tutorial: rosette brooch

I haven't left the house in three days. Sutton and Ezra are sick. I have been doing lots of laundry (Q: What's better than scrubbing vomit and diarrhea out of clothes and blankets? A: Anything.) while Sutton watches every episode of Dora the Explorer ever made (thank heaven for Netflix Streaming!). Enjoy the tutorial Amigas! :)


Cut several strips of material 2.5" wide.

Sew them together to make one long strip. The longer the strip the larger the rosette.

Press seams open. Fold right sides together.

Click on the picture to see the shape better, it is similar to a knife tip. Draw that on the end of your strip. Start on the FOLDED edge and sew on the curved line.

When you get to the point leave the needle down, raise the presser foot and turn the fabric. Lower the presser foot and sew down the length of your strip of fabric creating a tube.

Trim the seam.

Turn your fabric tube inside out and press. Your fabric tube is just under an inch wide.

Get ready to gather your strip. Use a basting stitch (the longest stitch width) and tension at the highest setting. With the tension set high the strip comes out of the machine gathered, no need to pull threads. Yay!

Very close to the edge (the one with the seam, not the folded edge) sew a gathering stitch down the entire length of the fabric tube.

See? Nice and gathered!

With the tube gathered it curls up on itself. You just have to kind of roll it up.

With a needle and matching thread sew through all the layers. A couple of passes with the needle is all you need, just to hold it together.

As the rosette gets bigger, you can't sew through the entire thing. Sew through the outer layers.

Tuck the end under.

Cut a circle of felt and attach a pin back (I used two because of the size of the rosette).

Grab some craft glue.

It is a little hard to see the glue... I actually had to add a little more, especially around the perimeter.
Press felt onto rosette and let glue set.

Done!

You can make all sizes of rosettes. Mine is about 6" in diameter. My un-gathered fabric tube was about 4 yards long. For a small rosette use 1-2 yards. If you want a deeper, more plush rosette make your fabric strips 4-5" wide.

Here it is on the dress.


Linking up to get your CRAFT on! and We Did it! Wednesday.

tutorial: shabby apple dress knock-off

See the inspiration dress here.

All seam allowances are 1/2" unless otherwise noted.
You can use a shirt you already own or you can make one. I didn't have a suitable top so I made one.

Cut up the men's shirts into the largest pieces possible. I used Simplicity 3887 view C/F for the top. I have made this top two other times and have had success with it. Lay out your pattern pieces, pin and cut. Assemble the shirt according to the patterns directions.

I made two modifications to the pattern 1- I didn't use the full length of the pattern since it would have just been cut off later. 2- Instead of an elastic casing on the arm, I gathered the bottom of the sleeve and finished it with bias tape. Same basic look, just a little more finished looking.

Figure out where your natural waist is either by trying the top on and marking it or measuring down from your shoulder or you can eyeball it. That's what I did. :)

Cut the center back of the top. I serged the edges but that is not necessary.

Cut out your waist band. I added three inches to my natural waist measurement for seam allowance and garment ease. My band was 3.5" wide. Using a 1/2" seam allowance the band on the finished dress is 2.5" wide. (Ignore that second band. I didn't end up using it.) Cut a piece of lightweight fusible interfacing the same size as your band and iron it to the wrong side of your band.


Pin and baste your waistband to the bottom edge of the shirt (right sides together). Try on the top to see if you like where the band hits you on your body. Adjust if necessary. Once you are happy with it, sew the band to the shirt using a regular stitch. Optional- serge the raw edge.

TIP: I wish I could have had more gathers in my skirt. Try to find a skirt that is a few sizes larger than your normal size so you will have more material to gather.

I wanted my skirt to hit right in the middle of my knee. I pinned and cut off the top portion of the skirt (and lining) leaving me with 23" of skirt with the original hem intact.

I serged the top edge of the skirt and lining, mainly to keep them together. If you don't have a serger do a regular stitch around the top of the skirt.

Gather the skirt using a long machine stitch (5 on my machine). I like to do two lines of gathering stitches that way if the thread of one breaks you've got a back up. Plus, you get more even gathers with two.

Lay your zipper on the shirt and measure the over hang of the zipper (7.5 for me) and is how much you will cut open the skirt.

Mark and cut your zipper opening on the center back of your skirt.

With right sides together pin and baste the skirt to the bottom side of the band. Try on your dress for fit. Once you are happy with it, sew the band and skirt with a regular stitch and serge raw edges.

Sew in invisible zipper.

The zipper is in. I like to pretend that the waistband matched up perfectly. I was too lazy to take it apart and fix it.

For the pockets: Cut out your pocket. Freshly Picked has a perfect sized template if you need one. (She also has much better pictures and directions on how to do a pocket. Go check it out!)

Open up the side seam where you want your pocket to be. Making your opening slight larger then the pocket piece.

With the right sides of the skirt and the pocket together, pin and sew with a 1/4" inseam. Repeat for other side of the pocket.

Sewing the 1/4" inseam

(Please forgive my less than stellar photoshop skillz)

With the right sides of the pockets together, sew the side seam of the skirt that you opened once you get to the pocket lift the presser foot rotate the skirt put the presser foot down and sew around the perimeter of the pocket. Continue back onto the skirt sewing the side seam closed.

A pocket! Now repeat for the other side of the dress.

A tutorial for the rosette brooch will be up tomorrow.

refashion: a shabby apple knock-off

I love this dress from Shabby Apple but I don't love the $98 price tag. So in true Erin fashion I decided to recreate it myself with clothing from the refashion pile.


Two men's dress shirts that were in perfect condition aside from the blasted 'ring around the collar' (anyone know a good remedy for that??) and a nice gray skirt from Banana Republic that I never wore because of it's very dowdy mid-calf length. The only items I bought were a 22" zipper and half a yard of black fabric for the waistband. Less than $4 total.



I made my rosette detail a little smaller than the original. I don't like too much emphasis on the girls.

I even added contrasting pockets! Love 'em.



P.S.- Perhaps I should send less time sewing and more time doing yard work... nah, that's no fun.

Linking up to Just Something I Whipped Up, DIY Day, Made it Mondays, Metamorphosis Monday, Make Your Monday, The DIY Show Off, Make it for Monday and Making the World Cuter Monday

more throw pillows!

The morning I announced the winners of my giveaway I got a comment from Megan saying I won her giveaway. I was so excited! I never win things. Thanks again Megan!

The giveaway was from AllModern.com and I chose an awesome zig-zag pillow. I love it.


I must be suffering from the winter doldrums because I am craving yellow. Yellow, yellow everywhere!

In an effort to satisfy my craving, I made a little yellow pillow today (it looks more yellow and less beige in person). I used freezer paper stencils I cut out loosely based on this design. Instead of using the usual fabric paint, I took a tip from Vanessa and used spray paint. It was so easy and way fast.


And now my couch has a little bit of sunshine!

Linking to Strut Your Stuff Thursday at Somewhat Simple.

office chair make-over

One nasty $5 vinyl chair...

A couple of hours of work, IKEA fabric and spray paint later...

This chair was in the Los Angeles County General Hospital in the 60's. I wish I new how it got to the Salvation Army thrift store in the tiny town of Monroe, NC in 2009 .

Tools needed: Fabric, staple gun, screw driver and pliers for removing staples, scissors.

Remove staples and vinyl.

Staple new fabric on. I covered the underside of the seat also because it had water damage and was gross.

The chair back, step-by-step- 1) remove staples and vinyl & cut fabric a little larger then chair back. 2) Staple fabric on center of each side, pulling taut. 3) Continue stapling from side to side pulling fabric taut as you go. 4) Cut a square for the back. 5) Fold raw edge under and staple all around. 6) Fin!

Fabric detail.

Linking up to Just Something I Whipped Up at the Girl Creative and DIY Day at A Soft Place to Land and Made it Mondays at the Persimmon Perch and We Did It Wednesday at Sew Much Ado