Pre-washing Fabric Tip

Tired of dealing with a tangled and twisted rope of yardage when pre-washing fabric?

Try the tip by Mary Jane Holcomb in Denison, Texas which is shown in the beginning of the following Kaye Wood video.

The tip works for up to 12 yards of fabric. Carole (From My Carolina Home) wrote about her experience with the technique in a post titled, A Brilliant Tip.

Wool Ornament

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The holiday season is quickly approaching.

If you need a quick gift for friends or family, Riley Blake Designs can help you turn bits of wool into an adorable ornament or a personalized gift tag.

"Prewashed" Labels

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How many times do you pull fabric out of your stash and ask yourself, “Has this been prewashed?” 

Orange Bettie shares a free printable label to affix to preached fabrics to eliminate the guess work. 

Prewashed Fabric - free printable

Fabric Dyeing - the EASY way

Fabric dyeing is the best! Don't limit yourself to the colors you can get in the store. Make your handmade items, fabric, elastic, or even ready-to-wear garments any color you want! And it's easy. I'll show you how to dye an adorable baby gift - no special equipment needed.

She shares more dyeing tips here

Pressing vs. Ironing

Snippets

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Sewists might enjoy making some of the projects on Quiltscapes' Snippets

Dyeing Fabric

Suminagashi Dyeing on Fabric - part 2

Sue O. adds dyes to the large tray of water
June 2017

Friday's post was about the experience of Suminagashi Dyeing, and today explains how the large panels of fabric were dyed.

once Sue O. had added all the ink that she wanted, the fabric was
carefully placed on top of the ink-covered water

Lorre H. assists Sue O. to makesure the fabric is straight and in the tray

allowing the fabric to take up the ink 

revealing the dyed panel
The panel was rinsed in plain water after it was removed from the tray.

Important Note: our instructor purchased cotton sheeting for the class and treated it with alum before the class so that it would take up the dye and so that the dye would adhere to the fabric. The fabric MUST be pre-treated.

the ink - purchased on Amazon

Suminagashi Dyeing on Fabric - part 1

Lorre H. demonstrates the technique of adding
ink to the tray of water
June 2017

Sue O. and Nancy S. took advantage of a Suminagashi class (also known as Japanese Marbling) last week at the Lander Art Center. It was a lot of fun and resulted in some interesting results.

adding layers of color on top of the water

The marbling ink is placed on top of the water in layers. The layers can carefully be manipulated to create swirls or pools of color.

ink floating on top of the water

fabric placed on top of the ink-covered water

dyed fabric after rinsing and pressing

The colors were quite vivid when they were wet, but once dried and pressed, they became muted.

Nancy's  collection of suminagashi dyed fabric squares
June 2017

Others in the class were more artistic with their squares.

rinsed dyed fabric squares 

completed squares

large panel of dyed fabric

Of all the fabric that was dyed that evening, this piece was by far a favorite. More photos on Monday . . .

House Slippers

Need some patterns for making house slippers for yourself or for guests?

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Zipper Teeth blog shares a step-by-step photo tutorial to make felt slippers.

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Megan Ta Da has a tutorial for sewing slippers

Free Quilt Patterns

Need a source for quilting inspiration or free patterns, check out Connecting Threads' 52 free quilt patterns.

Travel First Aid Kit

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Make several travel first aid kits for all of your summer activities. Keep one in the car, in your suitcase, in the garage, and at work.

The pattern and directions can be found on the Coats & Clark blog.

Sewing with Knits

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Recently, Guild member, Brenda H. presented two programs on working with knit fabrics to a Lander sewing group.

To build on the information Brenda provided, use the website Sewing with Knits. That site has numerous tips, techniques, patterns, and tutorials available.

To get the most out of the site, use the pull-down tabs.

Screen Cleaner

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We all love our tablets and phones, but face it the screens can become nasty pretty quickly.

Wild Olive's Turtle Screen Cleaner tutorial is a quick and fun project for yourself or as a gift.

Interfacing Tips

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Many sewing patterns only name interfacing in generic terms: light-midweight interfacing, heavyweight interfacing, etc. That can make it sort of difficult to navigate.

Sew Sweetness offers a comprehensive post on selecting the type of interfacing (fusible and sew-in) for making bags.

Scrap Quilt Patterns

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Quilted Twins offers free patterns for 72 scrappy quilts from simple to complex. The designs range from simple to complex.

Check out the site for oodles of inspiration and for free patterns to reduce the scrap fabric bins in your sewing room.

Child's Play Tent

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This indoor/outdoor play tent is the perfect hideaway for any child, and it's an easy, fun project that shouldn't intimidate any adult. This is probably one of the easiest projects you could make for a child. As an added bonus this tent folds flat for easy storage!

A complete tutorial for constructing the Child's Play Tent can be found on Just Another Hang Up website. 

Flatware Pocket Placemat

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While this tutorial uses Christmas fabric, the placemats can be made for any season. They would be great for summertime meals on the patio.

Fabric of My Life shares a tutorial for making the Placemats with Flatware Pockets.

Large Quilt Blocks

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Star Baby Quilts

Quilt Pimp compiled a list of links for free large quilt blocks - several 40" x 40"

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Genny & Ruth quilt

Fabric Weaving

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Fabric of My Life shares a tutorial and tips on the technique of fabric weaving for those who want to try something new.