Do you know someone who needs to hear and see these words everyday? Maybe a kid? Maybe a friend? Maybe you? How about sewing a quilt? This is the top I made in a few hours, using the reverse applique technique. The beautiful fabric is by Rubin Design Studio from equilter.com. If you want to sew such a quilt, you need: 1 piece of fusible web (I used HeatNBond) 17'' x 20'' main fabric … [Read more...]
Useful trick- how to turn a rectangle/square quilt block into a triangle
This cute little block is one of the designs of my latest quilt patterns. This is such an easy and quick and fun sewing! The result? Rectangular blocks. You can join a few blocks into a table runner (I made one and I adore it!). But what else can you make? You can turn the block into an equilateral triangle. And six triangles will make a beautiful hexagonal design. Isn't this little … [Read more...]
Faux trapunto kitty pillows
Some of the kids in our family are blessed with lots of kitties while others are only dreaming about playing with furry friends. For these kids I bought some cute fabric panels years ago and now it was the time to use them. I wanted to sew pillows for them but not regular pillows. I wanted them to feel the kitties so I made them 3D. At first I wanted to add trapunto under the kitties, … [Read more...]
How to sew double sided napkins with flanged binding
I am working on new Christmas quilt patterns and I am taking a short break to show you how you can use small panels of beautiful fabrics from your stash. I have a panel with 10'' blocks and thought to turn a few of them into napkins. But not the usual napkins, but embellished with a flange - that accent strip of fabric (red and green) in the picture below. You can sew napkins in any size you … [Read more...]
Better than binding!
Now that you know that you can create kaleidoscope blocks even from small pieces of fabric (see yesterday's blog post), if you have more fabric at hand I think it is great to use it to add some borders or even backing to your quilt - just to show the original fabric. I joined a few orphan blocks into a little piece, I layered it with batting and did a little quilting, just to keep the layers … [Read more...]
Kaleidoscope quilt patterns made easy
Have you seen my latest kaleidoscope quilt patterns? If this technique is new to you, check out the patterns then come back here for a few tips. When you say KALEIDOSCOPE, you say PATTERN REPEAT. A pattern repeat is the design that repeats on fabric, lengthwise and crosswise, so it has a certain length and width. Depending on how many repeats you have on your fabric, you can create different … [Read more...]
How to sew double sided fabric napkins with mitered corners- tutorial
Learn how to sew double sided fabric napkins with mitered corners; this project is fun, quick, easy and you will be able to use beautiful fabrics from your stash. You can make them in any size, depending on the size of the fabrics you have at hand. If you have fat quarters from the same fabric collection, you can mix patterns as you want and you will make beautiful double sided … [Read more...]
Tips for sewing bags
Is the technique used to sew my latest pouch and bag patterns complicated? If you are asking this question, here is the answer, from a message received from one of my customers: What a well-written pattern! You made the rather complex instructions clear and easy to follow and understand. Beautiful work - Karen! I think anyone, even a beginner, can sew anything, as long as she/he is good at … [Read more...]
How to reinforce the bottom of a bag
Have you seen my latest pouch and bag patterns? In spite of the sophisticated look, these are not hard to sew patterns and actually, there are not too many steps involved! The bag pattern includes instructions on how to add a stiff bottom insert to the bag- very easy... You can reinforce the bottom of a bag in other ways as well, here is what else I made for this pattern- I did all the … [Read more...]
How to use interfacing scraps
It does not matter if you stitch big items like bags or small things like pouches, if you sew a lot, you end up with a lot of interfacing scraps that are too small to be useful and too big to throw them to the trash. For these bags made with my latest patterns I used Decovil light interfacing and my pile of scraps is growing by the day. What to do with them? You might like: Batting, … [Read more...]