Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays!

I just want to take a moment (before I start cooking for tomorrow) to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a very Happy Holiday season! Over the next week, I probably won't be doing any sewing, but I will begin a sewing plan for 2013. That always helps to keep me focused. Have a safe and blessed holiday!

Gift sewing

One of the things I like to sew (either for myself or others) are place mats. I will be including these in a gift basket for a friend. This is the first time I've made round ones. All of the others I have made have been rectangular. I make them for holidays and change them seasonally. This is how I do it:

After cutting out the shape I want, I fuse a slightly smaller piece of fusible fleece in the middle between the layers of fabric.

Then I sew the layers together. This can be done right-side in, then turning them right-side out. Or turning under the raw edges of both pieces and stitching. This is what I have done most of the time. Anyway, this is the finished product:

I like to do a print on one side and a solid on the other.

I wish you all Happy Holidays!

Quick cape

I lost my sewing "mojo" a while back and I needed to get it back. So, I took a break for a while. But I needed to find a quick project to get myself back into sewing. As luck would have it, G Street Fabrics had a Fashion Fabrics Sewing club meeting a couple of weeks ago. This month's meeting featured capes and a quick way to make one. Esther, who ran the meeting, made a stunning cape from a designer plaid wool.

I wanted to use her same basic idea, but with a much less expensive fabric. I had some fleece at home that I decided to use to make something similar. I didn't put buttons on the front of mine and I added a collar, but not the double collar that she has on hers.  Mine is much simpler and more casual, but now I know how to make another with more details if I choose to do so.



Now, I need to focus my sewing on some gifts I have in mind to make (place mats). And I have a cape pattern I want to make. Happy sewing everyone!