Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home. Our huggable ladybug pillow is so cute, you won't want her to fly away. Rather than traditional round spots on her wings, Louise the Ladybug sports ten pretty appliquéd white hearts. We also amped up the color by switching out the standard ladybug red for a jazzy hot pink. And, there's a hidden heart on her chest, proving she's filled with love through and through. Actually, she's filled with a 12 oz bag of Poly-Fil® Ultra Plush Polyester Fiber Fill, making her squeezably soft. You'll love our trick for making cord-filled tubes to create her sweet pom-tipped antennae. Louise originally appeared on Sew4Home in January 2014, and she continues to be one of our most popular toy pillow patterns.
Complete S4H Cheat Card Set Available in Our Etsy Shop
One of our most popular S4H series is our Sewing Cheat Cards. Each card covers an important, need-to-know sewing tip or technique in a handy business card size: 2” wide x 3½” high. That’s small enough to tuck into your wallet or tack up on the bulletin board in your sewing space. All the individual Cheat Cards are still available on the site (simply use the site's Search Box to search on 'Cheat Card' in general or use any of the specific titles listed below to browse via the Search or through our Project Index), but we’d gotten numerous requests to offer a full set of six. So that’s just what we did. Since this is National Sewing Month, it seemed like the perfect time to remind you of them all. You can download a set for yourself and all your friends instantly from our Sew4HomeShop on Etsy.
Tailgate Apron in Sports Team Fabric
Show your team spirit with a fan-favorite tailgate apron in team logo fabric. Since Sew4Home is located in the Pacific Northwest, we chose Seattle Seahawks fabric for our sample apron, but there are lots of NFL® options. We've linked below to the current selection at Fabric.com and show some additional combinations. The logo fabric is augmented with both a solid and a stripe in coordinating team colors for the lining, pockets, and bottom accent band. Breaking up a busy print, like the team logo fabric, with more neutral tones and patterns adds interest and actually helps emphasize the feature fabric. Pick your favorite team and get ready to party!
Appliquéd Owls Playful Placemat Set
"Whoooooooo wants lunch?!" Our adorable appliquéd owl placemats make mealtime fun for kids... or those of us who are kids at heart! As they tumble through the trees, our playful owls make these placemats the perfect project for the approach of Fall. We provide templates for all four owl designs along with detailed step-by-step instructions for how to layer and stitch. Each owl pal has its own personality, thanks to their expressive eyes and whether they're hopping, perching, flying or falling. The fabric selection for all the pieces also adds style and sass. We dug through our scrap stash for a blend of fall colors. Each owl features one tiny print and one coordinating solid.
Compact Quilted Duffle with Handles & Adjustable Strap: Dritz Hardware
We always get compliments on our custom duffle patterns, but we realized the one category we hadn’t tackled was a smaller size bag that would work for kids or anyone who wants a space-saving, on-the-go option. We created a soft, quilted exterior so the duffle can gently expand and mold to better fit its contents. And we used Dritz® hardware and polyester belting to pull it all together, adding a fully adjustable and detachable shoulder strap plus Double Cap Rivets to strengthen the pocket tops, and a handy Swivel Hook key lanyard on the inside. It’s true what they say, good things do come in small packages!
Machine Sewn Seam Finishes - Mock French Seam and French Wrapped Seam - Part 3 of 4
One of the hallmarks of a professional job is when the inside of your project looks as great as the outside. We have a full four-part series, and this tutorial (number 3 of 4) reviews a couple of the more unique options: the mock (or false) French seam and the French wrapped seam. The mock French seam uses a standard straight stitch, the French wrapped seam takes the straight stitch in combination with a zig zag stitch. These are basic stitches you'll find on any sewing machine, which means there’s no reason not to incorporate them into your seam finishes toolbox.
Decorator Pillows with English Paper Piecing Accents
English Paper Piecing was a new technique for us when we designed these pretty pillows, but we can now understand how it can quickly become rather addicting. We tested three sets of the Paper Piecing Shapes from Dritz® Quilting: two sizes of Diamonds, two sizes or Hexagons, and two sizes of Tumblers. If you too are new to paper piecing, the first thing to understand is that it's handwork, not machine stitching. Most people associate it with beautifully intricate quilt tops, but the precise, perfectly shaped pieces are wonderful for a variety of embellishing projects. We've used them as appliqués to create a pair of graphic pillows.
Credit Card Holder Key Rings
Micro organization — tiny but mighty! That’s how we feel about these cute key ring clips. Each has a little pocket that is perfectly sized to fit several credit cards, gift cards, your license, a bit of folding money – or a combination of any of the above. The Dritz® snap and swivel hook let you attach this micro-organization-pocket to a key ring or clip it inside a larger tote. A Dritz® Iron-on Embroidered Letter is the finishing touch that makes it yours!
Microwavable Rice Filled Heating Pads
We love the simple clean lines of these microwavable neck and lap/back heating pads. After under a minute in the microwave, you'll get up to an hour of safe, warm heat without the dangers inherent in electric heating pads: burns, fires, and electrical shock. Electric heating pad cautions actually read: Never use in a situation where you could fall asleep. Hmmm... often falling asleep is my goal. These pads are not difficult to make and are a useful gift for most any adult. They're good for muscle aches or when you feel a chill and don't want to turn up the thermostat. You can also freeze them for a pleasant cooling effect. Although, just typing that made me shiver. Add a drop of essential oil if you'd like a little aromatherapy.
How to Narrow Wide Webbing to Fit Smaller Hardware
The stars do not always align. The square peg does not fit the round hole. Sometimes the perfect webbing or strapping you’ve selected for a shoulder bag or similar project is simply too dang wide for the D-ring or Swivel Hook you really want/need to use. Try this quick trick to bring your wide webbing down to size.
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