Put Some Clothes on that Pillow

Thanks to everyone who shared their stories and preferences concerning their pillows. It's interesting to learn what you prefer. I've heard of those memory foam pillows and I'm thinking it's something The Farmer would love. Maybe for Christmas I'll get him one.

Yesterday I mentioned that I'd show you how to make your own pillowcases. Why in the world would you want to make your own pillowcase? I've noticed that the quilt shops that I frequent all have patterns and kits for making colorful cases. They're just so different than anything you might find in the domestics department of your local big box store. I love the idea of having something colorful and unusual to rest my head upon and just think about the dreams that those kinds of cases will jumpstart.

I also mentioned that I'd have an opportunity for you to help others. My friends over at Craft Hope are just coming off their biggest project ever. Project 8 was providing towels for the Gulf coast oil clean up. Their hope was to collect 15,000 towels. They collected 70,000 towels!!! These women can make things happen..... and so can you.

For Project 9 they are working with ConKerr Cancer Center to provide colorful pillowcase for terminally ill children in hospitals across the U.S.

READ ALL THE DETAILS HERE

The pattern provided by ConKerr Cancer Center is provided HERE

OK, let's get started with sewing our pillowcase. We're going to start with our two pieces of fabric.

Main fabric - 26 1/2 x 40 1/2 inches
Border fabric - 10 1/2 x 40 1/2 inches

I don't have a lot of children's fabric in my stash but I did find this colorful animal print. Perfect..... lions and tigers and otters, oh my!!!



For my border print I chose a pink and white gingham.



The first step is to fold the border fabric in half lengthwise, with the wrong sides together. Press the fabric.



We're going to want to finish the seams so that the edges don't fray. A serger machine creates this edge.



See how the machine has zig-zagged thread over the edge to encase it, all while sewing the straight seam? Well, I don't have a serger and neither do many hobby sewers so I'm going to show you how to actually encase the edge, making a French seam. It's really not hard once you've seen it done.



Pin the long edges of the two fabrics together with the border attached to the wrong side of the main fabric. It sounds wierd because that means your seam would be on the outside of the pillowcase. But that will change in a minute.



Sew along the long edge, using a 1/4 inch seam. I'm going to switch to a sample swatch because it will be easier to see what I'm doing. That animal print is a little busy.

Right sides of fabric facing out.



Sew the 1/4 inch seam.


Open the seam out and press flat.


Fold over with raw edges inside and press flat.



Encase the raw edge by sewing a 5/8 inch seam along the edge.



This is a french seam seen from the inside.



I like to take it a step further and do a line of stitching that makes that piece lie flat. Just stitch right along the edge on the wrong side. Here's what it looks like after stitching viewed from the wrong side.



And from the right side.



At this point everything is encased, flat and looking all professional.

You can do this on all edges of the pillowcase including the border, the long edge and the short edge. Do them in this order.



After sewing the long edge you'll be basically left with an open ended tube so when you go to sew the encased seam down flat you're going to need to do a little "scrunching" to get it through the machine without catching fabric. Just go slow.

Here's the finished pillowcase which I will be donating to the Craft Hope Project.



If you don't want to use the method of creating a French seam, just sew in the order given and finish the edges with pinking shears.

Another idea is to use a decorative stitch on the area where the main fabric and border meet. I would have done that EXCEPT my modern electronic machine with the fancy stitches has decided to have a nervous breakdown. Yeah, and she's only a year old.

Many thanks to my friend made of cast iron, Beverly, who faithfully performed her straightforward and straight-stitching duties flawlessly. Gotta love a vintage machine!

Houston, the Eagle Brother Has Landed

Finally. The sewing machine was delivered yesterday. I checked the tracking number and it was scanned out to the delivery truck at 6 a.m., but it didn't actually arrive at my house until 4 p.m. No matter. It was like Christmas!



Yes, I keep a sparkly silver tree in my sewing room all year round. Why? Because it makes me happy. (Actually I have two silver Christmas trees in that room).

Just like Christmas, I excitedly open the box.



Here's the machine under the tree. One of the reasons I picked this model was because it came with this extension table. By the way, for all who asked, this is a Brother CS6000i.



There were pedals, cords and accessories.



Here's a better picture of it. The light is a little wierd. It's similar to those book lights. No matter, I've got plenty of task lighting I can use.



I had some reading to do.



There's an automatic feature that threads the needle. I guess that makes this the senior citizen model.

Taking a test spin.



I made a quick sampler of the different stitches.



I already know which ones are going to be my favorites. There's a little daisy chain of flowers that's really cute.



Beverly is fine with the new addition. It was getting a little lonely in there and she's glad to have some companionship.



Now the heat is on. I've got to start actually producing something.

Do you notice anything unusual on the work table? More about that next week.



Thanks for following along as the Brother made it's way from Florida to Illinois.

Let's Make Our Own Napkins!

Last week when I showed you my attempts to organize one of the linen closets, someone asked about making your own napkins. I thought it would be a great idea to show you how.

Here's one of my store bought dinner napkins. They are usually 19 or 20 inches square.



First you need to decide whether you want the napkins to look the same on both sides. Here's an example of two different kinds of fabric. You can see that the one on the left is a yarn dyed and woven fabric. The example on right right is a fabric where the design is printed.



I'm going to use the one on the left. Cut your fabric 20 inches square. I have this cutting mat, ruler and rolling cutter (very sharp, not for use where children are present).



If you don't have these tools, don't worry. Cut one dimension to 20 inches. You can use a ruler and a pen to get it straight. Fold over the one edge to make a triangle and cut along the line, making a perfect square.



Now we're going to get out our iron. Fold down the corners and press.



This will cut down on the bulkiness in the corners. Now fold the sides down 1/8-1/4 inch and press. You don't need to be exact.



Fold each side one more time and press. The raw edge will now be hidden. The corner will look like this,



I pin to keep everything from unfolding.



If you notice I'm going to stitch with the folded side up, that way I can be sure to catch the edge. Also, I start stitching a short distance from the corner.



Stitch all the way around and you're done! Did you notice my machine? Her name is Beverly.



This machine could be run over by a truck and still sew! She only does a straight stitch though and sometimes I'm wanting to finish something off with a decorative stitch. You can run a decorative stitch around your napkin or embellish it with other things like ric-rac or buttons.



Here's the finished product, folded and placed in a wine glass.



Next week I'll show you how to do some napkin folds. Have fun with this. You can do some great table setting with napkins you've created yourself.

Bias Tape Tutorial

Last week I promised to show you how to make your own bias tape and Vee's apron project is hinged on this information. There's just nothing like making your ownb because you can create bias tape from different fabrics and that gives you great creative potential.

Perhaps I should just go into the bias-tape-making business! No, maybe not.

I'm going to show you the method I learned in a quilting class. A yard of fabric makes LOTS of bias tape. The piece of fabric that I chose for the Make-Do Apron was only 26 inches long and I got 8 1/2 yards of bias tape from that. So, let's get started.

You're going to need:
- fabric
- a ruler
- a disappearing marking pen
- pins
- an iron

I'm going to take a moment here to say that if you want to learn how to sew, you're going to need to make friends with your iron. There's no way to get good results unless you press, press, press and press some more.

Lay out your fabric on a flat surface. Grab the selvage edge and fold it over to line up with the opposite edge, like this:



Finger press the diagonal. To finger press just put pressure on the fabric, open the fabric and you'll have a diagonal line. Mark this with the pen and a ruler. Now you need to decide how wide you want the tape to be. You're going to be folding it in twice, so figure the final width X 4. I just make the 2-1/2 inches wide and after it's all folded it's a nice final size.

Using your ruler, make marks every 2-1/2 inches and "connect-the-dots". Do this all across the fabric.



It's going to start looking like this:



Now you're going to match the edge together, but instead of lining up exactly, you're going to move the fabric to the next line, so it's jogged one over. Pin the edges, matching the blue lines.



Sew a 1/4 inch seam.



Here's my sewing machine "Beverly". She's been complaining that she's not getting enough face time here "At Home.....".



Press the seam open and flat.



Now start cutting on the line. What's going to happen is that you're going to be cutting one continuous strip around and around the tube. You're going to end up with long strips of bias cut fabric.



Fold the tape in half and press.



Open it up and fold one edge to the center line. Press the outside edge being careful not to press the center line flat.



Fold the opposite side in, but this time don't go to the center line. Make this a smaller fold.



When it's folded it will look like this.



That's what you're looking for, one wider side and one narrower side.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask. Now.....go make some bias tape in fantastic patterns!!