It's a good thing Sew4Home doesn't feature any audio feeds or you'd have to put up with me singing Katy Perry's Hot N Cold while you read this article. Lucky for you ... and most of the planet, we'll skip the singing and instead concentrate on a few facts about the available thermal material options for home décor.
CHA Show New Product Find: Scrapbook Supplies for Sewing
Here's another fun find from my wanderings around the floor at the recent CHA Craft Super Show in Anaheim California. The show featured many, many, many companies devoted to scrapbooking. Most of these I motored right on by in my quest for home décor ideas and inspiration. And then I came upon the Alexx Kesh booth. Maybe it was the fact there was shelf after shelf of the cutest little rolls of ribbons in all kinds of colors and patterns. Maybe I was drawn to the rows of tiny cups of beaded felt flowers, or the display of amazingly different mesh, interfacing and crepe. Maybe it was the fact I hadn't eaten all day. Whatever it was, I suddenly realized, 'Hey! You could use this scrapbooking stuff to embellish home décor!'
Make Something Special for Your Valentine
It's a bouquet of sweet projects to make for your valentine. We got amazing milage out of a couple charm packs from Fat Quarter Shop, used some absolutely gorgeous fabrics from Paula Prass' Woodland Delight and Summer Soirée collections, cozied up to Woolies Flannel... so soft; and we even mixed in several fun scrap projects.
CHA Show New Product Find - AccuQuilt GO! Fabric Cutter
While at the recent CHA Craft Super Show in Anaheim, I spent a little time walking the exhibit floor looking for cool products our Sew4Home visitors might find interesting and helpful. This is the first of several articles about what I found.
We've featured a number of tutorials that incorporate appliqué or start with unique shapes, like a heart or small circles and squares. Often, the most time consuming part of the whole project is drawing and cutting all those shapes. And they just never seem to turn out as smooth and even as you'd like.
New Product Find: The AccuQuilt GO! Fabric Cutter, which die-cuts layers of beautiful shapes with the turn of a handle.Sew4Home Returns from CHA Craft Super Show
Torrential rains and 35 mph winds greeted us as we arrived in Anaheim, CA on Thursday, January 21st to set up for the CHA Super Show. How rainy was it? They CLOSED Disneyland! It takes a lot to shut down the Mouse. But the dedicated sewers and crafters were undeterred, and they showed up in great numbers to the Anaheim Convention Center on both Friday and Saturday. Jacqueline Smerek (on the right) and I chatted ourselves hoarse over the two-day show, but it was worth it to expose so many new folks to the idea of making their own home décor, and to show them how Sew4Home makes it easy and fun. We took some pictures to prove we actually exist... as do all those great projects you see here every weekday. The fans who stopped by were thrilled to see our projects 'in person.'
Luggage Tags from Recycled Tote
We created this adorable luggage tag out of all recycled materials. A few items we'd been hoarding ... just waiting for the perfect project that would give them a second chance at usefulness. You could follow our re-make and re-use lead, utilize scraps of fabric you have from other projects, or find something new at the fabric store. Then, next time all those black suitcases are spinning around and around and around on the luggage carousel, you'll be able to spot yours in an instant. 'That's mine! The one with the cool tag!'
Valentines: Wrap It
I have to give credit for these cute wraps to my mother. She was the original recycler. She saved every little scrap of fabric, every button, every too-short piece of ribbon, old wooden spools, and she even cut out and saved her favorite parts of old greeting cards. You never know when they might come in handy. So, thanks for instilling the habit, Mom. Here's what I did with MY stash of bits and pieces.
How To: Ruching Strips
Bring up ruching outside of sewing circles, and you may receive a 'gesundheit' or two. But sewing enthusiasts know ruching is a great technique to use when adding decorative effects to your sewing projects. In French, a ruche is a ruffle or a pleat. And that's pretty much what it means in English too. But everything sounds so much fancier in French. Our tutorial shows you a basic way to create strips of ruching by machine.
Fabic Stains: Preventing and Treating
A white tablecloth floats silently onto the antique rosewood dining table like a wintery blanket of freshly fallen snow. Topped with sparking china, spotless crystal and polished sterling, it becomes the pristine foundation for a magnificent holiday feast. And then... the doorbell rings. Hello, stains!
How to Appliqué
Sewing is an inherently creative activity. You take thread and fabric and create something new from it. There are times, though, when perfectly hidden seams and sharp corners seem limiting and you have the urge to just throw some color or a cute drawing on top and call it good. Enter Appliqué ! Appliqué is sort of like the construction-paper-craft-zone of the sewing world. This technique allows you to cut out any shape and stitch it on top of another fabric. You want a bumblebee on your pillow? No problem! Can't find a good fabric with a spaceship for that duvet cover (and don't you hate how hard it is to find a good spaceship)? Appliqué one! With appliqué, you're free to incorporate any kind of graphic into your project. There are a variety of different ways to execute this technique; read on to find the one that's right for you.







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