Hi guys. Today I’ve got a video tutorial on how to finish raw fabric edges with a regular sewing machine. The background music for the video popped into my head a few weeks ago along with a little voice saying, “You know this would make great background music for a tutorial, right?” I shot it late at night on a bad hair day — that’s North Country chic to you. I have been really overdue for a haircut and finally got one today, glory be. But that is neither here nor there. Hope you enjoy!
On our last trip to California, my mom and I spied this awesomely outrageous-but-not-too peacock headband at Urban Outfitters.
I really wanted it, but I didn’t $25-want-it. So, one trip to Hobby Lobby and a few feathers later, here we are! Just in case you want-it-but-don’t-$25-want-it (besides, UO isn’t selling it anymore), here’s what you’ll need to make your own (or scroll to the bottom for the giveaway!):
To start, fold your netting into thirds.
Position it on the headband, with the raw edge down, about two inches from one end of the headband.
Cut a long length of thread and knot it at one end. Starting about half an inch in from one end of the netting, take several long stitches to secure the headband into place (don’t worry, they won’t show).
The netting should be pretty firmly secured, except for a little bit at each end.
Feather time! Pick out 3-5 black feathers, varying in length from long to short. Play around with different combinations until you get a little bundle that looks nice.
Position your feather bundle so that the quills are at the center of the netting. Holding them down with your thumb, stitch them down using lots of sloppy, ugly loops (these won’t show, either, so it doesn’t matter). Don’t cut your thread yet!
The quills should be firmly in place.
Now take a few very small stitches in the middle and towards the outer tips of the feathers, securing the shafts (that’s the backbone part of the feather) to the headband and/or the netting, so that they won’t shift around when you’re finished.
You’re halfway through the hardest part!
Now do the same thing on the other side of the headband, overlapping the quills at the center of the netting.
And now for the really fun part! Take out your peacock feathers. Mine were attached to some larger blue feathers. If yours are, too, you’ll need to disconnect them by grasping the base of the feathers and pulling out the blue ones.
Clean up the peacock feathers a little by pulling off some of the long, scraggly bits from the sides.
Cut off the tops of the feathers, right above the eye, using scissors or a rotary blade. Just make sure the feathers are about the same length.
Attach the peacock feathers to the headband in the same way you did the black feathers (you might need to trim the quills a little). Almost done!
Cut a small piece of black fabric, about 1×2 inches.
Wrap the fabric around the exposed quills, making sure the raw edge is at the bottom, and stitch it shut.
Et voila! (‘Scuse the surly expression. I took like 4,000 awkward one-armed self-portraits trying to show the headband in action, and this is the only one that actually showed the whole thing.)
If you have some tiny black beads, it would look super cool to add those to the fabric part. But I was feeling cheap and didn’t want to shell out the $2 for the vial of beads.
And guess what! I totally made two of these. If you want one, leave me a comment, and I’ll pick a winner randomly sometime on Monday. Happy feathering!
How about a little tutorial for a cutesy blink-and-you’re-done baby skirt? These have been my go-to baby shower present lately…so much so that I have accidentally given skirts I made using this method to two different friends who were in fact expecting, um, boys. Whoops.
This quickie project is well-suited to all levels of sewists; even the beginningest of beginners can tackle this little number with confidence. You’ll be cranking these out in 20 minutes flat before you know it. To make this skirt, all you need is:
Main fabric – 3×30 in.
Coordinating fabric (for the waistband) – 4.5×30 in.
17 in. of 1/2 in. elastic
Safety pin
Thread
All the seams in this project are 1/4 inch unless otherwise specified. Ok, let’s go!
First, sew your two pieces of fabric together, right sides facing. You don’t have to pin, no matter what your mother told you. Really.
We don’t want that pretty little seam to fray after it goes through the wash, so let’s give that little sucker a zig-zag finish. Set your machine to 1) the widest zig-zag stitch possible, and 2) to the narrowest stitch length possible. Sew along the seam so that the “zig” part of the stitch (as the needle comes down on the left) lands on the fabric — and the “zag” part of the stitch (as the needle comes down on the right) lands just beyond the fabric, like so.
It’s an extremely inexact and very forgiving technique; if you don’t get it perfect, no one will ever know. Here’s how it will look when you’re done.
You’ll notice that the fabric I’m using has frayed edges; that’s because they’re cuts from vintage sheets. When I’m using sheets as fabric, I always rip the fabric instead of cutting it — it’s so much easier than wrestling with a giant sheet on a cutting mat. Ripping fabric is also an extremely effective stress-reliever. Ahem.
Next, we’ll go to the ironing board. With the skirt wrong-side up, press the seam towards the top of the skirt (just a matter of personal preference; I think it looks prettier from the front this way). Now press both the top edge and the bottom edge in by 1/4 inch. I just eyeballed it.
Press the top edge down again, this time by another 3/4 inch (this leaves room for you to insert elastic later). Then fold the bottom edge up by another 1/4 inch and press.
Now we’ll stitch down both of those hems. But when you do, start your stitching in a couple of inches from the edge, like this.
Leave a few extra inches at the end, too.
Now we’re going to sew the sides of the skirt together to make a tube. Place the short ends of the skirt right sides together, and flip out the hems, like so, before you sew up that seam.
Zig-zag finish that sucker!
I forgot to take a picture of the next step, but it’s simple: flip the bottom seam back in place and stitch it all the way shut. When you’re done with that, attach a safety pin to one end of your elastic, then thread it through the waistband.
Once you’ve got the elastic threaded all the way through the waistband, overlap the ends and sew back and forth across the elastic a few times to make it good and strong.
Now you can stitch the waistband shut, adding a tag (I used a tag from a vintage sheet) if you’d like.
All done! About as simple as it gets, right? Now you’re ready to whip up a whole stockpile for all those baby showers! (Just be sure they’re having a girl first.)
It’s easy to adjust the size of the skirt by using slightly wider pieces of fabric; just keep the length of the fabrics at 30 inches (or longer, just not shorter) for any size you want to make. That way, you can make these sweet little skirts for every little girl on your list.
I know there are about a billion little girl skirt tutorials out there — I just thought I’d add my voice to the chorus. Hope you enjoy!
Vintage sheets, that is. I’ve gotten a few questions lately, so here we go…
There are a few vintage sheet hotbeds in the US where it’s just easier to find fab, funky sheets (the Seattle area is one of them — who knows why — maybe the housewives of the 1960s felt that bright, cheery sheets were a good escape from the rain?), but for the rest of us, finding funky vintage sheets can be tough. I have only been collecting for a year or so, but I thought I’d share some tips on how and where to score vintage sheets (and please feel free to chime in!).
Swapping
By far and away my favorite way to acquire sheets. There are a few ways to get involved in swapping. Evelyn hosts an organized swap on Swap-Bot every month (check out the June swap right here). This is a blind swap; in other words, you don’t have control over who your partners are or what you’ll receive, but that’s half the fun! If you prefer to know who you’re swapping with and want to know exactly what you’ll be getting in the mail, the Vintage Sheet Marketplace on Flickr is a great forum for arranging private swaps with other group members. You will need to submit a request to join the group, but Rachel is super nice and doesn’t bite. The Vintage Sheet Patchwork Swap group, also on Flickr, does a massive organized swap every so often as well. Jen’s Vintage Sheet Blog is also a super place to find out about upcoming swaps. Of course, in order to swap vintage sheets, you have to have vintage sheets in the first place! So, in order to get going…
Yard/Garage/Rummage/Estate Sales
Some are better than others. When I’m looking for sheets, I stay away from newer neighborhoods that are populated with young families (who are less likely to be selling off bed sheets from the 1960s and 70s). Truthfully, I haven’t had a lot of luck finding vintage sheets at yard or garage sales — but when I do, they are amazingly cheap (like ten cents apiece). I’ve had more luck at estate and church rummage sales, where older folks are more likely to be selling off their old sheets.
Thrift Stores
Like quirky great-aunts, thrift stores all have their own personalities; I couldn’t tell you why or how, but some get lots of great sheets, and others never have any at all (any theories there?). In my town, it’s been a matter of popping in for a quick check when I happen to be driving by (and everyone is in a well-fed, well-rested mood!), maybe once every couple of weeks. Usually there’s nothing, but sometimes I hit gold, and it’s totally worth the effort. When we first moved to our current town and I was exploring all the thrift stores, I stopped at an out-of-the-way Goodwill and came out with something like ten or fifteen sheets! I haven’t found anything there since then, so it’s like they’d all just been accumulating…waiting for a whacko like me to come and rescue them!
Buying Online
I’ve heard that Ebay is a good source for vintage linens, but the one time I’ve bought online, it was from Secret Cake on Etsy. There are some incredible sheets for sale on Etsy; just search “vintage bed sheets” and see what comes up! Of course you’ll end up paying more than you would in a thrift store, but if you have trouble finding awesome sheets and want a few more prints to make a fab quilt, you really can’t go wrong on Etsy. A few more great shops include JaneSays Vintage, Whimsie Dots, and SoSo Vintage.
I think that about covers it. Anything else?
I had no intention whatsoever of writing a tutorial — or of even quilting — tonight, but earlier today, in an idle moment, I wondered, “Hmm, I wonder which quilt block the May hostess of the Vintage Sheet Bee will choose?” — and I realized with horror that the May hostess is me!
Needless to say, some frantic research ensued. I’ve been feeling really inspired lately by all the wonky cross/addition/X quilts popping up in blogland lately. I think a bit of the craze can probably be traced back to Kelly’s beautiful pattern. Here are a few more favorites to chew on.
There are some other tutorials out there for this type of block, but I’ve been sort of itching to give tutorial-writing a whirl lately. So — here’s my (very un-scientific) method for how to make some quick add-it-up quilt blocks. Luckily, this block is very forgiving, so don’t worry about doing it “wrong.”
First, choose some fabrics. You don’t want your plus signs to get lost in the sauce, so be sure there’s a little contrast.
From your plus-sign fabrics, cut two strips per fabric, each measuring 11 inches long and between 1.5-3 inches wide. You choose how wide to make them; I plan on making a variety of widths for my quilt. But for this tutorial, I cut them 1.5 inches wide. From the background fabrics, cut two rectangles measuring 10.5 inches by 5.5 inches.
Using a 1/4-inch seam allowance, sew one plus-sign strip to one edge of its background rectangle (and for heaven’s sake, don’t pin). Sew the other background rectangle to the other plus-sign edge. Press.
Using a straight edge and a rotary cutter, slice through the block vertically. Make it perfectly vertical, make it angular, put it in the center, put it to one side — it really doesn’t matter, so long as the cut itself is straight, know what I mean?
Using the same method as before, sew the remaining plus-sign strip into the block.
Press, trim up to 10 inches square, and you’re done!
