My Guest Tutorial on Sew Mama Sew - Little Boy Blue Baby Quilt! + GIVEAWAY!

Here is my secret sewing project from the last 2 weeks!  I did a guest tutorial for Sew Mama Sew and you can find it here:

Little Boy Blue Baby Quilt Tutorial

Finished baby quilt is 33/5" x 38.5"

I love all of the amazing content and inspiration available on Sew Mama Sew.  Hop on over and check it out!

To celebrate, I am having a giveaway!  Just leave a comment below, saying that you've signed up to follow my blog here, or my Instagram feed at "restitcherator".

The giveaway is for a gorgeous Denyse Schmidt Charm Pack in her Hadley line, and a spool of variegated Aurifil thread!

A random winner will be chosen on April 22nd!  Good luck!!

Horse Show Ribbon Display Swag - Tutorial

My daughter is in her 3rd year of horseback riding.  She is only 9 now, so she started when she was pretty little.  She only started showing last winter, and last year, she only did two schooling shows.  But this summer, and fall, she started doing formal shows, and ribbons started to pile up.

Some of the other parents said to me "oh, I just took fishing line and hung it corner to corner in my daughter's room, it works fine".  Fishing line?  Not in my house where there's all this fabric laying around.

So I measured the width of the wall I wanted to hang them ribbons on.  It would have been about four WOF cuts, so I cut five 2" strips so that it could swag a bit.  The fabric is from Fleurish by Valori Wells (for Free Spirit).

I did the mitred corners, just as if I was making binding so I could get one long strip.

Then I folded the fabric in half the long way to make a seam, opened the fabric back up, and then folded each side in towards the middle (see the picture below).

Then I folded the fabric together again, so no cut edges were showing, and had about 1/2" wide of a 200" or so long strip.

I sewed a straight line, right up the entire length, right in the middle.  Then I folded the ends back onto the strip and sewed a box to hold them closed.

Here is my sweetie, with her best friend and pony love, Shady.  She has two lessons on him a week and he just loves her to pieces.

This photo was taken at the next to last show for the season, it was a gorgeous fall day and the show was outside.

I hung the strip from one side of the room to the other, and we put all of the ribbons onto it in the order of the places they represent.  She got a lot of 3rds this season, which is fantastic for a first year shower (and there are some 1sts and 2nds in there too!)

There was enough to have three sections, but I couldn't take it all in one photo, so this is the right hand side.  You notice the pink on one wall and blue on the opposite walls?  She wanted her room to look like cotton candy.

This fabric strip is so much prettier and festive looking to me than fishing line.   Besides, I have to find some use for all of this fabric don't I?

Sweet Upcycled Girl's Purse Pattern/Tutorial

I have made tons of these small purses. It's made from a felted sweater, some vintage trim, and a little fabric (I used new) for the interior. I've sold them in my Etsy shop, I've made tons to give away. Now you can make them too!

Here is the link to a PDF of the pattern:

Girl's Purse Pattern

This is what the first page should look like:

Please feel free to use the pattern as many times as you like. You can even share it with friends! If you'd like to use it to make bags to sell, that's fine too! My only requirement is that you don't sell the pattern itself to make a profit.

Enjoy!

Child's Artist Beret Tutorial PDF

So, what's it been, a year?? And I finally found the time to learn how to make my tutorial into a PDF and make it linkable to my blog. Feeling very proud of myself actually!

So here is where you can find the one page version PDF.

And here's my daughter wearing her beret. She says it makes her feel very artistic!

My First Tutorial! Child's Artist Beret

Wow, I don't know about you, but this is pretty exciting for me. This is my first tutorial on this blog. I'm going to show it as a post here, but I've also made it into a PDF. It may take some wrangling for me to figure out how to add that...but it's done and just a matter of getting it to work.

I blogged about making 25 of these last winter for my daughter's kindergarten class. They were doing a unit on "Fine Art", so to get themselves in the mood to work like artists, they each wore a beret, like Vincent Van Gogh, or, if you prefer, Fancy Nancy. When the teacher asked me to make them, she gave me a photocopied sheet of someone's hand written directions. Immediately I thought I should do a tutorial, and here we are, a good 7 months later. All in good time.



Please, please, share any comments or suggestions you have if you make any of these. Without further ado...


Child’s Beret – A la Fancy Nancy or Van Gogh, or whomever your favorite artist might be

Materials:
18” square piece of craft felt
2 yards of double fold bias tape
2 ½ yards of ¼” elastic
Coordinating thread

Steps:

1. Cut an 18” diameter circle from your felt

2. Pin the bias tape, open side towards the cut felt edge ¼” from the edge. Do not overlap the ends of the bias tape, but put the two cut edges as close together as you can. (See Image A) The closer you’re able to get them, while not overlapping, the better the beret will sit evenly and the more “round” looking it will appear.



3. Stitch along the open edge of the bias tape, as close as you can to the edge, ensuring that you stitch through both layers. I suggest pinning a lot. This seems to help keep the layers from slipping apart, which the bias tape seems to do when you’re not looking!

4. Make sure you leave enough room in the “pocket” of the bias tape to slide the elastic through.

5. Put a safety pin through the end of the elastic to make it easier to pull through your “pocket” of bias tape. Start at one end of the opening, and slide the elastic through, all the way around your beret. Try to keep it as flat as possible as you do this, it will help to make the beret sit flatter on your child’s head.

6. Pull the ends of the elastic together to tighten the circle up and create your beret. Use your child’s head as a guide for how large or small you need the hat to be. Knot both ends of the elastic, but DO NOT CUT IT.

7. You can knot the two pieces together and tuck them up inside the beret to keep the size steady. The reason for not cutting is that you can adjust the size as your child grows.

8. Make a tiny slit (and I mean tiny!) at the very center of the beret. You can use yarn, ribbon, or rickrack folded in half to make a loop. Once your loop is folded in half, push the folded end through the slit in the center of the beret. You can either knot them together, or make 3-4 stitches to hold it in place. (Image B)



9. Voila! You have a fancy beret to inspire your little artist to make wonderful creations. (Image C)



So run, run to make your kids some berets so they can make you some FINE refrigerator art.