I made this quilt for my grandson’s baptism. It is made with all minky fabric and so it is very soft and cuddly! And it was fun to make because you quilt it as you go and so once you are done sewing the quilt together, you have also quilted it!
Is this not the cutest kid you ever did see?!! :)
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This project is a perfect fix for that skirt or dress that is just a tad too short and it makes your outfit look so cute with all the ruffles. Don’t you agree?
I really like the look that this slip gives and it is really an easy project. So does anyone want to make a skirt extender slip?
I have been asked to help with one of the service projects for the BYU Women’s Conference this year. I am excited to be a part of this organization. They always do so much good in these service activities.
This year, one of three of the projects that they are doing is making felt backpacks for school children. The fun thing about this project this year is that it is going to stay right here in our own communities!
I was asked to help sew some of the velcro on the backpacks. This was done by machine and that is the only thing sewn by machine. The rest of the backpacks are all sewn by hand! That is what all the women will doing Thursday night of the conference! It will be quite a sight to see so many women doing service all at the same time!
This is only a very small percentage of all the backpacks that will be made that night.
Isn’t this one of the cutest little “Backpack” models that you ever did see?
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I think that I have had ruffles on the brain lately, but you can never get too many ruffles, right? Ruffles are still such the rage in the fashion and crafting world and I love it!
This a great little skirt that you can dress up or down, and it is knit fabric, so it is very comfy. It does not wrinkle so it is great for travel, and it camouflages all your flaws with all the ruffles! It doesn’t get any better than that!
You start with this fabric that is already ruffled! It is kind of pricey, but you only need your length. I am kind of tall and I bought about 30″ for a skirt that is mid-calf. It only cost me about $20 for everything, and where can you buy a cute skirt like that for $20?!
I bought my fabric at The Material Girls Quilts in South Jordan, UT. They also have this ruffled fabric in Gracie Lou’s Quilt Shoppe in Salem, UT. I know that a lot of the finer fabric and quilt shops are now carrying it, so you should be able to find a place near you.
The fabric is wider than I wanted, so I cut off about 6″ from the width because I did not want it to be that full. With all of the ruffles, it is better to have it a little bit more fitted, so you do not add bulk where you don’t want it. (If you know what I mean!)
This skirt is sooo easy as in one seam and sew the elastic to the top!
So let’s make a fun ruffled skirt for the holidays, shall we?
The most time consuming part of making this skirt is pinning all the ruffles so that they match! You have to just match each layer of ruffle and pin it in place like this…
This is what it looks like when it is all pinned and ready to sew.
Sew a 1/4″ seam all the way down, if your machine will sew over the pins, I leave them in, so that it will stay matched up nicely.
I then serged the seam to trim off all the edges and to make a nice finish on the seam. You could just serge the seam, but I really liked leaving my pins in, so I sewed the seam on my machine and then serged the edges.
Look how nice it looks. If you do not have a serger, you could also zig zag the seam and trim off the edges of the ruffles to make a finished seam.
Here’s what the seam looks like, and from a little distance, it is hard to really even see where the seam is. So is it important that you pin all of those ruffles down!
I used 1 1/2″ wide elastic. I just got this at Wally World, but you can buy it at most fabric stores, by the yard. I couldn’t decide on black or white, so I bought both! The black one finally won out though!
Measure your waist, and subtract about 2″. Just put it around you and when it feels right, that is where you want to cut it! You want it to be a little bit snug, because like I said earlier, it is better to be fitted with this fabric!
Sew the elastic into a circle overlapping about 1/4″ and zigzag down the middle to secure it good. I went down and back up once.
Then mark your circle into fourths, using pins.
Do the same thing with your ruffle fabric. Mark into fourths and mark with pins.
There is a small amount of fabric between each of the ruffles and that is the part that you are going to sew on. Matching pins and stretching the elastic to fit, sew the elastic to the right side of the skirt, using a narrow seam.
This is what it will look like with the elastic all sewn on! And guess what! You are all done, because you do not need to hem this skirt, there is a ruffle on the bottom and it is knit fabric, so you are all done!!!
Pair this up with a cute knit top, a funky belt and some boots and you have a great Christmas outfit for your parties, a Christmas date, or for Church!
I hope that you can go and get some of this ruffled fabric and see how fun it is to sew! I know that you will love it!
Happy Sewing!
I made some of these pillows for gifts and I love the way that they turned out! It took me a little more than a hour to sew each one, so it is definitely a project that you could do in an evening!
So, let’s make a pillow or two!
Supplies:
12″ x 16″ pillow form
5″ x 32″ strips- you will need five different fabrics
1/2 yard fabric for pillow front and back (I used white on white fabric)
1/2 yard ric rac or ribbon
Cut one pillow front 12 1/2″ x 16 1/2″ rectangle, cut two 12 1/2″ x 10 1/2″ rectangles for the back. Cut ruffles 5″ x 32″. Fold ruffle strips in half lengthwise, wrong sides together and press.
Sew a gathering stitch 1/4″ from edge along the long raw edge of the ruffles. Pull gathers until ruffles measure about 12 1/2″ long.
Next, mark on your pillow front fabric:
1st row: 3″ from edge
2nd row: 4 1/2″ from edge
3rd row: 6″ from edge
4th row: 7 1/2 ” from edge
5th row: 9″ from edge
I marked on both edges and down the middle. Beginning with the first ruffle, line up the raw edge with the marks that you made and stitch gathered ruffle to pillow . 
Continue sewing on all five ruffles matching the raw edge with the marks you made.
After all five ruffles are sewn on, you can cover the last seam with ric-rac or ribbon. Or you could just leave the raw edges. 
Next take the two back pieces and on the 12 1/2 ” side, fold down to the wrong side, 1/2″ and press and then fold down 1/2″ again and press. Stitch close to the inside edge as shown.
Pin all of your ruffles so that they are even with the edge of the pillow.
Place one of the back pieces onto the pillow. Right sides together and pin.
Then pin the other side overlapping the first piece by about 2″
Stitch all the way around the outside of the pillow and trim the corners.
Turn through overlapped opening and gently poke corners.
Woot, Woot!
You have made a ruffled pillow! All you have to do is insert the pillow form!
Now all you need to do is find a nice warm blanket and a good book, or movie and you are set!
May you all find a moment to wrap up with a pillow, blanket and hot chocolate and remember the true meaning of Christmas & the real Reason for the Season!
I think that I am like some of you in the fact that I love purses and I love ruffles. So when I saw this pattern last spring to make this purse I just knew that I had to have it! This has been one of those projects that I was excited to do, but finding the time was a bit difficult because life just got in the way. I didn’t really need it for anything other than the fact that I just wanted it! So it kind of got put on the back burner, but now that it is done I am thrilled that I finally finished this project and I love the way that it turned out!
It does not have really long straps, which I like, because I can just tuck it up under my arm.
It is a big, spacious bag, 15 1/5″ wide x 12″ tall. It has two pockets in it, which I made into 3 pockets. and it is so roomy inside. I love the black polka dot lining. I guess I should have used pink polka dots :) :)
This is the pattern: It came from Izzy &Ivy and it is called Petunia! The instructions and the pattern were great and pretty easy to follow. However, this is probably not a project for a beginning seamstress.
Now that I have made one, I may just have to make another bag in the spring!
Or maybe not.
I promised everyone that I would have an idea to go with the fall banner that I posted here.
This is a fun, super easy fabric fall bunting. They are quite the thing right now and I can see why so many people love them. They are fast, easy, inexpensive and they add so much to your decor or to any party! You can make a bunting out of fabric, paper, wood, metal, or just about any medium that you can think of! Here is my bunting on my fireplace, but you coulld hang it above your Thanksgiving table, drape it over a picture or a chalkboard, or in a window. So many possibilities!
So let’s get started making a fabric bunting! I made this bunting double sided so that if I hang it over my island in the kitchen, it looks great from both sides.
First make a pattern. I used a 7 inch triangle. Pin to your fabric with wrong sides together. Right sides out obviously:)
This is a great way to use up all of your fabric scraps, and you can make your triangles as big or as little as you want them to be. I did and odd number of triangles (11) because to me that just looked better.
Cut around your pattern with pinking shears if you have them, if not regular scissors or your trimmer blade will do.
Next, sew 1/4 inch seam all the way around through both layers of fabric.
You will need one package of bias tape, this is the extra wide width and I liked it because it was easier to work with.
Find the middle of the bias tape and the middle of one of your triangles. Pin the triangle inside the tape. Make sure you have the shorter width of the fold on the front where you will be sewing so that you make sure to catch it in the back when you sew the seam.
Pin all of the triangles in the bias tape according to how you want them placed.
Sew your seam close to the edge of the bias tape edge making sure you catch the triangle and the back of the bias tape. This really is simple if you have pinned it all ahead of time. Make sure the triangle edges are touching each other, you can overlap them a bit if you want to, but I just made sure that they were butted right up to each other.
See how simple and easy that was, and look how much they can add to you fall decor!Here is a picture of my bunting with my fall banner that I posted earlier. I think that they look so cute together! I just think that the possibilites are endless with these buntings!
You could totally do this bunting with no sewing. Make the triangles only one layer and glue, staple or tape to a fun ribbon, ric rac or cording! Oh the possibilities!
What are some of the fun ways that you decorate for fall? I would love to here from you!
We had a fun girl’s night out last week. My husband was gone, so when the cat’s away the mice will play, and play we did! We hired a baby sitter for all the kids and they had a great time playing downstairs while we were upstairs. We let them come up for the food after we were all done. (Nice, I know!) What a fun group! And most of the time the cousins are all great friends.
We made these pillow and I totally copied the idea from a pinterest blog. I even made the pillows in the back like on their display. She has done a great tutorial on how to make them here so I am not going to do another one. I will tell you what we did different, as you can see, some of them did the “or” in black paint and just used fine glitter which worked ok, but the glitter had to be sprayed with varnish to help keep the glitter from coming off. She suggests that you go to Walmart and buy the painter canvas, which I did, but it is not a very high quality and it frays really bad, even after using pinking shears. So I would suggest that you buy a regular piece of canvas from a fabric store. The next thing we did different was that we found out the glitter paint did not go very far, so we painted the orange with regular spray paint and then added a glitter finish to the top. It worked great that way! But all in all it was fun to see how everyone’s turned out and we had a fun evening together without kids (kind of!) Here’s what mine look like!
I don’t know if I can leave them outside or not, I will have to spray scotch gaurd on them if I do so the weather won’t ruin them.!
I think they turned out pretty darn cute.
The binding on a quilt can really finish off a quilt and make it look professional. It is a fairly simple thing to do and if you know a couple of techniques, it makes it really quite easy! We are going to do a binding with mitered corners. The first thing you need to do is to cut your fabrics into strips. I am doing straight strips on this quilt, but you could also do bias strips, especially if you are going to do rounded corners or scallops. I cut this binding into 2 1/4 ” strips.
Cut off all the selvages.
Pin two strips right sides together.
With right sides together, sew a 1/4″ seam. Continue sewing all the strips together into one long strip, until you have enough to go all the way around your quilt. I used 6 strips for this quilt. It is just a small lap quilt.
Then fold the strip in half wrong sides together and press with a steam iron. (Don’t you love the ironing board cover? I guess it is about time for a new one, but you can tell that it has been well loved!) :)
Roughly measure the strips all the way around your quilt, making sure that you have no seams meeting right at the corners. Adjust where you start, if a seam meets at a corner.
Pin where you started marking the binding. You do not need to pin all the way around you just need to pin the start. You will want to start sewing about 6-8″ away from the end of the strip. (This is so you can finish off the end of the binding)
Start sewing the binding on with 1/4″ seams. Sew to within 1/4″ of the corner.
You are going to turn your quilt, but not with the needle down. Lift the needle (You do not cut the thread either) turn the quilt and binding and lift the binding to make a 45 degree angle to the corner.
Then fold the binding straight down on top of the 45 degree angle.
Put your quilt under your pressure foot and start sewing a 1/4″ seam down your second side.
Repeat this process for the other 3 corners and sides. When you get back around to where you started, quit sewing about 6″ before you get to the other tail.
Take quilt out from the machine holding both strips together put a pin in where they meet.
Cut off the excess binding 1/4″ away from your pin.
Like this.
Then open up both of the binding ends and with right sides together you will sew a 1/4″ seam. This is a little bit hard especially if you have not left enough room to work with. But just bunch up the quilt a little bit until you can stitch the ends together.
Then refold the binding and I just do a finger press here. Continue sewing the binding to the quilt and it will come out exactly to the right measurement!
Next come the most time consuming part. So plan for a good tv show or an evening or two to sew around the binding by hand. You will want to pin as you go to hold the binding in place. You are wrapping the binding around to the back and doing a blind stitch on the back of your quilt. Be sure to take tiny stitches! Like I said this is the most time consuming! 
When you come to the corners, they will just automatically lay into place. Fold one side down and the other side will fold to a point! How cool is that!
So there you have it. Not so bad Huh? And look at how beautifully it finishes the edge of a quilt! (My quilt was machine quilted, and my quilter always sews a seam all around the edge and trims it for me. If you are quilting your own quilt, be sure to do this before you start to put the binding on, so that the top and bottom are even.
Happy sewing! I would love to hear of your quilting projects if you are willing to share!
I got this kit from one of my favorite quilt shops in St. George: Lazy Daisy Cottage. When I saw it I automatically fell in love because, well hello, it is PINK! Not your usual colors for Halloween. Anyway it was a super easy kit to put together and I just got it back from my quilter, Becky Albrecht. I love how she quilted it and I love how fun this quilt turned out to be!
Look at these fun witches in the blocks, are they not the most whimsical, fun characters!
A witch with an attitude! Does that sound like anyone that you know?
The back of this quilt is pink and black zebra minky! So soft and perfect for snuggling with the grandkids to read our favorite Halloween book: “Frank Was A Monster, Who Wanted to Dance!”
I will put a tutorial on how to do a quilt binding with the mitered corners. They really are easy if you see it done once!
