Stepping Thru Crazy: Men's Button-Up Refashion... into Ladies Tank! A few years ago, when the hubby and I lived in Florida (this was pre-kids, so make that 5-ish years...) I bought him a button-up shirt for his work. The deal was that he had to wear blue or white button-ups, so I thought, "Why not both at the same time?" And I got him this:Apparently when he wore it to work, his boss told him he looked like a picnic basket, aaand the shirt was retired to the closet. It was actually really easy to do... let me try once again to tell you how I used a sewing machine... eh.... First things first, I chopped the sleeves off. Then I slipped the shirt on and pinned in the sides so that it fit. I took off the shirt, flipped it inside out and sewed up the sides where my pins were, trimmed off the excess, flipped it rightside out again, and tried it on to make sure it fit. Then I pinned the armholes the way I wanted them... carefully......and sewed them. To secure it in place, I attached a button (cut from the excess shirt) with a needle and white thread.
How to Easily Gather Fabric How to Easily Gather Fabric: A Sewing Tutorial Years ago I learned a really easy way to gather fabric and I wanted to share it with you. For those of you who have sewn for years I know this will be nothing new, but for other this may be a great time saver for you. Gathering fabric is a pretty common task in many, many patterns. The traditional method of gathering fabric has you sew a large strait basting stitch across the fabric and then pull the bobbin side to gather in the fabric. I learned this trick a few years ago from a friend of mine. You will need some cotton crochet thread: Set your sewing machine to a large size zig-zag setting with a long stitch length. Set your presser food on the very edge of the fabric and put the crochet thread between the feet of the presser foot. Now slowly begin to sew a zig-zag stitch with the cotton crochet thread in the center of the stitch. If you are gathering something large then it will be helpful to do the gathering in 2 places. Remove your pins.
Paper-Tape Dress Form David Coffin Photo: David Coffin by David Coffin Barbara Deckert, a dressmaker from Elkridge, Maryland, and author of Sewing for Plus Sizes, uses a form-making method that I've seen in sewing texts from the 1930s: Brown-paper tape from an office-supply store forms a body mold as well as duct tape does, then hardens into "papier-mâché" to become a pinnable form, which you don't even have to stuff. from Threads #75, p.41 <A HREF="
How to Make a Buttonhole Sally from Sew Sally teaches sewing classes in Portland, Oregon and today she teaches us how to create a buttonhole. You can learn more about Sally here. Tomorrow we’ll share buttonhole tutorials for a variety of sewing machine brands (many machines have their own process “quirks”), including the old stand-by bartack approach. With Sally’s help you don’t have to be intimidated by buttonholes! From Sally: The first thing to do is measure the button, to know how big of a buttonhole you will need. The length of the buttonhole should be the diameter of the button PLUS the thickness of the button PLUS 1/8” for wiggle room. If you are using a shank button, measure the diameter and the shank plus 1/8” for wiggle room. Now get your machine set up to sew a buttonhole. Some machines have a hole in the finger of the bobbin case. Be sure to use the correct foot. Begin sewing. Now I’m ready to cut open the buttonhole. Test to see if the button fits! Ready to try a corded buttonhole?
Urban Renewal How to Make Bias Tape Y’all know how much I love bias tape. I’ve been showing you projects with pre-made bias tape, but we all know it’s so much cuter when you make your own. It seems a little complicated, but do it once and you’ll be hooked. Bias tape is great for two things: stabilizing curves and finishing edges. There are two major steps to making bias tape: Cutting Bias Strips and Ironing it into Bias Tape. I’ll give instructions on How to Make Single Fold Bias Tape and Double Fold Bias Tape (and the secrets for doing each step faster than you thought possible) after the jump… How to Make Bias TapeFirst we will cut, then we will iron. Step 1: Cutting Your Bias Strips Bias tape is cut “on the bias” meaning diagonal to the selvedges of the fabric. First let’s figure out how wide our strips should be. Start with 1/2 yard of fabric. Lay it right sides facing straight edges aligned on the other side of the fabric: Sew it in place, so now you have a parallelogram: All righty, we have created our bias strips.
My Kanzashi Hairpin My Kanzashi Hairpin Since I first saw Kanzashi on CraftyPod, I've admired them. They are gorgeous! I assumed, though, that they were difficult to make, so I didn't even add them to my list of crafts to explore. But now that I've had a chance to read the instructions in Kanzashi In Bloom and even make my own, I've found that they are simple and quick to make. I made this cute hairpin in about 15 minutes. These are the five 2-inch squares of fabric I cut to make my flower. These are my folded and trimmed petals. Next you string them on some thread. The hardest part is getting the flower to look right when you tie the thread. I picked a button from the tidbits Ester included in my Specky Surprise. To finish it off, I sewed a bobby pin to the back and stuck it in my hair. Love this post? SEE MORE POSTS ABOUT: other crafts
Installing an Invisible Zipper Zippers can be daunting even for experienced sewers. The reason? Zippers are often installed the wrong way. Lots of seam ripping and swearing ensues, especially when it’s a simple mistake. With this tutorial we cover how to install an invisible zipper. Items Needed: invisible zipperthreadscissorspinsinvisible zipper footzipper footgarment Before we start, take a look at the back of your invisible zipper. 1. zipper tape is usually smaller than 5/8″ 2. place the pins parallel to the zipper 3. 4. sewing slowly helps prevent the fabric from puckering 5. 6. double check your zipper before sewing 7. remember to back stitch at the end of the zipper 8. 9. make sure the seam allowances line up 10. keep your seam line even to avoid puckering 11. 12. And there you have it!
Flat pattern hair band This is probably one of the simplest sewing projects ever, but I made a few miserable prototypes before arriving at it. So to spare you the same frustration: a tutorial! Most hairband patterns I've found involve sewing two pieces of fabric together. However hard I try, I always end up with something wobbly, like this: Topstitching only seems to make it worse, so I'm not even going to show you that. Another delightful thing about this hairband is that it won't mess up your bangs when you put it on, because it can be fastened at the back rather than being pushed back onto your head. First, measure the length of the band. Draw a line for the length, and mark the middle. Cut this pattern out, then trace around it onto another piece of paper. The outer edges are now longer than the middle of the pattern piece; to compensate for the wedge-shaped pieces that have been added to the widest part, take off something similar at the ends. Cut the pattern out of fabric.
Marie Grace Designs: Smocking by Hand... Okay... here we go... let’s smock! This is part 2 of my pleating and smocking tutorial. Part 1, which explains how to hand-pleat fabric, can be found here. Smocking is very simple once you get a few basic rules straight. I appreciate the fact that smocking is functional and that’s really the reason that smocking was developed in the first place but my fascination is in the fact that its beautiful and so versatile and easy! First of all, use a good needle. Let’s look at a basic back stitch. Back stitching is worked from right to left and is called back stitching because it is literally stitched by backing up a step and then moving forward again. and bring the needle tip back out to the front at B... Pull the needle through until the thread sits neatly on the surface of the fabric. The differences between this kind of flat back stitching and smocking are the direction of the work and the fact that smocking is 3 dimensional. Again, we'll use a flat piece of fabric to demonstrate.
Make a t-shirt headband Of all the headbands I've made, I think this is my new favorite. It's like wearing sweats on your head, without the dumpy look. It's so cushy and comfortable! And yes, I am wearing the shirt with the bottom cut off in the picture. Scrounge around for an old t-shirt. Fold in half lengthwise and pin in place. Fold the headband right side out. Make a flower or two and hand stitch it over the seam. The Real Deal: It cost me pretty much nothing. Circle skirt calculator – for the drafting of full, half and 3/4 skirts. With bonus grading worksheet! | The Snug Bug Special Sunday greetings you naked molerats! Since you’re so naked, I thought you might want to make yourselves some nice little circle skirts. And perhaps, like me, you find yourself with little mole rat patterns just a touch on the small side. But the grading of a circle skirt isn’t so easy, is it you naked rodents? Oh no, not so easy at all… OK. Recently I’ve been plotting about two separate circle-skirt related issues in my head. For molerats who are unfamiliar with circle skirts, here’s the difference between the three styles. For a much more interesting comparison, here’s a full circle skirt. {image Whirling Turban} Here’s the oh, so lovely three-quarter circle skirt. And a slightly pixelated half circle skirt… {image Get Go Retro} The other circle-skirt related problem I’ve been mulling over has to do with grading up circle skirts. OK, I admit I usually grade up my circle skirts the ‘wrong’ way. My problem is (hopefully) solved! Okee dokee. Whew! OK! There we have it!
tutorial: how to sew a simple maxi dress The Plan. Fabric. You will be making a maxi dress so buy fabric accordingly. Preparation and Cutting. Sewing. Don’t forget the banana. Instructions for making the rosettes are HERE. 10 Free Tote Bag Patterns and Tutorials Totes make great handmade gifts. Here is a Tuesday Ten that shows a round-up of lovely totes. If you love to sew you might also like these free sewing tutorials right here on Skip to my Lou! Every tote needs a matching pouch. Pleated Zippered Pouch Lined Zippered Pouch 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.