sewing

Tea towels are easy to make and fun to give as hostess gifts. 

I started loving unique tea towels when I spotted them at Anthropologie many years ago.

I have to fess up that I did buy one and made it into a pillow.

You can get less expensive towels at Cost Plus World Market but we don’t have any of those wonderful stores in the Tampa Bay area.  The ones that I bought when I lived far far away are worn out now. 

So I started making my own tea towels. I’ve posted about making tea towels in the past and today I just want to give you some hints that I’ve discovered on my “tea towel making journey”.

The easiest method is to use finished plain towels that you can get just about anywhere.  That’s what I used for the LOVE towels in the upper left corner.  The applique fabric is a Moda Charm Pack. 

Then I discovered Moda Toweling which is also easy to use. The towels in the upper right corner are made with the Moda toweling and fabrics. The lower right corner geo-heart towels are made with the toweling and a Moda charm pack. The toweling is finished on two sides which is wonderful since I don’t have to do all that hemming.  I had a problem with the corners being kind of lumpy.  But no more!  I found an easy way to do that hemming.  Once again, Sew4home taught me something new about sewing and now I can make those clever corners!

Then I didn’t know what kind of fabric to buy. Another one of my favorite sewing websites came through for me, PurlBee recommended Kaufman Essex Linen Blend so I ordered three yards of white from fabric.com. 

This fabric is 44” wide, after washing and drying it shrunk a little.  I cut the towels 16 ½” wide and 20 ½” long.  Three yards is enough fabric to make 12 towels.

Now let’s discuss the appliques.  I love to use tea items for my tea towels and I pulled the teacup and teapot from Sew4home.  But I also use designs from many other sources and even cut them out of magazines and scan them into my computer.  An easy one I recently discovered from another blog (sorry can’t remember which one so I can’t credit them) is SweetClipArt.  It’s free and there are numerous fun graphics for every season.  It includes a download program which I didn’t use because I worry about picking up viruses.  I just right clicked on the picture and copied it to my computer then made it in different sizes through Photoshop.  You can do the same in Word.

For my latest creation, the warm spring-like weather inspired me to go with butterflies and I again used the Moda Charm Pack “Chance of Flowers” that I bought at our local quilt store, Tomorrow’s Treasures.

Now a little hint about where to put the appliques.  If they fit, I like to place them in the lower half of the tea towel.  For instance, this towel is 22″ long so I put these butterflies in the bottom 11″.  I also centered them in the middle third of the towel so all of the butterflies are visible when hung on a towel rod.

 

 

Hope those little hints inspire you to make some fun tea towels on your own!

Quite some time ago, perhaps when I first got sucked into the vast vacuum of Pinterest, I pinned this from Better Homes & Gardens.

And I said to myself, self, you need to make name pillows for all of your grandkids. 

Well, after all this time I finally got two done!

A pillow might not be something an almost 13-year old boy wants, but I made it in the colors of his favorite football team–The Chicago Bears.  Blue denim body, orange letters with white applique thread.  I’ve heard that Riley actually said it was “cool”.  Score!

Of course, Piper is only 3 so she’s not so hard to make things for.  Her room is pink and brown and I already had most of the fabric.  Then I took my mother-in-law shopping at Jo-Anns.  I wasn’t even looking for fabric and I found this pink with brown hearts!  That fabric was meant for Piper!

I used a 12″ x 16″ pillow form for both pillows.

Riley’s Pillow

Cut denim and fleece 13” x 38”.  Pin fleece to wrong side of denim and stitch together with 3/8 seam”.

Trim fleece.

Finish both short ends by pressing under ½” then turning under another ¾” and stitching.

Fold the denim in half so short edges meet.  Press.  This will be the center of the pillow.  Measure from the center 8” on each side and mark in top and bottom of seam allowances.

I created the letters in Illustrator but you could also do it in Word.  I used the font Calibri because it is sans serif and has rounded corners. I printed the name out twice and used one set to make sure I had the right spacing for the pillow.  The second set I used to cut the letters from the orange fabric which I had already bonded with “Heat ‘n Bond lite”, an iron-on adhesive that you can get at Wal-Mart or most fabric stores. I then placed the letters and pressed on to the denim and appliquéd with a satin stitch on my sewing machine.

To create the “envelope-style” back to the pillow, fold fabric at marks and fold sides in. 

Stitch ½” seams on top and bottom.  Trim corners, turn right side out, poke corners out so they are nice and pointy and insert the pillow form.

Piper’s Pillow

Piper’s pillow is a little more difficult.

You’ll need four different coordinating pink fabrics, fleece, and muslin.

I made the name the same way as Riley’s except I did not applique at this point.  This time I wanted the name to fit in a 5 1/2″ x 10 1/2″ space. 

Cut a piece of pink fabric 6″ x 11″, from the second pink fabric cut two strips 4″ x 11″ for the top and bottom and two strips 13” x 3” for the sides.

Stitch top and bottom strips to name panel with ¼” seams, press.  Stitch side strips to name panel and top strips with ¼” seams, press.  Now you will have a 13″ x 17″ rectangle.

Cut the fleece and muslin 13” x 17”, and made a “fabric sandwich”—muslin on bottom, fleece, then the right side of fabric up, pinned together.

Next machine quilt around the inside of the middle panel with 1/8” top stitching, then around the outside, then around the strips.  Applique the letters.

Cut two 12″ x 13” pieces of fabric, muslin, and fleece for back.  Finish one long side on each piece by pressing under ½” then turning under another ¾” and stitching.

Layer the backs and stitch with 1/2″ seam on the outside edges.

Trim corners, turn right side out, poke those corners out with a chopstick or something else pointy.

Done!  Two pillows down, five to go!  (By the time I get those done there might be more grandkids–this could be never ending!)

Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day and just in case you forgot to get a special someone a special Valentine. (Like your mom, bet you forgot all about her, and you know how much she liked getting those construction hearts you used to make her!) Here is an easy-peasy special project.

I had some fabric scraps left from a Christmas project.  (Isn’t it nice that Valentine’s and Christmas are both red-based holidays?)  So this was a chance to use up some of that stuff –bonus for me since I’m making a special gift and creating more storage so I can buy more fabric to hoard.

So here’s some heart pillows that I made.  These are easier than last week’s projects–no quilting!

 And so cute on both sides.  This is the back of the big dot pillow:

The chevron pillow is small and when I was ready to stuff it, I realized it could have been a coaster.  Coasters are even easier….maybe next year!

And it turned out really cute as a little pillow.

I think Maggie’s wee head would look really sweet laying on that pillow but she’s in no mood for modeling today.  She’s got a bit of an attitude.

So here’s the easy peasy directions.

Cut a heart shape.  Yeah, just fold a large piece of paper in half that will fit your fabric ‘bits and pieces’ and cut. I made three different sizes. You’ll need two exterior pieces of fabric, plus two fleece, and two muslin for each pillow.

Then make a “fabric sandwich”.  Muslin, top it with fleece, then top that with the exterior fabric.

Now you want to line them up and stitch very close to the edge.  Do the same with the other fabric piece.

Now put these right side together and stitch around the edges with a 1/4″ seam allowance.  Leave an opening of about 4″ on one side.

Clip curves and corners. 

Turn right side out.

Now stuff it with fiberfill.  Or maybe put beans in there and they could be bean bags!  Or corn.  Corn hole bags!  Hand stitch the opening closed.  Very little stitches if you’re using beans!

Very sweet.  Very easy.  But very special.