sewing

Marvel’s Black Widow Inspired Infinity Scarf

| Heather

A big Marvel movie releases and there isn’t any Black Widow clothing or accessories to be found. How can that be? She quite literally kicks butt, but doesn’t warrant merchandise?

What’s a girl to do? Since I don’t want to make, much less wear a black leather jumpsuit (shocked, I know), I thought I could make a screen-printed infinity scarf with a subtle (or not so subtle) nod to this super heroine.

Materials:
Black knit fabric (cut to 16″ x 75″)
Thread
Red fabric paint (I used Martha Stewart Tartan Red)
Mod Podge
Embroidery hoop
Nylon
Small paint brush
Credit card or gift card

DIY:
1. Ok, it seems like a lot going on, but it is pretty simple, I promise. I started by sketching out the design I wanted to print. I looked for some references online and created my own “black widow” symbol.

2. I found a great blog post on how to screen print using Mod Podge, check it out here. I’ll also give a brief explanation. Stretch your nylon tightly across the embroidery hoop. Then place it face down on your design and trace it with a pen (I used a Sharpie). Once you transfer the design, take your Mod Podge and carefully paint it on the parts of the “negative space” on the nylon. Basically what you DON’T want to show paint. Take your time, this is important. Two coats.

Black Widow Scarf Screen Print logo

3. Next, I cut out my fabric to 16″ x 75″, I wanted a nice long infinity scarf. You might want to measure your favorite scarf to find the perfect size for you!

4. I laid out my fabric on a piece of cardboard and pinned it down securely. I then decided how I wanted my pattern to repeat and put pins in those locations. This image should demonstrate this step…
Black Widow Scarf Screen printing in progress

5. Now it’s time to screen print. A little frightening, I know. But truly, it was easier than I thought it would be. With the nylon face down against the fabric, squirt some red paint onto the nylon, then use a credit card, gift card, piece of cardboard, etc. to swipe the paint evenly across the nylon. You might swipe a couple different directions to make sure there is even coverage. Then carefully lift your hoop/printer. Make sure to hold down the fabric when you do so, this will save you some smears.

5. Repeat, repeat, repeat! Between prints, be sure to check the surface of the nylon (the side that goes against the fabric), if any paint has leaked out, wipe it up to keep your printing crisp. As you go, don’t worry if a few of the repeats aren’t perfect. This is a draped scarf so likely you won’t see the imperfect ones. Also, I like the idea of this looking a little vintage, hence the screen printing, so embrace those imperfections!!
Black Widow Scarf Screen Printing

6. Once you have printed the entire scarf, allow it to dry completely before sewing. Seems obvious, but if you get excited like me, you might forget. 🙂 I chose a fabric that I didn’t have to hem, so all that left is to sew the ends together. For a neat finish, a flat-felled seem is a good choice, but can be difficult to execute on knits. So I’ll tell you my cheater way to do it…basically a french seam sewed down. So, wrong sides together, seam then trim. Then flip it around and sew with right sides together so the original seam and trimmed seam allowance is inside. You now have a finished “flap.” Pin the flap down to one side and top stitch. Quite tidy and worth the extra 5 minutes.
Black Widow Scarf finished on table Rockin the Black Widow Scarf

Now all that’s left is to pair your brand new scarf with some killer boots and an attitude to match!

–h

P.S. As I was working on this scarf, I cut right through my “self-healing” mat. Exploring my own super-human strength apparently! 😉

Black Widow Infinity Scarf DIY

Can’t get enough of Marvel or the Avengers? Check-out my Captain America quilt, Part I and Part II!

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DIY Christmas Tree Skirt

| Heather

I thought it would be a good idea to wash our tree skirt in preparation for Christmas.

It. Was. Not.

Instead of a clean red and white tree skirt, I ended up with a clean red and pink tree skirt. Now, anyone knows me knows I am a big fan of pink. But I was not happy.

Instead of going out and buying a new one, I thought I could make a customized tree skirt. I know you might be shocked to learn, but I have a black, white, and red themed tree complete with polka dot ornaments. Shocked, right?

Materials:
Coordinating fabric – So I used some fake black velvet fabric and a Christmas print I found at Joann’s.
Matching Piping and Bias Tape or Ribbon
Ribbon to make ties

How-to:

  1. Start by cutting a circle out of your main fabric. Determine the desired radius of your tree skirt (mine was 18”) plus the radius you want to allow for the tree itself (a few inches). Draw out ¼ of a circle on tissue paper or wrapping paper to create your pattern. Lay out your fabric so you have four layers of fabric (fold in half lengthwise, then in half the other way). Pin your pattern and cut out.
    Tree Skirt Pattern
    The fake velvet I used had some stiffness to it, so I didn’t need to do anything to it, but depending on your fabric you might want to stiffen it with some interfacing or a second layer of fabric.
  2. You will need a second pattern for the accent fabric. The easiest way to do this is to use the first pattern to draw a second pattern using by adding 6.5” to the radius measurement from step one. This illustration should help explain.
    Tree3
  3. Cut an opening in both pieces. Again, this illustration is what you are looking for.
    Tree2
  4. Sew the accent fabric onto the main fabric, right sides together.
  5. Next I attached the bias tape between the two fabrics. You could top stitch this in place, but I cheated and used some stitch-witchery to make it easier.
    Tree skirt
  6. Next, I sewed the piping along the bottom of the accent fabric. I love finishing things with piping, it just looks awesome and I like the way it looks better than just a hem.
  7. Then, I hemmed the opening edges.
  8. Finally, I added ribbon ties every 5 or so inches in the opening. You could do buttons too, that would be really cool!
    Tree skirt

And a complete disaster (no, I’m not being overly dramatic) turns into an opportunity for creativity!

Tree skirt

–h

DIY Elsa Inspired Cape

| Heather

Ok, so I promise that not all of my posts are going to involve Elsa and Disney’s Frozen. Seriously, I promise. But right now, it seems like it is unavoidable. Like I mentioned in a previous post, my niece loves to sing, dance to, and act out the entire scene that corresponds to Let it Go. It’s really quite cute and pretty darn impressive. When I was watching her go through the motions, it became clear, she absolutely NEEDS an Elsa cape.

DIY Elsa Inspired Cape

Materials:

Blue snowflake material (I used some from Joann’s)
Matching Thread
Assorted trims

How to:

  1. Create your pattern. I decided to do a “half-circle” shaped cape to give the cape some good swirl and swish. Perfect for dancing in! Create a pattern for yourself out of wrapping paper or tissue paper. Appropriately for this time of year, I used Christmas paper.
    You are aiming for ¼ of a circle for your pattern (that will fold out to half of a circle). The radius of that circle should be the length of cape you wanted. For my 4 ½ year old niece, that length was 38″. You will do a much smaller 1/4 circle at the top for the head and shoulders. The following graphic should help illustrate what you are going for…
    Cape1
  2. Lay out your pattern on your fabric on the fold. Pin and cut out.
    IMG_4342
    Here is the shape you are going for.
    Cape2
  3. Next, I decided she needed a stand collar. I measured the opening of the cape and drafted a simple pattern (see below). I’m sure there is a right way to do this, but I just measured the opening at the top of the cape and decided about how tall I wanted the collar, and I drew a slightly curved shape within those dimensions. My dimensions were 13″ x 4″.
    Collar pattern
  4. Right sides of collar together, sew the top and two sides. Trim seams, clip corners, turn out, and press. Pin the collar to the cape, right sides together. Sew the seam. Trim seams, press and then top stitch. This helps the collar stand up.
    Stand Collar
  5. Next I hemmed the front edges of the cape.
  6. Now is the fun part, trim!!I promised my niece that we would work on her cape together so I pulled out all the lace, ribbon, trims, buttons, etc. that I could find and I let her pick out how she wanted to embellish her cape. Uh, a bit of a mistake. She ended up choosing red rickrack and black sequins… With some coaxing I talked her into some silver ribbon and white lace, but she insisted on the pink ribbon for the tie. Not exactly Elsa, but you can’t blame a girl for loving pink. You can, of course, use your own judgment on how to embellish.I started with lace along the bottom of the cape and added some silver ribbon about 1/2″ above the lace.
  7. I then attached the pink ribbon around the neck. Along with some sparkly buttons just for fun.
    Elsa Cape

And there you have it, an Elsa inspired cape!

–h

P.S. Can’t get enough of Elsa? Check out this simple Frozen inspired t-shirt!

Tutu Tuesday: Part II No-Sew Tutu

| Heather

Tutu Tuesday part two, now that’s fun to say!! Tutu Tuesday continues this week with an even easier project!! Be brave, give it a try!

No-Sew Tutu

This tutu is quick, easy, super cute!! I made one for my niece for Christmas a few years ago and my sister also made her one to go with the Elsa Snowflake t-shirt. Now I think Kyrie needs her first tutu!

Materials:
Tulle – yardage depends on if this is for a little girl or a big girl… Start with at least 4 yards
1” Elastic long enough to fit around the waist plus 1 inch.

How to:

  1. Use a rotary tool and rotary mat and cut your tulle into 4” wide strips. You want them to be twice as long as you want the skirt. For example, for a 12” skirt (for a toddler) you will want 24” strips. I cut 12″ strips for Kyrie (she’s in 3 month clothes right now).
    Tutu5
  2. Sew the ends of your elastic together (I promise this is the only sewing). Overlap ½” and sew it together securely. Remember there will be tension on this stitch.
    Tutu7
  3. Use a dress form, stuffed animal, pillow, or something to put your elastic around. Start attaching the strips to the elastic, like so..
    Tutu8
    Tutu2
    Tutu3
  4. Continue until the tutu is as full as you desire. You can fit a bunch of those little strips on the elastic so just keep going. The poofier the better if you ask me!!
    Tutu4

Make it even more fun and mix two or three colors of tulle. Green and red for Christmas, different shades of blue for Elsa, etc.

Perfect Christmas gift for a little girl in your life. Also, a great project you could do work on with a cute kiddo.No-Sew Tutu
(my sweet niece playing in her tutu with her friend, Jessie)

–h

P.S. Did you miss Part I? Or you can read the conclusion of Tutu Tuesdays here.

Tutu Tuesday: Part I Tulle Circle Skirt

| Heather

Confession: With the new baby at home, I’ve become a Dutch Bros junkie. Seriously, it’s getting bad. Last Tuesday, I drove up and everyone was wearing a tutu and a tiara. I’ll admit I was just a little jealous!! So I told the girl getting my coffee that I loved her look, and she replied…We’ve established it as Tutu Tuesday.

Um, every girl needs a Tutu Tuesday, don’t you think? So here’s a DIY Tulle Skirt for you…

Tulle Circle Skirt

I found a ton of great tutorials on Pinterest, check-out my Crafty Ideas board for several good ones. If you run into questions during my tutorial, those might fill in any gaps. 🙂

Materials:

  • 6 yards (at least) of Tulle – I used green because I was Disneybounding Mike Wazowski for Halloween.
  • Appx 1 yard of matching Lining Fabric
  • Elastic the size of your waist plus 1 inch – You want this to fit snugly, but not too tight (we don’t want a tulle skirt muffin top, yikes!)

IMG_4075

How-to:
1. Determine the length of your skirt. Measure from your waist down to where you want the skirt to end. I went down to my knee.

2. Determine your waist radius. Measure around your waist, divide that by 3.14, then divide that by 2. That gives you your waist radius.

3. You are basically going to cut out a number of tulle “doughnuts” out of squares of tulle. So add the waist radius to the skirt length and multiply by 2. That will be the length you cut your fabric. You also want the width of the tulle to be at least equal to that same measurement. So cut several of these pieces. I would do at least 4. Do the same for your lining fabric (just 1).

Here’s what we are going for:

FAbric

4. Now fold each piece in half lengthwise. You should have a square piece of fabric with 2 folded sides.

Fabric2

5. Now take your waist measurement and skirt length to create your pattern.

Skirt pattern

Tip: Create a pattern out of tissue paper or wrapping paper. You’ll thank me for this step because tulle can be challenging to work with.

If you think about it, here are the tulle doughnuts you are cutting out so make sure your folds are the right places…

Skirt graphic

6. Pin your pattern to your first piece of tulle, and cut out. Repeat 4+ times and 1 time for your lining fabric.

7. Hem your lining fabric.

8. Take your tulle and lining circles and layer them on top of each other. Pin and baste around the waist line.

9. Take the ends of your elastic and overlap ½” and sew together (remember this is an important stitch that will have pressure one it).

10. Pin your skirt to the elastic. Zig-zag stitch around. Done!

Tulle Circle Skirt

Again, this was for a Halloween costume, I’m excited to make one in black or red for the holidays.

Happy Tutu Tuesday!! Also, anyone also in the mood for a doughnut or some coffee now?

–h

P.S. Part II continues here…

DIY Bottle Cap Pin Cushion

| Heather

This is a fun, simple DIY project that anyone who can operate a glue gun can do. I mean glue guns do get pretty hot, so proceed with caution.

Several years ago when my sister had her first baby, we threw a different kind of baby shower. It was a quilting bee shower. Each guest worked on a square to be included in the final quilt for the baby. To go along with the quilting theme, I wanted to come up with a unique favor for the guests. So….I decided to make bottle cap pin cushions for everyone using mixed and matched fabric from the quilt. A useful and fun reminder of the shower!

bottle-cap pin cushions

Materials/Tools:

  • Coordinating Fabric
  • Batting
  • Bottle Cap (a Diet Pepsi bottle cap would be a good choice)
  • Hot glue/glue gun
  • Sewing machine (you barely barely sew, so don’t worry)

How To:

  1. Cut two circles out of the fabric 3.5” in diameter. Just use a cup to trace out the circles. I did two different coordinating fabrics.
    pin cushion
  2. On the circle you want for the top of the pin cushion, do a gathering stitch around the outside. Gather into a little ball with a small opening.
    pincushion5
  3. Stuff batting into the little pocket. Stuff it full. Finish gathering, clip thread. You now have a fabric ball.
  4. Wrap the other circle around the bottle cap, hot gluing it in place. I ended up tucking the fabric in four places.
    pincushion6
  5. Put a big dab of hot glue in the bottom of the bottle cap, and stick the fabric ball in, sewed side down. Tad-ah, finished!
    pincushion7

Now how’s that for a simple DIY? You can even up the ante on this. I added elastic to one and made it into a ring for when I need a hands-free pin cushion.

pincushion1

Or, I also did several of these on a bigger scale using old (cleaned out) olive cans. So this is my everyday pin cushion following the exact same steps as above (plus batting wrapped around the outside of the can).

pincushion2

Everyone needs a fun customized pin cushion, so I’m challenging you to find a can, bottle cap, and some fun fabric and make your own! I’d love to see pics if you are up for it!

–h

Pinterest Ready Bottle Cap Pin Cushion

Reupholstery Part II: Deconstruction

| Heather

So, I know this seems like a big daunting project. You might have a piece (or pieces) of furniture you have been wanting to reupholster for years. You can do this. Seriously, you can. There is actually very little sewing involved and you get to use a Staple Gun, so that’s something. Don’t worry about all the steps, just methodically go through one step at a time and you can do it!

IMG_2120

Once again, I’m no expert, and truly there are TONS of great tutorials out there on the right way to upholster/reupholster furniture. I would recommend reading a few of them and even watching some YouTube videos before you start. My purpose, and what I want to leave you with, is  to show you that if I can do this project, so can you!

So, we’ve gathered out tools and materials, given ourselves a little pep talk, and it’s time to get underway. Yay!

1.  Take pictures of your chair. Every angle you can think of. Pay special attention to different seams, and connection points. When you go to reassemble your chair, you will find yourself asking, now how did “they” do that again? If you document it well, this current piece of furniture is the best tutorial you could ask for.

IMG_2129  IMG_2123   IMG_2134

2. As you take pictures of your chair, conduct a careful inspection and figure out what the last piece on was. Depending on your chair, it could be mesh on the underside, it could be the skirt (which was how mine was), or it could be the back panel. Whatever the last piece on was, will be the first piece off.

IMG_2118   IMG_2125

3. Deep breath, it’s go time! Figure out how to remove that piece that you determined was the last one on. It might be stapled or “they” might have used a metal piece called Pli-Grip (see pic below). For staples, I mostly used the flathead screwdriver and sometimes the mallet and/or pliers to get these out. I kept a small Tupperware container next to me to put all the removed staples in. If they used Pli-Grip, use your screwdriver to pry it away from the chair and then screwdriver/pliers to remove the tacks or staples used to keep the Pli-Grip in place.

IMG_2126   IMG_2128

4. As you remove each piece, take a Sharpie and label the crap out of it. I wrote what the piece was, right, left, top, bottom, etc. Again, the better you document now the easier it is going to be to reassemble it correctly later. IMG_2176   IMG_2171

5. Continue taking pieces off and labeling and taking pics. I also kept a list of the order I removed things, because again, the order you remove things, informs how you put it back together just in reverse. Keep everything, any little cardboard strips, piping, etc. Again, all important. Have I said that too many times?? 🙂

You will literally remove a kajillion staples. Yes, a kajillion. It may seem like the process will never end. But don’t worry, when you feel like you could build your house with number of staples you have removed, you are almost there. 🙂

–h

Halloween: Boo from Monster’s Inc. — Part I

| Heather

Taking a break from the upholstery project to talk about Kyrie’s first Halloween costume! So so so excited!!

One of my favorite holidays has always been Halloween because I’ve always LOVED playing dress-up. What made it extra special growing up was that my mom made special costumes for us each year. We could be anything we wanted and she would create something wonderful for each of us. To this day, I’m not sure how she did it for three kids, but I’m sure it took many sleepless nights to make sure we were all taken care of. Some of my favorite costumes included a little lady bug, Raggedy Ann, a butterfly, a fairy princess, magician… Seriously, a little girl’s fantasy every Halloween. Thanks Mom!

I cherish those special memories. Now being a Mom myself, I decided that I wanted to continue this special feeling for my Kyrie. I want my little girl to enjoy the world of imagination and possibilities. I want to make memories that will last a lifetime!

Sooo, Kyrie is going to be Boo from Disney’s Monsters, Inc. I thought it would be perfect because she looks like a cute little Boo and Ryan would be a perfect Sulley (we’ll see if that happens). Also, since she won’t actually be trick-or-treating, I thought the little monster costume would keep her warm as we carry her around with her cousins.

I didn’t find too much online to help, and definitely no pattern, so I had to dream it up myself. Let me just preface this by saying, I am no great seamstress. I am largely self-taught and have learned by trial and a whole LOT of error. If you are a master seamstress, please don’t judge too harshly, there probably is a better way, but here’s how I did it…

The Plan:

IMG_3871

Note: I ended up using 4 layers of batting for the body and 1 layer for the hood and bottom.

The Materials:

IMG_3875
Note: Velcro and pipe stem cleaners are not pictured.

Cutting Out:

Cutting out the pieces. You can see the measurements and amounts I used on my plan above. Not an exact science, I just measured Kyrie and added in extra space for seam allowances, the bulk of the batting, and Boo’s costume isn’t snug in the movie, so she needs some comfy wiggle room. That’s how I came up with my sizing. She’s wearing 3 month clothes if that gives some perspective. I also decided that because my exterior purple fabric is a flimsy stretch fabric, I would iron on interfacing to give it some structure. Depending on what fabric you use, you may or may not need to do this too. For the arm holes, I went about 1.5″ from the top edge and used one of her shirts to determine the shape/size.

One final note, I realized after I had cut out my fabric, that I didn’t need to have two pieces for the back of the costume (I’ll explain later) so save yourself some trouble and just cut out two of the big piece.

We’ll talk construction next time, read it here.

–h