Thursday, October 8, 2009

All Play, No Work

I guess I am back to "business" as usual. I just want to play in my sewing room and keep shoving the new quilt kits to the back burner.

No worries. I shall return to those soon enough. In the meantime I have fall, and holiday gifts and craft shows on my mind.


I found this FREE apron pattern by Susan Branch online and had to try it. I love the retro look and want to do it in some 30's reproduction prints as well as some modern trendy fabrics, I am thinking chocolate and turquoise polka dots and stripes. I tried it first in this fall print, for a special reason. But I am not telling why.

Now a few words about the pattern. It did not work for me really. The pattern calls for 1/4" bias tape. I wanted to line it with a cotton backing and the thickness just wouldn't work so the seams all fell apart when I finished pressing it because it was basically a 1/8" seam. So I started over and used 1/2" bias tape which did work OK but I had to add 1/4" to the seam allowance and topstitched the bias tape down. The real problem is that the pattern is very short waisted and I am pretty short, so I plan to lengthen the top if I can when I try it again.

I made a matching kitchen towel. I love these. I have been using the $2 hand towels from wally's and cut them in half, pleat them then add the topper with ties. It is a great way to use scraps from some of your other projects and you can use purchased 1/2" bias tape for the binding if you don't want to make your own strips for ties. I don't cut the strips on the bias since the topper part is straight, and it works fine and uses up some scraps. This is pretty much $1 gift and everybody can always use a new kitchen towel.

Monday, October 5, 2009

Yummy Cupcakes

I made a big bunch of these cute raggy quilted burp cloths to sell at the craft show but I couldn't figure out the best way to package them for sale. I ended up putting them in a basket with price tags on the back but they didn't do very well.


Yesterday I got to thinking about them and for some reason the idea of turning them into cupcakes came to mind. After a little experimenting it was off to the craft store for some supplies and here is what I came up with.

I used the inexpensive 1 1/2" satin ribbon from Wally's to wrap them, pinned a rainbow rickrack "frosting" around them and stuck a pom pom cherry on top. I taped the paper cupcake liners on with double stick tape. How stinkin' cute is this to put into your baby shower gift basket? I am thinking of getting a cake box to display them at my next show, or maybe I will do a couple of tiered plates from my tea party dishes.



 
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