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Happy Memorial Day Weekend!

Just a quick note to let you know that I've added a "Subscribe By Email" option on the left sidebar. A reader emailed me asking about it (Thanks, Liz!) and it prompted me to figure it out. I know there are a lot of feeds and they can sometimes be confusing. This is an option to get an email just when I post something new so you don't have to check your feeds to find out if I have new handmade goodness.

(It's really easy to add to your blog, by the way.)

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DIY Slipcover

*This is a long post with lots of "talking" to explain the process...you've at least been warned.*

Awhile back, a girlfriend of mine (Hi, Janis!) mentioned that she had a chair for their nursery and she wanted a slipcover made. A friend of a friend had quoted her something like $300 for the job + fabric (which, by the way, I believe is totally fair if you know what you're doing) and she hinted that she'd rather pay someone she knew personally. Well, I told her that I'd never made one before but I'd be happy to try and it could save her some cash. So began my slipcover journey... 

(Oh, and in case you were wondering, she paid me nicely for the job. I'm a pretty nice girl, but not that nice.)

The Front Before

The Front After

While I'm pretty happy with the finished product, there are about a dozen things I wish I had a better handle on. All that said, my friend loves it and I think that's what matters. Before starting, I googled everything I could about making slipcovers, read through my favorite vintage sewing book (which had a TON of great information), and even checked out a book from the library (Sew Simple Slipcovers...which I can't find online). Then I just dove into it. As far as I know, there is no exact formula for creating a custom fitted slipcover and it can drive you batty. But when you conquer something like a curved arm, you get to step back and feel waves of love for your little work of art. 

And there really is a scuptural quality to working with fabric in this way.

The Back Before

The Back After

I really do love the fitted look as opposed to the baggy slipcovers with ties.The only hurdle that I couldn't overcome was the front edge of the hem. Because of the damage to the cushion underneath, I could not for the life of me get the cover to lay flat and keep the hem level. But no project can go exactly the way we want it to...we've all been there.

Here's it is in its home sweet home...

(don't you love the different colored walls in the nursery??)

If you ever get the crazy urge to do this yourself, the overall approach is pretty simple: in essence, you just create your whole cover inside out in pieces and then assemble it.

Inside Out View

I basically placed the fabric wrong side out in sections with the print oriented the way I wanted, pinning where I wanted a seam. Then I'd take it off the chair, sew the seam, turn it right side out, and replace it on the chair to check the placement. Turn it wrong side out to make adjustments, run it through the machine again, turn it right side out, check the fit again, and so on. You can imagine how much placing, pinning, sewing, and repeating this takes for a whole chair.

Back of the chair

Detail of the arm front construction

(before finishing the raw edges)

Generally, I didn't bother basting because it seemed a waste of time. But I can see the value in a seam that would be easier to remove if the placement is way off on the first try.

I used cotton twill tape on the inside edge of the hem to eliminate any raw edges and give it a nice smooth finish. I'm pretty sure that the hem can make or break a piece like this.

Detail of the hem from the inside,

where the velcro meets.

In an effort to stabilize the construction and make it durable enough for lots of baby snuggling and kids climbing on it, I double stitched all the seams to reinforce them and serged or zig-zagged all the raw edges. That's a surprising amount of seams and edges.

In order to get the curves fitted yet smooth, I did little tucks and matched them on both the left and right sides. So the left & right top corners each had 3 tucks in the same place for nice symmetry. The curved arms were similar.

The curves are some of my favorite details on the whole chair.

The tricky part of a fitted slipcover is making sure you can take it on and off. My solution was velcro on either side. It detaches in two stages for easy removal but a snug fit. 

Both sides got a 1st strip of velcro here.

And a 2nd strip here.

Oh, and you may have noticed that this is not an upholstery weight fabric. While I would recommend upholstery/home dec if you do this, you really can use anything if you fall madly in love with a print that isn't available in home dec. This was a lightweight cotton that my girlfriend loved. Because it didn't have much body and wasn't opaque enough to hide the original upholstery pattern underneath, I backed all the fabric with French Fuse (recommended by the wonderful women at my local fabric store and purchased by the yard in 20" widths).

What is French Fuse, you ask? Good question. I didn't know until this project either. It's a lightweight, synthetic, netting-like backing that is fusible on one side and smooth on the other. It gives the fabric a good amount of body (without stiffness) and much more opacity. It's time consuming for sure but can considerably increase your choice of fabrics.

And in case you were wondering, this is what it looks like.

 So there you have it.
One custom order fitted slipcover.
It probably doesn't make you want to run out and do it yourself (no offense taken),
but at least you know you can if ever want to.

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Hello Again!

I'm back and full of crafty ideas! Let's be honest: I couldn't even stay away a whole week. I missed the little blog. Thank you so much for your kind words about my break; I really appreciated them. Sometimes I just get overwhelmed and feel like I have no idea what I'm doing and I have to take a step back and recenter. I am happy to say that our house feels a lot calmer now and I am more focused. And I have fun new stuff for you! Just because I wasn't blogging doesn't mean I haven't been sewing. Come on, you should know it would take a lot more than a little chaos at home to keep me away from my machine...

The first fun thing is that I've started a flickr group for my Handmade Mommy Tutorials. I should have done this a long time ago, even if just for the 15 minute jammy pants that have been made by lots of moms. {Yeah for quick sewing!} If you've made something based on my tutorials or you do in the future feel free to add it to the group. I absolutely love seeing what you all make. That's probably a gross understatement...I really really really love seeing what you create! When I hear from people who use my tutorials it inspires me to keep creating. The link to the group will live over there on the left sidebar.

The second fun thing is that I've fallen in love with making hair clips over the last week.
I think I'm the last crafty blogger on the planet to try my hand at hair clips but I totally see the appeal now. I had a couple birthday gifts for girlfriends on my To Do List and these are sweet little accessories that any girl can use.

While I don't usually do much sewing by hand, this is an easy project and I love the detail.
By the way, does anyone know if there is a name for those little twisty flowery sort of things I made to put on the clips? They were a happy accident when I was trying to create something entirely different and I'm sure they've been around forever and forever. What's really new, right?
If you know of a name for them, please let me know.
Conversely, if you don't know the name but want a tutorial, I'd be happy to put one together.

 And the last fun thing is a really cute armchair makeover. I think you'll love it.
That will go up tomorrow...

Once again, thanks for hanging out with me on the little blog and sticking out my break. 

I hope you've had a great week!

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Sabbatical

-noun: any extended period of leave from one's customary work, 

especially for rest, to acquire new skills or training, etc. *

Things are falling part at our house. Figuratively, of course. And I'll be taking a little blogging break. 

Everything will be fine. It's nothing that can't be fixed with time. 

I'm sure you have those days in your house.

But I need to work on my mothering and wife-ing skills. 

I'll be back in a week or two.

Sending happy home thoughts to all of you.

* http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Sabbatical

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Quilted Canister Sleeves with Fabric Labels Tutorial

Thanks, Anna, for including me in the Spice Up Your Kitchen fun!

You are one amazingly talented lady with superhuman inspiration and time management skills.
{tip of the hat}

Because I'm always looking for ways to create and simplify, I've got a tutorial for quilted canister sleeves.
Crafty and organizational. Ah.

And while they look great on stainless canisters, 

they would look just as good on plastic containers or even mason jars.

See what I mean?

Like I mentioned over at Noodlehead, I don't always enjoy cooking all that much but I always like a reason to sew and turn something practical into something beautiful. So these little sleeves were conceived. And I am definitely more likely to cook in a well organized kitchen filled with beautiful things to inspire me. Now my pantry essentials are not only stored tidily but they're awfully nice to look at on the counter. 

If you want to make some of your own, here's the lowdown:

You'll need a variety of fabrics that you want to look at on your counter every day (mine are Charisma by Gail Kessler for Andover Fabrics), quilt batting, velcro (I used 3/4" but any width would do), rotary cutter, printable fabric (I used the sew-on kind, but you could easily use the iron-on type in the picture), and a denim needle for sewing the velcro.

Oh, and it will make your project easier if you prewash and iron your fabric before starting.

Now you'll cut 4" strips of all your fabrics. I'm a big fan of saving time so I cut my strips with the fabric folded. I folded the fabric selvage to selvage and then matched the folded edge to the selvage like so...

Using my rotary cutter and ruler, I trimmed off the raw edge.

Measuring 4" from the newly cut edge, I cut through all layers of the folded fabric.

Your strip will look like this.

Repeat for all your prints so you have a long strip of each print.

Now cut each strip into pieces of various widths. Mine range from 1 1/2" to 4 1/2".

Keep in mind that you will lose 1/4" on each side when you join the pieces 

so don't make your widths too thin.

You'll have cute little piles of cut pieces...

And now you get to arrange them how you want. 

Decide how you want the pieces to match up and stack them in that order.

Using a 1/4" seam allowance, sew all your pieces into a long strip, just like piecing a quilt.

The finished length of this strip depends on how big around your containers are.

Each container will need a strip 2 inches longer than its circumference.

For example, my canisters measured 15", 15", 15" and 12.5".

The strips for each canister will need to be 17", 17", 17" and 14.5".

This continuous strip then measured 65.5" (the combined total of my four).

Just keep joining pieces until you get at least the length you calculated above.

Press all your seams to one side.

Now cut the correct lengths for each canister (I'll call these the sleeve fronts).

Again, these will be 2" longer than than the actual circumference of each container.

Cut a 4" strip of batting to match the length of each sleeve front.

And cut a 4" strip of fabric in this same length to back the sleeve (I'll call these sleeve backs).

Pin your batting to the wrong side of your sleeve front.

Stitch in the ditch (shown below) to secure the batting. 

Then add some random vertical/parallel stitches to hold it in place and make it even cuter.

Your batting and sleeve front will look like this when they're sewed together.

Now line up your sleeve front with the sleeve back, right sides together.

Pin all the way around and mark a 4" opening for turning in the center of one of the long edges.

Sew the sleeve front and sleeve back together using a 1/2" seam allowance. 

Make sure to backstitch at the start and finish to reinforce the 4" opening you left.

Clip your corners on the diagonal.

Trim your seam allowance to 1/4" (just trim away half) all the way around except for your 4" opening.

Leave this at 1/2" and angle the edges like the picture below.

Now turn, push out your corners, and press flat.

Topstitch all the way around about 1/4" from the edge, or as close as you can comfortably get.

Cut your velcro to fit either end of the sleeve.

One hook (rough) piece on the inner side and one loop (soft) piece on the outer quilted side.

Stitch them in place using a denim needle to help you avoid skipped stitches through the velcro.

Look at how nicely that comes together!

Now you get to print those labels and cut them to your desired size.

Important: follow packaging directions carefully for the printable fabric!

 

You can, of course, use any font, size, style, etc. That's the beauty of handmade!

But if you like the size and style of mine, here's a pdf template.

If you use iron-on printable fabric, 

you'll need to mirror the image in your printer properties at the time you print (easy to do, I promise).

Using a tight zig-zag stitch, secure the label to the sleeve in the center.

The back of the sleeve after putting the label on.

Now you have a whole set of beautiful handmade labels.

Now wrap your canisters/containers/jars nice and snug and put them on display.

Isn't that a lovely sight on your countertop?

If you use this tutorial, I'd love to see your creation! 

Feel free to post it to the Handmade Mommy Tutorials Flickr Pool.

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Budding Seamstress

I am really getting the hang of kids' handmade gifts with all the little ones' birthdays we go to. But I have a very specific threshold: anything past about 4 years old is completely foreign to me. My kids are still little so I have no idea what older children like to get. But I got lucky this weekend when a friend's daughter (having a 9th birthday party) specifically asked for fabric and velcro so she could do more fashion design with her Project Runway set (I think this one). 

Time Out! How cool is it that a 9 year old is sketching out designs and learning all about sewing and asked for "fabric and velcro" for her birthday??

Could there be a better gift for me to put together for a 9 year old girl? No! I had so much fun going through my stash and picking all different kinds of fabrics and notions for her little starter kit. In the end, I gathered the following fabrics: swimsuit knit, lightweight cottons, jersey knits, embroidered cotton, and some swiss dot.

Each cut is about a fat quarter and I thought she might have fun getting to know some different textures and weights. I did leave out anything satiny since it might frustrate her at this stage.

  Then I filled a little tin with notions: velcro (as requested), cotton twill tape, elastic, rick-rack, ribbon, and safety pins (in lieu of needle & thread since she has a curious younger sister and I didn't ask for her mom's approval).

I also bought a fabric glue stick, a water soluble fabric marker, and an extra measuring tape to include. 

I'm thinking she would also really enjoy this kit by Harumika; I love how you can wedge the fabric in the back of the dress form.

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