I am quite proud of myself today. I made a piece of clothing that I actually like and that fits me! That doesn’t happen very often and I really don’t sew for myself very much for that reason! But I saw this pattern made up at the “Dog Kennel Quilt Show” a couple of months ago and I just loved it, so I decided that perhaps I would try to make one. I was skeptical about it, but I liked the pattern so much that I bit the bullet and made it!
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Today I have a fun pillow wrap with a full pattern for you! You might just want to run out a purchase the supplies so that you can make one of these this weekend! They are so easy and so cute.
By making a simple pillow cover and different wraps, you will be able to change the look of ONE pillow for any season of the year. 
This weekend we are doing a Girl’s Craft Retreat and this painted board is one of my projects! I did one of these here and I told you that I would show you how to make one, so here it is! I have a great little trick for you that will help you get clean, crisp lines with no paint seeping under.
I was invited to a Blogger Mixer & Networking Event at Ikea. It was so much fun to make some new blogging friends and to be able preview some of the new displays at Ikea and get a sneak peek at their new catalog! They fed us breakfast and then they sent on on a shopping spree! It doesn’t get any better than that! Thank you Celeste and Ikea and Tauni at SNAP for putting this great event together!
I have some old pillows that I use outside on my patio and they were getting pretty hammered, so I decided that I would just make some new slipcovers to put over them. They were sooo easy to make and yet made such a difference that I wondered why I had waited so long to do them.
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I made this turquoise maxi dress from this tutorial. It takes 30 minutes to make this dress…really! I changed my dress up a bit from the tutorial, in that I took the sides in under the arms to make it more fitted and I turned the edges in on the neck, sleeves and hem. You could leave all these edges raw because they will not fray, but I like the finished edges better. (I am just weird that way!)
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My sister brought this over to me a few days ago and I thought that it was so cute that I wanted to pass it on to you! Many of us are always looking for a little gift to say thank you or “I am thinking about you” and this gift is just perfect! This would also work for a teacher appreciation gift for any teacher!
When I was a little girl, only 4-5 years old my mother took me to a yarn shop called Hiendselman’s, in Provo, Utah. They taught me how to knit! It seems hard to believe now, but I can still remember the lady telling me “In – around – and through” and I remember even at that early age how I loved all the colors and textures of the yarns that were in slots on the wall! So I guess that I have my mother to blame for all my craft making. Even though she is no longer here, she started it! Thanks mom!:)
It seems like every winter that I get the urge to start knitting these dishcloths. They are the most wonderful things because they are made with all cotton yarn and they absorb the water when you are wiping your kitchen counters. They are also a nice big size for washing dishes! I have made so many different colors and styles, but this is the pattern that I always come back to. I use the Sugar and Cream yarn and I can get two dishcloths out of one skein. Although the with new “twist” Peaches and Cream yarn, I could only get 3 dishcloths out of 2 skeins of yarn, even though they are the same yardage and weight, it is a finer yarn. (They are the red and green ones.)
My daughter made this darling quilt for her daughter and had it all quilted up cute. All that need to be done was to put the binding on and it would be finished. Easy, right? Well not to her. She struggled to get it finished and finally just brought it to me to complete it. Isn’t that what moms are for? I really didn’t mind, because I just worked on it one evening while we were watching a ball game. She designed this pattern from a couple of other quilts that she had seen, and of course I loved all the ruffles!
(I cannot believe that we are taking pictures outside in the middle of January in Utah and there is no snow!)
She started with 8 1/2 ” squares of fabric. Then she cut 2″ x width of fabric strips for the ruffles. She then cut the strips in half so they were about 21-22″ long. Gather each of the strips and sew them onto half of the squares. She randomly placed 5 minky flowers on 5 of the blocks with no ruffles. She stitched 1/4″ from edges of flowers and also from the edges of the centers of the flowers. She then laid it out on the floor and placed every other block with ruffles and each row had the ruffles turning the opposite way. Then simply sew the blocks together and then sew the strips together. I think that her design turned out absolutely darling. She put a minky backing on it so it is such a cozy quilt for her little girl. The edges of all the ruffles and the flower centers are raw, so that when you wash it, it will rag out and be so soft and cuddly!
I think that I might need to get another quilt project going after seeing how darling this one turned out! I loved the fact that she designed this all by herself, it tends to make a mother right proud! :)
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!
