Show and Tell: Wowie Zowie

April 13, 2013 by sewfinefabric

Have you seen Daisy Janie’s New Leaf organic cottons? Look what my AMAZING step-mother whipped up!! Wowie Zowie is right!

I LOVE how the colors REALLY pop. Rich magenta, golds, orange, and fuchsias and more! These prints are just begging to be made into a quilt.

I sent my step-mother, Marcia (aka. FoxRunQuilter), this fat quarter bundle. It was outside of her normal color selection but she immediately thought of a pattern called ”Masquerade” from Pressed for Time Quiltworks. She’d worked with it before and told me that the result with this quilt was more satisfying then either of the other two she had made!

I really love to see how quilters take a pattern and give it a completely different look just with their fabric selections. Check out the original—so different then Marcia’s Wowie Zowie version!

The blocks are set on point with setting triangles arranged along the outer edges of the quilt center.

Prairie Points jazz up the inner border and the bold print for the outer border makes the final statement that inspired the quilt’s name: ”Wowie Zowie!”

Have you ever used prairie points? They’re so easy–start with a square and fold it in half twice.

The result? These bright, modern fabrics are perfect together and really brighten up a room! THANK YOU to Marcia for creating and sharing this lovely quilt!

Gotta Love Goop!

April 12, 2013 by sewfinefabric

Goop is one of my all time favorite things to do with kids of any age. I ALWAYS keep ingredients on hand. When my daughter was young I would make it and she would play. Now she’s older, and making it herself is almost more fun then playing with it! Goop is non-toxic, washable and easy to clean up. We have a gluten-free house (daughter and husband have Celiac Disease) so goop takes the place of play dough, which also makes rainy days tolerable for everyone!

The finished product is….interesting. You just have to make it to see for yourself.

What You Need:

2 cups Elmer’s Glue
Food coloring
4 Tbsp. Borax (a type of hand soap)
Warm water
Two bowls

Making the Goop:

1. Bowl one: Mix together 1-1/2 cups of WARM water and Elmer’s Glue. Add in food coloring as desired.

2. Bowl two: Add 1-1/3 cups of WARM water to the borax. Mix (or let the kiddo mix) it around for a bit so the Borax has a chance to dissolve.

3. Pour bowl two, a little at a time (break it into 4-5 pours), into bowl one. This is REALLY the fun part for the kiddos. You can SEE the chemistry taking place.

4. Stir for a while with hands in the bowl. There will be a LOT of extra liquid.

5. Take the mixture out of the bowl and knead it like bread. It will eventually all come together and NO liquid will be dripping around. If it just does NOT, put it in Tupperware or a Ziploc bag and leave it over night.

6. PLAY!

We love to use all of her cooking toys and safety scissors!

What is your favorite Goop play toy? Favorite color?

DIY Shower curtain in about an hour!

April 11, 2013 by sewfinefabric

Embrace in Indian Brown has begging me to use it since it arrived in the shop! I’ve FINALLY found a project for it!

My master bath was pretty outdated and needed a little attention. This spruced it right up!

Typically a shower curtain is 70″ wide. The home dec fabrics I carry in the shop are 56″ wide. I didn’t want to match the print by sewing two panels together to create a 70″ wide curtain. So I got to wondering if I could make a narrower shower curtain out of just 2.25 yards of fabric? Turns out you can!

Pros: Easy to make, affordable, personalized shower curtain!

Cons: The curtain does not have that really flowy look with all the rich folds that a larger curtain would have on a small shower like.

What you need:

2.25-2.5 yards of any home decor fabric (56″ width)
Coordinating thread
Pins
Scissors/rotary cutter
Pen/pencil
Buttonhole foot or buttonhole tutorial.
Button (If you are using the buttonhole foot on the machine. The one I used was 7/8″.)

Making the Curtain

Note: Measure your old curtain and trim fabric length to that measurement plus 6.5″.

1. Fold over one of the long sides of your fabric piece by 1/2″ and press. Fold over another 1/2″ and press again to create a nice finished edge. Pin in place.

2. Repeat on the other long side.

3. For the bottom edge, repeat the process with two changes. Make the first fold 1/2″ as you did on the sides, but make the second fold 1.5″.

4. At the corners, you will want to fold and trim the fabric to create a mittered corner. Here’s how:

Unfold the hems.

Fold the corner in.

Refold the bottom and side hems in on the pressed lines and pin in place.

5. Repeat on the second bottom corner.

6. For the top, fold over 1/2″ for the first fold and 4″ for the next fold. Miter the edges as you did on the bottom edge.

7. Sew around the outer edge of the curtain using a 1/4″ seam allowance, securing the hemmed edges and the mitered corners. Sew the top seam 1/4″ from the large fold.

8. Mark the location of where the bottom holes will be placed on the FRONT of the curtain with a pen/pencil .* Use the shower curtain liner as a guide. **

9. Sew button holes*** on the RIGHT SIDE or FRONT of the shower curtain.

10. Press and hang it up to admire your hard work!

*Learn from my mistake: I marked the BACK of my curtain. Sewed the button holes with the WRONG side of the curtain UP. The FRONT of the curtain ended up with the BACK of the button hole.

** Again, a tip: I used the OLD shower curtain as my guide originally and when I went to hang it I realized they did not match up and COULD NOT make it work. I had to rip them out and redo them. You do NOT want to make that mistake!

*** My machine has a buttonhole foot and a button I push to make the magic happen! I was afraid of it until I read the manual and realized it was SUPER EASY. Give it a try! With that said I did not always have a fancy machine and I did learn how to make these on my own. They really are not that hard. I promise! I would practice a few times on scraps either way before taking it to the curtain. Be brave!

My new curtain makes me smile every time I see it! Do you have a bathroom in your house that could use some freshening?

April Sew Along: Cutting!

April 11, 2013 by sewfinefabric

Hey all! I’m getting started on the Biggie Bag for the April Sew Along and thought I would share my measurements for cuts to get you motivated! I’m using these two fabrics:

Nicole in Indigo Laken for the outer bag.

And this really wonderful home dec weight linen for the lining.

Here are the measurements I’m using:

So now you can get it cut. I will start sewing mine this evening!!

Have you picked your fabric yet?

Show and Tell: Simply Dogs Quilt by FoxRunQuilter

April 10, 2013 by sewfinefabric

“Show and Tell” is brought to us today courtesy of my most wonderful step-mother, Marcia. She’s the creative MASTERMIND behind FoxRunQuilter! I’m ALWAYS amazed at what she can create.

Maria was generous enough to create this darling ‘Simply Dogs’ quilt for us to oogle and the best part is it will be for sale in the shop!! Here she offers her notes and thoughts.

This shop sample quilt was created from the V and Co’s Simply Color collection. The quilt is a charm square pattern, but can be done with yardage also. The inspiration came from the “Nickel Dogs” pattern from Me and My Sister Designs. I used only 20 of the suggested 36 dog blocks, so in the end it measured 32″ x 43″. I used 100% cotton, white batting. Besides the Simply Color collection, I used white muslin as the background and Green Eggs Ovals for the backing which came from the Dr. Seuss line.

I started with a charm pack of 5″ squares to make the dog blocks. I used Green Ombre for the sashing, using the darker shades on the bottom and the lighter as it goes up the rows. The borders are 4.25″ and 4.5″ wide and are from the Metro Ombre Dots, manipulated while cutting to obtain this effect.

I stitched on small buttons for the eyes, so this quilt would best be used as a wall quilt, for older children or adults. It has a hanging sleeve on the back.

You can find this quilt here in the shop.

Thank you again Marcia for sharing!

April Sew Along – Yoga Mat Bags TWO Ways

April 9, 2013 by sewfinefabric

April included Spring Break for those of us with kids, which means that life was a bit hectic to start the month! Personally, I wasn’t ready to tackle another large-scale project quite yet. My hope is to use the last two months of school to maximize my time behind the machine with all the small projects I’d like to get done before summer sincerely arrives!

SO….April will have TWO sew alongs!

April Sew Along Week 1-2 is this yoga mat tote bag.

I’ve made many of these and modified the tutorial a bit to achieve this result.

I’ll be sharing my changes to create two different customizing options in addition to the original tutorial!

We will be making the tote bag this week and next so start thinking about fabrics! This bag is quite large, so it’s a great place to show off large prints.

Sew Level: EASY.

It should take just 1-2 hours of your time depending on your skill level.

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Week 3-4 of the Sew Along will be this free yoga bag tutorial from Amy Butler. Thanks Amy!! This little guy has been on my to do list for quite a while now.

Because the project is quick (and hopefully easy) I’ll add in a few other quick tutorials for eye pillows to go along with your new yoga mat bags!

Just think how Zen you will feel when it’s all complete!

If you have time for one more this month, you can try this reversible tote:

or this sleeve for your iPad or Kindle!

Each take about an hour.

Which will you sew along with?

Peaked My Pinterest

April 8, 2013 by sewfinefabric

This past week hanging out with my favorite six year old and her buddies reminded me how FUN it can be to have time to play and explore without the schedules of school! The weather finally warmed up today, enough for us to get OUT, take a walk and even have dinner alfresco (without a jacket!)!! Amazing!

Dressing for warm weather reminded me we don’t have enough Spring/Summer attire for the growing girl. When I went looking for inspiration I found this lovely pattern. Oh the possiblites!

http://pinterest.com/pin/186829084514271979/

This week my on again/off again yoga group will be on again, which makes me want to make a new one of these.

http://pinterest.com/pin/186829084514266620

And during break the kiddo and I did a project like this which I’ll show you later in the week. SO fun!

http://pinterest.com/pin/186829084514253996/

Have a wonderful week!

Fabric Friday: Organic New Leaf Trio!

April 5, 2013 by sewfinefabric

Just in time for spring break, the sun has come out and it finally feels like there is light at the end of the winter tunnel here in the Northeast!

The organic New Leaf collection by Daisy Janie is bright, cheerful and exotic; perfect for a spring or summer project!

I’ll be posting two projects using this collection in the following weeks, so keep an eye out to see these prints in action!

Rhapsody in Lemon

Fantail in Lemon

Floret in Lemon

Enjoy!

Rainbow Stitch Skirt!

April 2, 2013 by sewfinefabric

I don’t know about you, but I rarely use any of the gazillion decorative stitches on my machine. I had pinned this long ago and thought it would make a lovely hem!

Finding just the right one was a fun mommy/daughter project. At almost seven, I trust my daughter to use the machine by herself now, so she scrolled through all the stitches and tried out a few dozen of them on scraps.

It was one of those perfect afternoons where we were both in craft bliss at the same time! Several times she declared that sewing was FUN! My heart sang! Like many of you, my mother taught me to sew, inspired me to create and encouraged me along the way. With my mother now gone, I only hope I can teach my daughter to have the same courage to try new things and experiment as my mother did so well for me.

In the end we settled on this one.

Here’s my model taking it for a spin!