BER-wyn!

I've been doing these designs lately that have a lot of personal meaning but very little broad appeal. Like my Memories of Home houses. Or this design.

I really enjoy illustrating them, but they've been terrible sellers. The 1950s ranch house didn't even make the Top 50 in Spoonflower's fabric of the week contest.

This latest design actually came in at #22 out of 180 entries. Not too shabby, considering how I thought a person would have to know something about Berwyn, Illinois to at all appreciate the fabric.

Now to order a stack of swatches so I can put more fabric up for sale, including this one. I'd love the City of Berwyn to order a bunch and use it to upholster chairs for their offices or something.

Playing together nicely

Even if my daughters can't do it, at least my fabric designs can!

Here's my latest Spoonflower fabric of the week contest entry, June Birthday, one of my favorite floral designs with a matching dot, geometric, and stripe.

MIA

October was the Month of Illness around here. At least one child and/or parent was sick all month long, and the youngest kid had back-to-back cold, roseola, cold, and another cold.

So I got pretty much nothing done for weeks. No new fabric designs, chicken nugget-like product for dinner every night, no housekeeping on the 2nd level since early fall. It's getting out of control.

Tonight I cooked a real dinner... we had raw veggies & hummus... this weekend I swear I will vacuum the heck out of the bedrooms... and I did something new for Spoonflower's advent calendar themed fabric of the week contest. What do you think?

Memories of Home

Some new stuff I'm working on: a series of house ornaments. They're especially meaningful to me because I started with the house I grew up in. I haven't been inside it in almost 20 years... sure wish I could walk through and see what changed, what stayed the same all this time.

I'm planning on illustrating one of every style that appeals to me (notice I'm not promising any particular number of houses, ha!), but each one will be the house someone I know has lived in. Kind of like a house portrait, but made generic enough to appeal to anyone.

So far I have the '50s ranch, early 1900's gablefront, 1930's bungalow and 1970's split level. Next up, 1920's Cape Cod, 1990's colonial, and who knows what else I'll come up with. Maybe I'll even throw in a chicken coop or outhouse or two.

Arachnids and Parsnips?

Another wacky fabric design for Spoonflower's root vegetables contest. It's called Root Cellar and combines vegetables, assorted containers and spooky labels.

At first I was illustrating it much more realistically, with perspective, shading and 3D effects (see below). I was just about finished when I decided I hated it, scrapped it and started over.

The final one's much brighter and more fun, but the style of the first one made more sense because of the Halloween-y subject matter.

What do you think: Should I have gone with my initial idea and submitted the first (bottom) version?

Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble

I wanted to share a great tutorial using my Halloween potions labels (available in the Silhouette online store).

Joy shows you how to start with shiny new wine bottles, age them using Mod Podge and other fun stuff, glue the labels on, and create fantastic Halloween party decorations. Or set them up on a shelf in your kitchen any time of the year and make visitors really nervous. :)

Tiered skirt tutorial

I've been thinking, if I'm going to be designing fabric, I should probably start sewing more. And taking pictures of my projects and posting them. And hopefully putting together tutorials about what I make. So here goes.

It's my first tutorial, so please let me know if something makes no sense or if you need more explanation.

My oldest loves skirts and especially ones that flutter out when she spins. She also loves robots, Spider Man, He-Man, bugs and playing in muddy puddles. So just for her, I designed this skirt.

It's based on a very simple tiered style skirt, where four rectangles of increasing width are gathered and sewn together. The waist is a channel folded over and sewn shut with elastic threaded through it. Easy, even for me!

You can buy my preprinted robot skirt kit here (the photos show how the printed yard looks), or just follow the instructions and use any fabric you have on hand. My preprinted fabric, and the below measurements and instructions make a mid-calf length skirt that fits about a 5T/6T.

- You'll need a length of 1" wide elastic (about 1" longer than the diameter of the waist measurement of the wearer), some fabric (one yard should do it; either one color or a bunch of coordinating patterns and colors), and the usual stuff: thread, scissors, sewing machine, iron.

Here's how to make it:

1. Measure & cut: You'll need 4 rectangles to make the four tiers. Measurements are 30" x 7.25" (A, in photo above), 44.25" x 4.75" (B, above), 56" x 4.75" (C, above, in 2 pieces), 100" x 4.75" (D, above, also in 2 pieces).

In my limited sewing experience, I've found that a rotary cutter, straightedge and cutting mat are invaluable. Without them, I'd never be able to cut a straight line.

In the photo above, you'll see the pieces cut from my preprinted pattern. Since the two largest rectangles are wider than the yard of fabric, I had to make them in sections and piece them together. You might have to do that, too, depending on the width of your fabric.

Because of the crazy busy pattern on my fabric, once the skirt was sewn together the seams were pretty much invisible. My fabric also has a robot doll and a little bag to put her in printed on the yard, so you'll see pieces for those on the right side of the photo.

2. Gather tiers: Adjust sewing machine to longest stitch length and sew a straight stitch along top edge of tiers B, C and D. Pull bobbin thread to gather fabric into a ruffle (see photo, above) until the width of each tier matches the bottom of the tier it will be sewn to.

For example, you'll gather the top of tier B until its gathered width equals 30", which is the width of tier A. Tier C's gathered width should equal 44.25". Tier D's gathered width should equal 56".

3. Sew tiers together: Pin right sides of the four tiers together (see photo above), A at the top, then B, then C, with D at the bottom, adjusting the gather if necessary so the widths match up. Sew using a straight stitch. Zigzag stitch along the edges you just sewed to prevent fraying.

I always put the gathered piece on top and the flat piece on the bottom when sewing; that way I can make sure the presser foot isn't pulling out the gather as I sew. I get so frustrated when I mess up and have to rip out all the seams and start over, which happens a lot, so I'm all for tips and tricks to prevent that!

Here's what it looks like with all the tiers sewn together. This is my favorite part... it actually looks like a skirt here!

4. Sew side of skirt: Pin right sides of skirt together and sew, then zigzag the edges to prevent fraying.

(Note: It seems to be easier, for me at least, to sew the tiers together when they're flat. Some tutorials have you sew each tier together on the short side, then gather, then sew all the tiers to each other. I think having them flat makes it easier to measure and pin, so that's what I'm recommending here.)

5. Create waistband: Fold over 1/4" of top edge (on tier A), press. Fold sewn edge down again, creating a 1-1/8˝ channel, press and sew again. Feed the elastic through the channel. Put a safety pin on one end of elastic to help it slide through more easily. Overlap ends of elastic, hand sew or machine sew together. Blind stitch the channel closed.

6. Hem: Fold over 1/4˝ of bottom edge (on tier D), press. Fold entire seam over again, press, and sew in place.

7. Topstitch: Sew a straight stitch just above the seam where each of the tiers are sewn together (it's the white dashed line in the photo above. Forgot to take a picture of it!). This is totally optional, but I think it gives the skirt a really nice finishing touch and makes it look more professional.

That’s it… now have a little one try it on and twirl away!