Results tagged “quilting cotton” from Fabric.com Blog

Back to school time for me has always been synonymous with book covers. My brother and I would raid mom's paper bag stash and cut and color to our hearts content. Today, paper bags are a fond memory paired with remembering when we could eat Little Debbie's not gaining an ounce and run around outside for hours without even thinking of napping (not like to today when I yearn for naps). The reduced availability of paper bags means that we must turn to other mediums for our book cover materials and what else, but fabric, would be my first choice. It is also a better choice. It will last longer than paper, can be easily patched should it rip and can be easily coordinated to any book bag or jacket for the ULTIMATE back to school outfit.

My Fabulous Fabric Book cover is easy to make and here is what you will need to make one.

Materials:

½ yd of fabric (quilting cotton, linen, twill, etc) for exterior

¼ yd of fabric for lining

½ yd of fabric for bias tape binding or one package of prepared bias binding

Download your instruction sheet here. 

Designer Dog gear is all the rage now. Everyone wants to look good; the same goes for your dog. Even should your dog care less, you care- a lot. If you are like me, my dogs were my kids before I had a kid and they still hold a special place in the household, often with more benefits than the child. Some dog owners get a thrill from dressing their dogs but my dogs are too rough and tumble to go for that. I get my kicks from chic dog collars. The selection at my local pet store is sorely lacking (we are talking webbing in a wide selection of colors including red, blue and black). So once again, the chore has fallen into my hands to create something more appropriate for my hounds. Making dogs collars is easy, though figuring out how to install the adjuster is no fun. It is a frustrating mess unless you have a good tutorial: Behold!

I started by measuring my dogs necks and adding 6 inches (for adjusting and extra for hems and securing). My Border Collie's (Murphy) neck is 16 in + 6 in. = 22 in. My American Bulldog's (Maggie) neck is 22 in + 6 in. = 28 in. We will work from Murphy's measurements.

Materials needed:

¼ yd of designer quilting cotton

¼ yd of heavy interfacing or canvas

1 Center Release Buckle 1 in.

1 Adjuster 1 in.

1 set of D rings 1 in.

Next, cut a 1 in. by 22 in. from heavy interfacing or canvas and a 3 in. by 23 in. from Modern Meadow Picnic Plaid. Maggie's collar is Modern Meadow Dogwood Bloom. To make the straps, cut a 1 in. by 23 in. piece of heavy interfacing or canvas and set aside. Fold and press the 3 in. wide piece of your designer fabric (as instructed above) in thirds (you will have 2 folds but 3 three sections each 1 in. wide). Lay your interfacing piece in the center of your designer fabric and fold one side of the designer fabric over the top of the interfacing. Stitch this in place using a 1/4 in. seam. Fold over the designer fabric on the other side while turning under 1/2 in. to make a finished edge. Stitch again with a 1/4 in. seam. 

 To assemble the strap into a collar, I took a series of pictures to best describe how to assemble all the collar parts. I used a double turn ½ in. hem to finish and secure each end of the collar.

The bonus of making your own collars out of interfacing and quilting cotton as opposed to webbing is there is no need to melt the end, you can use any fabric you desire and these collars are washable. They are simple to make and fast to assemble that you can make them for any season, holiday or as great gifts. 

Bunting: A lightweight cloth material often used for flags and festive decorations

In honor of St. Valentine's Day (or Single's Awareness Day, as I have seen it referred to), I have whipped up a most festive bunting to celebrate love. My history of Valentine's Day has always made it more of a celebration than an anxiety-riddled day of examining single life. My mom would always give up little gifts and cards before we left for school. There was also the huge PAR-TAY in grade school that equated Valentine's day with cute cards, lots of candy and my favorite color at the time, Pink. It wasn't until Middle School and High School that Valentine's became the black mark on the calendar. I decided shortly after a bad break-up that I wasn't going to celebrate it any more. I held to that all through my courtship with my husband and since. However, now with a daughter of my own, I long to recreate the joys of my childhood and that especially includes Valentine's day the way Mom taught me.

This project started with an idea: bunting. It is such a favorite in the craft world, I think, for 2 reasons: insanely customizable, relatively quick. My bunting would be, of course, made of valentine-y colors (pink, red, white) but also some new colors to spice it up. As usually happens as I was assembling my supplies (I should not that I wanted this project to use up scrapes and remnants from other projects) I found out that I was depressingly low on ribbon. I had no pink, red or white ribbon at all! I was too ashamed of this circumstance to even show my head in public. To serve as a ribbon to hold the bunting together, I decided to take strips of my chosen fabric and braid them up. To determine how long I would need it, I cut out my flags (roughly 6 in. W by 8 in. H) and arranged them. I then measured across the top and added a little extra for hanging. To make the braid, I cut strips about 2 in. wide (if you just snip into the fabric, you can rip it the rest of the way down and it will be perfectly on the grain). I then knotted 3 together and braided. When one strip was about to run out, I would knot it together with another. I continued to my desired length, knotted and trimmed the ends. I then cut ½ in. by 4 in. strips and stitched them to the top of the flags and tied the flags onto the braided fabric.

I cut out the letters from various colors of felt and glued them in place. Too late I realized I could have used my Cricut for this. You could also use a blanket stitch to secure the letters or Heat n Bond. I added big hearts at either end because it just felt right.

Materials needed:

½ yd of quilting cotton in various colors (½ yd makes 3 flags)

Three ½ yds of quilting cotton in various colors for the braid

3 sheets of 9 x 12 in. felt for letters

Embroidery floss or fabric glue

I heart Amy Butler's books, all of them. Originally hooked when I was a newborn knitter looking for a great knitting bag, I stumbled upon her patterns while cruising blog land. I had to have it, though it had been sometime since I had sewn anything substantial. A new blog friend helped me with the pattern (Chelsea Bag) and walked me through it via email. My voracious appetite was whetted and I have since sewn just about every Amy Butler bag I got my hands on, even little known Amy Butler bags. So.... When I heard from a little bird called Momma, that Amy had a new, purse only book coming out (Amy Butler's Style Stitches), I quietly, with dignity, jumped up and down, ran down the sidewalk shouting at the top of my lungs with excitement. Once the book debuted and Fabric.com received it in stock, my plotting (err... planning) began. First I set aside a week for careful dreaming, perusing and drooling over the new book then I got to work. I decided since my general theme on this blog is to take a new approach that I could not just create one of the 26 patterns in some super cool fabric (tempting though that was) but that I would make a combo of 2 patterns to make a super bag, if you will, to tempt fabric.com blog readers. I decided that the Perfectly Pleated Clutch was not perfect enough and the Origami Bag was just what I needed to expand my knitting carrier collection. To combine the two, I borrowed the pleats from the clutch with the shape and instructions of the Origami. The new Dwell fabric was the perfect complement to this hybrid bag and lined with some awesome retro & mod quilting cotton. 

I started by following the pleating instructions and pleated enough fabric to cut 2 pieces for the exterior to matching the Medium lining pieces (I used the lining piece measurements since I would not be piecing). I basted the pleats in place being careful to baste twice so that once I cut the fabric, there would be basting on each piece to keep the pleats in place. Once the pleating was complete I cut my exterior pieces and also the interfacing. Opting for sew-in interfacing so the pleating would not be distorted due to the possible misplacement of the iron or misalignment of the interfacing, this interfacing would allow the pleating to behave as pleating should and not stay frozen in place. I basted the interfacing onto the pleated fabric following the direction of the pleats. I followed the remaining Origami instructions leaving the pleat basting in place until the bag was complete. Amy's instructions concerning the insertion and sewing of the zipper leave a very nicely finished product. Once finished, I removed the pleat basting stitches and was super pleased with the finished bag. I think it is a perfect combination of the 2 patterns and a great expansion to the book's compilation of bags. Try your own combination of Amy Butler's bags from Style Stitches and don't forget to include a link on our Facebook page!

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Have you ever considered all the presents you give? If you add up all that wrapping paper, that is a lot of one time use, now to be thrown away paper. Couple that with how pricey wrapping paper is getting these days and it is obvious a solution is needed. Reusable fabric wrapping is on the rise. Not only does it prevent tons of waste but it is beautiful, easy and so satisfying! Fabric wrapping takes no time to make and you will use it all the time. If you are like me you are always giving gifts: bread as thanks to the neighbors for getting my mail while away, repayment to a nurse friend for taking my frantic "my child is sick" calls, and host/hostess gifts. I give at least a gift a month, not counting holidays and birthdays. I always use fabric wrapping. It is so much easier to wrap (no tape!) than paper, it looks luxe and makes me feel so good to give in more than one way. One fabric wrap can last you years and years, saving you hundreds in the long run. Think about it. How many rolls of wrapping do you use each year: 5, 6 or even 10 rolls? The average price per roll is $5, over 5 years for 10 rolls/yr is $250!

Fabric wrapping is easy to make as well as eco-friendly. I will share my pattern for a small/medium wrapping. A half yd of quilting cotton will yield 2 small/med wrappings, 1 yd can yield one med/ large and 1 ½ yd can wrap one large present. You may even want to use Home Dec fabric for larger presents as they might be heavy.

For a small/med cut an 18 in. square from designer quilting cotton. You can finish the edges with bias tape for an extra bit of color or double turn the edges and topstitch. Cut 50 in. of ribbon of any size or rick rack and stitch to the center of the square on the right side of the your wrapping. You can add a second ribbon of the same size, perpendicular to the first. That's it- You're done!

Wrap your presents with beautiful bows. No worries over crumpled plastic bows or ripped paper- fabric wrapping is always lovely. In the off season your wrapping can double as tablecloths (just tie the ribbon in a bow as decoration), runners, napkins or wrap your ornaments in them and store for next year. The possibilities are endless and gift giving takes on a new meaning. 

* Wrapped up is Rowan Organic Cotton Chicken

** Coffee may be optional for you but not me!