How to Add Piping to a Pillow

(left photo courtesy of Creative Little Daisy)
This will be the easiest tutorial ever for me to write. Why? Because I didn’t have to write it! Autumn over at Creative Little Daisy wrote this tutorial on piping for Sew Mama Sew.  And I surely give her technique my Cynthia Seal of Approval. Ok, so there is no such thing as my seal of approval. Even if there was, it means diddly-squat (where did that darn phrase come from anyway?) but this is 100% exactly how I make piping for pillows as well.
The best part? Autumn used some of my machine embroidery designs to adorn her pillow. I am loving the black and white. Fresh and modern. I was wondering if any of my customers used the simple outlines I try to include in many of my design packs. I guess Autumn answered that for me!
Fiver years later I am still loving my chocolate brown piped white pillow shams on my bed. It’s all about the dark and light fabrics when doing piping, in my opinion, which again, means diddly squat.

How to Make Roman Shades part 1

I’ve been making roman shades for at least 7 years now. I started making them for my own house and then started making them for clients. (Gave that up a while ago.) Truly, they are my favorite way to dress a window. I’m not a big fan of mini blinds, so to me, roman shades are the answer whenever possible. (I do have just one set of mini blinds in my home because the window is gigantic and it has a southern exposure that without diffused light would easily sun bleach all my furniture and carpet.)
Over the years, I’ve made plenty. Here’s a sample of different roman shades:
These were the first ones I ever made. This is my old house back in 2005. They are white canvas with a green border around the entire shade. Gotta love the tacky swing set pictured in our back yard. (I made those slipcovers as well on the chairs and ottomon…those items are now off to a better life with someone else.)

The side curtains in the picture below are inside mount on the side windows and the french doors (which are magnetic) also have roman shades…although you gotta get creative with those. See part 2 of this post for modifications for magnetic doors.) Sadly, I decided I didn’t love the traditional floral and those are now gone and replaced with simple white ones again. I guess I like what I like. And that traditional light fixture? Gone, thank goodness.

These are also inside mount ones I made for my sister law when she lived in Spokane. She lived there maybe 5 minutes so who knows if these are still alive and kicking.  (Name that song.) We put crystal trim along the bottom. Yummy.

More shades with pink crystal trim:

These (below) are pom-pom trimmed (hard to see in the light). I made these back in 2005, sadly my sweet little girl is growing up and is no longer this adorable 4 year old. (She’s an adorable 10 year old now.)

For the purposes of this tutorial, I am going to show you how to make an outside mount roman shade. Outside mount means that it is mounted on the outside of the window (as opposed to inside the frame of the window, which would be inside mount) The fabric is from Ikea and the lining is just come leftover white poly-cotton canvas. Ok, everything is from Ikea—the sofa is from their Karlstad line with a $20 blue slipcover (clearance) and the matching Karlstad ottoman also has a clearance $9 cover. Score. The side lamp is Ikea and the white x-back chair.

Here’s the hardware you will need: staple gun, 2 1/2” screws, nylon cording, screw eyes, plastic rings (I recommend using copper or metal rings if your window faces west as the sun will surely rot the plastic rings…ask me how I know), window cleat, and wall anchors (if you can’t drill into the studs). Not pictured: a wooden dowel is also needed.

Wall anchors are neeed as well. (I mounted my shade into my ceiling, so I had to use anchors.)

Cutting your fabric and lining: Measure the inside of your window and add 4 inches. This will give you a nice 2-inch over hang on the sides of the window. I forgot to do this for this project and only added 2” (dumb Cynthia), but they still worked. My window is 41” so the width I should’ve cut is 45”. As for the length, measure where the shade will be mounted  down to the window apron and add  2”.  I need 90” of length so I cut the fabric and lining 92”.

Sew around the two sides and bottom with a 1/2” to 1” seam allowance, turn right sides out, gently push out seams, and press. How happy do I look ironing? Good grief.

At this point the top is still open and raw, that’s fine for now. Next step is to fold the sides over to the back 1” and pin in place and sew, as seen below.

Now you are going to fold up the bottom for the dowel pocket about 1”, and iron in place. Do not sew yet!! It’s better to sew on the rings and then sew the hem in place after. This is where your dowel will be inserted so it has to remain ‘free’ of stitching on the inside.

Now you are ready to do the layout for the rings. I like large pleats so I space my rows 10” apart, lengthwise. As for how many rows you’ll need, that’s up to you. For narrow curtains like my french doors seen at the top of this post, I use 3 columns. For these shades I did 5 columns, evenly spaced across.
Using a water soluble marker, make a dot everywhere you’ll need to sew a ring. Your first row of rings will go on the bottom inch that you just ironed. You can see that I used a safety pin near each blue dot. This is essential! When you go to sew on your rings your lining and main fabric will shift. The safety pin ensures that your rings will be sewn at just the right spot. You’ll see that my rings don’t go all the way to the top (raw edge) of my curtain. (In picture below the shade is upside down.) I like to leave 12-18” free at the top without rings. That’s about as high as I’d ever pull up these shades for such a loooong window. But if you want to pull up your shades higher, extend the rings almost to the top, within 6 inches maybe.

Now you are ready to either sew on your rings by hand or machine. I choose to do this by machine. Lower your feed dogs and choose a narrow satin stitch with a length of nearly zero. If you have an open embroidery foot, use that. I am using a button sew on foot, but that’s optional. (On my Bernina 830 there is a button sew on program so I didn’t have to lower the feed dogs or choose a satin stitch. The machine automatically does that when I choose to sew on the buttons. Loooove that!)
Beginning at the bottom, unfold the hem you ironed in space, and sew on your rings. The bottom row is the only row that will have the rings sewn to the right side of the fabric.

Thre rest of the rings will be sewn on the wrong side, lining side up. Go slowly….sewing on all these blasted rings takes a while, probably an hour. A real snoozer, but it’s better than doing it by hand. Remove the safety pins as you go along.

Bring threads to the back and knot if desired. Sometimes I even put a dot of Fray Check on the inside threads of each ring, just to make sure nothing unravels.
Fold back up the 1” hem on the bottom and sew in place with a straight stitch, see below. If you have a walking foot (or dual feed like on the Bernina 830), use that. Huh? What’s a walking foot you ask? Nevermind, you’ll be fine with out it.

Now you can sew shut the top either with a serger or a regular sewing machine. Nobody will see this part so it doesn’t need to be pretty. Alright, you are done with the sewing part. So turn off your machine!
Cut a 1”x2” pine board to 1” shorter than your shade. My shade is now 42” so I cut my pine board 41”. (The hardware store can do this for you if needed.) Staple leftover fabric around you board. This step is optional for inside mount but essential for outside mount because you will see the edges of the board! Attach screw eyes to bottom of board by first drilling pilot holes then screw in the little screw eyes. You might have to snip the fabric to drill the holes.

Staple the top of your shade to the top of your board, wrapping it around about 1” to the top of the board. (You might want to remove the screw eyes if this is difficult for you.) Notice how lazy I was and used the burgandy thread that was already in my serger to finish off the top? But guess what…nobody will see!

Decide if you want your shade strings to pull up on the right side or the left side of the window. I wanted the right side, so I inserted all my strings to the left. Make sense? Tie your first nylon cord to the bottom most ring (see black arrow below), string up to the top through each ring, then through the screw eyes going to the left. Sorry, the cording is white, the lining is white, lousy photo so I drew in the black lines to represent the cording.

Now your shade is all ‘strung’ up and probably seems like a mess. We’ll fix that later.
Here is a close up of how it will look. All of the cording will be strung through the upper left screw eye as the final step in ‘threading’ the shade..

Ok, now we are on the home stretch. Insert your dowel in the bottom, no picture of that, sorry.
I am mounting my shade in the ceiling. Why? Because this window is northern facing and I want as much sun in here as possible. So…when my shade is pulled up I want it to barely cover my window. If this was a really sunny room I would mountain inside because diffusing light might be a good thing. Does that make sense? Mounting shades all the way to the ceiling also gives the illusion of taller windows. :)
Here I am installing the anchors. If you are drilling into the wall, just use a stud finder, drill your board into the studs with 2-3 screws, and skip this step. (Argh…I still gotta putty those holes leftover from my old drapes.)

Using a cordless drill, attach your board to the wall/ceiling/window frame! You’ll need a second pair of hands to hold the shade away from you.
Pull up your cording to make sure everything works. I like to make a series of knots, tieing all 5 cords together once they exit the last screw eye. This keeps then from tangling and it’s safer if you have small children in the house.  (In this photo below I am beginning to wonder why I chose to mount all the way to my 9-ft ceilings. I feel like I’m gonna fall off the ladder this high up!)
 
Attach your wall cleat.

Enjoy your roman shade for years to come!

I hope you found this helpful. Stay tuned for part 2 which will have variations for inside mount as well as french door roman shades.
I also like my new pillows….so fresh and spring-like. Dang that stupid snow still on the front lawn. Curse evil snow!

Stay tuned for part 2 where I will talk about the other variations for french doors and inside mount.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

While in California over Christmas break this year we had new pictures taken of the kids. Where else would Utah dwellers be able to have outside pictures taken of their kids in the dead of winter? Well, I guess we could do photos here but I wasn’t going for the snowy look. I wanted a little bit of greenery and no coats for these pictures.
I asked my super talented brother to take them of course. Unlike myself who knows very very little about photography, my brother Mike is actually a professional. He recently listed this picture in his new etsy shop.

Here are some behind the scenes at the photoshoot:
Nobody can resist a good tire swing.  My kids love, LOVE Mike’s tire swing. Apparently, my kids are deprived because our trees would only hold a stuffed animal.


(In this above photo you can see one of the flashes being set up….but even equipment can get sick and today Mike’s equipment got sick. )
I wanted to take the pictures in front of Mike’s citrus trees, but the light wasn’t good enough, and since the equipment was sick, we went straight to the front yard—hence the tire swing.

Even my 39-yr old hubby couldn’t resist the allure of the tire swing.

My sister Carolyn is the best. And of course she wanted to come to the photo shoot because she’s uber cool.

I tell my sisters all the time how jealous I am of their gorgeous eye color. Carolyn has one blue eye and a partial blue/partial brown eye. Isn’t she lucky?

See what I mean? My other sister has sapphire blue eyes but I don’t have a picture of her to post here. Me? I just gots me the plain ol’ brown eyes like most other Mexicans. No fair.
But I digress.
Despite the broken equipment, things moved forward with some adjustments.


Notice in the above photo Paul is wearing his Lakers t-shirt? I think he took all of his t-shirts to California because there he is in good company amidst all the other Laker fans.
Here are a few of the results:



I sent my favorites off to Costco printing and $11 later, my fireplace area was updated. Yahoo!

I love my kids. I love Mike. I love Carolyn. I love California. Life is great.

Skirts for Girls

  A little over a year ago I decided my girls were old enough to start wearing zippered skirts and not just elastic waist ones. I searched and searched for an a-line skirt pattern and found none. Then I came across Burda 9653 and quickly purchased it. I have since made it at least 5-6 times—out of denim, linen, and most recently corduroy. Will I ever make my girls the jacket though? Complete with a lapel and fully lined? Doubtful.
I like the cut of Burda patterns for women so I assumed the same for little girls. Well, like most children’s patterns, the sizing was very large. I made both my girls (ages 6 and 9) the size 6 skirt and just lengthen it quite a few inches. I also had to cinch in the waist a little bit as it is cut really straight. (You can see how straight it is cut in this below photo.) I realize little girls don’t have hips yet, but still, it needed to be tapered just a little bit at the top so as not to slide down their little hips. I didn’t make that mistake again with the turquoise corduroy ones below.
I also noticed the yolk piece is cut a good 1-2 inches short. You can see wear I have to piece it in the photo below. This was the first time I made the skirt in November 2009 and I was pretty angry, but figured the girls wouldn’t be tucking in their shirts so it was ok to have the yolk pieced.  I have since cut a new yolk piece extra long to avoid this problem again.

Here are the turquoise corduroy versions. For my 9-yr old’s I embroidered a very colorful floral design that came with my machine. Of course I tweeked it and added a little more of those spiral green ‘swirlies.’

And for my 6 yr-old’s I did a tone-on-tone floral embroidery. This design also came with my machine, although I tweaked this design as well. Of course you can’t hoop corduroy as it will ‘scar’ the fabric but just hoop your stabilizer, spray it will temporary adhesive (I like 505), and place your corduroy fabric where you want it. I used some (machine) cross stitch designs at the hem and a dots design to hide the seam where I lengthened it. Long story. Usually I would just cut it longer, but like I said, long story.

Here is a picture I took of the zippered yolk area, after they wore the skirts to church. Hence the wrinkles. I did a basic centered zipper—my least favorite way to install a zipper. I usually do a lapped zipper or an invisible zipper.

Voila! That’s it. For 1 and 1/2" yards of corduroy (found at Joann’s shockingly!) and $10 the girls have some adorable new rags for church.  I can make the skirt in about 45-60 minutes, but how you choose to embellish it is where all your time goes—think ric rac, decorative stitches, ribbons, embroidery, etc.  Just too much fun.

Christmas Gifts 2010

I did my bestest to give mostly handmade gifts to friends and family this year. Obviously I couldn’t do this post earlier because  the masses would then know what they are receiving.  There is something about a handmade gift because I know that receiving such a gift means I was thought about. I hope all my friends and family know how much love went in to all my gifts this year.
I embroidered lots of aprons for friends and fam:

I made pillows for nieces and nephews:

And I embroidered t-shirts and bibs as well for my nieces and nephews:

I hope everybody liked their stuff! And of course I made my girls their dresses. Luckily I started back in October….just seeing these pics make me tired, although they do bring a smile to my face.

Sewing Room

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged about sewing room. Here are some random shots:
Here I am sitting next to my two Bernina sewing machines. Love ‘em. My Bernina 131 looks like a midget next to my new 830. Yikes! Stacks of fabric are (sort of) organized by color—pink, brown, reds, blues, etc. The baskets are from Target. The furniture is from Four Chairs in Lindon, Utah.

This is the cubby where I keep some of my birthday banner supplies. I’m so burnt out on these puppies. My etsy shop no tiene nada ahora.

These are all my purdy little embroidery threads and stabilizers. Ain’t they purdy?

Sewing books and embroidery packs:

This is my Bernina 131. I bought it used about 10 years ago. It was “used” in that the previous owner bought it, took it home for a year where it remained un-opened, and then she upgraded to a bigger fancier machine. I remember Paul and I hemmin’ and hawin’ about the price tag of $800. It was so much money, truly a stretch for our tight budget.  But this machine can sew anything—even 7 layers of canvas on ottoman covers’ corners. I did all my heavy velvet sewing on this for the 2006 Parade of Homes and then went on to sew 75 sets of sliding glass door curtains in velvet (again) all without a single problem.  It’s the last of the basic Bernina machine that they made with a full size free arm and in stainless steel. (The basic models now have a shorter free arm so that they are more portable. Whatever.)

And well, you’ve already seen my post 2 blogs ago about this machine:

This is my cutting table area. It’s always a wreck and I’m keepin’ it real by posting such a messy picture. That’s my serger on the right. Yes, I do all my serging standing up. On the wall is an el-cheapo cork board covered in fabric. Notice the matching hem on my curtains. Isn’t that special. (*church lady*)

This is where I hang my college diploma because this is the nearest I’ll get to an office ever. It’s the most expensive piece of paper I own so it must be displayed. I’m still so proud of the fact that I put myself through college 100%. Crappy jobs, dinners of boxed mac and cheese, near poverty for 4 years, and lots of studying gave me my Business Management degree from BYU. So when I hear others talk about not having the money for college I want to scream. Starve, scrimp, borrow the minimum through student loans, and work so hard sometimes you cry. No entitlements. But I digress.

So that’s it! I hope you liked it. This is a tiny 11x11 room but with all my cubbies and shelves it does the job well. I like it cozy. Back to work now.