Merry Christmas to you all!
Hopefully when I return I shall be reporting from someplace other than Sick House Central. Until then, be well!
Archive for December, 2010
Not-to-be-Missed Gift Idea
Land’s End Faux Fur Tails come with a free winter jacket!
Did you know?!?
My children tell me they’re meerkat tails. (we’re big fans of the more-obscure animals) Whatever the case may be, they’re the perfect addition to your dress-up collection. And, they come with a free winter jacket. Imagine! Clever presentation too, for when they arrive, each tail is securely zipped to the hood of the jacket. A quick unzip by nimble little hands and the tail is set free and ready for play. We opted for the matching Mother/Daughter jackets tails and couldn’t be more satisfied. High five, you clever Land’s End folks!
Let’s not forget about Reverse Applique.
This little sack, happily stuffed to the gills with dirty laundry, is the love child of a single visit to the thrift shop. That is black linen, Ladies and Gentlemen! I got a whole whoppin’ pile of it too. The crewel birds were set free from a dime store 5×7 frame and carefully appliqued to the inside of the black linen, thus qualifying themselves as Reverse Applique. It’s a technique I love for unstable things like the loose weave linen who don’t take kindly to being cut out, unraveling at the very thought.
Switch out the buttons and call it good.
Second Installment of handy design + sewing tips:
Don’t underestimate the design power of some good buttons.
From ‘Crusty Old Professor’ to……
…well…less crusty. I’m shooting for ‘hip’ here.
And ‘Little Mrs. Proper Housewife’ becomes…
…Clever Housewife with a Knowing Smile.
Sweaters provided by Goodwill and Savers, respectively.
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Yesterday’s Installment: Tagless size tags
Stay tuned for another gripping episode tomorrow when we return.
Tagless sizing
The first offering in a week of handy design + sewing tips is………………
….rubber stamped, tagless sizing.
The idea came to me while I was completely immersed in factory-style, long-sleeve tshirt production to bulk up The Girl’s winter wardrobe. I had on hand a number of those easy-to-find woven size tags, but not nearly enough to properly tag each shirt. Calling my trusty vintage stamp set to the rescue, I pulled out my fabric ink pad and stamped away. For darker fabrics, where a black stamp would not show up, I thought it would be easy to use white screen printing ink, but my quick and dirty test (read: lazy) didn’t turn out so well. Perhaps stamping on a lighter piece of fabric and ironing it on would lend better results.
More importantly, if you don’t already have a trusty alpha-numeric stamp set, vintage or otherwise, I’d recommend you run out this very minute and get one. Or put it on your Wish List if you’re exceedingly disciplined. I found mine on Ebay.
Join me tomorrow for the next installment of this week’s clever tips, won’t you?
Like this:
Post Script: I wasn’t kidding. Also, flashy promo.
This came home in The Girls’s backpack the same day I wrote the last post. I laughed really hard at the unsolicited affirmation of our new pro-cat sentiments and then ran to get my camera so that I could share it all with you. It took me a really, really long time to get there, apparently. No matter – here you go. I wasn’t kidding.
In other news, I’ve got a big week planned for you clever sewists. I’m at this very moment collecting a big bag of tricks to share with you, starting on Monday – can’t-live-without techniques that you’ll want to keep in your back pocket. Rather than offer up tutorials for specific projects, I thought it would be nice to offer up some broad-range design + construction skills that you can apply to whatever you’re working on right now. Hopefully it can help answer the burning ‘found this really great X, now what do I make with it?’ question you have.
Oh, I promised a flashy promo, you say? Ok. Imagine me announcing the preceding paragraph with a megaphone, jumping up and down, jumping-jack style while I shower you with sparkly silver glitter. That work? Good.
