Showing posts with label sewing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sewing. Show all posts

Saturday, February 24, 2024

Sew a Solar Eclipse Bunting from Stash Fabric

 

I originally published this tutorial on Crafting a Green World.

This solar eclipse bunting ensures clear skies for April 8!


Hey, who’s got a sewing machine and a total solar eclipse happening in her literal backyard this Spring?

I mean, maybe you, but DEFINITELY me!

Y’all, I am REVVED UP for this solar eclipse. I have been excited about it for nearly a decade by now, and ESPECIALLY excited about it for the last seven years! I’m going to have a yard full of people, I’ve got enough eclipse glasses for everybody, there will be four different kinds of lemonade on offer, and there will be solar eclipse decorations if I have to sew every single stitch myself.

Which, considering that Party City doesn’t seem to have gotten the memo, I probably will!

My first official decoration is this solar eclipse bunting sewn from upcycled blue jeans and stash fabric. Y’all know how much I love buntings, so this choice shouldn’t surprise you. And thanks to the easy templates I used and my sewing machine’s superpower that is the zigzag stitch, I was able to take this bunting from concept to completion in half an afternoon. Here’s how!

Here’s what I used to make this bunting, but remember that I sewed entirely from my stash. So if you’ve got something different in YOUR stash, go ahead and use what you’ve got!

  • bunting templates. I folded an 8.5″x11″ piece of paper into an isosceles triangle for the pennants, and a wide-mouthed Mason jar lid ring for the suns and moons. For the total eclipse flare, I traced a sun onto the fabric, then drew the flares by hand around it.
  • fabric. I used denim (specifically all-cotton old blue jeans) for the pennants, stash flannel for the suns, and stash Kona cotton for the moons. The eclipse flare is upcycled from an old canvas tote bag.
  • bias tape. Double-fold bias tape is my favorite shortcut for sewing buntings! I buy all my bias tape from Laceking on etsy, but you can DIY this, as well.
  • sewing, cutting, and marking tools. I used my Singer Heavy Duty 4411 and a universal needle for this project, but any sewing machine should be able to handle denim plus a couple of layers of cotton-weight fabric. Sharp fabric scissors are handy for cutting out details in the appliques, and I like my Frixion pens for marking, as they erase with the heat from an iron.

Step 1: Create the templates and cut out all the fabric.


I cut seven pennants out of old blue jeans using the isosceles triangle template that I cut from a piece of 8.5″x11″ paper. Because this piece is decorative, you can even use parts of the jeans with too much wear to reuse otherwise. In the photo above, check out the pennant at the top of the photo–can you see the worn-out knee there? You won’t even notice it in the completed bunting!

To make the suns and moons, I cut six yellow circles and seven black circles using a wide-mouth Mason jar lid ring as my template.


To make that eclipse flare that will be part of the center pennant, I upcycled an old striped canvas tote. I traced the sun template where I wanted the flare to be centered, then traced the pennant around it so that I could hand-draw the flare to fit the pennant.

Step 2: Applique all the Sun pieces.


I put yellow thread in my sewing machine, and set it to a zigzag stitch with a length of 2 and a width of 3. I eyeballed the placement of the suns, laying out all the pennants in a row so I could make sure that they matched, then appliqued them to the pennants.


Appliqueing the flare to the pennant required a bit more finesse, but a confident beginner should be able to do it. Just go slowly and don’t forget to make sure the needle is down when you rotate the fabric.

Step 3: Applique the Moons to the pennants.


I switched out the thread in the sewing machine to black, and went ahead and stitched the moon to the center of the flare, since I knew exactly where it was supposed to be.

To place the rest of the moons, I laid out the entire bunting on the floor so I could eyeball the whole thing at once.


If you’re in the Northern hemisphere for the 2024 eclipse, you’ll be facing South, and the Moon will be coming from the West, so we read this bunting from right to left. The Moon passes across the Sun on a diagonal from top right to bottom left. I placed the Moon pieces on each pennant to mimic the process of the eclipse, roughly trying to make them symmetrical without getting too pedantic about it.

Using the same sewing machine settings, I appliqued all the Moons to the pennants. Notice that the Moon goes off the pennant a few times. I trimmed all that away.

Step 4: Staystitch around the pennants, then add bias tape.


I switched back to yellow thread, then staystitched the perimeter of each pennant flag with a straight stitch at a length of 3. This will keep the denim from fraying beyond where I want it to, as well as stitching down the edges of the moons that I trimmed.

I measured and stitched shut approximately 12″ of bias tape, then started adding the pennants and stitching them into the fold of the bias tape. At the end of the pennants, I continued stitching the bias tape to itself for another 12″, then cut it.

I tied both ends of the bias tape into an overhand knot, and my bunting was finished!


My bunting is already installed over my nicest window. After April 8, there won’t be another total solar eclipse that hits the United States until 2033 (anyone want to meet me in Alaska to watch it?), but instead of putting this bunting into storage until then, I’m kind of thinking that I’ll find another place to install it permanently–perhaps on my porch? It’s too pretty not to look at every day!

P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, books I'm reading, road trips to weird old cemeteries, looming mid-life crisis, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!

Sunday, January 14, 2024

Sew Nesting Fabric Baskets from Stash Fabric

I originally posted this tutorial on Crafting a Green World in 2023.

Nesting fabric baskets make sorting and storing all your stuff super easy!


I’m willing to admit that I have too much stuff. But I mean, everyone has too much stuff, right? Please tell me that we ALL have too many books and mugs and LEGO sets and gel pens and plastic dinosaur figurines and interesting rocks… and they’re all important!

Other than getting rid of some of my stuff–which I am NOT willing to do!–I feel like keeping stuff contained and organized goes a long way towards making my house look only charmingly cluttered. Pile of interesting rocks on the bathroom counter? Put them in a cute fabric basket, and now they’re decorative! Soda can pop tops all over the kitchen table because the teenager “collects” them? That little fabric basket is the new pop top holding area!

Last week, I showed you how to sew a single fabric basket. These nesting fabric baskets sew up just the same, but give you a lot of storage options. Sew a set in the same colorway from the same fabrics, and they’ll all match each other and your decor. Since they nest, they don’t take up a lot of storage space, but when you need them, you’ve got four whole baskets’ worth of storage!

To make a nesting set of four fabric baskets, you will need:

  • five squares of outside fabric for each basket. You’ll need a set of five squares in each of the following dimensions: 6″x6″, 5″x5″, 4″x4″, and 3″x3″. I generally use quilting cotton for this, although I’ve also upcycled some curtain fabric that was definitely some kind of polyester, and it turned out beautifully. The outside fabric for the set of baskets in these photos is an old pair of dress pants.
  • five squares of lining fabric for each basket. You’ll need a set of five squares in each of the following dimensions: 6″x6″, 5″x5″, 4″x4″, and 3″x3″. Quilting cotton is also great for this, and it’s what I’ve used for the linings of these baskets, but I’ve also used old bedsheets or other random yardage in my stash.
  • cutting and sewing supplies. Fancy supplies like a gridded cutting mat, clear gridded quilting ruler, and plastic sewing clips are fun to have, but you can work with any ruler, straight pin, and sharp scissors.

Step 1: Measure and cut the fabric for the four nesting fabric baskets.


For the 6″ basket, cut five 6″x6″ outside pieces and five 6″x6″ inside pieces.

For the 5″ basket, cut five 5″x5″ outside pieces and five 5″x5″ inside pieces.

For the 4″ basket, cut five 4″x4″ outside pieces and five 4″x4″ inside pieces.

For the 3″ basket, cut five 3″x3″ outside pieces and five 3″x3″ inside pieces.

Step 2: Sew the pieces of each basket into a T-shape.


In order to make these baskets look the best, you need to be REALLy precise with your seams here. If you have trouble sewing a perfect seam, consider drawing yourself a sewing line in washable ink.

You will sew each piece with a precise .5″ seam, and you will start and stop precisely .5″ from the end of each edges. I know it’s fiddly, but your baskets will look soooo nice this way!

Check out the photo below, in which I’m sewing one of the cross pieces of the T:

Here’s a zoomed-in view of where I stopped my needle:

Those precise .5″ seams allow you to use the stitching lines as your starting and stopping points for the cross pieces.

Step 3: Sew adjacent sides together to form a cube with an open top.


Sew each adjacent side together, again with a .5″ seam allowance. You can start sewing right at the top of each seam, but down at the corners, stop again .5″ from the end.

If you’ve been really precise sewing your T, you will see exactly where to stop stitching, because that’s where all the stitch lines will meet. If you overshot on a piece or two, though, just snip the stitches that went too far:

Just snip the couple of stiches that you overshot by, and you're good to go!


Step 4: Insert the lining into the outer fabric and sew a fold-over binding.


Turn the outside basket right side out, but leave the inside basket inside out. Insert the inside basket into the outside basket, and line up all the corners and side seams.

Fold the top edges down twice, so that the raw edge is encased. Pin or clip the fold in place:

Edge stitch around the binding to secure it. It gets trickier the smaller the basket is!

That’s one of the reasons why 3″x3″ is about the smallest you can go.

Look how fiddly that 3"x3" basket is to finish!

I especially love how great these baskets are for sorting projects in progress, like toys, puzzle pieces, and sewing supplies while I work. And when they’re not needed, they look so neat and tidy nested together!

These basket sets are a great stashbusting project, because you can make a set or two for every room. I used up that entire pair of dress pants making cute, useful fabric baskets for my house. My stash fabric bin is thrilled!

P.S. Want to follow along with my unfinished craft projects, books I'm reading, cute photos of the cats, high school chemistry labs, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!

Sunday, January 7, 2024

How to Make the Easiest Sewn Fabric Baskets

If you have enough fabric baskets to hold all your stuff, then obviously you don’t have too much stuff!


So what if my solution to my minor tendency to hoard interesting rocks, empty thread spools, soda can pull tabs, and pretty matchbooks is just to toss them into these beautiful sewn fabric baskets? The stuff is out of the way, attractively stored, and if one day you really need me to make you some pull tab chainmail, I will be able to get right to it!

These fabric baskets are purposefully a bit on the droopy side, because I don’t like to sew with artificial materials like interfacing. A little interfacing or even cereal box cardboard would firm them up, though, if you prefer that look. I like my baskets to look as slouchy as I am!

To make these baskets, then, you won’t need interfacing, but you WILL need the following:

  • five 6″ squares of outside fabric. I generally use quilting cotton for this, although I’ve also upcycled some curtain fabric that was definitely some kind of polyester, and it turned out beautifully.
  • five 6″ squares of lining fabric. Quilting cotton is also great for this, but I’ve also used old bedsheets or other random yardage in my stash.
  • cutting and sewing supplies. I know it’s just one more thing to buy, but I finally gave in and bought myself some of those plastic sewing clips that are on trend. I’m not as obsessed with them as TikTok, is, and they’re a lot less eco-friendly than the steel pins that were good enough for your granny, but I WILL say that I never again want to sew binding without them!

Step 1: Cut the outside and the lining fabric.


Cut five pieces of fabric that are 6″ square for the outside of the basket, and another five pieces for the inside. Arrange your pieces like this:

If you’ve ever in your life done any math, then right now you’re asking me why you have to cut five different squares of fabric for these baskets, when obviously you could just cut one piece of fabric three times that length and save yourself sewing two seams.

The answer is that 1) I own a 6″x12″ gridded quilting ruler that I’m obsessed with and all I do all day is think of things to cut that are 6″ or 12″, and 2) the seams help the basket have crisper edges. If you want to save yourself a couple of seams I won’t stop you, but your basket won’t look as cute.

Also, if you’re sewing a print fabric, like my pink one in the finished photos, you can rotate each piece so that its aligned in the proper direction before you sew it. No upside-down prints on YOUR baskets!

Step 2: Sew the pieces into a T-shape.


In order to make these baskets look the best, you need to be REALLy precise with your seams here. If you have trouble sewing a perfect seam, consider drawing yourself a sewing line in washable ink.

You will sew each piece with a precise .5″ seam, and you will start and stop precisely .5″ from the end of each edges. I know it’s fiddly, but your baskets will look soooo nice this way!

Ironing each seam open also really helps you sew precise seams on those cross-pieces. In the photo below, the stitching line is my starting point for sewing a cross-piece. At the end of the seam, the other stitching line is my stopping point!

Do this for both the outside fabric and the lining fabric, until you have two perfect T pieces.

Step 3: Sew adjacent sides together to form a cube with an open top.


Sew each adjacent side together, again with a .5″ seam allowance. You can start sewing right at the top of each seam, but down at the corners, stop again .5″ from the end. If you’ve been really precise sewing your T, you will see exactly where to stop stitching, because that’s where all the stitch lines will meet. If you overshot on a piece or two, though, just snip the stitches that went too far.

Step 4: Insert the lining into the outer fabric and sew a fold-over binding.


Insert the lining fabric into the outer fabric, wrong sides together. Make sure the corners match and that the seams are lined up.

Fold the top of the lining and the outer fabric over twice, so that the raw edges of both pieces are enclosed. Two .25″ folds will give you a perfectly square basket, but feel free to fold them over more if you’d like a shallower basket and a wider binding.

Pin the binding well with the pin or clip of your choice!

Edge stitch the binding in place.

These sewn fabric baskets are so quick to make that they’re an easy way to give some handmade love to your loved ones. Every now and then I’ll surprise one of my teenagers with a new little basket that matches their room decor, and that homemade matching game that I made a few weeks ago was lovingly packed into its own little fabric storage basket when I sent it to my niece.

The most important use of the fabric baskets, though?

Holding all my pull tabs, empty thread spools, interesting rocks, and best bits of sea glass, of course!

P.S. Want to follow along with my unfinished craft projects, books I'm reading, cute photos of the cats, high school chemistry labs, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!

Tuesday, December 26, 2023

I Finished the Wool Felt Moveable Alphabet (and the Dolch Sight Word Cards!)

 

Once upon a time, waaaay back in January 2023, Past Julie thought, "Ooh, I have the perfect idea for a cute Christmas gift for my niece! I'll hand-sew her a moveable alphabet out of the rest of my stash of wool felt. I'll just sew, like, one letter a week and she'll have SO many letters by Christmas!"

June 2023 rolled around, and Past Julie thought, "Hmm, no big deal. I'll just start stitching a couple of letters a week."

During the October meeting of my mending group, I happily cut out letters and burbled to my fellow menders that "I just need to sew one a day and they'll be done in plenty of time before Christmas!"

During the November meeting, I said, a little more grimly, "Just two a day and I can squeak them into the mail just in time for Christmas."

Those last couple of days in December, it was more like six a day while binge-watching Chicago Med DVDs, but look at the glorious result!


I am SO pleased with them! 

Here's a rooster for size comparison, because the entire flock could not get it out of their heads that these colorful nuggets were perhaps made of delicious chicken food:


My favorite part of this project is that even though yes, it took a lot of me-hours to accomplish, the materials are ENTIRELY stash!


The felt is a really nice merino wool felt that I bought long ago for projects with my own kids (it's this exact set, but I bought 8"x10" cuts instead of the 4"x6" cuts shown here). I blanket stitched the letters with basic-grade Amazon embroidery floss and I stuffed each letter with snips of that same felt, and won my own personal game of wool felt chicken because after the very last letter was stuffed, I had less than a handful of little wool felt snippies left. 

I even had all the colors left! I managed a complete rainbow to start the set--


--and also had enough grey, brown, black, and white to make a nice variety and multiples of every letter (except for X and Q, ahem):


My partner handled creating all the Dolch sight words in the same font and size, and I backed each one in pretty paper and laminated it so my niece can use them as templates to make words with the wool felt letters:


Wool felt has such a lovely feel, though, and the colors are so pretty, that I'm hoping that the letters alone are a fun sensory experience. Sensory experiences build intrinsic knowledge and increase one's love for a topic.

It's clear that the chickens, at least, appreciate the sensory appeal!


Even though this project took a loooong time, it was not hard at all, and I actually would recommend it as a beginner-level hand-sewing project for absolutely anyone. Over Thanksgiving break my college kid sewed a perfectly acceptable "I" after about five seconds of instruction, and it's now mixed in there somewhere with the rest of the letters, completely indistinguishable from the lot (well, *I* can distinguish it, but definitely nobody else could)...


Best. Christmas. Yet. Now, to figure out something even more unwieldy to make for next year!

P.S. Want to follow along with my unfinished craft projects, books I'm reading, cute photos of the cats, high school chemistry labs, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!

Monday, December 18, 2023

Mending at the Library in Mid-December

 

Every month, my mending group volunteers at the library for one afternoon, mending whatever people bring in.

Sometimes, we do send people away--like, we can't resole shoes or anything--and sometimes we'll tell them something to buy and come back with next month, like if they need a very specific zipper or something, but the group actually has a pretty big stock of bits and bobs and notions and fabrics, so mostly people can walk in with a damaged piece and walk out with it mended. 

To be honest, I didn't attend this latest Mending Day expecting to mend anything; I'd hoped I could set up at a table in the back, just happen to let all the patrons wander over to someone else, and spend four hours sewing my Girl Scout troop's Elf Project stocking and the wool felt moveable alphabet for my niece's Christmas present.

Well, I did get the stocking sewn!


After that, I had time to take about one stitch in my next felt letter, and then I was too busy actually mending things to pick it up again.

Our group has a regular monthly clientele of older single men who bring us their mending every month, which... fair and valid! I'd totally do the same! So I mended a couple of tiny holes in a sweatshirt and a hoodie, then let the patron borrow my needle and thread and talked him through mending the rest while I sewed up a rip in a pair of fleece pants and another in a sheet. For my own mending, I like to stitch only, with no interfacing allowed to muck up my sensory experience. But for this mending, another volunteer taught me how to use tricot interfacing, which comes in both white and black for matching purposes, and stabilizing the fabric DID make the sewing go a LOT more quickly!

Then a librarian from a different branch came in to ask about the possibility of the group mentoring teen learn-to-sew programs. I am VERY interested in that, so we spoke for a while and hopefully next year, I'll find myself sewing with teenagers.

Then I sewed up a very fiddly rip in a very fiddly open-weave decorative pillowcase, using even more tricot and a bunch of stitching lines across the rip to ideally stabilize the fraying seams so that I don't see this patron again in January to mend that same rip again.

Near the end of our session, a patron came in wanting us to sew up a rip in his pocket. The only problem? He was literally wearing those pants right then...

His marching orders were to come back in January, with the pants washed, dried, and NOT on his body.

P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, books I'm reading, dog-walking mishaps, road trips, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!

Thursday, December 14, 2023

December WIPs: Grapefruit, Cinnamon, Wool Felt, and College Application Essays

Nutcracker is finished, and Christmas is on the horizon! 

Here's what I'm currently working on, trying to finish, or at least determinedly not abandoning:

SUCCESSES


Look at that Mouse King army, all sewn and stuffed, labeled with ribbons that read "Team Mouse 2023," and ready to be wrapped and handed off to a corps of little mouselings!

I sewed these mini Mouse King stuffies from the Nutcracker stuffies fabric that my teenager designed a couple of years ago. I also sewed a complete set of the mini stuffies for the teenager so she could hang them on our Christmas tree... but it turns out that the performance casting document that the ballet department sent out to the parents omitted one kid's name from the Mouse corps, and therefore I was short exactly one Mouse King!

Obviously, the solution was to give that kid my own kid's ornament, lol.

So technically this remains a WIP, as my own teenager's set is short a Mouse King until I upload a fabric panel to Spoonflower that's all Mouse Kings, have it printed and sent to me, and then re-sew that stuffie for her. That's an AFTER Christmas project for Future Julie to enjoy...

Also in the realm of Still-But-Not-Really-A-WIP is the stocking that I sewed for my Girl Scout troop's Elf Project kid. I managed to sew it start to finish during my mending group's monthly Mending Day at our local public library--


--then the next day the troop met to wrap all the presents they'd bought for our sponsored kid and stuff this stocking. I just have to run out today and buy a couple last things, have my teenager wrap them, and then I can pack up everything and drop it off for the kid's caregiver to pick up before Christmas.

Also at that meeting, we made a pretty epic version of these gnomes, which required me to score some faux fur remnants from Joann's, dig through my fabric stash for the body and hats and noses, buy five pounds of rice, make a sample project, then walk five Girl Scouts through their own versions. We had to do some on-the-spot trouble-shooting when their bodies came out weird and none of us could figure out why, but eventually five ADORABLE gnomes are now all sitting fat and happy in five Girl Scout homes.

FAILURES

Unsurprisingly, I suppose, after all the extra holiday projects I put on my own plate, most of my November WIPs remain WIPs. I haven't even touched the skull quilt block or the weaving loom or the England travel journal since then. 

That kind of project is what the cozy, relaxed week between Christmas and New Year's Eve is for!

CURRENT WIPS



I called my teenager in to take a process photo of my hands kneading this cinnamon dough for an upcoming tutorial, and while she was at it she also took a photo of me fighting for my life to keep my fuzzy monster foot slippers (I bought these in 2019 and still wear them allll winter every winter!) out of the frame.

These grapefruit slices took a LOT longer to dehydrate than I thought they would. I think I cut them too thick?


My goal is to write tutorials for both of these projects for my next couple of freelance writing pieces, in the process making a nice winter dried grapefruit slice and cinnamon cut-out garland for my kitchen.

Y'all, I only have SIX MORE LETTERS to sew to complete my niece's hand-sewn wool felt moveable alphabet! They are turning out as cute as they can possibly be! I still need to sew a carrying bag, print and laminate some sight word cards to go with the set, write my niece a holiday letter, and then pack and mail it all off to her. Do you think a Saturday mailing is too late to get it to California by Christmas?

Other remaining tasks: finishing up one last handmade-ish Christmas present, keeping an eye out for the last of the family presents to trickle in and then wrapping them, helping/prodding the teenager to finish up college applications and her Gold Award proposal, and picking my college student up from Ohio after she finishes acing all of her final exams. 

After that, it's nothing but cookie baking, movie watching, gingerbread house decorating, and board game playing for the rest of the year. I can't wait!

P.S. Want to follow along with my unfinished craft projects, books I'm reading, cute photos of the cats, high school chemistry labs, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!