Liz Johnson.Editor.Sew4Home, Author at Sew4Home

How to Measure for a Round Tablecloth

Products We Love: Cruz Label & All Things Labels

More and more people are evolving their passion for sewing into a business. Craft and market fairs have popped up in even the smallest communities, including upcoming seasonal Farmer’s Markets, many of which are expanding to include handmade products along with their famous fruits, vegetables and flowers. Online creative storefronts, like etsy.com, artsefest.com and silkfair.com have exploded in popularity. If you’re thinking of selling your creations, you should label them. A professional label adds the touch that says, ‘I mean business!’ We recently discovered two great online label options: Cruz Label and All Things Labels – sister companies from Los Angeles. We gave them a test run with a set of three Sew4Home labels, and were very happy with our results.

Cuddly Cat Stuffable

Here Comes The Sun Pillow

Market/Craft Apron

Handy. Dandy. That’s our market/craft apron. Ultra-clever folding allows you to create it using just one main chunk o’ fabric plus a little bit of trim. I especially like the way the hem shows on the front between the waistband and the pocket pouch. Top stitching holds it all together, and a line of pretty decorative stitching across the pocket binding makes it extra special. This would be one fancy yet functional apron to wear for those of you who make and sell your crafts at local fairs and markets.

Tattered Cotton Flowers

Woodland Delight: Handy Door-Handle Fine Washables Laundry Pouch

Must be Spring, because we’re in an organizational frenzy here at Sew4Home. We’re tidying up every nook and cranny in the house, including the closets. This handy pouch hooks over a door knob to catch your fine washables. Toss everything in, then tote it all to the laundry. A clever tie in the front lets you adjust the opening wide to easily stash your delicates, or cinch it closed for privacy.

French Desk Set: Pencil Cups

I use my computer all day every day, but that doesn’t mean I don’t also have about two thousand pens and pencils. As a writer, I love to collect writing implements. I’ve stored them in everything from flower vases to tiny galvanized buckets, and of course, the requisite artwork-covered tin cans lovingly made by my children. For our French Desk Set series, we knew we needed a couple classier Pencil Cups. Ours are quilted and feature a leather accent tie and cute button. Classy? Yes. Easy to make? Double yes!

Woodland Delight: 9-Pocket Door Caddy for Jewels and Lingerie

For years I had an “unmentionables drawer.” This had a double-meaning (double entendre for my fancy-schmancy friends): I kept my unmentionables in there (undies and the like), but it was also a drawer I preferred not to mention because it was such a MESS. I was always digging around, looking for something, tossing things about like a giant salad. Yikes! This easy over-the-door, nine-pocket caddy is much better at keeping my fine-wear and lingerie tidy and within reach. Plus, the Woodland Delight fabric is so bright and fun. You could also use the big pockets for larger jewelry, like beads and bangles. Even lightweight active wear, such as yoga tops and running shorts could be easily stashed.

An Interview with Fabric Designer, Paula Prass

Here at Sew4Home we are all about the fabric. It’s our number one source of inspiration, and one of our favorite designers of this inspiration is Paula Prass. We’ve used pieces from both of her original collections: Flights of Fancy and Summer Soiree. But went totally hog-wild when we received fabric cuts from her latest group: Woodland Delight. Paula took a few minutes out of her busy schedule to chat with us, and you, about home décor sewing, fabric design, interior design, and a quilt that made her cry.

French Desk Set: Blotter

A desk blotter is a bit of a throw back when you consider most work areas these days have a computer or laptop front and center. But, our French Desk Set collection is very traditional, and so a classic blotter was a must. The surface is a custom-cut piece of non-glare glass, which makes a wonderful writing surface and allows you to see Moda’s beautiful French General fabric underneath. We’ve incorporated gripper fabric into the design, and between that and the weight of the glass, it ain’t goin’ nowhere … whether you’re furiously scribbling a missive or penning an elegant thank you.

Haul It Floor Cushions

Some well-known facts: toy cars are cool, toy cars roll best on hard surfaces, hard surfaces hurt your bottom after a while. We came across this totally fun Michael Miller fabric, in 2010’s Color of the Year, and knew it would make a dandy play mat. Though we usually try to keep our projects to simple squares and rectangles here at Sew4Home, this one cried out for an interesting shape. I mean, really, if you’re playing cars, doesn’t it make much more sense for your play mat to be in the shape of a retro car and trailer?

French Desk Set Basket Liners

As a bit of inspiration to organize your work surface; we have a set of easy-to-make liners that are a great way to add color and pattern to otherwise ordinary wicker baskets. Includes steps for how to measure your baskets.

Organza Flower Pillow

Yesterday you learned how to make delicate organza flowers. Let’s put them to use with this Turquoise 2010 project. You’ll also use your new skill of inserting concealed zippers. Why … it’s like three projects in one! We love the swirling pattern on this brocade. Very elegant, and yet it doesn’t detract from the beautiful flowers.

Diamond Wale Corduroy Pillow

Even though it’s really tricky to spell, corduroy is cool. It adds interest to any project and comes to loads of wonderful colors, like Turquoise, 2010’s Color of the Year. We took corduroy’s terrific texture to the next level by spinning the wale to create an awesome center diamond, then we kicked out the corners by turning those famous fabric ridges in yet another direction. We did all this without getting dizzy. A beautiful silver button through the middle adds the finishing touch. It’s just one plain fabric, but by being playful with the design, it’s certainly not just one plain pillow.

Pendleton Wool Chipara Throw

Welcome to the first of our Turquoise 2010 projects. We’re celebrating the many shades of this great blue-green blend all year, and what better place to start than the turquoise of a classic Native American design. You could make this type of bound blanket with any combination of fabrics, but what makes ours so gorgeous is the classic Pendleton wool and the surprise texture of its coordinated corduroy binding. The beautiful weave of Pendleton wool makes their fabric striking from both the front and the back, and with this type of binding, you can display it either way to dramatic effect.

An Interview with Fabric Designer, Patty Young

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.

Designer Shower Curtain with Snap-on Grommets

A shower curtain is an easy item to sew; it’s just big! You can make one in just a few hours and give your bathroom a whole new look. We made this one from a couple of our favorite prints in Patty Young’s Flora & Fauna collection. When you select fabrics, look for something that will blend nicely at the seams, such as the all-over pattern of the Humming Birds fabric we used. Or, if you’re a bit more advanced, go for something you can pattern-match, a stripe for instance. You’ll notice there are great little sewing techniques here that will apply to all kinds of projects, including several different seam and hem finishing options.

Embroidered Seed Packet Placemats

These beautiful placemats are perfect for your big National Embroidery Month family dinner. The seed packet print is ‘fussy cut’ to take advantage of the cool striped pattern, then paired with wonderful botanical embroidery designs from Westminster Fibers new collection of embroidery design CDs digitized to coordinate with fabrics from some of the industry’s leading fabric designers. We choose two designs from the Anna Maria Horner CD.

Embroidered Boudoir Pillows

The idea for this project came about from a set of embroidery CDs we received from Westminster Fibers. They have a new series of machine embroidery designs, which have been digitized to coordinate with the fabrics from some of the industry’s leading fabric designers. What a great idea … and perfect as a project to celebrate National Embroidery Month. These two beautiful boudoir pillows each feature a large scale medallion print from Free Spirit fabrics with a featured embroidery design artfully positioned. The print is ‘fussy cut’ and positioned over matching plain fabric, using a raw edge appliqué technique. Easy to make and beautiful to display.

CHA Show: Liz & Jackie’s Made-in-the-Booth Pillow-Covers-in-a-Flash

Here’s another fun project we did in our booth at the recent CHA Craft Super Show in Anaheim. Again, this completely proves neither lack of space nor limited time are sufficient excuses for not making your own home décor. The other lesson from this tutorial is how a clever bit of geometry can transform a plain square pillow into a much more interesting pieced pillow. Start with a square and slice it into pieces, then put it all back together again. The only thing to remember is to add ½” to each piece anywhere there’s going to be a seam. As I always say, after all the time I spent hating math in school, Mrs. Martinsen was right, I do use it all the time!

Nature Brights Kitchen: Daisy Dot Apron

The design for this apron came about because we loved the Daisy Dot border prints in Patty Young’s Flora & Fauna collection. We were very happy with the sample when it was finished, but were thrilled to earn the, ‘Hey-this-is-really-cute Award’ from our teenage model. Praise like this is hard-won, and we are now clinging to the awesome coolness of our Daisy Dot Apron. We won’t, however, be wearing it to the mall. We do understand where coolness ends.

Nature Brights Kitchen: Quilted Hot Pads

I ♥ hot pads! I have tons of them. In fact, I’m zany enough that when I throw a dinner party, I actually coordinate my hot pads with my table setting. Yes… I need professional help. These awesome quilted hot pads are super simple, and each one uses just a 10″ x 10″ square for the front and back. You might have some scraps laying around that would be perfect. Our design is reversible, which is a two-for-one deal, and the insulating batting between the layers makes them functional as well as fabulous.

Insulated Shopping Tote

Load up this pretty tote with food you need to keep cold (or hot for that matter), seal up the top, and everything stays the right temp for a ride home from the grocery store or a trek out to your favorite picnic spot.

Nature Brights Kitchen: Triple Border Dish Towels

If you want to jump start a project, start with something off-the-shelf and add your own sewn touches to make it unique. That’s what we did with this set of clever dish towels. We started with plain white towels from Crate and Barrel, then added three fabric bands with contrasting topstitching. The color and pattern really pops off the crisp white background. I can’t guarantee folks will be fighting to help you dry the dishes, but I can promise the towels will look fabulous hanging on the rack.

Jazzy Ironing Board Cover

You’ll see from our instructional photos below that we made this jazzy ironing board cover while working in our booth at January’s CHA Craft Super Show. So I don’t want to hear any more whining about having no time and no space to sew. This tutorial is proof positive you can have success in the smallest of areas. An ironing board cover might seem like a rather mundane project, but think about it – you look at your ironing board a lot. Wouldn’t it be easier on the eyes if it had a cheery cover?

Mix + Match Cloth Napkins

Everyday Reversible Placemats

Valentines: Heart Happy Woodland Delight Pillow Trio

These three throw pillows look very different don’t they? Look again. They are the exact same pillow pattern – just with different fabric combinations, and one with a ruched flower embellishment. Clever mixing and matching isn’t just for your clothes closet.

Valentines: Heart Happy Apron (Men’s Version)

On Wednesday of this week, we featured our Heart Happy woman’s apron. Today it’s the guy’s turn to shine. Made in the same longer-style French baker’s cut, our men’s version goes even further down that road, using a smooth white cotton twill with cream linen ties. You’ll notice the cream linen matches the woman’s apron ties, and we used a scrap of that apron’s Paula Prass Woodland Delight in Brown Bloom for a coordinating pocket heart. You know, they say the couple who cooks together in matching Sew4Home aprons is 47% happier than the average couple. Don’t even try to prove that stat.

Valentines: Happy Heart Apron (Women’s Version)

Patterned in the longer style of a French baker’s apron, our woman’s Valentines apron is the perfect accessory to don when lovingly whipping up a dinner for two. Believe it or not, it takes just a single yard of fabric thanks to our clever cutting plan. We even supply you with a pattern to download to help you cut the arm hole curves. Start to finish, you can easily make this apron in an hour. In fact, check back this coming Friday to see our matching men’s version. Make them both and cook together in style.

Heart Shaped Sachets

Hang one or more fragrant sachets in a closet, hook on a doorknob, or slip into the lingerie drawer. Their taller, tapered shape is reminiscent of sachets spotted in French boutiques. We made ours with charm squares and scraps.

How to Make Faux Mitered Corners

Vintage Rescue: The Denim Jacket Pillow

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.

Tiny Totes for Terrific Treats

It would be an understatement to say we love the handmade gift here at Sew4Home. But even we run short on time during this busiest of seasons. So, how about a store-bought treat in a handmade tote? Of course, we’d still vote for homemade inside handmade (like a riddle wrapped in an enigma), but these tiny, two-tone felt totes are so cute, they’ll make anything you put in them just as adorable.

Visions of Sugarplums Christmas Pillowcase for Kids

The holidays are all about traditions, so here’s a fun idea for a new one to start this year. Whip up a special pair of Christmas pillowcases for each of the kids on Santa’s list at your house. This project is super fast and easy, and it uses just 1½ yards of main fabric and ½ yard of contrasting trim fabric. It will be a special day each year when the holiday pillowcases make their appearance on all the beds in the house. Your kids will also love helping to pick out their own special fabrics.

Kwanzaa Table Mat

Kwanzaa is a celebration of family, community and culture that combines traditions from many African cultures. It marks the harvest and emphasizes seven principles of strength: unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity and faith. The ‘mkeka’ is a place mat, on which the mazao, bowls of fruits and vegetables, are placed. It is traditionally made of straw or cloth and represents culture and history. It is the symbolic foundation on which the holiday stands. Our Kwanzaa table mat is based on this tradition.

Pretty Prints Please: Star Pillow

For this very uniquely shaped pillow, we wanted specific parts of our fabric designs showing on each panel. We also wanted each set of coordinating panels to match. To make this happen, we had to ‘fussy cut’ the triangles from our fabric, which means we centered our triangle pattern on the exact part of the fabric we wanted to show. We maneuvered the pattern piece until we had our fabric design element centered just the way we liked it. Then we pinned and cut. This process takes more time and more fabric, but the result is a dynamic, perfectly symmetrical pillow.

Hanukkah Gift or Wine Bag

Hanukkah gift wrap can be very challenging to find. So we decided it would be fun to show you how to make your own. We found some actual Hanukkah fabric at our local Jo-Ann Fabrics, as well as a nice combination of Hanukkah colors: blue velvets, silver cottons and rich gold satin. Then, we combed through our resources for the fastest, easiest gift bag project we could find. Happy Holidays!

Pretty Prints Please: Cotton Gauze Bed Curtains

The beautiful, billowy bed curtains we associate with elegance and style, actually have a rather ordinary and functional history. In those drafty old European castles of old, the lord and his family slept in the great hall along with all their servants, because this hall was one of the few areas of the castle where the fires were kept stoked for warmth and light. The noble family’s sleeping area was separated from the rest of the riffraff by curtains. Originally, the curtains were hung from the ceiling, but as the bed evolved, a frame was added to support a canopy from which the curtains hung.

Well … there’s nobility involved in that story, which qualifies as ‘princessy’, which makes them perfect for our teen room makeover. They also add a strong vertical element to counteract the many horizontal surfaces in the room.

Installing Cable Wire for Hanging Curtains

I had to bring in the big guns for this project as my own ‘power tool’ experience leans more towards sewing machines than drills. So, I asked my husband Bob (who is always a good sport and really tall) to bring his years of experience as a builder to the table to show you how to install this very cool cable wire system. It’s a great option for hanging lightweight, decorative curtains, which add height and drama to our Pretty Prints Teen Room. This type of system would also work well to create a room divider or even to hang a curtain for an especially long run of windows.

Yoga Mat Sling Bag

Over the shoulder and off to class. This yoga mat bag is a great carry-all for your mat, towel and flip flops. It even has a handy outside pocket with a Velcro closure for a wallet, phone and keys. Our tutorial gives you great step-by-step directions for how to perfectly match the pocket fabric to the bag fabric. Haven’t you always wondered how they do that?

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