Check out this great tutorial at Sew, Mama, Sew.  It teaches Hand Quilting, but it starts with the most important and basics of steps—knotting the thread in your need. 

This is a pattern I teach all my new sewing students, no matter their age.  It’s a great way to practice sewing a straight seam and it’s so much fun to see the finished project.  If you’ve never made a pillowcase with these instructions, the middle steps are going to seem quite strange.  Just trust me.  It works.   You can find the instructions here.

Girls Sewing Class

in the Shreveport/Bossier City area

for those finishing 1st – 4th grades

learn to make a pillowcase and an elastic waist skirt with trim

June 1-3

2-5pm

contact me for more information.

Looking for a project perfect for a beginner?  Try one of these:

 

Two great things about this pattern: 

The instructions are written for a brand some one brand new to sewing.

The pattern teaches you how to embellish your skirt—something most “learner” patterns leave off!

 

This purse would be perfect for the summer.  This pattern is designed to teach you how to sew.

If you looking for easy home dec projects to get you started, try these Sewing For Dummies patterns.

 

Happy Sewing!

 

This is not the way I’d teach you to gather fabric if you took my sewing class.  This is not the way most authors would tell you how to gather fabric.  But…if I have a long ruffle to gather, you can just about bet, this is how I will gather the fabric.

I’m showing you how I gather fabric with my computerized machine.

1.  Place fabric under needle and lower presser foot.  Take one stitch and then backstitch.
2.  Set your stitch length to the longest setting possible.  Tighten your top thread tension as much as possible.  If you have a manual machine, just turn your stitch length dial to the longest setting.  You may also have to Increase you tension on your upper thread tension dial.
3.  Stitch and watch your fabric gather on its own.  At the end of your fabric, do not backstitch.
4..  Remove your fabric from your machine and adjust your gathers according to the length you need.  To tighten the gathers even more, gently pull the top thread.

I find that using this method on my machine gathers my fabric to about 1/3 its original length.  It is easy to tug it as tight as 1/6 the original length.

Easy, isn’t it?  The most important step is still to come: 

Do not forget to reset your thread tension to its usual setting.

Happy gathering!

After reading lots of blogs about having a TNT (Tried And True) pattern,

I decided to find one for myself.

I chose the easiest garment to make—A Skirt!

The idea was simple: find a pattern I liked, make it fit,

then add (or subtract) design details to create the skirts I wanted.

So, I started with the essential, flattering-to-everyone A-line skirt.

I started with McCalls 3341:

I measured my hips and traced that size onto freezer paper.

Then, I measured my hips, waist, waist-to-hip, and high hip.

I compared these to the actual measurement of the paper pattern (plus ease),

I added a little here and there and cut out my adjusted pattern.

Since my first skirt was to be a muslin

(a trial run for you non-sewists out there),

I hated to use any fabric from my stash.

So, I snitched the plaid from the skirt of this dress

that was handed to me “in case you can use the fabric”.

I made this skirt, just as the pattern instructed.

For a review of the pattern, please see my review on PR.

It fit beautifully and made a great wardrobe addition for the winter.

The easiest way to tweak a skirt is to take it from

fitted to an elastic-waist gathered skirt.

So, I traced my new TNT pattern onto freezer paper

leaving out the darts and

placing the center back on the edge of the paper

eliminating the center back seam.

I also added a little extra at the top so I could make a

casing for my elastic waist. Here’s skirt #2:

(sorry about the crooked picture)

Remember my spring wish list?

Well, skirt #3 is my knock-off.

This one was fun to create on paper.

You can get the details in my PR review.

One other exciting bit about this skirt:

I installed my first invisible zipper.

Y’all never told me how easy it was!!!

And it looks so pretty.

Much nicer than:

Moving on…

Skirt # 4: My Spring Fun Skirt

This one was made like Skirt #2.

I did add a little extra fabric by placing the

“PLACE ON FOLD” mark about 1 inch from the fold.

And then there’s the Dolce & Gabanna skirt

I saw on their site earlier this year.

You can read the process for Skirt #5

on the PR review if you are interested.

And yes, it has an invisible zipper.

Last, but not least, there’s skirt #6.

I’ve been drooling over all the cotton lawn in

the Liberty of London line that’s out at Target.

So, I hiked into Hancock’s to see what

I could find in a cotton lawn.

Not much. Anyway…

I loved the way the fabric draped, and

that inspired me to make the ruffle.

This skirt is lined with a rayon lining and

has an elastic, gathered waist.

So, there you have it,

my crazy skirt project.

Proof that I’ve been sewing.

I have more ideas and more fabric ready to go.

If you live in the Shreveport/Bossier Area

and would learn how to take a skirt pattern

and tweak it like I’ve done,

check out this class at LSUS.