fabric flower corsage tutorial

The crocuses & daffodils came up this week! Spring begins next week. Easter is around the corner. It's time for flowers! I thought I'd share with you how I make my fabric flower corsages. They are lovely as an embellishment on a dress, hat, or cardigan. Nobody else does it quite like I do...

To make this fabric flower corsage, you will need:

• 3/4 yard fabric
• paper to make pattern
• serger
• regular sewing machine
• Fray Check
• needle & thread
• Strong glue like Gutterman HT2 textile glue
• 25mm brooch saftey pin

Begin with drafting this simple pattern.

Cutting on the bias uses more fabric, but gives the flower a wavy effect. It also looks really nice if you use a plaid or check.

Using a serger set to "rolled edge" makes a lovely finish along the edge. You could also do a tiny rolled hem by hand or using a rolled hem foot on a regular sewing machine.

Fold your edged piece in half lengthwise to define the middle.

Next, set your machine to a long stitch length and run two gather stitch lines, one on each side of the fold, about 1/4" apart.

Pull the back side threads to gather the piece to about 11".

Now keeping wrong sides touching, hold in a folded position to begin the coil.

Secure the begining of the coil with a needle and thread. Continue coiling & tacking in a circle, keeping stitching plane flat.

It will start to look like this on the other side.

This is what I mean by "flat". You don't want it to turn into a cone or it will be hard to attach the pin at the end.

You could attach the pin at this point, but for a neater finish, I like to cover the stitching with a self fabric disc. Cut a 1 1/2" diameter circle out and seal the edges with fray check. Once dry, glue it to the back. I use Gutterman Ceativ HT2 textile glue, but others may work too. It's the glue that all the frame purse makers use.

 Finally, sew on the brooch pin. These are easily found at JoAnn or on Etsy. I prefer the locking kind to the kind with the safety pin action. The safety pin ones are not safe. In fact, for children, I suggest hand sewing the flower on to the item you are embellishing.

Happy Spring!

printing a fabric design on spoonflower

Can I just say how excited I am to be in possession of my first yard of fabric digitally printed with my very own artwork on Spoonflower? It is such a treat to do a design, send it off, and have it in my hands within a week!

When I work for clothing companies, it takes at least 6 weeks for a traditionally printed approval swatch and then another few months for the final yardage. And here's the kicker- a common minimum for traditionally printed fabric is 3000 yards. On Spoonflower, the minimum is 1 yard or a 5" swatch. As a clothing designer, the freedom that this allows is like a door opening wide. It allows a small company to test a print, make up samples, and show to buyers quickly without having to commit to a large run of yardage. With so little investment at stake, there's nothing stopping a designer from experimenting. If you wind up needing mega yardage, digital is probably not the way to go- printing just one yard takes several minutes and the cost is relatively high- but many times you don't need that much and for that, digital is perfect.

And if the low minimum & convenience is not enough, the Spoonflower process is eco-friendly! Traditional printing results in gallons and gallons of excess toxic dye being dumped into the environment at the end of the run. Spoonflower uses dye that is eco-friendly, and because of the nature of the digital printing process, uses only the amount of dye needed for the yardage being printed. AND this all happens relatively nearby in North Carolina, USA as opposed to China or Japan. No airmail necessary! My tree-hugging side is satisfied!

the nitty gritty
When printing through Spoonflower, you will have to submit artwork that is in repeat so your design is seamless. For the general idea of how to do a repeat, this post on Design Sponge gives a good basic idea. For digital printing, you won't be able to make suitable artwork without Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop or something similar. Taking a course in Illustrator was one of the best things I ever did, so I highly recommend it (then you can get the student price on the software which is a plus!).

I like to start with hand-drawn artwork so it will have some spontaneity to it, then scan it into Illustrator, and finish it there. I'm working in an 8" square and black & white knowing I'll increase the scale later and recolor. I just want it to be a manageable size for scanning. I fill the middle of my square with motifs covering a general diamond shape area that comes close to the edges on the points.

Then I open a new file in Illustrator set up the document to have an 8'x8" artboard. I scan in the rough art, resize as necessary, and use "live trace", then "expand" to convert it to vector art. It's important to have the setting "snap to grid" turned on for the next steps. I ungroup the elements and delete the white. I make a new 8" x 8" white background and "send to back" to simplify things. Now I chop art through the middle vertically using the "divide objects below" function. Then I swap the position of the 2 pieces so the middle part of the art is now touching the edges. For a regular repeat, you would do the same thing again, horizontally, so now your artwork is positioned in the corners. I decided to be fancy, though, and do a half-drop repeat, so I only chopped one side horizontally. My design will line up when offset half a step across the width of the fabric.

Once the edges are set up, you can fill in the middle. I scan in a few more motifs, fill in gaps here and there, and shuffle elements around until I like it. If any other shapes need to overlap the edge, I make sure they line up by positioning a twin on the other side and snapping it to the same position on the grid. Tricky, yes, and time-consuming with a pattern this intricate. Patterns with more ground spacing are definitely easier to put into repeat.

I double check the repeat by copying the artboard, opening a new layer and placing the copies as they would repeat. Sure enough, I see a few spots that need adjusting, so I tweak and repeat the process until the edges line up exactly. For a true preview, you can temporarily expand your artboard to include the repeating parts and print. The paper doesn't lie.

It's a busy design, so I like it best with just 2 colors on a white ground. To recolor, switch the color mode from black & white to RGB and go to town. If color matching is important you can use Spoonflower's color map which you can have mailed to you on actual fabric. I was too impatient, so I didn't bother, but I think I will get it for the future.

To finalize the artwork, copy the contents of the artboard and "paste pixels" into a new document in Photoshop. Here is where you will determine the final size of your print. Spoonflower prints at 150 dpi, so I input that under image>size and go from there. I decided to resample my image to be 14" square. Since this is sharp 3-color artwork, I save as a .png file. Jpegs work too.

Now to decide which fabric to print on...When they first opened, Spoonflower only offered basic cotton. Now they have 10 choices including silk crepe de chine ($38) and wallpaper too. The basic cotton is the cheapest at $17. I chose linen/cotton canvas ($27) because I thought it would be nice for an apron, tote bag, or pillow.  The prompts are pretty easy to follow on the Spoonflower site...and voilà!

The fabric got here so quickly, I never fully decided what to do with it. What should I make?

memory pillow project

A dear friend asked me to help her out with some pillows she wanted to make for her nephews for Christmas. Their grandfather had passed away and she wanted to use some of his old clothes to make mementos for them. She and I went to RISD together, so we are on the same wave-length aesthetically. She said she wanted pillows pieced in the"Gee's Bend" style.

"Blocks and Strips" by Mary Lee Bendolph (photo Tinwood Media)

If you're not familiar with Gee's Bend, the name refers to the rural town in Alabama, a mostly black community with a history of economic struggles, but a strong sense of community. The tradition of quilting carried on there through the civil war, various economic upheavals including the Great Depression, floods of the Alabama River, and on to the present day.

"Housetop" by Lillie Mae Pettway (photo by Tinwood Media)

The quilts were made with available scraps of worn-out clothes with the freedom and innocence of "outsider art" although they were created for strictly practical purposes much like Amish quilts were. A collector discovered them in the late '90's, bought up hundreds of them and began exhibiting them. When viewed out of context in museums like the Whitney, they are bold, striking modern art. The book about them is wonderful. Auburn University has a wealth of information on them as well as a nice catalog.

The pile of items my friend sent looked random at first glance, but that's what you want if you're emulating the Gee's Bend style.

Many of the Gee's Bend Quilts are variations on the "Log Cabin" quilt pattern. I find this pattern lends itself to creating a spontaneous effect, as long as you don't measure anything, that is. Starting with a squarish shape, strips can be added on the outside edges, working in succession around it until you have the size you're after. True things as you go, or not. It's better if there is some unevenness to it.

I decided to keep the shirt pockets intact, because I think boys find them fun and it is more of a reminder that this was Grandpa's shirt. I also added a few of my own scraps of chambray to help make everything hang together more. But what you definitely don't want is to get matchy-matchy with it.

I also keep the button plackets intact for the backs for the perfect way to get the insert in & out for washing.

I tried not to be as anal as I usually am and just go with it. It actually goes very quickly when you're not trying to be precise. At the end, I trued it all up to the dimension of the pillow.

I hope they like them!

salvaged denim headboard

I finished this headboard for my little boy last week! I don't often make things that are NOT for my Etsy store these days, so it took a while. The idea was percolating on my back burner for over a year. At first I thought of making a quilt, but the little guy liked the idea of the padded headboard we made for the guest room, so the idea morphed into a headbaord. I decided to make it fancier than the guest room one by boxing out the sides and adding a back so the cover is removable for washing.

I've built up quite a hoard of denim cast-offs from family & from thrifting. What's the point of hoarding if you're never going to make anything out of it, right?

To make this project I used:

-small hoard of cast-off denim
-denim yardage- about 2 yards
-1/4" plywood (I used 40" x 30" for a twin size)'
-3" foam cut to size
-quilt batting
-muslin
-piping cord
-staple gun
-sewing machine
-heavy duty sewing machine needle (size 14/90)
-pattern paper
-flush mount hangers

If you were doing a single fabric stapled on, this would basically be your only step besides adding the hangers to the back. Layer the muslin, batting, foam and plywood to form the headboard base. Be sure to cut about 12" extra in height & with of the muslin & batting, so there is enough to wrap around the edges for stapling. You can always trim off the extra later.

To make the cover, I tried different layouts before cutting. I wanted light & dark to alternate. I debated whether to mix in some pocket-free squares and decided only to do that on the bottom row where the mattress and pillow would cover it anyway.

Since my headboard is 40" x 30", I made my pieces 10" x 10" squares (with the exception on the bottom four pieces)- just perfect for keeping pockets & details intact. The actual pieces including seam allowances measure 11" x 11" before sewing. Don't forget seam allowances! For the bottom four pieces, I added on 2" or so in height, so there would be extra to wrap underneath and meet up with the back to close the bottom. A separate band gets sewn on later to box out the top & sides.

One thing I learned is denim is THICK! Be sure you are using a heavy duty needle meant for denim. Also, most finished edges are not square. To make sewing easier and keep my pieces as close to square as possible, I fudged new edges in some places. By lapping on a trim piece that would become the seam allowance I avoided having to sew though all those extra bulky layers of a waistband with belt loops..

With the layout finalized, it's ready to sew together. At the thickest points, I found myself turning the wheel of the machine by hand rather than pressing the pedal, just to be safe. An industrial machine could plow through this, no problem, but I'm limited to my trusty Babylock.

Oh, and just to be hard on myself, I decided to pipe around the edges of the headboard. I made bias strips out of the same denim I was using for the sides and back and made my own piping. Use a zipper foot to get your stitches close to the bulge of the cord. You could certainly opt to skip this step.

I basted before sewing just to keep all this heavy fabric from slipping around. Then I sewed on the sides (a strip, 4" wide to accomodate the 3" foam + seam allowances) and back (same dimensions as the front out of denim yardage) leaving excess at the bottom to safety pin shut. If I were to do this again, I'd make reduce the width of the side piece by 1/4" since it came out a bit loose. Denim has a good deal of give. I contemplated a velco closure, but I was so worn out by the piping, that I took the easy way out. and just pinned it

Even easier would be omitting the piping and back, making a deep enough side panel to wrap around to the back for stapling.

Before slipping the cover on, I had my husband attach the flush mount hangers to the plywood back and to the wall. A level and accurate measuring come in handy for this. Then I slipped on the cover and cut holes in the back to expose the hangers.

Now my boy has a place to store his flashlights and other doodads in easy reach at night!

test driving iron-on vinyl

January is my month for decluttering and sprucing things up around the house. I've been working like a dog on everyplace but my office and studio, but at least the kids' art room is looking good. It's not really a room, more of a breakfast nook that got taken over by the rascals and is furnished with the last remnants of my husband's college furniture. Since the furniture isn't precious it's ok that paint gets on it, but it's January and I'm feeling anal. I can't stand the sight of these dirty seat covers another minute. And I'm over that floral. The original cane seats are long gone, replaced with plywood topped with 1" foam and they've been recovered over and over with the help of my trusty staple gun.

Well, I'm recovering them again, but this time might be the last because I'm trying out a new product that I think is gonna be my new favorite: iron-on vinyl! A few years ago, I looked into having fabric laminated for these chairs and it turned out to be something like $20 per yard with a 5 yard minimum, so I didn't pursue it. Then I came across this Therm O Web iron on vinyl at JoAnn's and bought some to play with.

It comes in matte or shiny & I got the matte. It reminds me a lot of the laminating stuff you can get for paper at the office supply store.

It has a waxy paper backing that you peel off to reveal a tacky side.

You place the vinyl tacky side down onto the front of your fabric and then smooth out the bubbles. You can still peel it back up at this point if you notice a wrinkle or a thread stuck in there.

Then you take the backing you just peeled off and use it as your press cloth. The directions say to do the ironing on a firm surface like a table, heat on medium. There's no toxic odor like I was expecting either.

After it cools, peel back the paper and voilà! Vinyl-coated fabric!

And my favorite part: the stapling...

Instant gratification!

block printed christmas wrap project

This week, I don't know what happened, but I was seized by a fit of craftiness à la Martha Stewart. Maybe it was residual inspiration from my trip to Galbraith & Paul a couple of weeks ago. I corralled the kids and put them to work on making some Christmas wrap. I had a couple of rolls of kraft paper and some other supplies, it was raining, and I just didn't feel like going out to Target for the store bought stuff. The kids wound up having a blast with it, so it was a win-win. And I do think it adds a nice handmade touch to our gifts.

To do this project you will need:
-package of sticky-back foam sheets
-scissors
-pen
-washable kids' paint such as Crayola
-paint brushes
-plastic plates to use as palettes
-small foam rollers (optional)
-wood scraps such as from a 1x4 board
-roll of kraft paper

The foam self-stick sheets we picked up at Michael's were on the thin side, so we doubled them up before cutting our shapes. Thicker is better for clear prints. Simple shapes work best (the bell/toilet plunger shape didn't make the cut). The most complicated shape was the Santa had because it requires 2 colors of paint.

We didn't have any rollers on hand so we used the spread & dunk method. Spread the paint fairly thin with a brush on the plate and dunk the stamp in it.

Coverage should look about like this- not too goopy. If you have rollers, roll on the paint and it will give a similar effect, more even to tell the truth, but we let go of our perfectionist tendencies for this. Or you can use a paintbrush to apply the paint thinly to the stamp.

Then stamp away, reloading between each stamping.

Hours of fun for the kiddos, especially if you have your Charlie Brown Christmas cd playing in the background and Christmasy junk food to nosh on.