair spray painted that pink shade at the top (but I also think that would look awesome in my sewing room, I mean our spare room ha). Or for a boy (and girl too!) this grey elephant print would look amazing with a bright yellow chair frame! I mean picture a kid sized director's chair, how cute!! Keeping this in mind for when we have kiddos ha

Or how about this fun Tour Bus print!

That would make a real fun Director's Chair :)

Etsuko Furuya
Tour Bus

I hope this tutorial was helpful, ask me any questions!