Category Archives: DIY

Sundays are for Shibori.

A friend of mine attended a shibori dying workshop a couple months ago and has been addicted to shibori ever since. I’d been toying with the idea of working on a shibori quilt or other project, but just never really got my rear in gear. So when he offered to spend a Sunday teaching me about shibori dying and generously sharing his tools, I jumped at the chance!

Ryen already had the indigo all set up and ready to go when we got there, and I didn’t really take enough pictures/notes to make a tutorial, but I thought it’d still be fun to share some of our experiments.

I hunted around online a bit for inspiration before I started and found this pillow from Urban Outfitters. I loved that the fabric was left with a large amount of white space and very little had actually been dyed.

This isn’t really the best photo, but to get the look I was after I started by ironing the fabric into a long accordion. So much ironing.

Next I laid the accordion-folded fabric against a PVC pipe and wrapped it with twine. Once it was all bundled, I smooshed the fabric until it looked as it does in the photo above. With shibori, any of the fabric that is against the pipe or the string will not take the indigo and will stay white. Any fabric that’s smooshed up away from the pipe will take on the indigo dye and end up colored blue.

Who knew that indigo dying could be so time-intensive? Turns out that to get that nice deep dark indigo color, you need to dip the fabric multiple times. The exact number of dips depends on the type of fabric, and natural fibers are required. I was using some nice white Robert Kaufman Kona cotton. You start off by soaking the fabric in water for 20 min; this prevents the dye from bleeding through the bound areas of your fabric. You then cycle your fabric, 20 min in the dye, 20 min drying on the line. Repeat until desired color is achieved. I had two pieces of fabric, one tied to either end of the pipe, so I was just flipping the pipe every 20 min.

I didn’t catch any pictures of it, but when the fabric comes out of the dye bath it’s actually a lime green color. The deep indigo color develops through an oxidation reaction that occurs once the dye is exposed to the air.

This is how my first piece of fabric turned out! Stay tuned to find out what it gets sewn into….

I also brought a long scrap of cotton knit fabric and decided to play with some different techniques and made a sampler scarf.

Ryen had a ton of tools that he’d laid out for us to play with, and I was drawn to the little wooden beads.

I wrapped the fabric around individual beads in clusters of 4-6, and wrapped each cluster with an elastic.

I also tried some popsicle sticks, which I hoped would make stripes, and some plastic furniture coasters held in place with clamps. The tied up cones are a technique known as “kumo” in which the fabric is wrapped around a dowel (or chopstick, in this case) and tied in place using thread or string. Here’s a great example of kumo, that Ryen made:

And here’s how my sampler scarf turned out:

On the left is the pattern that was created by the little wooden bead and elastic clusters. I love it! Very microbial, no? Next to that are the strips created by the popsicle sticks, the kumo twists, and the polk-a-dot pattern on the right was created using the plastic coasters. Since this scarf was made out of a scrap of fabric I had in my stash, there’s a chunk cut out of it on the right. But fear not, I’ve got a plan. So stay tuned for that too!

Anyhoo, that’s all that I dyed, but check out some of the awesome things my friends made!

Ryen used these little wooden leaf cut-outs that he found at the hardware store to make the butterfly effect shown below. I really wish I had taken a picture of Kristy’s finished product using the same technique to show how differently different fabrics take the dye.

Kristy brought some linen that she cut into 20″x20″ squares to make napkins. You can see in the photos below that the dye penetrated the fabric really, really well making clean sharp lines and consistent dye patterns.

Ryen also played with placement of simple patterns and made the tank top below. The stripe is on the back of the tank top so it makes a really cool spinal effect.

And here it is, all our beautiful work hanging on the line! What a way to spend a lazy Sunday…

WIPs and WIIs

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Works in progress and works in imagination. Or maybe they count as in progress if you’ve purchased the materials????

The furthest along project first. I’m working on my first pair of dress pants! Well, okay, not my first ever, but my first since I started sewing seriously again and am trying to do things properly. I’m using some fabric I picked up in the NYC fabric district and an old sewing pattern (Vogue 7301). I’m going to have to improvise some pockets because pants without pockets shouldn’t be allowed to exist, but I’m not worried about that.

And next….a sweater for my nephew. I’ve kinda started making him a sweater a year for Christmas or his birthday (whenever I finish it). Since it’s only been two years I guess that’s not much of a streak but I’m gonna try to keep it going. Can’t give away too much though because I think he’s parents read this blog and I don’t want to give away the surprise. I just hope they appreciate that I made sure to buy washable wool for a toddler sweater (hand washable still counts, right?)….

This final one is still very much in my imagination and still needs to go through its “experimental” phase. I’ve been turning an idea for a quilt over in my head (you can check out my Pinterest board here) that would be some sort of shibori-inspired blue and white quilt with embroidery. So when I was at Walgreen’s and saw some Rit dye calling to me, I remembered I had some old sheets at home that I could practice shibori dying! Yay mess!

And that’s all the projects I’ve got going these days, hopefully I’ll be sharing the finished pants with you sooner than later but I’m finding them oddly intimidating right now…..

DIY Grill Apron: Tutorial

Refashion: Aqua Goodwill Find

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Whenever I’m flipping through the racks at Goodwill I always keep an eye out for fabric that jumps out at me. I thought the aqua and white print on this dress was so cute. There was just one problem……..the dress needed a wee bit of altering.

I liked the overall idea of the dress but, honestly, I just don’t seem to wear my dresses much. So I decided to turn it into a top. I didn’t like where the waistline was hitting me so I thought that was a good place to take out some length.

Knowing my bust would be the most difficult part to fit, I started work on the top of the shirt. I put it on over a tank top and pinned the shirt to the tank in the center and at the side seams to keep it in place, then gathered the fabric on one side of the bust and pinned it.

I carefully took the top off and pinned either side of where the gathers began, then pulled the pin holding the gathers out so the top would lay flat.

I measured the distance between the pins and the distance from the button stance so I could replicate it on the other side and make even bust gathers. I quickly stitched them down to keep them in place while I made some other adjustments.

The original sleeves on the dress gaped open too much and there was still a lot of bulk on the side of the shirt. Once I had the bust darts figured out I put the top back on to figure out how to take in the sleeves.

The arrows are pointing out the pins, not side boob.

I omitted the middle elastic section I had cut out of the shirt and sewed the top portion to the bottom (I had to take in the bottom a little to account for the fabric I took out of the top).

The refashion could have been done at this point, I guess, but I wasn’t satisfied with the fit yet. The sleeves looked funny with my arms down so I took them in along the dotted line I drew in the picture above to produce the sleeve in the photo below:

I also felt like the waist seam was sagging at the side seams and on my back, so I needed to bring that up a bit. I wanted it to be just a wee bit more fitted around the waist too.

The waist seam adjustment left me with some extra fabric that I was able to use to form an elastic casing.

I reused the elastic from the original top and cut it to fit tightly across the back of my new shirt. It did the trick!

I think this will be a great easy-to-wear and easy-to-care-for summer top!

Anyhoo, I’ve got a trip to New York to pack for so for now I’ll just leave you with this series of goofy poses:

Hot Air Balloon Themed Baby Shower Gifts

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For someone who doesn’t have kids I sure spend a lot of time sewing for ’em! I actually really enjoy it. The projects are so small they are easy to finish before I got bored. Most of my friends who’ve had kids live back home in Canada so I usually just make my felt embroidered onesies that are easy to mail back home. But now some of my city friends are pregnant and I’ve gone a little crazy sewing up a hot air balloon themed baby shower gift! The hot air balloons are a totally random theme and I hadn’t meant to go crazy with them, but I just kept sewing! See, it started with the quilt. I was hunting around for a cute gender neutral fabric bundle and fell in love with the Blown Away collection by Josephine Kimberling. I thought the hot air balloon print was the cutest and used that as the backing for the quilt I made, then had a bunch left over. So then I made a onesie to match. And then I thought how perfectly the green matched some left over flannel from my Halloween costume and decided to make some burp cloths. To make the hot air balloon applique I used the same technique I used when I made plaid elbow patches for my husband’s sweater. It looked a little plain so I embroidered some happy puffy clouds around the balloon to add a some interest. The burp cloths are just ~18″x25″ pieces of flannel with a strip of the balloon fabric sewn across the end for some detail. From what I’ve read, people seem to like flannel for burp cloths because it stays in place and is more absorbent than something like quilting cotton. I caught myself getting a bit carried away with these. As I was thinking about making some binding to go all the way around the cloth I remembered; I am sewing something whose sole purpose is to be barfed on. So I reined it in a little and contented myself instead with a nice neat double turned hem all the way around. In my humble opinion, the quilt is the star of this baby bundle! It is my second quilt but my first was a t-shirt quilt. Sewing quilts with actual quilting fabric is soooooo much easier than with knits! I knew I didn’t want a pattern that was too finnicky so I chose this pattern from Two Little Banshees and it came together in two days – one day to cut and sew and one day to bind and quilt! To do the binding I pieced together leftover bits from the quilt front and followed this tutorial for making an invisible joint and mitered corners. It was a really helpful video! I opted for super simple quilting and only had to unpick one extremely wonky row of stitches that was over two inches off from one side of the quilt to the other! I think you can see the quilting better on the back; I hope my friends like hot air balloons!!!!!!!!!

Ele-Fun Refashion (And Blue February Sew Along)!

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So I have this skirt that I never wear but won’t throw away because the fabric is just so cute!

Look how happy I am to be wearing my skirt!

It’s comfy and a nice length but really, really hard to find tops to pair with it. I have both mustard yellow and navy tights that look quite adorable with it but have never been able to find the right top. And so it sits, languishing in my wardrobe, tiny little elephant eyes forlornly begging to see the light….

Well little elephants, your day has come because I have decided to kill two birds with one stone; make a refashion, and participate in my first ever sew along! This month is Blue February which was the final push I needed to actually get started on this project!

Truth be told though, this skirt is actually already a refashion of a dress I bought a couple years ago that was just nowhere near fitting around my bust. But those darn elephants implored “You can find something to make with us!”. Here’s the original dress from ModCloth;

Truth be told I think the original dress was the cutest variation. Sigh…..if only it had fit!

So I guess this is really a refashion of a refashion!

Anyhoo, I started by ripping out the zipper I had carefully sewn into the skirt and removing the waistband (which I saved to use as bias tape later!).

I figured that if I made the skirt into a top it would be way easier to wear because it would look great with a pair of jeans. Easy peasy!

The first time I refashioned the dress into the skirt do you think I saved any of that extra fabric? Nope! So I only had what was in the skirt and unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to cover my shoulders and my tummy at the same time (something I consider a minimum criteria for shirts these days). I went out and bought myself a half yard of navy chiffon for $3 to create a sheer detail across the shoulders of the top I was making.

I used the yoke from a pattern with a nice neckline (my favorite Mathilde blouse), altered it (somewhat successfully) to include sleeves, and used that to make the front and back sheer portion of my new top.

Remember that waistband I saved? I used it to make bias tape to add a fun sleeve detail. Well actually, it wasn’t cut on the bias but it was folded and attached like bias tape. So what is it? Just tape? Hem tape? Oh the things I have to learn…

This was my first time working with chiffon and boy oh boy does it fray, so there is a rolled hem under the bias tape to try to keep everything together. Likewise, all the seams are French seams. This also helps keep things looking pretty since the top is sheer. You can sorta see the French shoulder seem in the photo above and here is a picture of the armpit and back seams.

I toyed with the idea of putting the elephant trim around the neckline too but thought it would be too much. So instead I tried another first – my first rolled hem! Or rather, I watched YouTube videos about how to make a rolled hem and realized I would need to buy a special foot for my machine so then I just kinda did my own thing. But it turned out pretty well and hopefully if I wash it really carefully the fraying will keep to a minimum.

I’m pretty proud of myself for all the first with this shirt;
– first Sew Along
– first refashion
– first time sewing chiffon
– first (sorta) rolled hem

If you exclude the price of the original dress (which I do because I spent that money like three years ago), I spent a grand total of $3 and a couple of hours to have this completely adorable and completely wearable new shirt. Totally worth it in my book!

Tutorial: DIY Baked Clay “Person Planter”!

Tutorial: DIY Thread Organizer

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I don’t know about you, but for the longest time my thread and bobbins have been stashed wherever they fit. In boxes, laying around on my sewing table, in my sewing kit. I was always have to search three or four places to see if I had a certain color of thread.

Now that I have a dedicated sewing space, I decided to build myself a wall hanging (or leaning) thread organizer! It’s not the prettiest thing I’ve ever made but it could be easily prettied up with a coat or two of paint and it sure does the trick!

Materials:

– Hammer
– 2/12″ nails
– 12″ x 36″ board
– measuring tape
– pencil

First thing’s first. I ran into a little trouble hammering nails into knots and wood grains in my board, so try to get as un-knotty a board as possible.

For average thread spools, you’ll want to put nails every 2 inches (more if you’re doing large spools like for sergers). Using your measuring tape and pencil, put a tick mark every 2 inches down both long edges of your board.

Next, match up the tick marks across from each other with your measuring tape and make tick marks going across the board every 2 inches. You should end up with a grid of tick marks, like this;

Can you see my little tick marks?

Next, hammer a nail in at every tick mark, with an upwards slant to the nail. I found it easiest to start at the bottom and work my way up the board.

You’ll end up with what my husband was referring to as my ‘bed of nails’….

And that’s it! In about 30 minutes from start-to-finish, you’re done!!!

I set mine up so that spools of thread hung on every other row. Then, the matching bobbin can hang under each spool making it super easy to see what I’ve got.

The only word of caution I would extend is that if you’re going to hang this on a wall, bear in mind that it is very heavy. I wouldn’t recommend hanging if there are no studs available. I haven’t tried hanging mine yet. Finding studs in my….er……”economically” built apartment can be….sporadic. At best. But even leaning against the wall, this sure beats the pants off what I had going on before!!!

Tutorial: Reusable Gift Tags

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I originally made this tutorial to introduce a new item to my Etsy shop, but my super supportive mother-in-law already purchased the item! So it’ll be a few days before I’ve got more in there. Anyway, without further ado…..a tutorial for making your very own reusable gift tags!

Materials:

– felt (one 9×12 inches makes 6 tags)
– rotary cutter and cutting mat
– thin ribbon (1/8″ width)
– white card stock

I found it easiest to build myself a card stock template to trace onto the felt. I cut each template to be 2″ wide and 9″ long, folded it in half and trimmed the corners then cut a rectangle out of one half. This rectangle cutout will make the window that the card stock will fit into.

I found it was easiest to cut the strip out with a rotary cutter. To cut out the window, I found it easiest to fold the felt in half length wise, trace the window and cut it out with scissors. I also cut a little slit above the window for inserting replacement card stock.

At the end, you should be left with something that looks like this:

Unfortunately, as often happens with me, I got a little engrossed in the process and stopped taking pictures. Whoops! But it’s pretty simple so I think you can follow along without them.

If you want to sew an extra embellishments on the back of the tag, it is best to do it before assembling the tag. I just used a couple bits of scrap felt and sewed them up the center to make a pair of leaves.

If you’re going to add buttons like I did, it’s best to wait and do that at the end. To assemble, just fold the felt in half bringing the tips together. When pinning, insert a folded length of ribbon (about 6-8″) at the point and sew all around the tag as absolutely close to the edge as you can get. I used a contrasting thread for a nice extra bit of detail!

These gift tags are also great to use as ornaments when gifting money! (And could be easily converted into gift card holders if sewn a bit wider)

I thought maybe the adorable pink skull onesie I posted a tutorial for here was making all the little baby boys jealous, so I’ve come up with a little blue skull for them!

I love these things!! Too cute!

In other news, I feel like I’ve been struggling to keep up with crafting and posting lately. I’ve had lots of presents to make that I can’t post because I don’t want to ruin the surprise for the recipients!! BUT. I wanted to let you know that I have exciting crafty news on the horizon that has been taking up a bit of my time. I’m hoping to let you in on the news later this week or next! Squee!