Pincushion Tutorial......

....after my long break for the holidays. I didn't mean to be away so long but everything just piled up on me!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and that you are still enjoying the holiday season.

I thought I would show you the things that I meant to post before Christmas....like the pincushion that I made for our "Clothesline Club" Christmas party. We decided to have an exchange and bring potluck.

....here are the pics of my pincushion that I made to exchange.....

I had about 2 hours to make one, so I grabbed my container of leftover 1" strips (I save the leftovers just for small projects like this) and stitched 12 of them together. I then trimmed my strips that I had sewn together to a 6 1/2" square.

Do you remember when I showed you how I have been making cake plates from vintage finds? Well....I decided to make a tiny cake plate for this pincushion....as we know....everything looks better on a cake plate!

I chose 3 ric-racs out of my stash....a large white chenille.....

a medium brown velvet (from Riley Blake).....

and a small green.
I topstitched the ric-rac onto the 6 1/2" square with matching thread...I stitched the white ric-rac about 1 1/2" from the edge...
then added the brown ....and last..... the green.

I really like how the three different textures, colors and sizes of the ric-rac went well together.

Remember this wool /felt that I showed you on a previous post? I bought it at Material Girls while shopping with my BFF Nanette. Don't you just love the luscious colors?

I wanted to add even more texture to my pincushion...so I cut a 6 1/2" square of the light brown for the back and stitched it to the front of the pincushion with a 1/4" seam...(right sides together)
....I left an opening to turn.

I used a funnel to fill the pincushin about half full with silica sand for weight. Silica sand is used in tilework and sandblasting and probably more...I just don't know what...(other than filling pincushions of course!) You can get it at the hardware store, although I get mine from Mr. Honey. He uses it at work for sandblasting.

I cut into more of the wool/felt to make a flower and leaves for the top corner of my pincushion. It's fast and easy...no fraying of the edges of the wool/felt.

I cut 3 circles....these are approximate measurements....red-3"....brown-1 3/4"....white-1 1/4".

I then cut a flower with curved edge petals out of the red circle and a flower with squared edge petals out of the white circle.
I cut 2 leaves out of the green. I stitched veins on the leaves with 3 strands of floss....then I layered everything and stitched them together from the back. I added a blue button in the center of the white flower.

I stitched the flower and leaves to the pincuchion top...hiding my stitches behind the flower.

I stuck a few of Kassidy's heart pins into the pincushion....they look cute in there!

Then I added some ribbon and tule around the pedestal of the mini cake stand after the glue had completely cured.

It's all complete and ready to wrap up for the exchange....

I added a homemade card to wish the recipient of my pincushion a Merry Christmas.

Stay tuned tomorrow for pics of the pincushion exchange.....

Fabric Bookmark Tutorial...

Kassidy wanted to make some bookmarks for her friends...on our "Sew Night" last Wednesday, she went through her basket of fabrics that she has been collecting and chose some fun prints that she thought would make cute bookmarks. This is a great way to make use out of leftover 2 1/2" strips or try using leftovers from a favorite jelly roll project.
if you want to make some, this is how we did it....
You will also need
pinking shears,
Pellon that is fusible on one side,
Ribbon to match fabric.

You will use 2 fabrics , one for the front of the bookmark and one for the back and 2 pieces of pellon for each bookmark. Cut them all 2 1/2" x 7" long.
Also cut wider ribbon about 3" long and narrow ribbon 2 1/2" long.

Press the pellon onto the wrong side of both the front and the back of bookmark fabric.

Place them Pellon sides together.

Trim the TOP ONLY of the front and back of bookmark while sandwiched. Trim with pinking shears. You will only be able to do this step now before you insert ribbon between them and before stitching edges.

Layer the narrow ribbon on the wider ribbon with the bottom edges even. Center ribbon layers about 1" down on the pellon side of bookmark back.

Place the bookmark front over ribbon and bookmark back and pin into place. Make sure that your pin goes through the ribbon to hold it into place while stitching.

Also pin the back and front of bookmark together at the bottom.

Here is Kassidy stitching the front and back together....she used the edge of the zipper foot as a guide for her seam allowance which is slightly larger than 1/4".

This is what the front looks like when stitching is complete.

This is the back.

Now trim the remaining three edges of the bookmark with pinking shears.

Fabric all trimmed .....

Now trim the ribbon.......

Bookmark complete! Easy peasy...fast & fun...what's not to like?

A cute gift for all. Tuck inside a fabulous book or even coordinate fabric to go with the book style or content....

Here are the bookmarks that Kassidy made .....she made 2 out of each fabric combo for a total of 10.

The following pics are the back and front of each bookmark.

Kassidy and I hope you have fun on your "Sew Night" with these quick little bookmarks....... if you decide to give them a whirl!

Kitchen Dishtowel Tutorial...

About a month ago, I picked up some kitchen cloths on clearance at Ross. They came in a 6-pac and were marked 4.00. I thoght they had a nice weave and they are oversized, they were actually marked as resteraunt cleaning cloths. I needed new kitchen towels, but I decided to give them a little personality. I cut 3 1/2 " x WOF twice for each towel, and bound the edges just like a quilt except I used a zig-zag stitch.
I used 30's fabrics to match the decor in my kitchen. They were a really fast and fun project. Last week Nanette posted about her cute dishcloths she made and also did a wonderful tutorial. I need to find me some of that great waffle weave and make a few of those also. They look fun.

I used 5 different fabrics for 5 of the towels and used the leftover strips joined together for the last one. I kind of like the scrappy look. I think I'll go look for more already finished towels for a good price and make more of these for both of my Mom's for Mothers Day.

This is how they look laid out flat. They're pretty big, measuring about 14' x 16" each. A nice size.

Here are the tissue holders that Kassidy made on this weeks Wednesday sew night. They're for my sisters and her cousin Angela. She is giving them at my Grandma's luncheon today.

I thought I would show you something else Kass made on sew night. Ties for her hair or belts for her jeans.

We went to Material Girls and picked out 12 fabrics. I cut them 4 1/2" x WOF and ironed them RST and drew an angled stitching line on each end for her to follow. Then she stitched each one closed, leaving an opening for turning and top stitched them after turning and ironing.

And here they are, easy-peasy and a really fun way to play with fabric!