Pages

Showing posts with label sewing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sewing. Show all posts

Saturday 2 March 2013

Notebook Cover Tutorial

Hello and happy weekend everyone!

How was your Saturday?? Mine was very productive and fun! Playing with beautiful printed fabrics is what I love^_^

There are so many lovely fabrics out there, don't you just love all the colours and fun prints?
 I DO!!! My favourite way to sew with them is patchwork and quilting, they look amazing, the more different patterns the better.

I made this patchwork neck pillow a while ago:


These fabrics come from various Tilda's collections, they are so pretty! My pillow is super comfy and I use it all the time. If you want to sew your own you can purchase my PDF pattern and instructions  here.

And today I was working on a super sweet notebook/ book cover and I will share the tutorial with you. Give it a go, it's so much fun! And the book looks a lot better!^_^
 I want to fill it in with all my creative ideas!






BOOK COVER TUTORIAL

 You will need:

-scraps of various fabrics
-lining fabric ( I used cotton)
-light weight wadding
- 2.5 cm wide bias binding
-scissors
-self- healing mat
-tape measure
-3 ribbons of different colours
-rotary cutter
-sewing machine

First measure you book/notebook:




Add 3 cm (that will be your seam allowance). Mine measures 36 cm x 24.5 cm (incl seam allowance).
Now determine how many patchwork squares you will need. I am using 5 x 5 cm square template to cut mine and I would need 60 pieces.

And here the fun part starts.. Be bold and choose fabrics with lots of different prints and colours.
I use a rotary cutter and a self-healing mat as this way you can cut more than one square at a time and they are more accurate but you could also use scissors.

Lay out your fabric squares. Place them in a desired pattern, label them so you remember the order later on.



You will also need to cut a piece of wadding and a lining fabric using your notebook measurements (incl 1.5 cm seam allowance),  cut 2 flaps too- the same length as the lining and for the width - a bit more that a quarter of the lining's width.

All the pieces

 Sew the squares together to form rows using a 1 cm seam allowance. Press each row when 

finished to the same side:




Stitch all the rows together and press.
Neaten flaps' outside edge with a zig zag stitch, turn under 1 cm to the wrong side, press and stitch. I used a decorative stitch for that:


I hand printed a small design on one of the flaps in advance:



Lie the fabrics right sides facing together and stitch the flaps on the patchwork piece:



I wanted to add heart appliques on the cover front:



 Now stitchsides of the lining to hide flaps' stitches- sandwich the flaps and stitch:



Turn it inside out, sandwich the wadding and stitch all the way around.



Almost ready!^_^  Stitch 2 zig zag lines down the center.

Stitch on the ribbons right in the center, cut them all a bit longer than your notebook length. I cut mine in various lengths:




Now we are going to hide these horrible raw edges by adding bias binding:











I wanted to add small hearts on to the ribbons...
For that you need to cut 3 pairs of hearts in different colours and 3 wadding to go inside of each- if you want them to be a bit puffed. Stitch with a zig zag in a contrasting thread.





And... It's done!! Congratulations!





And with the notebook:




Let me know if you try to make your own cover and if you do I hope you have as much fun as I did! Oh and please share, I would love to see what you come up with.

Gosia

xx

Wednesday 27 February 2013

Personalized Designs For Babies

Hello and good afternoon!

What an amazing day we are having here in Edinburgh! The sun is shining and not a cloud in the sky! That's a very rare thing for us! The city always comes alive on days like this! The sun makes it all the more amazing!
I have all the windows open and I am enjoying those sun rays creeping into my studio.
I have lots of sewing to do, very busy and very happy^_^

This morning I was shortening a few vintage maxi dresses and making up skirts on thick black elastics from the cut offs, the change is amazing. But enough about that! I wanted to focus this post on personalized designs that I have been working on lately and share them here.

This is a baby blanket with appliqued name, it's made of heavy cotton with really nice prints, backed with soft baby blue fleece and a contrasting dark blue bias banding. It turned out quite nice, didn't it?

Here is my work in progress:


securing appliqued letters with satin stitch


Attaching bias binding

And here it is!!^_^





And now personalized monkey toy for a new born baby- made of fleece, felt and cotton with hand embroidered name, date and even time! Isn't it just sweet?





Hello!!Here I am!!





And another blanket for a baby girl this time. It has sweet felted creatures stitched onto it and hand embroidered name. What do you think of this one? Cute, huh??







And last but not least baby quilt. Oh so pink!! With appliques and a thick wadding inside, so warm!







Oh what a collection!^_^
There will be more so please come back again.

And in the meantime have a lovely day!

Gosia

xx