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Sweet tweets! Check out this cute pattern available in our Etsy Shop. You’ll pick your favorite floral fabrics to create six fine feathered friends, then appliqué them in place on a pair of stitched telephone lines.

We all love little cheats and hacks! Our popular Cheat Cards cover important, need-to-know sewing tips and/or techniques in a handy business card size: 2” wide x 3½” high. Get the six card set for just $1.99 in our Etsy Shop.

Rick rack has been at the top of the trim list for nearly 200 years. From elegant lace gowns to prairie pinafores, it’s a trim that’s weathered the test of time, and we have the best tips for adding it to today’s projects.

Whatever the task, a bit of hand stitching usually comes in… well, “handy.” We’ve outlined the tools needed along with seven of the most common stitches. Simple drawings and steps show how to do each one.

Pleats have been with us for centuries as a functional and/or decorative way to reduce the size of a piece of fabric. They are firmly ensconced in fashion sewing, but are also perfect in numerous home décor applications, like bed skirts, window treatments, and table linens. We’ve even incorporated them as unique embellishments on a
This is not one of those square-peg-in-a-round-hole situations. But, if the idea of sewing a two-dimensional item (a flat circle) into a three-dimensional item (a tube) sounds like something from another dimension altogether, read on. We've broken it down into a simple step-by-step process and even show you two different methods.  Let's chat first about

Though it’s hard to imagine, most fabric is still created on a loom – just as it was thousands of years ago! Technology makes the process much faster, but the basic principles are still the same. Learn about warp, weft, and more.

We love to gather with friends and family to share good food and conversation. We enjoy gathering with like-minded folks to attend concerts and other events. In these contexts, gathering is fun and easy. By comparison, in sewing... gathering is often known as daunting or simply too time-consuming! We believe all gathering should be fun
The square pillow – it's a decorating staple and a great way to freshen up a room. You pick your favorite fabric, measure carefully, and cut two perfect squares. You sew the seams, pivoting at each corner with precision, and insert the pillow form. You set the finished pillow on the sofa, and... Hey! That

Elastic shirring creates a wonderful stretchy texture. It occupies the space between the simplicity of gathering and the intricacy of hand-smocking. We cover the technique itself as well as several project ideas.

We like webbing… not necessarily like the monster from the black lagoon’s hands, but the cool cotton kind for bags and such. However, it can be hard to find in other than the most basic colors of white, natural, navy, and black. Bust out your decorative stitches and some colorful thread! This fast and easy
In between the simplicity of gathering and the intricacy of hand-smocking, lives one of our favorite texturing techniques: elastic shirring. You've probably owned a garment or two with shirring on the bodice or sleeve edge. It was the style on those iconic 1970s peasant dresses, and it remains popular in new fashion trends. Shirring is
We get a lot of questions about zippers. They seem to live at the top of many people's lists of Sewing Phobias (ziphobia!). In an effort to calm these fears, we already have three step-by-step tutorials for inserting standard zippers, tackling invisible zippers, and putting in an inset zipper. We're adding to the zipper toolbox
A circle has 360˚ – we all learned that in school, but we didn’t always learn how to use those 30 dozen degrees to create the angles that make up some of our favorite shapes. Our latest Sew4Home Cheat Card is the third installment in our Basics Shapes trio. It focuses on the most common
If you’re a Sew4Home regular, you know we don’t traditionally present a lot of projects in the wearables category. Of course, there are all our super popular aprons and a few other easy items, but in terms of fitted garments, we tend to leave those to other experts. However, that doesn’t mean we don’t love
There are lots of embellishment ideas out there, but for our money, it just doesn’t get much more fun and versatile than pom poms and tassels. If you’re a regular Sew4Home follower, you know we’re fans of both, and have already done our own step-by-step tutorials on making each. But we’re always up for learning

When does 1+1 = 1? When you’re basting two layers together! Lear: how to determine if your sewing machine has a basting stitch, when to use the stitch in sewing projects, and why hand basting is sometimes best.

It’s always exciting to begin a new sewing project. We’re eager to get started, and test stitching can feel like a roadblock to the creativity to come. However, ripping out a bad seam or ruining an expensive piece of fabric with a gnarl of thread is an even greater roadblock. Taking just a few minutes
There are lots of straight lines in sewing, but we love the circle. In fact, in my humble opinion, the circle is the Queen of the geometric shapes. Don't get me wrong; I like all those squares, rectangles, triangles, octagons, and whatnot; but the circle is the coolest of the bunch: smooth and pretty and
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