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Fabric Flower Tutorial #2

Tuesday 9 Mar 2010 by Miriam | No Comments
Filed under: Crafts, Tutorials Tags: fabric flower, Fabric flower tutorial, lollypop tight twist

The Tight Lollypop Twist.

Or at least that's what I'm calling it.

I'll do my BEST to explain this clearly, but don't be scared if you don't completely get it--it's one of those things that you have to try first, and then you're like "oh yeah, I was born to make these babies."

First, start with your token strip of fabric. I think mine was an inch by the full 44 inches.

Make a small bud by just rolling one end a few times. Once you have a little bud secure it by going through all thicknesses of your roll.

Now here's where you start twisting and securing. Over...and over....and over. You will wrap you fabric around, hold it down with your finger, and then flip it over (180 degrees like a pancake) to the opposite side. Then you hold it again with your finger, (you just made a twist) and...

from the bottom of your flower you go up through the center of the twist,

and then back down--your needle going down almost right where it went up to make a tiny little stitch, down through to the bottom of the flower again (you just secured it). There's is no science to this. REALLY, you are just twisting your fabric, back and forth, tacking and securing it as you go.

Keep truckin' along until you achieve the size and fullness that you had hoped for. Here's the finished beauty. I rolled mine pretty tight, and I think next time I'll do it more loosely and see where that takes me. I'll post a picture when I do.

Fabric Flower Tutorials

Monday 8 Mar 2010 by Miriam | No Comments
Filed under: Crafts, Tutorials Tags: fabric flower, Fabric flower tutorial

So, get ready for a bunch of posts about flowers. It's going to be a bit of a fabric flower week, I'm afraid. I'm making a necklace with a whole slew of fabric flowers, so I decided to do mini tutorials on each kind of flower I do. I'll just keep posting 'til I'm done, and then I'll slam all those tutorials into one fatty fabric flower post.

A word on my photos. I live in a basement, and hence my lighting is crappy, and all my pictures turn out pretty crappy. If anyone has any tips on how to make basement-lit photos look better, I'm all ears. Until then, don't judge me.

This first flower I'll call the..Loose Lollypop Flower. Go with it.

Start with a strip of fabric about 1" by 22".

and a small square cut from tulle.

put your needle through the end of the strip,

and secure it with a few whip stitches in the center of your tulle.

Make a loose twist, and secure by bringing your needle up through the tulle, around the fabric, and back down into the tulle, making sure you do so CLOSE to the center. You should have made a loose curve arch with your fabric--it's secured at the base AND the end of the curve.

Now just keep going. Make loose twists, with some puffy slack, and secure at the end of the little poof, close to the previous poof. Sorry, I'm having a hard time explaining this... Always make sure your needle goes up through the tulle, around your fabric and back down through the tulle. Sometimes one loop around with my thread doesn't secure it tight, so I go around again.

Keep going 'til you have a flower the size you want, and then tightly secure the last poof. Cut your tail, leaving a half an inch or so, and then hide it by tacking it down behind the flower.

Done. If you want you can burn off little frayed edges poking out with a candle starter fire thing. You know, those fire starting things?? You may want to keep your excess tulle, especially if you're going to put it on a shirt. It's easier to sew around the flower, on the tulle, with your machine than it is to hand stitch the flower on. FYI. Good luck making pretty flowers.

Montessori Listening Jars Activity

Saturday 6 Mar 2010 by Miriam | 4 Comments
Filed under: Crafts, Educational Activities Tags: learning craft, listening jars, Montessori activity, paper mache

Yesterday I made a new Montessori (Montessodium as A calls it) activity for J. Whenever I make a learning activity for J I want it to be as pretty as it is fun, because I think that visual appeal goes along way for kids--especially in getting them to get the activity off the shelf on their own.

So. I saved up some baby food jars.

Ripped up some pretty blue tissue paper.

Paper mache'd the jars...twice actually. (I used Elmer's glue mixed with water)

Applied a layer of modge podge for that pretty sheen and added durability, and spray painted the lids white.

And now the fun part. I put in all different kinds of things for the kids to shake. I put in the same thing in two separate so they can find the matching sound for each.

I have ten jars (so five sets). I put in Q-tips (cut in half), uncooked rice, dried pasta, raw kidney beans, and pennies (those are listed from softest to loudest).

J and I had fun shaking and listening and identifying LOUD sounds vs. SOFT sounds, and then (with my help), we identified the matching sounds.

Fun!

Mao's on a T-shirt.

Tuesday 23 Feb 2010 by Miriam | 8 Comments
Filed under: Clothing, Stenciling, T-Shirt, guy gifts Tags: guy gifts, stenciling clothing

"Is she really going to write another post about a T-shirt?"

No. Well, yes. Sort of. It's really a post about stenciling.

"Is she really going to write another post about stenciling?"

Yep.

Over the past four years of marriage, I've started a little tradition of making my husband t-shirts for Christmas. He being the ultimate lover of t-shirts, and me being the I-like-to-make-things-myselfer, we really had no other choice.

He served a mission for our church in Taiwan, and was given an enormous wood carving of Da-Mo, who was apparently some Buddhist missionary and the founder of Zen and Kung Fu. I can't say his name correctly, so I nick-named him Mao, which is not at all good Zen. Anyway. In the beginning of our marriage, I really loathed poor Mao. So big. So scary and ugly. But over the years I've warmed up to those bug-eyes, and have really begun to enjoy him for the unique piece of art he is. He's cool.

I decided that he was cool enough to rock a t-shirt, and I made him into a stencil.

I'm not including a tutorial on how I made the stencil, because there are ZILLIONS of tutorials about this (here's one), but really, I just scanned it into photoshop (not really--I used paint.net), and adjusted the color until it was black and white, and then erased and added until it was right. That's it. But don't let my quick and dirty tutorial make you think it was a cinch. It took me hours. But it turned out cool.

This shirt, in two short months, has already enjoyed many many washings because A has worn it at LEAST once a week since then. I'm telling you, he's big into t-shirts.

Clothing Reincarnated

Friday 19 Feb 2010 by Miriam | 3 Comments
Filed under: Clothing, Reincarnating Tags: recycling clothing

Repurposed. Upcycled. Reincarnated. Whatever you want to call it, it's all the rage. Making new the old and discarded. I'm loving it. I never throw anything away without scrutinizing it for some future new life. The tired and boring becomes the new and exciting!

This wrap around skirt wasn't earning it's keep in my closet, and my poor gal is practically destitute of dresses, SO I whipped out my scissors and went to work. My black wraparound skirt before. Purchased at AE like a kazillion years ago.

Ta da! A sweet new peasanty dress for Jlove!

I basically cut out the front, back, and sleeves from the top smocking detail of the skirt. Barely squeaked that puppy out!

Hemmed the bottom. Hemmed the sleeves and added a row of shirring...

Threw some lace around the waist, and some bias tape around the neckline (I also fished some elastic through the bias tape to pull the neckline in and up), and then added a button closure in back! No sweat!

Your geeky man will love: The Motherboard Frame

Monday 15 Feb 2010 by Allan | 2 Comments
Filed under: Crafts, great gifts, guy gifts Tags: craft projects, guy gifts, make a motherboard picture frame

Well, at least MY geeky man did. I saw this a while back in a magazine (can't remember which one), and I knew it would make my true-love's heart sing. So for Vday I made one.I think it made a great guy-gift.

If you have a nerdy man who would like a frame like this one, here's how I made it: (warning: there ARE some legit tools used in this project)

Buy a frame that has a completely flat surface (I got mine at the dollar store).

Finagle yourself an old motherboard (I went to PC Laptops, and asked if they had any around. The dude actually removed one from a dead computer he had).

Remove all the chunky stuff (I'm talking about the resisters and capacitors and PCI slots, chip set etc--Allan totally helped me with the vocab just now). Mine had a lot. Hopefully you can find one with minimal stuff. To remove it all, I soldered off all the little components in the BACK , and then once it was all melted, we removed all the stuff on the front with a wrench. When I say "we" I mean my upstairs neighbor and I. He has pretty much every tool imaginable, and I've been the happy benefactress of these tools (and his help) MANY times. (Thanks Jayson!!)

Trace the outline of your frame onto the motherboard once it's all cleared of excess chunkage. I used a dry erase marker.

Cut out the center of your frame first. Drill four holes in the corners, large enough for your jig-saw blade.

Then cut out the center with your jig-saw. Make sure you use a blade meant for metal. Clamp it down, and insert your blade into one of the drilled holes, and then cut from hole to hole. Smooth it out as needed.

Finally cut around the outside of your frame. Smooth it out.

Glue to your frame. I just used hot glue.

Stick a photo in, and make your honey smile.

Olivia's Shirt

Wednesday 10 Feb 2010 by Miriam | 1 Comment
Filed under: Clothing Tags: project runway, sewing class, shress

It's actually more of a shress, but don't you hate that word?

Olivia is one of my sewing students, and has more style in her pinky finger than I will ever hope to have. She's super talented, and one of the few people I can obsess about Project Runway with.

This is her latest project, and I just had to blog about it because I LOVE the way it turned out! (Thanks for doing a photo shoot with me, Olivia! You're a gorgeous model!)

A clean, nice, office chair.

Monday 8 Feb 2010 by Miriam | 5 Comments
Filed under: Before and After, Furniture, Reupholstering Tags: do it yourself, office chair reupholstery

The Tribe household has been in a tragic chair famine. Just ask my poor sewing students--they've suffered more than anyone. I'm ASHAMED to admit that they've spent some time on their knees because there wasn't a free chair.

I found this office chair at DI for $8, and this fabric from Ikea for $6 a yard. It looks pretty fresh, don't you agree? Too bad I really hate re-upholstering stuff. It's so dirty and grimy and my mind always wanders and I end up imagining what kind of nasty history the furniture might have that I'm now touching. Ughgh. And really, I can't think of a worse project to do with kids around. All the staples and dirty old upholstery. I can only do it with my husband around to coral the kids. And it really hurts my hands! Pulling out all those staples!

BUT, in the end I'm usually so thrilled with the final result, that I forget the pain and suffering involved, and buy more furniture that needs reupholstering. Like my maybe a set of retro dining chairs. You know, in a way, it's a lot like childbirth.

Woohoo!!

Thursday 4 Feb 2010 by Miriam | 5 Comments
Filed under: Furniture Tags: design sponge, dressers

Today my dressers were featured on Design Sponge! So exciting!

Dressing up the Dressers

Wednesday 3 Feb 2010 by Miriam | 3 Comments
Filed under: Before and After, Furniture, Painting, Repurposing, Stenciling Tags: bedroom makeover, Before and After, repurposing furniture, Stenciling

When Allan and I were getting married and trying to scrounge up furniture, we found these two beauties at a massive college apartment furniture sale for $10 a piece. They were probably overpriced. They're the cheap laminate wood, but they've held up surprisingly well. I've always hated them, and planned on replacing them ASAP, but ASAP turned into As Soon As I-get-around-to-it, and then.. IDRSMOMIT (I'd Rather Spend Money On More Important Things). So I FINALLY decided to make them a little more bearable, seeing as they're probably sticking around for awhile. First I cut off the two inside lips, and pushed the two together. Then I used a stencil from Ed Roth's Stencils 101 decor (thanks again, Aundi), and a few coats of polyurethane for durability. I like it! I wouldn't do this to a solid wood piece of furniture, but I don't feel a bit of remorse painting veneer!

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