Perfect Piping Every Time

I love adding piping to projects. It adds a little extra something to a bag or dress. I've used it for lots of projects, mostly purses (you can see some past projects here, here, here, and here) It's taken me while to figure out how to sew piping without a huge hassle. It takes an extra step, but you won't regret it.  Here are my secrets to get perfect piping every time:

1. Pin the piping to the fabric you are using. In this case it's the contrasting piece of a purse. Match the raw edges. I like to leave a little tail at the ends just in case. 

 2. Sew along the already stitched line of the piping. Sew right on it! You can use a zipper foot, if you have one. Sew all the way around.

3. Check your work to make sure none of the piping stitches show. In this case there was a little section that showed so I placed pins to know where I needed to sew a little bit more. I sewed a little closer for the section between the pins in the righthand picture.

 5. Pin the other piece of fabric right sides together to the fabric and piping. Line up the raw edges. Now flip it over to the back side and sew on top of the stitches you made in step 2. Sewing on top of those stitches ensures that you will not be too far or too close to the piping.

6. Flip right sides out and inspect, fix any areas that might be too far and show the piping seems. Finish your project and enjoy!

Hope this helps anyone struggling with adding piping. 

I'm off to finish my project. It's super cold and windy so Charlie went skiing by himself while Penny and I sew and stay warm. 

Lauren 

The Mrs. Kenney Milkweed Pod Santa Claus Ornament Tutorial

This is my Mrs. Kenney Milkweed Pod Santa Claus Ornament Tutorial. It is named after my 5th grade teacher, Mrs. Kenney, who showed me how to make them.

What you need:

• paint
• paint brushes
• Snow Tech, or other snow like paint.
• milkweed pods (don't say I didn't warn you)
• a surface to paint on
• decorative ribbon
• hot glue gun
  

I usually just pick a whole bunch of milkweed pods and then sort through the good and bad ones once I get home. Good pods for this project are skinny(ish) and still have a rounded appearance. Bad choice pods are flattened, or curved in a funny way.

Steps:
1. Clean out all the fluff from the inside of the pods and clip off the stem.
2. Paint the inside gold, this is optional, I just think it looks nicer.
3. Paint the top part of the pod red like a hat.
4. Paint a cream/skin colored circle (ish) shape under the red, this makes the face.
5. Paint the rest of the pod white. It might take more than one coat.
6. Now the fun part, use your Snow Tech paint and make a band across the bottom of the hat and top of the face, a pompom at the very top of the hat, and a beard and mustache on the face, and two eyebrows. The eyebrows are hard to do but they really make the Santa look more complete, trust me. It's okay if the eyebrows look like Andy Rooney. It is a little tricky to "paint" with this consistency, I used a palette knife, a snazzy oil painting tool, but I am sure the opposite end of a paint brush or even a toothpick would work just fine.
7. Now with some pinkish paint make a mouth, (also optional, some of mine have mouths, some don't), rosy cheeks, and a red button nose.
8. With the tiniest brush you have, or a toothpick, make two black dots for eyes, let dry, then make two even tinier white dots inside the black dots. This part really makes the Santa's come alive.
9. Cut a piece of ribbon or decorative thread, loop and tie, then hot glue to the inside of the milkweed pod at the very top.
10. Hang on your tree and enjoy! Or wrap them up as gifts for your friends and family.
Happy crafting!

Lauren

Wreath Ornament: How To

I've been on an ornament making spree ever since finals ended. I got an idea to make these wreaths with some green felt I had. It was very easy and here is how I did it in case you want to make one for your tree.
Materials:

• Green Felt.
• Scissors and wire cutters or a Leatherman.
• Green wire, I don't know what gauge, but it's thin.
• Ribbon (red).

1. Cut the felt into one inch strips:
2: Cut those strips into squares. They don't need to be perfect, the less perfect the better.
3. Take the wire and poke the tip though the center of the squares. I did it one at a time. Do that until you have enough squares to make a circle. (Charlie said this step was boring, but I find it relaxing.) I didn't use all of the squares, but Charlie did, it just depends on how big or small you want the wreath to be.
4. Make a circle, twist the wire tightly then cut the ends and tuck them down to hide between the squares.
5. Make a bow out of ribbon and sew it onto the wreath. Add a wire ornament hanger and put it on your tree!
I took a break from shoveling snow to do a little photo shoot with the wreaths that Charlie and I have made:
I can't help by sing "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas" when I look a these ornaments.
Merry merry
Lauren!

Tutorial: Making an Apron From a Cloth Napkin

Well I am a few days late on my promise but here is the Tutorial on making a cloth napkin into an apron. I have googled "cloth napkin apron" and found a few results but none are the same type as the one I made, so as far as I know this is an original "pattern". Some of the other patterns were really cool: one was from a dollar store website, another made from two fabric napkins, and here are some aprons I found that are really inspiring.

Materials Needed For Lauren's Cloth Napkin Apron:

1 Cloth Napkin ( I found mine at Reny's for 99 cents.)

1 Cloth dish rag. (this is optional, but it's a great addition, you'll see. I also got this at Reny's for 99 cents.)

3/4 of a yard of matching fabric cut into 5 strips 4 inches in width. (I got my fabric at a specialty store for like $8 a yard, I'm kind of silly that way.)
1. Take 3 strips and sew them into a long strip. This will make the "flounce". Depending on how frilly you want the apron to look you can cut the strips down a little. For a really frilly flounce use 3 whole strips, for a sort of frilly one use a little more than 2 strips, you decide. I used 2 and a half on mine.

2. Sew a hem stitch down one whole side of the long strip:

3. Adjust the setting on the machine to make a large/long stitch about 1/4-1/2 inch from the edge of the fabric. Do so down the entire other length of the strip. Be sure to leave long thread on the ends.

- So just to check at this stage you have a long strip made up of 3 (or 2.5) strips with one length that has been hemmed and on the other long side a large stitch.
4. Take hold of the long edges of the large stitched side and pull. Pull the thread, but don't break it. Pulling the thread will make the fabric bunch up, like so:

5. Now undo the seam from around the entire cloth napkin and iron it down, this gives you more fabric to work with, and gets that pesky fold out of the way. Next mark and cut a rounded edge on the 2 bottom corners of the cloth napkin. I used a plate, I am sure there is some scientific way of doing this, but a plate and a sharpie work great for me.

6. Take the bunched up "flounce" and pin it to three edges of the napkin. This takes some time and requires a lot of pins. Be liberal with the pins. Sew the flounce to the napkin. Be sure you pin and sew the flounce around the 2 rounded edges. I don't have a good picture of that stage, sorry. But this picture shows the bunch flounce pinned to the napkin:

7. Take the dish rag, if you want to include it, and I made a box pleat to make it smaller. I sewed the box pleat on both the top and bottom. Then pin the rag where you want it to go at the top of the apron and sew it in place.
9. Now sew the remaining two strips together, short side together to make a long strip. Take the strip and pin it with the middle seam at about the middle of the top of the apron. Then sew. (See how the seam of the strip is kind of in the middle of the apron? That's what I mean...This leaves a long portion of the strip hanging off on both sides.)
10. Iron over the two edges of the long excess (these will be the ties.) On the top of the strip that is sewn to the apron fold over the top edge.

11. Fold over the two ends, like this:

12. Now fold the strips in half and pin them (seriously, you need to pin) and then sew. You'll need to fold and sew the strip in half over the apron portion as well, just fold it in half and then pin and sew, so you can do all the sewing from one edge to the other.
And then you're done. Tie the apron around your waist and wait for your boyfriend to get home and make diner while you post about how to make an apron on your blog. TA DA:
I find that when I am cooking (ha) more like baking (if that) I don't want to wipe my hand on the apron, so I have to keep finding the dish cloth. Now, problem solved, add a dish rag to a apron and you'll be able to wipe your hands at any moment. I thought that the dish rag was kind of drab compared to the rest of the pretty pretty apron, so I added a heart out of the pretty flounce left overs.

I hope this tutorial makes sense, if you are confused post a confusion comment or email me. If you make the apron following this pattern please give credit where credit is due, and post a link or send me a picture of your creations!

Happy Sewing!

Lauren

How to Make Your own Twill Tape Labels.

I recently spend about five hours making my own labels for my homemade products. I found 2 tutorials online here and here. Now, these tutorials were helpful, yet I still spend a long time figuring it all out. The most confusing part was figuring out how to print a mirror image of what you want the tags to look like. SO I have decided to give my own tutorial on how to make the tags, and hopefully save people time (that is, in case more than 4 people ever start reading my blog). 

Materials you will need:

* Ink Jet printer and Computer with Word

* Iron on Transfer paper

* Twill Tape (can be found at Fabric Stores) I bought 1/2 inch thick.

* Iron

* Hard surface like a wooden cutting board (the Transfer paper info advised me not to use an ironing board) And I put a pillow case folded a few times over the cutting board. 
Step One: The first step is to figure out what you want your labels to look like/say. Then you can fill the page with your logos. I decided to add a tiny picture of thread and a sewing needle. * Make sure the logos are spread far enough apart, on the sides and also below. 

Step Two (The Hard Part): None of the tutorials I found told me how to flip the images, and thus I had to figure it out on my own, I think I did it a round about way but here's how I did it with my Apple and HP printer. 1. With the page filled with your label logos go to "Print", 2. Then click "Preview" this will create a Preview document of the page you'll be printing. 3. With the preview click "Save As" and be sure to click "Format" and save it as a "JPG" (now, I have no idea what that means but it worked) also at this step, Save it with a higher pixel count than is listed, I did 350p. 4. Once it is saved you can "Select All"  go to "Tools" and then select "Flip Horizontal" 5. Pat your self on the back, you did it. 

Step Three: Now you can print out the logos on your transfer paper. Make sure to read the directions and print on the correct side. 

Step Four: Cut the logs out in strips. This is where I realized that I should have left more room in between the logos and had to cut them apart instead of just ironing the strips. 

Step Five: (READ YOUR SPECIFIC TRANSFER DIRECTIONS) With the transfer paper I bought it said not to use an ironing board, but a wooden cutting board covered with a pillow case (make sure to iron the wrinkles out before starting) The directions also said to empty any water out of the iron and adjust it to a setting with no steam. Now you can lay the logo strips onto your twill tape. 
Step Six: Iron for 15-20 seconds. Wait a few seconds before peeling the paper back, or else it might not be cooled down enough and could look bad. Try hold your excitement at bay for an extra 10 seconds before peeling back and reveling your finished product. 
Step Seven: Cut the tags (use good scissors, or else!)
Step Eight: Sew the labels into all of your homemade goods. 

Here is a picture or my first use of the tags. It's the inside of the purse I made for Lorelei. 
I hope this helps other computer illiterate crafters out there. 

Happy Crafting!

Lauren