Square fabric napkins are super simple, especially when you follow our easy directions for how to make a perfect double-turn, narrow hem with clean corners. This holiday, pass on the paper, and make your own beautiful cloth napkins.
Uncategorized
Thanksgiving Tablecloth with Arts & Crafts Style Panels
Our Arts & Crafts inspired holiday tablecloth features a unique panel design, which incorporates the beauty of a placemat into the tablecloth itself. Three highlight strips provide the perfect backdrop for your best china and flatware. We selected two gorgeous fabrics from Joel Dewberry’s Deer Valley collection. The striking patterns and interlocking architectural motifs create an elegant Thanksgiving theme.
Pretty Prints Please: Butterfly Pillow Shams
Pillow shams are a pretty way to keep things tidy up top. Bigger than a toss pillow, they not only contain a regular size bed pillow inside, they’re large enough to cover up other pillows in regular pillowcases underneath. Our four-patch shams mirror the design of the Pretty Prints Please Butterfly Duvet. But of course, you can create your own design to match your room, someone’s favorite colors, or even to celebrate a favorite hobby or animal or school: patchwork ponies or volleyballs or team mascots.
Fabric repeat
The distance between the beginning of one complete motif, and the beginning of the next one. It can be horizontal or vertical.
Monogram Week: What to Shop For in a Machine That Can Monogram
Shopping for a first embroidery machine can be a little intimidating to the uninitiated. There are quite a few options to choose from at a wide variety of price points. Fortunately for you, we did our homework in preparation for Monogram Week, and have broken down the necessities to a few top-level considerations.
Monogram Week: Picking the Right Thread, Stabilizer & Other Special Notions
Like any sewing project, using the correct materials is crucial to success. Monogramming and embroidery use their own special set of notions, which aren’t necessarily used in other types of sewing projects. We created a list of the materials you’ll need, with an explanation of their use to help you become an educated shopper – before you start your first monogramming project.
Monogram Week: How to Monogram a Plush Towel
Monogrammed towels lend a lush and elegant accent to any bathroom. And they make fabulous gifts for newlyweds or an anniversary. The only problem is they’re often far too pretty to actually use. I’ve gotten past this problem by pretending my bathroom is really part of a luxury suite at a five-star resort. This image is usually shattered when my teenage son wanders through the door in his boxers looking for toothpaste. If monogrammed towels keep me close to my dream … I’m usin’ ’em!
Monogram Week: The ABCs of Machine Monogramming
A monogram turns an ordinary household item into a treasured heirloom. There is simply nothing more personal and elegant than a monogrammed towel, napkin, handkerchief, or anything else for that matter. The monogram is the symbol of success and privilege in our collective imagination. Think of the Wall Street exec with his monogrammed cuffs, the jet-setting movie star with her matching monogrammed luggage, or the luxurious bath towel and robes in a five-star hotel. Bringing this kind of stylish luxury into our own homes – and making it affordable – is what DIY is all about. And so, we bring Monogram Week to Sew4Home to celebrate the art of this most tasteful of embroidery accent for the home.
Citrus Holiday: In-a-Word Pillow
There’s one in every family. The helpful host/hostess who just won’t rest – always rushing around to make sure everyone else is in tip-top shape. You know who I mean, don’t you? This special holiday pillow is for that special holiday someone. Toss it his or her way and demand they ‘SIT!’ Bold red letter appliqués and matching red piping make a statement even Helpful Hannah (or Hank) will have to stop and pay attention to. The pillow is reversible, so when they pop up again to refill your glass, you can flip it over and try again later.
Stylish Baby Nursery: Flowery Curtains & Striped Valance
Curtains with a matching valance are the perfect start … or finish to any room decor. As the Big Lebowski would say, ‘They really tie the room together.’ The valance is also a great way to add a dramatic dash of color or pattern in your room decor, and because the valance is narrow, you can accomplish this without making the room look too busy.
Product Review: Rotary Cutters
Once you discover the rotary cutter, you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it. Seriously, this thing is like the sliced bread of sewing. I suppose, if push came to shove, you could use it to slice bread, but that’s not my point. My point is that it is a wonderful tool, and can make the chore of cutting faster and more exact. When first confronted with its use, you may find it a bit inimidating. But following a few simple pointers will help you use this tool safely and easily.
Citrus Holiday: Reversible Gift & Wine Bags
We all know how it goes. In the fall, we make a resolution to give only handmade gifts for the holiday season. Then, December rolls around, and you don’t have the tree up, you have a full queue of holiday parties to attend, and the kids are begging to make cookies all weekend. That’s where our handmade Gift & Wine Bags come in. They’re quick to sew, and can at least add a homemade touch to those last-minute purchased presents. Plus, they’re re-usable,which means they’re a green alternative to wrapping paper.
Citrus Holiday: Christmas Morning Table Runner
I love table runners. You can use them alone or layered over a table cloth. They create a beautiful focal point for your table or buffet, like a little fabric runway, perhaps giving me an excuse to invite Tim Gunn to my house. But if I invited him, I’d probably have to also invite Heidi Klum, and then it would just be too crowded. So instead, I’ll make this beautiful Christmas Morning Table Runner and invite my friends and family.
7 Baby Shower Gifts New Moms Will Love
Once upon a time, a handmade baby gift was the norm; from crocheted booties to blankets and quilts. These charming gifts were often passed along from one generation to the next, evoking fond memories along the way. Among our seven ideas, we hope you find inspiration to create a handmade gift for a new mom in your life.
How to Measure for Curtains
In college, I once push-pinned a sheet over my apartment’s bedroom window and held it open when needed with a binder clip from my economics notebook. At the time, I thought this was quite inventive. Ugly, but inventive. I’m sure my landlord adored all those tiny tack holes in the molding. Now, I prefer beautiful curtains and shades, and I make sure to measure precisely to get just the look I want.
Bed Caddy
I don’t know about you, but my nightstand is pretty crowded. There are books and magazines and lotions and a clock and remotes and, and, and! This handy bed caddy allows me to keep my most-used items right at my fingertips, and the top of my nightstand stays tidy. The pockets all have the perfect expandable gusset: big enough to easily slide stuff in and out, but not so big that things topple out.
Charm pack
A charm pack is most frequently one 5″ x 5″ square of each fabric from a specific fabric collection, so the number of squares in a pack varies. Occasionally duplicates of some prints are included, and occasionally charm squares are other than 5″ squares.
Stylish Baby Nursery: The Three Blankets
Once upon a time there was a beautiful baby with golden curls. Admirers came from far and wide with gifts of soft, cozy blankets; each visitor trying to out-do the one who came before. The beautiful baby smiled and laughed and shook her golden curls. She loved all the blankets, declaring each one to be, ‘Just Right!’ We offer you the Goldilocks of receiving blanket options: Easy Baby Bear Decorative Stitch Blanket, Harder Mama Bear Ric Rac Blanket, and Hardest Papa Bear Bound Edge Blanket.
Citrus Holiday: Lemon Zest Tablecloth
Does someone wake you up at o’dark-thirty on Christmas morning?! Then you need a zesty zap of yellow to get you going. This lovely, lemony tablecloth is the perfect foundation for a holiday breakfast feast of waffles, fruit, juice and coffee. The bright yellow is set off with creamy drop panels and it’s all tied together with deep crimson bands and bows.
Citrus Holiday: Setting a Citrus-Themed Table
A beautifully set holiday table needn’t be expensive. Our simple Citrus Holiday table is proof. We used fresh citrus fruits: lemons, limes, key limes, oranges, grapefruit, and clementines. And, since everyone has their own accumulation of holiday decor, S4H editor, Liz Johnson and I decided to take the Citrus Holiday challenge and use ONLY our own personal collections to decorate the dining room.
Citrus Holiday: Easy Napkins with Festive Trim
Adding a simple fabric border kicks this napkin up a notch. Napkins are a great beginning project and a great way to practice hemming. We made all our napkins match for our Citrus Holiday table, but it would also be snazzy to do a different, coordinating trim on each person’s napkin. Not only would it be a great way to use up fabric scraps, you could also keep track of which napkin belongs to which guest.
Top Ten Advanced Machine Features
You’ve caught the bug and there’s no getting rid of it. Congratulations! The sewing bug is one of the greatest around. Of course, now that you spend all your spare time sewing, you may realize you want a machine that can keep up with you. There’s a lot to choose from, in fact it might seem overwhelming when you see all the features you can choose from as you move beyond basic. We’ve put together a list of the top ten features to look for on more advanced machines, so you can figure out exactly what you want and have the confidence to shop with knowledge.
Citrus Holiday: Fussy Cut Placemats
A ‘Fussy Cut’ is not pitching a fit in the barber chair when one side of your bangs is longer than the other. Although that is perfectly justified behavior. To fussy cut in sewing is to select and cut out a specific motif from a printed fabric or center your pattern piece directly over a design within your fabric that you want to feature. This is what we did to perfectly center the beautiful pineapple design on each of our placemats.
Citrus Holiday: Christmas Dining Room
Our Citrus Holiday series continues as we introduce Christmas Dining Room, with eight new tutorials plus a how-to on setting a citrus-themed table. From a lemony tablecloth beset with red bows to boldly patterned placemats, funky letter bead napkin ties, and the dreamiest-ever apron; you’ll serve up a meal to remember.
Stylish Baby Nursery: Fast & Fabulous Wall Art
For each of our themed rooms, we like to have one idea dedicated to using up the scraps of fabric leftover from all the other projects. With the Stylish Baby Nursery, it’s these adorable wall hangings. All you need is an inexpensive hand embroidery hoop, a square of fabric, a little glue or tape, and you’re on your way to instant art.
Stylish Baby Nursery: Super Simple Throw Pillows
This is our favorite pillow pattern. Even though the style is the same, it looks different in each different fabric combination. It’s so simple and uses such a tiny bit o’ fabric, making a pile of pillows is a snap. The envelope back means it’s easy to pop out the pillow form and wash the pillow cover, and we all know easy laundering is a MUST for any nursery item.
Product Review: Yo-Yo Maker
Stroll through many antique shops and you’re bound to find a sweet and colorful yo-yo quilt. First made popular in the 1930s, the small, gathered circles that create a yo-yo are super easy to make, and the resulting fabric puff is a fun embellishment for pillows, blankets and more. Make them by hand or use a simple tool. They’re great for using up small scraps, and perfectly portable – make them while sitting on the beach, waiting for the train, anywhere.
Stylish Baby Nursery: Sunny Horizons Twin Bed Duvet Cover
Having a small bed in the nursery is a luxury during the months when your baby doesn’t sleep through the night. For our Stylish Baby Nursery, the Sunny Horizons duvet uses bold stripes of several Andalucia fabrics to make a colorful covering with simple ties finishing off the bottom. When you collapse on it in exhaustion, you’ll feel so much better knowing it’s such a beautiful match to all the other items in the nursery.
Stylish Baby Nursery: Buttoned Up Triangles Pillow
Liven up a regular square pillow with triangular front accents. Choose a funky button to contrast with more conservative fabrics, or pick fabrics in bold hues and patterns to make the whole pillow pop. The unique design makes your finished pillow look pretty darn tricky, but the actual construction is quite simple.
Citrus Holiday: Perky Pom Pom Pillows
Do you have a friend who is perky? Does the description go something like this: bright, happy, bouncy, cute? We think these plump and pretty pillows are perfectly perky. I got a quarter for every ‘P’ I used in that sentence.
Vintage Rescue: Chenille Bedspread
We’re excited to debut our new Sew4Home series: Vintage Rescue, a category of inspiring ways to recycle, re-use or redesign something old to create a great new look and perhaps salvage something meaningful. For our first article, I thought I’d start with a personal story. It involves my always-a-challenge-to-buy-for sister’s impending birthday, cleaning the attic to move, and a much-loved and almost-lost rosebud chenille bedspread.
Stylish Baby Nursery: Collapsible Storage Baskets
These clever storage baskets are not only cute and handy, they’re also a secret recycling project. The sides and bottoms of each basket are stiffened with recycled cardboard! But wait … they have another hidden talent: they collapse and fold flat to store.
Stylish Baby Nursery: Sunny Horizons Dresser Cloth/Crib Quilt
If you want to ease into trying your hand at quilting, this project is for you. It introduces the technique of joining together small strips to create a single large piece. We originally designed this tutorial as a little crib quilt, but decided we liked it better as a dresser cloth for our changing table. So, we omitted the batting and quilting through all the layers. So, the purists out there are hurling quilt pins at me, because without out those things it’s not really quilting. I know, I know … it’ll be our little secret.
Stylish Baby Nursery: Pretty Patches Pillow
When your baby isn’t resting on this adorable pillow, it can be used for a rousing game of tic-tac-toe. The Nine Patch Center square is a quilting classic and very easy to create … even if you’ve never tried patchwork before.
Stylish Baby Nursery: Bloomin’ Dust Ruffle
A dust ruffle catches the eye and brings top-to-bottom cohesion to your nursery décor. It’s as functional as it is decorative – especially when it hangs all the way to the floor. It does really help keep dust from beneath the crib, but it also allows for secret storage space. My daughter’s crib came with a rolling storage trundle, and the dust ruffle keeps it stylishly hidden from view. Dust ruffles look especially cute with a softly gathered edge.
Patio Party: Sunny Throw Pillows
Learn to make these simple pillow coverings, and you can change the look of any décor in a few fast and easy steps. This construction has no pesky buttons, zippers or Velcro to deal with – just a basic ‘envelope’ closure on the back, which also means you can pull out your pillow and wash the cover when Uncle Mort spills BBQ sauce on it.
Patio Party: Groovy Hostess Apron
We know Sew4Home is all about home dec sewing, but every once in a while, we like to branch out. Besides, we were a little afraid our cool Patio Party linens were stealing all the glory. I hate it when the placemats look better than me! Aprons are all the rage right now because they are so fun and easy to make. Try this cute little number, and show off your own party style.
Patio Party: Side Table Drape
You’ve heard the joke: ‘what is an occasional table the rest of the time?’ Well, while you’re laughing, that poor table is sitting there naked. It’s time to make those small occasional tables attractive and important members of your patio party. It’s one of the simplest sewing projects you can do.
Gusset
A piece of fabric inserted to enlarge or add strength. In garments a gusset is often inserted to add freedom of movement.
Patio Party: Setting the Scene
The best parties begin with a theme, and if you can stay within your theme using decorative accents, food and music, you’re on your way to creating a magically memorable event. It just takes a little planning and thinking ahead.
Patio Party: Festive Pennant Banner
We always like to have at least one project that makes use of leftover fabric scraps. For our Patio Party, we created this fun party banner. Just print out the provided pennant shapes and cut out as many as you’d like from your available scraps. All you’ll need to buy is a length of cording, and, if you want, colorful beads to string in between the pennants. It’s a great green alternative to traditional crepe paper.