I decided to make a bag for my mom for her birthday. I found this great fabric and thought what a pretty bag it would make, so with no pattern or ANY clue on how to make a purse, I began cutting, sewing and assembling. The whole thing took about two hours, mainly because I didnt know what I was doing so I was having to stop every few steps and draw a diagram.

I had some trouble attaching the straps because I did them next to last, when I should’ve sewed them to the lining before attacing the lining to the outter piece. But hindsight is 20/20 and my mom loved it anyways.

I had a good time doing this, and I can’t wait to make some more bags. I found this tutorial for quilted patchwork bags and will be attempting this next week, so hopefully it will turn out just as perdy as hers.

Ok, I am so excited right now. I have been dying to tell you about Anna Maria for a long time! I am soo obsessed, addicted and crazy over her stuff. There are few blogs you really want to read every word and go back to posts and look at the pictures again and again. This blog is just like that. Watch out if you’re not careful you’ll spend hours there! I feel so privileged to tell you about this amazingly creative woman. When I get this excited I have trouble sharing my thoughts. My mind goes faster than my hands can type so bear with me here.

Thing is I totally want to be just like AM when I grow up. She has 5 kids and still finds time to craft! Be sure to take a look at her bio, for I am sure to leave something important out. Her daughter Juliana who just turned 15 is adorable. She helps her with all of her big craft projects. My favorite is the younger kids play room they designed together. I can’t wait to be able to do stuff like this with Lucy! So fun!

She is a fabric designer among other things. Take a look at her home studio. She has her own line right now called Bohemian. She just came out with a new line called Chocolate Lollipop, which will be out in April or May. I can’t wait to get my hands on it! Oh my gosh super cute!!

some of her fabulous pillows. (she has made so many her husband has threatened to put them in storage!)

Be sure to check out her great technique for making super circles. It’s so great I want to try it right now!
and a few more reasons why I love Anna Maria….

It’s not chocolate, or some icing-covered treat. It’s fabric! I can’t get enough of the stuff and I think about it all the time. When I’m not looking on the internet for it, I’m wandering up and down the aisle’s of JoAnn’s fighting the urge to throw a hundred bolts into my cart and race towards the cashier.

I think this is the most fun part of sewing - picking out your fabric. Trying different color combinations, different patterns, textures - it seems to please all the senses. With the way fashion and trends are today, there really are no rules and you can go with whatever looks good to you.

I got this sewing book awhile back called Simple Sewing with a French Twist and have finally gotten the opportunity to crack it open and read it and I’m addicted to it. The projects, the pictures, the style of writing - it’s all so great. I highly recommend it no matter if you’re new to sewing or an old pro.

After flipping through it I see a lot of projects I want to tackle, but then I saw this rad purse. Of course, this isn’t one of the projects, just a prop for the photograph, but how hard can it be, right? Now I just have to choose my fabric…

I was going to wait and post this next week but I’m just so excited I couldn’t wait!

While I was at JoAnn’s a few weeks ago, I found this yummy fabric that I knew would look great somewhere in the house. I hadn’t decided what I was going to do with it until I walked in the kitchen and this site stuck out like a sore thumb:

We have limited storage space in our kitchen, so I bought this roll cart to put food in and to add to our also limited counter space. So I decided to make a skirt for it to hide the metal part, and also it’s contents. My mom came over this morning to show me how to use my machine and the first seam that I stitched I was in love with it. I can tell this is going to be a beautiful friendship.

So I worked for two hours, piecing the skirt together, then I finished the edges, added some ribbons, and there you have it - a cute covering for a metal kitchen contraption.

I think it turned out great and I had so much fun doing it! I can’t wait to think up more things to do with my sewing machine (and I know the possibilities are endless).

I had previously posted that I have started sewing cloth diapers for my daughter, and since then I’ve fallen in love with them! They are easy and fast to work up, and you can make them so cute and functional. Plus, I love seeing Elizabeth wearing them, and knowing that my work is getting used

I went to get some more diaper flannel from our local fabric shop the other day, and I fell in love with some of the printed flannel that they had on sale. I decided that I wanted to try some diapers with a hidden waterproof layer, so I can use the fun prints on the outside. I just couldn’t resist the cats and lions:

These will make some cute diapers, and they will be unisex so if our next child is a boy, he can wear them too! I also couldn’t pass up a couple of more girly prints - multi colored dots and purple hippos:

But the cutest fabric I found was the monkey print…I just fell in love with it because it is so darn cute!! In fact I had to buy all that they had, just because I loved it so much! I can picture diapers with this print and a chocolate brown inside, and I just know they will turn out adorable.

However, I will not be using it all up for the diapers, so I think I’ll be making a taggie for Elizabeth out of it, and then I will have so much left over. What should I make with it? Any thoughts or suggestions?

If you know me at all, you know I am not a tea set kind of gal. I was a tomboy, and at the age of 25, I’m just starting to get a little girly. But I have been in search of the perfect tea set. My great grandma had one that I remember playing with, but after she died it got lost in the clean up, never to be found again. A lot of antique tea sets I have seen are super cheesy and well, ugly. Gold-rimmed, scalloped edges - totally not my style. But when I found this on eBay last week it was pretty and reminded me of the tea set my grandma had. So I began the frantic (and blood-pressure raising) bidding. Obviously I won and I can not tell you the relief I had when I saw the green check on the screen followed by the words, “You won!”

It arrive on Monday and I can’t stop looking at it. I think it’s one of the prettiest things I’ve ever seen. It inspired me to make some tea towels and embroider what else but tea cups and flowers on them. However, I’ve never made tea towels before. I’m just getting into sewing and learning about fabric, so I don’t even know the best material to use to make kitchen towels. I suppose I could just buy some plain white ones, but how fun is that? So dear Daisy readers, can anyone enlighten me as to what kind of material to use for tea towels?

I made this bag for Candace’s son’s birthday. I am always trying to think up gifts for little boys that are not another toy, so I came up with this scaled down backpack to hold their toys. I chose corduroy for the outside of the bag which I wanted to be able to withstand a little boys’ abuse. The inside fabric is a cute print of wild animals. You could go in so many directions with this by choosing different fabrics or embellishments for a boy or girl.

1. Decide what size you want the bag to be taking into consideration the height of your child. I made this according to the length of my son’s jacket. Cut your lining fabric 2-3 inches longer than your outer fabric. I thought the corduroy might be too stiff for the drawstring so I made the top part out of the cotton print. I thought this was cute too, adding the colorful border.

2. Line up the longer and shorter piece of fabric evenly, place the right sides together of the two fabrics, and sew the seam up to the drawstring strip. Leave this open so the drawstring can be inserted. Then flip the lining fabric over, fold allowing for the width of the strap or ribbon you want to use for the drawstring/arm straps. Iron along the top edge to make a crease. Be sure to take into consideration that the lengths of the fabrics match at the bottom.

3. Line up right sides again and sew a seam along one long side. Center this seam just sewn and sew along the bottom of the bag.

4. Turn bag inside out. I cut the fabric at a slight angle where my drawstring opening was left unsewn and finished the holes off by sewing a blanket stitch around the edge. You could also use a button-holer to make finished holes.

5. Measure your straps by calculating the width of your bag X 2 plus the length needed to reach from the drawstring hole to the bottom of the bag. I folded the corduroy with wrong sides together, turned the edge over, ironed my hem and sewed on top of the fabric. I ran this strap through and attached in the bottom corners with a button but this could be done in many different ways. The second bag I make like this will be much easier than this first one now that I have it figured out. I would make the strap of cotton fabric or heavy ribbon next time and perhaps embroider a name on before sewing the 2 fabrics together to personalize, but I still think it turned out cute!

I enjoy making this simple and inexpensive baby gift for the dozen showers I attend each year. I stole the idea from a costlier version in a local store. Inevitably, instead of enjoying his teddy bear’s cute face, my son turns the bear upside down and clings to the label. So I decided to indulge him with a small blankie of only labels.

1. I choose 2 fabrics of different texture, honestly with the mom’s taste in mind, since little one can’t say yet. I like flannel, corduroy, fleece, bright prints in fabrics that can take many washings. Or I like to pick a theme that would go with the family, like my son has a “Let’s Build It” taggie covered with tools in honor of my carpentry-skilled husband. Once you have stock-piled some fun fabrics and ribbon, the cost will feel next to nothing, literally like $1-2. The discount section of your fabric store is a great place to look.

2. Cut a 12 inch square out of your 2 fabrics. I made a cardboard template that I just lay down and draw the lines with a pencil for cutting.

3. Choose your ribbons and cut out in different lengths, usually 3-5″. Fold over to picture how long you want the ribbons to stick out. Line up right sides of fabric together. Fold the ribbon in half and tuck the folded end inside the 2 fabrics. I stagger the lengths a little and vary the width and texture of ribbon around the fabric.

4. I leave one corner unpinned where I sew a long, wide ribbon, for a handle, caddy-corner after the other sides are sewn. Sew the other 3 sides up to the handle corner, removing each pin as you get to it and making sure the ribbons are straight.

5. Turn the fabric inside out, tuck in the 4th corner, insert the final ribbon and sew on top of the fabric. You can also embroider the child’s name to personalize it, or I usually sew a large, colorful button on top -just something else for them to play with.
This is a great way to use up any scrap fabric and scrap ribbon from other projects!

OTHER EXAMPLES:

I love to combine crafts when I can. This idea has worked best for me to create embroidery patterns using my rubber stamps. Here I made a travel pillow for my son’s first birthday with a cowboy theme.

1. Use washable ink and press the rubber stamp firmly to make sure it shows up dark on the fabric. It needs to be dark because through the process, and because your hoop and hands will rub it, your pattern may disappear before you can finish embroidering it. (hence why my cowboy’s gloves are a little unclear) Also, I wouldn’t choose a stamp that was really tiny or detailed. The good side of using washable ink is that it will fade by the time you are done or you can wipe it off with a damp cloth. I like using this method because I can also alter the pattern, like I chose not the stitch the cowboys’ mustache.

2. Cut the fabric in the shape/size that you want if making a pillowcase, center the design and stamp. Then embroider the pattern Before sewing the pillowcase together.

3. I left the ends of my pillow case open so it could be removed and washed. The cowboy print side is flannel and the brown side that I embroidered on was a light-weight, suede-like material. This is the first time that I used fringe trim but it will not be the last! I thought it was so easy and cute and I have been looking around the house for what else I can sew it on to with the extra I had leftover.

4. The actual pillow I made using cheap white fabric and good old poly-fil, since I could not find the shape I wanted at the store. In total the whole project cost me less than $4.

Using rubber stamps for your embroidery pattern is also great because you can make things to match. For his party, for example, I made the pillow, cowboy birthday thank you cards, and gift bags for the other children.

This method has opened up tons of options for me since I often want to embroider but don’t trust myself to draw the pattern and don’t often like what there is for iron-ons (and I have hundreds of stamps).