The cold weather is starting to creep into the south and that means scarf season. The Sewing Loft has a great round up of over 100 easy to make scarf patterns to help keep you warm this season. Be sure to pick out a few favorites and update your closet today.
Half Square Triangles Cheat Sheet
If you like the look of quilting, you’ll love HST’s.
With a few simple tricks, these little squares of goodness are a snap to make and The Sewing Loft has broken it down for us. Learn different techniques to make half square triangles fast and accurately. Just think of all the ways you can use up leftover fabric scraps with these pretties.
How To Create the PERFECT FABRIC!
Can’t find the fabric you want ANYWHERE? You can design your own! Here are a bunch of fantastic tutorials for filling the void yourself, based on how you want to go about making it. Digital prints, hand printing, hand painting and dye are all options for getting exactly what you want in a design. You can also save a bundle on by choosing an inexpensive base fabric and customizing yourself. The sky’s the limit!
Check out these resources with step-by-step tutorials:
- Print your own fabric with a digital design via Spoonflower – useful for both fabric and for labels and especially easy if you decide you want to create a LOT of it or tweak a design
- Create your own design withyour own custom block prints
- Use pre-made blocks and tape to make a striped print
- You can also block print with bleach by creating your own stamp pad and stamping a darker fabric
- You can dye fabric with ice for fantastic results
- Or tie dye with the Shibori method to get a more geometric effect
- Paint your own material with a watercolor effect
- Use a combination of paint and markers to create your fabric, especially fun for a collaborative project
Have you found other tips and tutorials that helped you? We’d love to hear about them in the comments!
Body Measurement Worksheet
It is SO important to measure yourself before cutting into your expensive pattern. This worksheet from The Sewing Loft will show you where and how to take each measurement. Plus, the printable sheet makes tracking measurements a breeze. Download the worksheet here and take it with you when shopping for your next pattern.
Hand Sanitizer Jackets!
These Hand Sanitizer Jackets from The Inspired Wren are a great scrap-busting project and the perfect gifts for all the teachers in your life! Get the tutorial for this quick sew and check those teachers off your gift list!
Coloring Skirt DIY How To
Coloring books are all the rage these days and you can find fun pages everywhere but how about a coloring skirt?
This fabulous idea comes from Crafterhours and think that any little girl would love to grab the markers and start doodling! The post will show you how to transform one yard of this super cool fabric into 3 easy to wear skirts.
Easy Placemats for the holidays
The holidays are around the corner and in my world, that means company. Now, I like to set a nice table just like the rest of us but never seem to find the linens that I love.
With the help of this how to make a placemat project, I can easily pick out matching fabric and transform my table-scape into a fantastic spread for all to admire! Think Martha people… these easy placemats are that good!
Simple Seasonal Appliqué
Even if you only have the most basic of sewing tools, you can still create stunning, bold seasonal appliqué with these tips. Don’t fret if you don’t have an embroidery machine or any iron-on transfer paper, simply head to your local fabric store (or dive into your scrap bin) and load up on large-print cottons –think Fall, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and beyond! Then click over to Maybe She Made It for the full Simple Seasonal Appliqué tutorial.
Printing PDF Sewing Patterns
Have you stayed away from the recent Indie sewing pattern trend because printing PDF patterns makes you nervous? Click through for a fabulous video guide put together by Melissa of Melly Sews. She takes you step-by-step through the process and answers all of your burning questions about how to get the best results when printing PDF sewing patterns.
Tricky Sewing Words
These days so many of us learn to sew by reading blogs, tutorials and patterns. Many of us sew for fun but don’t have formal training and don’t have people we talk to about sewing. So we may recognize tricky sewing words and know what they mean — but how to say them? Not necessarily!
We’ve asked some of our favorite bloggers to help put together some clips of commonly mispronounced sewing words. Enjoy this, and then READ ON for how to pronounce these words correctly!
Hear how to say these commonly mispronounced sewing words! Click the box above or the links below!
appliquè armscye batiste chambray crepe de chine grosgrain jacquard
lamè muslin ombré panne ponte ruching selvage
sequins sew shirring toile tulle voile (and a special CELEBRITY APPEARANCE!)