Tippy tip tip and a treat!

Sorry that I have missed the boat for the last couple of weeks when it's comes to offering tips..but here I am pleading for your forgiveness and offering up a tip  and a treat to say I am sorry. ... This little tip takes nothing more than a length of pretty ribbon and two brads to keep your scissors close at hand.

Just take your length of ribbon ( mine is 20 ish inches) and fold over the end making a loop.. and then secure this by pushing the brad through the ribbon fabric and securing in typical brad fashion. You now have a loop on one end. Do something similar on the other but put the loop around one of the finger holes on the scissors and then secure it. Now figure out where you are want your scissors to stay and use the end up to hook them there... it's that easy! On my old machine pictured above they are hooked to the power cord, on my new machine they are looped over the extra spool pin. Perhaps you would like to hook yours to a drawer handle or other handy place. No matter where you hook it up you can now be sure that your snips will be where you need them!

 

Now for thre treat.. I have 2 pairs of little scissors complete with leashes  ready to find new homes.  If you would like a chance at one of them please leave your contact information in the comments section below ( click on the word comment to open the window)  I will draw two names this weekend some time!

 

Good luck!

Craft-a-Palooza

Here in the Fresh Thread Household we are all about the crafts.. sewing, embroidery, clay, felt..you name it and we love it. Alas we don't always have time to do as much as we would like but do try to fit at least some drawing each day. 

Today was a good day, I got plans for a new class at a local sewing shop written up so there was time to play with the ideas from a new book on making wonderful little needle felted animals.  How adorable are these?  Sam (8) made the bunny, Greg (11) made he penguine ( I promise he has eyes and a break..they are also black so I could not get them to show up!) and I (age undisclosed) made the oinker.

If you are interested in needle felting but would like to ease into it with grace I highly reccomend the kits from Wool Pets.  The above creatures are not from her kits since I am personally overrun with colored wool roving but her kits are something to swoon for... just right as an intrduction to the art.  My over the moon favorite is the Sleepy Sheep which I made a couple of years ago when I first got into this relaxing little hobby.

My sons have both done a couple of  differnt wool projects but as a rule this is a craft for adults or children who are very good and careful since the barbed needle that is used can be a real weapon when stabbed into the hand.  But for careful thoughtful children who have a degree of dexterity this can be a wondeful hobby in that it's  neat, quite and does not take up much space.  All of our supplies are in a single hat box.. including the roving!

Feeling the Love.. for Rick Rack!

Dang! I had no idea there were so many RickRack lovers out there!.. I can't wait to see the fun napkins you all turn out. I have heard tell of a lot of vintage rickrack being pulled out and being pressed into service after long waits in notion stashes around the country. I feel honored!

A couple of years ago I scored the mother load of vintage rick rack.. it had obviously belonged to a little old lady who loved to sew and possibly had an addiction to buying sewing notions. There were packages that were wrapped in paper that had 5cents printed on them!.. There was way cool 1960's trim in colors that only the 60's could have given us and then some regrettable 1980's rick rack with metallic threads in it that I am not sure I will ever use! All in all it was 50+ packages of rickrack plus cording, buttons and a few mystery sewing notions all for the most reasonable price of $2! ( and yes I squeeled like a school girl, hugged the bag to my chest and did a little dance... but I am silly like that!)

I have had the best time with the stuff.. but my supply is dwindling and I cruise ebay like an addict looking for a fix and scope out all local thrift shops still hoping for another such score.. but perhaps it's was just a once in a sewing life time sort of thing.

If you want to use some of your vintage stash or would like to put some bright and cheery new rick rack on your own napkins do feel free to pop by and check out my new tutorial and embroidery positioning guide in the shop

HERE

Rick Rack Goodness

Oh joy!  The Dainty Rick Rack Napkin Tutorial and Embrodiery placement file is ready and for sale in the Fresh Thread Shop

This project is just so much fun and the rickrack... well what can you say... who does not like rickrack?  If you get your act in gear you can have a whole bunch of these done and use them to set a charming Easter table! 

For five itty bitty dollars you get a printable full color step by step tutorial that makes creating the napkins easy as 1-2-3!  You also get a custom embroidery placment tutorial file that you will use in your embroidery software to get perfectly correct placment of any monogram you wish!.

Easy, Fast and  Fun!

What more could you ask for?

In the sample above I used a vintage sheet to make this groovy napkin with orange sherbert rickrack and a tone on tone monogram.  I totally see myself using these with a glass of Ice Tea and a snack while sitting in the front porch this Spring... care to join me?

Luggage Fob Freebie

With Spring and Summer travel right around the corner who do you know that could use a little help identifying their luggage at the airport?  This little tag is fast and it's free! It uses just the smallest amout of scrap fabric and stitches up in a jiffy.

You can find the free file

HERE

And the instructions go like this:

Gather your 4 inch hoop, 2 sheets of HEAVY cut away stabilizer and some nifty scrap fabric

Hoop up the two layers of stabilizer and  1 piece of the fabric and run the first step of the file. It will sew out MINE!

Next, laydown another piece of super cute fabric.. but put it FACE DOWN in the hoop. Now run the outline step in a color to match your fabric.

Pop the whole thing out of the hoop and trim with pinking shears

Turn the whole thing right side out, using a blunt tool ( I use a long paint brush) to gently push out the corners. give it a good pressing and then top stitch using a 1/4 foot. Now punch a hole and set a grommet ( for this I use my Crop a Dile Big Bite )  Thread on some ribbon... how easy was that!  now go make another one! :)

Jumping out of the Hoop

As wonderful as embroidery is there are many times when I desire to jump out of the hoop with a project and this is one of them. This is the first of 8 dainty tea-napkins that I am working on for this Spring. With little more than a Layer Cake Pack * and some rick rack you can make these charming napkins all your own!

Of course there is no reason why you can't add a beautiful monogram to each of these before you sew them up... so don't think that I have jumped off the embroidery ship completely!

The Dainty Tea-Napkin Tutorial will be ready for purchase some time this week. It will be full color, step by step and easy as pie! Can't you just imagine a sweet small snack on a late Spring afternoon.. a bit of tea, a nice visit with a good friend while you sit on the front porch... yes indeed.. these napkins are going to get a good work-out this season.. I can just feel it!

 

*P.s. A Layer Cake Pack is a pack of 42ish 10x10 squares of fabric from one fabric collection. This gives you oodles of mix and match options for napkins so cute it will make your head spin!

Jumping in the time machine

So today we take a little jaunt in the time machine back to about a year ago when I made this uber cute dainty bag. Actually I made quite a few of these as very well received gifts and am thinking about doing some more of them but this time with a monogram on the front.

This pattern was inspired by my grandmother who use to coordinate every part of her outfit and each outfit with all accessories was hung together in her closet. This was of total fascination to me and I remember it with awe to this day.

Based on what I remember of her hanger dainty bag I placed a zipper at the bottom of mine to hold items that I wear specifically with certain items. It's a fun nod to yesteryear and makes me think of grandma each time!