Turquoise was selected as the trendsetting color of 2010 by Pantone, the worldwide authority on color for the design industries. It is the 'it' color for fashion and home décor this year. For our Turquoise 2010 series, we have a dozen projects planned using fabric so lovely you'll feel like you're on a mini vacation while you sew. Don't even ask how much turquoise fabric I bought for my personal stash while researching this article.

When I started sewing, zippers scared the bejeezus out of me. I went to great lengths to avoid them. Even tried to bribe a friend of mine to put in my zippers (she refused). I finally faced my fears, and just like tall bridges and spotted dogs (don't ask), they turned out not to be scary at all. My next therapy session: concealed or invisible zippers. Sure enough .... they're actually even easier than a regular zipper. I wonder if there's hope for conquering spiders, snakes and giant zucchinis?

If you're a regular visitor to sew4home, you may have noticed we have quite a number of projects that feature fabrics from designer, Patty Young. To borrow a line from Chris Farley, it's because "She's AWESOME!" Patty's also been a great supporter of Sew4Home from the very beginning and is always a joy to work with. She took a few minutes out of her very busy days to share with us, and you, a few of her thoughts about home décor sewing in general, and her design style and inspiration in particular.

You've seen grommets many times: on apparel, bags, athletic gear, etc. They're those metal circles with some type of rope or cording woven through at a closure point. Well...things are beginning to change in the world of grommets (bet you didn't know there was a world of grommets ... did ya?!). Dritz® Home has a great product available for home décor enthusiasts, snap-on Curtain Grommets. Fast, fashionable and functional.

We have several projects coming up that require cutting large panels of fabrics for curtains. When you're short on space, this can be a bit of a challenge. So here's a little folding-and-cutting trick to make it easier, faster, more compact ... and actually, more precise. Remember making paper snowflakes as a kid? You fold, fold, fold, and then cut, cut, cut. Same basic concept, but without the swiss cheese effect. Grab your rotary cutter and mat and let's slice!

National Embroidery Month is a time to celebrate all the wonderful things you can do with an embroidery machine. Plus, it gives us another great excuse for trumpeting the creative freedom these machines can unleash! A home embroidery machine is something of an investment for most households. So the first question people often ask is, "Will I actually use this thing?" That answer is, "Yes!" As a matter of fact, we're willing to bet an embroidery machine will even save you money in the long run.

One of the places I spent a bit of time during the CHA Craft Super Show was Hancock Fabrics' big booth. They always seemed have a fun tutorial in-progress, and there were lots of new products on display. While there, I met and talked with M'Liss Rae Hawley, one of quilting's most popular designers and writers. She's recently begun a partnership with Hancock Fabrics and is coming out with some beautiful fabric collections ... that you just might see here at Sew4Home in the future. M'Liss introduced me to a couple new products I thought were interesting: Fusi-Boo and Shape-Flex.

It's a good thing Sew4Home doesn't feature any audio feeds or you'd have to put up with me singing Katy Perry's Hot N Cold while you read this article. Lucky for you ... and most of the planet, we'll skip the singing and instead concentrate on a few facts about the available thermal material options for home décor.

Here's another fun find from my wanderings around the floor at the recent CHA Craft Super Show in Anaheim California. The show featured many, many, many companies devoted to scrapbooking. Most of these I motored right on by in my quest for home décor ideas and inspiration. And then I came upon the Alexx Kesh booth. Maybe it was the fact there was shelf after shelf of the cutest little rolls of ribbons in all kinds of colors and patterns. Maybe I was drawn to the rows of tiny cups of beaded felt flowers, or the display of amazingly different mesh, interfacing and crepe. Maybe it was the fact I hadn't eaten all day. Whatever it was, I suddenly realized, "Hey! You could use this scrapbooking stuff to embellish home décor!"

It's a bouquet of sweet projects to make for your valentine. We got amazing milage out of a couple charm packs from Fat Quarter Shop, used some absolutely gorgeous fabrics from Paula Prass' Woodland Delight and Summer Soirée collections, cozied up to Woolies Flannel... so soft; and we even mixed in several fun scrap projects.

While at the recent CHA Craft Super Show in Anaheim, I spent a little time walking the exhibit floor looking for cool products our Sew4Home visitors might find interesting and helpful. This is the first of several articles about what I found.

We've featured a number of tutorials that incorporate appliqué or start with unique shapes, like a heart or small circles and squares. Often, the most time consuming part of the whole project is drawing and cutting all those shapes. And they just never seem to turn out as smooth and even as you'd like.

New Product Find: The AccuQuilt GO! Fabric Cutter, which die-cuts layers of beautiful shapes with the turn of a handle.

Torrential rains and 35 mph winds greeted us as we arrived in Anaheim, CA on Thursday, January 21st to set up for the CHA Super Show. How rainy was it? They CLOSED Disneyland! It takes a lot to shut down the Mouse. But the dedicated sewers and crafters were undeterred, and they showed up in great numbers to the Anaheim Convention Center on both Friday and Saturday. Jacqueline Smerek (on the right) and I chatted ourselves hoarse over the two-day show, but it was worth it to expose so many new folks to the idea of making their own home décor, and to show them how Sew4Home makes it easy and fun. We took some pictures to prove we actually exist... as do all those great projects you see here every weekday. The fans who stopped by were thrilled to see our projects 'in person.'

We created this adorable luggage tag out of all recycled materials. A few items we'd been hoarding ... just waiting for the perfect project that would give them a second chance at usefulness. You could follow our re-make and re-use lead, utilize scraps of fabric you have from other projects, or find something new at the fabric store. Then, next time all those black suitcases are spinning around and around and around on the luggage carousel, you'll be able to spot yours in an instant. "That's mine! The one with the cool tag!"

I have to give credit for these cute wraps to my mother. She was the original recycler. She saved every little scrap of fabric, every button, every too-short piece of ribbon, old wooden spools, and she even cut out and saved her favorite parts of old greeting cards. You never know when they might come in handy. So, thanks for instilling the habit, Mom. Here's what I did with MY stash of bits and pieces.

Calling all Sew4Home fans in the Anaheim, California vicinity! We're going to be at this week's CHA Craft Super Show at the Ahaheim Convention Center. Stop by Booth 932 and say "Hi!" The show runs Friday, January 22nd and Saturday and January 23rd. We'll have many of our favorite samples on display, be giving away some freebies, and making projects live in the booth.

I'll be there along with popular Sew4Home contributor, Jacqueline Smerek. If you're in the area, come on out and see us. This is the first year the popular show has had an official "Sewing Pavillion," so we need to show our sewing pride! There'll be hundreds of booths, demos, giveaways, and more.

For more information and ticket details, visit their site.

Hope to see you there!

Liz and Jackie

Bring up ruching outside of sewing circles, and you may receive a 'gesundheit' or two. But sewing enthusiasts know ruching is a great technique to use when adding decorative effects to your sewing projects. In French, a ruche is a ruffle or a pleat. And that's pretty much what it means in English too. But everything sounds so much fancier in French. Our tutorial shows you a basic way to create strips of ruching by machine.

A white tablecloth floats silently onto the antique rosewood dining table like a wintery blanket of freshly fallen snow. Topped with sparking china, spotless crystal and polished sterling, it becomes the pristine foundation for a magnificent holiday feast. And then... the doorbell rings. Hello, stains!

Sewing is an inherently creative activity. You take thread and fabric and create something new from it. There are times, though, when perfectly hidden seams and sharp corners seem limiting and you have the urge to just throw some color or a cute drawing on top and call it good. Enter Appliqué ! Appliqué is sort of like the construction-paper-craft-zone of the sewing world. This technique allows you to cut out any shape and stitch it on top of another fabric. You want a bumblebee on your pillow? No problem! Can't find a good fabric with a spaceship for that duvet cover (and don't you hate how hard it is to find a good spaceship)? Appliqué one! With appliqué, you're free to incorporate any kind of graphic into your project. There are a variety of different ways to execute this technique; read on to find the one that's right for you.

Wow ... 2010 is here!! All of us at Sew4Home wish you a very Happy New Year, and offer a big "THANKS" for making our first year so exciting and successful. Whether you're one of our fantastic regular readers or you've found us for the very first time, we're glad you're here and hope you keep coming back. Let us know what you think about our projects and how your own have turned out. It takes just seconds to become a registered user so you can post comments. We selected our Top Twelve projects from the past year. It was hard, because we had a lot of fun with them all. These favorites were the ones most discussed online and by email, as well as the most picked-up and posted to other blogs and sites. Thanks again; we hope to see a lot of you in 2010, and when you return, make sure you bring a friend.

When it comes to sewing, 2010 is going to be a very different year for me. In the past, I've been haphazard about my projects and you can see it from my sewing room. I have a habit of starting things and then not quite finishing – like my friend's chair over in the corner crying out for a promised slipcover. (I think I expended all my energy just wrestling it up the stairs to my sewing room.)

The Serger. Many who are new to sewing view this machine as mystical, and maybe slightly sinister. Judging by the name, you could confuse it for something (or someone) found in Marvel Comics. Even its other, more British name, gives it a wonderfully super-hero edge: The Overlocker. Sews by Day, Locks Seams by Night.

It’s true this machine can perform magic – at least watching one work gives you that impression. Don't be alarmed by the multiple thread spools or racing speed. With a few basic instructions, you'll be well on your way to learning how to use this versatile and fun machine. Plus, once you feel comfortable with a serger, you won't believe the time it saves in your sewing room!

You were so impressed when your dealer mentioned your new sewing machine could do 60 decorative stitches. Though still impressed, now you're wondering how to put them to use. We were hoping you would ask.

The girls, age seven and nine, had traveled by themselves on a Greyhound bus to spend the holidays with us. During the three hour trip through the mountain passes, they'd looked out the window at the snow and wondered what it was going to be like. What Christmas morning would be like at their dad's new house. With their dad's new wife.

A true story of holiday sewing inspiration from Jhodi Ulrey...

It was going to be a tight Christmas for our family budget-wise. We'd had a series of expensive home and car repairs and my husband and I were determined to pay them off as quickly as possible. That meant cutting our gift-buying budget to the bone. It also meant I'd be making the two dozen or so gifts we'd be giving our extended families. I do not wear the 'DIY Crown' in our family, but they say determination is half the battle, right?

Making gifts for adults certainly takes a bit of creativity. But at least grown-ups appreciate the fact you took the time and effort to make something yourself.

Kids, on the other hand, are much tougher to make gifts for. When your young niece has asked Santa for an iPhone, she's probably not going to be too thrilled when her aunt gives her a set of monogrammed tea towels.

Did you know used wrapping paper and bows are the biggest culprits in a 25% jump in curbside trash volume between Thanksgiving Day and New Year's Day?! There are so many ways to create green gift wrap -- and make what's on the outside as memorable as the gift on the inside.

This is a technique we've used in several tutorials, and it's been so popular, we thought it should be its very own project so you can refer to it whenever you need it. It's a great way to finish the edge of a blanket, a table runner, a wall hanging – just about any flat square or rectangle. Admit it ... you rubbed that satin blanket binding on your cheek and sucked your thumb, didn't you? Oh, wait, that was me. The technique takes a little practice, because you have to make sure you are catching both sides of the binding as you stitch. But I have great confidence in you, and I know you'll be binding everything in site in no time.

Rather than a napkin ring, add a little seasonal splash to your napkins with a few simple folds and some inexpensive trimmings that will fill your table with good cheer. These six festive napkins are all fast and easy to assemble.

Every once in awhile, I'll open my closet and see something that causes me to shake my head and wonder, "What on earth was I thinking, and why do I still have this?!" What seemed like a great idea at the time, would now be fashion suicide should I actually slip it on and leave the house. Sometimes the item goes straight into the Goodwill bag, but there are also times when my Vintage Rescue lightbulb goes on. I see beyond the jacket's silly majorette neckline and wild, stacked cuffs and envision what could be a cool home decor project. My denim jacket lives again as a whimsical throw pillow.

In the last of our three-part Holiday Gift Ideas series, we have selected seven projects you still have plenty of time to make; all would be great gifts for someone special on your list. Some take only an hour or two and some an afternoon. Our tutorials are always clear and easy-to-follow for even the beginning sewer.

One night at the dinner table my young nephew told his parents that his friend, we'll call her 'Janie' was "The F Word". Alarmed, his parents pressed him to explain himself and he answered, "You know; Fussy, Fussy, Fussy." Well... we can't blame a girl for knowing what she wants! This same idea is at the heart of Fussy Cutting fabric – you cut away the parts of the fabric you don't want in order to isolate a specific motif. Often you use this motif as an appliqué design, but you can also use a template in conjunction with fussy cutting to create fabric cuts that feature your selected design(s) centered exactly where you want them. When these pieces are sewn into place, the motifs are positioned for the most dramatic results, such as the center of a pillow or placemat.