Need handmade gift ideas for the dads and dudes in your life? For the month June we're sharing DIYs that are perfect for guys! To kick off the month, Mariah Palmer of the Everything Golden blog visits to share a simple tutorial to transform vacation photos into custom Spoonflower gift wrap!
I’m a graphic designer with a love for textile design and sewing. So when I found Spoonflower I was over the moon with joy. The possibilities are endless!
This year I created custom wrapping paper for my dad's Father's Day gift. I have a very special papa whose favorite activity is cruising the mountains on his motorcycle, so I thought it would be fitting to create a motorcycle gift wrap design and another with some photos of our beloved Idaho Mountains. You can purchase the motorcycle print here, or, use your own photos.
Here's how:
I used Adobe Photoshop to create the design. I wanted to use a few photos so I compiled them into one file to fit on one roll of gift wrap. Spoonflower wrapping paper roll dimensions are 26in x 6ft (72in).
I started by creating a photoshop file with the dimensions of 26” x 24.”
Then, I fit together 3 images to fit the width.
Once I uploaded my file to Spoonflower, I chose a basic repeat, so that the images would repeat along the length of the roll. You could also pick one photo, size it at 13” x 13” and select a basic repeat for your design layout on Spoonflower. You'll need to use high resolution photos for this project. When sizing your photo, keep in mind how your design will wrap around your gift.
Now you're ready to create your own custom gift wrap, perfect for a special present!
About Our Guest Author
Mariah is a creative wanderer in design, photography, and style A nature lover to the core she grew up in Sun Valley, Idaho, spent some time in Colorado and is now happy at home in Bozeman, Montana, wher her laser physicist husband and a smarty pants border collie named Indie. Her biggest source of inspriation is found in the solace of the mountains.
Guest author Emma Jeffery from the blog Hello Beautiful returns to share her freshly wallpapered closet for our May Renter Dec project series. With our fully removable wallpaper, this rental-friendly DIY lends a perfect pop of surprise pattern and color to brighten up your space!
We moved into new house just before Christmas and there’s so much I want to do to make it feel like ‘home’. I can’t wait to bring color and personality to the walls with splashes of paint, artwork and Spoonflower’s wallpaper, but being new to hanging wallpaper (my only previous wallpaper project being my daughter’s doll house) I decided to start small.
So small in fact, that I decided to wallpaper our downstairs coat closet! It’s the perfect size for a beginner project, and being a seamstress at heart, covering the inside of a closet with a bright fun wallpaper is akin to lining a plain jacket with a cool and funky fabric. You get glimpses of color every now and then, and, like a hidden secret, it makes me happy to know it’s there!
Our closet started off less than inspiring and with zero personality. It had hooks and screws drilled into random places that many previous owners added over the years. The hooks were too high for my children to reach, and hence, their jackets and school backpacks invariably ended up strewn on the floor, contents spilling forth and adding to the general ‘dumping ground’ nature of the closet.
So, I decided enough was enough! I emptied the contents of the closet, removed the hooks and screws and gave the paintwork a fresh coat of paint. I ordered two rolls of gorgeous Spoonflower wallpaper designed by Paper Sparrow , wiped down the walls and began the process of beautifying my closet.
I began by measuring and cutting the first length of wallpaper slightly longer than needed to cover the back of the closet wall. It helps immensely to mark the TOP of each of the strips of wallpaper you cut if you don’t have a directional pattern, so that you always know which way to hang it.
Our closet is conveniently located next to our downstairs shower room, so we filled the bottom of the shower base with water though you could use a trough, bath tub or very large plastic container. You need to loosely coil the cut length of wallpaper and immerse it in water for 15 seconds.
I pulled the wallpaper out of the water by holding the top edge and allowing it to uncoil as I pulled it up and out of the water, therefore ensuring that all the wallpaper was fully wet. This is definitely a two person job!
We then ‘booked’ the ends (this is where it become hard to remember the top from the bottom, but if you’ve labeled it on the back, then there’s nothing to worry about!) and then simply hung the wallpaper.
When hanging subsequent strips of wallpaper, be sure to pay close attention to correctly matching the pattern at the edges. When done well, the seams are almost invisible.
Leave the trimming until the wallpaper is completely dry otherwise it will rip and tear. I used a sharp craft knife to trim my paper after leaving the wallpaper to dry overnight.
We finished off by adding some new hooks - some at child height level so that my kids can reach to hang up their things.
The new closet looks great and the process was simple - it only took a couple of hours one afternoon to complete and out technique improved with each strip we hung.
In fact, the only problem with my closet makeover is that it’s so pretty I wish it wasn’t hidden! I wonder if we should remove the doors?
I'm an obsessive sewer, often leaping into projects with more enthusiasm than talent, more bravado than skill and more good luck than anything else. This technique has worked well for me so far and more often than not, I make things I love, even if they're not absolutely perfect. And though I'm no expert, I have a passion for fabric, color and design. I know what I like and what I like makes me smile.
Designer, blogger, and author Rashida Coleman-Hale joins us once more for the final wrap-up of her Quilt Market 2012 adventures. Grab a cozy beverage and feast your eyes on her favorites from Cloud 9 and the Quilt Market floor!
Quilt Market!!! I went, I saw, I took pictures, I was INSPIRED, I socialized, I did some business...I'm still recovering.
The show was amazing, but these things never seem to happen without incident. First off, my travels, as you may know, were quite an adventure.Michelle was missing a box from UPS that had ALL of her sales sheets, cards, etc. in it. Her Mom so graciously sent a new batch overnight. Yay, Michelle's Mom! Gina's schoolhouse presentation was great, but her projector showed her slideshow upside-down the whole time. Boo. The samples we had of Tsuru weren't big enough, so I had to run to my hotel room and cut new ones. And those buttons I made? Those were gone within the first two days. Hot commodity they were! ^_~ My posts were supposed to be happening during the show, but silly me only brought an iPad. I had no idea that Typepad doesn't let you post via richtext on an iPad, and I know nothing about HTML. Boo.
Other than that the show was FANTASTIC!
Cloud 9 Fabrics booth was oh-so-cute as expected. The panels on the back of the booth were printed via Spoonflower, of course! Michelle and Gina did such a great job pulling it together and they were busy, busy, busy the entire show!
(Please forgive some of my photos. I used my iPhone for these and I won't be making that mistake again. :P)
And some sneak peeks of what's coming in the future! (Pssst....voile!!!!!!)
Here are some of my ABSOLUTE favorites from the show below.
First up is my Cloud 9 cousin Alexia Abegg's Green Bee Designs booth. Her husband Rob Bancroft's line with Cloud 9 is Micromod. Let me tell you, the photos and the graphic images on the site DO NOT do this collection justice! You truly have to see these fabrics in person to appreciate their colors and the design. It appears very masculine online, but in person...*swoooon*. It's a fantastic collection for either gender. Rob really nailed this one!
, you have officially outdone yourself! I am SO in love with her new collection Stamped with Kokka!! I seriously cannot wait to get my hands on some of this. I think I went by this booth at least 6 times to just soak it all in. Such a fantastic collection! Nice work, Ellen!
The sweet Kokka print on this dress below was calling to me.
And these cute pouches.
The Echino colors are always so vibrant and fun.
That's Ruby Star Sparkle by Melody Miller below. Yes. Sparkle. Melody's booth was a dreamy, vintage-y, Christmas-y wonderland and it was marvelous. Melody was there promoting her new book, Ruby Star Wrapping, as well as her fabric.
Did you know Melody has her own line of crochet trim coming soon from Kokka??? *faints* Ruby Star Trim!!
From Art Gallery Fabrics, I saw Luxe in Bloom and Indian Summer by Sarah Watson. Sarah's booth was BY FAR my favorite of the show. Her collections are gorgeous, but what struck me most was how imspired I was by her booth. It was like a giant, fantastic mood board and I wanted to take it home with me! I really love her design style and I was so drawn to it. I've been trying a more hand-drawn look for my next collections and her work just spoke to me. *swoon* Can I be Sarah when I grow up??? :)
Splendor 1920 by BariJ is below. Bari, Bari, Bari.....*sigh*...I heart you. The colors. The patterns. The bed with ruffles!!! I wanted to chill out on that bed with a sketch book and some hot cocoa. Her booth always dazzles and amazes. Just so lovely.
She cross stitched on her cross stitch! Love!
How cute is this coat???
Architextures by Carolyn Friedlander for Robert Kaufman was a showstopper. Carolyn is a force to be reckoned with and I would keep my eye on her. Her work is fantastic! AND she's from Lake Wales, Florida. Why does this matter? I graduated from high school in the same county! Polk County in the house!! She's my new homegirl. Well, in my head at least. :P
Monaluna below is Jennifer Moore's new collection. Jennifer's designs are always so fresh and modern, but I was especially drawn to this new collection.
The llamas!!! I can see a lot of fun garments for my littles in these prints!
The llama in the window is my new homie, too.
Sou Sou by Tamurakoma & Co was my favorite little discovery and I wish I had taken better shots of this booth. I've really been into a more organic, modern, handmade look to prints lately and this Japanese company didn't disappoint in that area. I had so many questions, but decided not to embarrass myself or my pal Jemellia with my crappy Japanese. Then I saw this lovely book sitting on the table...
From the SouSou site:
"Are you familiar with the talented Japanese textile designer, who was formerly of the esteemed Finish design firm Marimekko? His name is Katsuji Wakisaka, and in the 1960′s he gained much fame in Finland for his signature “Bo Boo” print designs. After his time at Marimekko, Mr. Wakisaka continued on to New York to work for Larsen Design Studio, then back to Japan to work for Wacoal Interior Fabric in Kyoto, and then finally ended up designing textiles and graphic prints here at SOU SOU.
"The book, Katsuji Wakisaka- Marimekko, SOU・SOU and 10000 post cards to his wife, introduces Mr. Wakisaka’s remarkable 44-year long artistic practice, during which he has produced around 10,000 design concepts in addition to a beautiful glimpse at Mr. Wakisaka’s companionship with his wife."
After learning that I HAD to have a copy of the book!!! I bought it as soon as I was back in Atlanta. :P
Quilt Market is always such an amazing trip for me. To be in a convention center filled with like-minded people is such a creative charge and I enjoy every minute of it. I had such a good time, loved seeing all of my friends and meeting new crafty peeps and I cannot wait for the next show. Portland, baby!!!! See you there? ^_^
(Yes, I dorked out on one of the long arm machines that was on display. :P)
Guest author Emma Jeffery from the blog Hello Beautiful recovers plain glass vases with removable wall decals, creating a colorful and pattern-filled decor collection easily changed for a new season or look.
Using Spoonflower’s new decals to cover glass vases is a great way to bring color and fun to your home. The decals are easily removed, so you can switch designs for the season or if (like me) you enjoy changing the color scheme of a room every now and then without having to buy, or store, new vases.
I started with a selection of reasonably priced glass vases with straight sides. They can be found at a florist shop, home decor stores or in the glassware section of your local craft store.
Following Spoonflower’s directions for preparing a surface for a decal, I cleaned the vases with a damp cloth and allowed them to dry thoroughly. Next, I measured each vase accurately. I allowed a ½” of overlap where the two ends meet, and cut my decal accordingly.
I used Diamond Circle Aqua, Kunda Linen Ocean and Clouds Lines Linen decal designs by Holli Zollinger.
The large decals arrive in a roll and I found it helpful to use a couple pattern weights to hold them down flat for cutting. I used a rotary cutter and ruler for cutting-- the best way to get accurate measurements.
After cutting the decals to size, I was ready to cover the vases. I started by peeling away the backing paper from one end and placing it on the side of the vase.
As I slowly worked my way around the vases I could easily adjust the decal if necessary, by peeling it back and re-adjusting, to get a smooth finish to the surface.
As I mentioned, I overlapped the joining ends by ½”, which is barely noticeable on the finished vases.
I covered four vases in this way and it took less than an hour to create a statement collection for my room. I switched things up a little on the final vase, by covering only the top half, leaving the bottom half untouched and I like that look a lot too.
I'm an obsessive sewer, often leaping into projects with more enthusiasm than talent, more bravado than skill and more good luck than anything else. This technique has worked well for me so far and more often than not, I make things I love, even if they're not absolutely perfect. And though I'm no expert, I have a passion for fabric, color and design. I know what I like and what I like makes me smile.
Rashida Coleman-Hale, fabric designer, author, and sewist extraordinaire, joins us today for the third installment in her series of posts about her experiences debuting her new fabric collection, Tsuru, at International Quilt Market. Bad travel mojo plagued our designing heroine on her way to Market, but she's made it to Houston, TX at last! Today, Rashida shows off the pretty swag she'll be giving away at the Cloud 9 booth at which she’ll be showing her new fabrics when Market officially opens tomorrow, plus comparison photos of two rounds of Tsuru strike offs. Enjoy!
So I've finally made it to Houston! I say finally because I've had quite the ordeal getting here. Here's how my schedule was laid out:
Tuesday - Leave Atlanta 8am arriving in Denver at 10am.
Thursday - Caught shuttle at 6am from hotel to catch 10am flight to Houston. Plane was held on the ground because of maintenance issues. Finally left Denver at 6:30 PM arriving in Houston at 8:30PM.
So as you can see things weren't exactly going my way with the flying. I think I'll just drive next time. Ugh.
I'm exhausted and grumpy (so I'll keep this post short), but I'm here and SO ready for the show!
On the plus side, everything that I ordered arrived right on time for me to pack up in my suitcase!
Buttons came....
And I'm SO happy with how they turned out! The cards also arrived and I'm loving them as well!
My first thought was to just hand the buttons out, but this is Quilt Market, why not up the ante a bit?
Oh! And look what else came! Strike Offs Round 2! The first set is on the left and the second on the right. The blue is definitely the way we intended it to be, but I think I'm quite partial to the red on the first set. This group is very, VERY close, but I think there may have to be one more round. I'll keep you posted!
I'll be posting more frequently over the next few days from the show floor so that you can see the Cloud 9 booth as well as highlights of the many, many gorgeous and inspiring sights to be seen at Quilt Market! See you in a few!
This week Dana Willard author of the beautiful Made blog and Fabrics A to Z is back this week to share a tutorial for adorable baby tank shirts made from Spoonflower organic cotton interlock knit.
Hello again friends. It's Dana from MADE and I'm back to share a sewing tutorial and free pattern with you!
When I discovered that Spoonflower carried knit fabrics last
month I was overjoyed! Truly! I'm a fabric nerd. And as most of you
know, finding cute knit fabric prints in the store is pretty
impossible. But at Spoonflower the prints are endless! Holy fun.
• Print the 4-page pattern to standard 8 1/2 x 11 inch paper. There is a 1 square-inch measuring box on each page to make sure your pattern has printed to proper size. I recommend selecting the print option "actual size" (or something similar) for best results.
• Cut out all 4 pattern pieces (2 Back pieces, 2 Front pieces). Tape the 2 Front pieces together along the dotted lines. Do not overlap them, but butt them up right next to each other at the dotted lines and tape. Do the same for the Back pieces---match them up at the long dotted lines and tape.
• The pattern size is 6-12 months. If you have an older (or younger) child you can adjust the pattern by extending or reducing in a similar pattern shape. Use one of your child's current shirts to gauge how wide and how long the tank should be.
Rashida Coleman-Hale, fabric designer, author, and sewist extraordinaire, joins us today for the second installment in her series of posts about her experiences debuting her new fabric collection, Tsuru, at International Quilt Market. This week, Rashida talks about coming up with the goodies she'll be giving away at the Cloud 9 booth at which she’ll be showing her new fabrics. Enjoy!
Happy Tuesday friends! It's getting closer to Quilt Market and I'm actually starting to feel some of the pressure now. *bites nails* Be cool Shida, be cool. The new strike-off's have not arrived so I've been busying myself messing around with the samples that I have at the moment. So we'll continue the wait and hope that some super miracle happens between now and QM.
Just because I don't have sample yardage doesn't meet I'm off the hook. Awhile back Michelle Engel Bencsko, Cloud 9's Design director extraordinaire, asked me if I'd like to contribute a free project for buyers and of course I was extremely happy to do so. I normally don't have difficulty coming up with quilt designs for my collections, but for some reason I just couldn't decide what to submit. It almost felt like I was afraid of my own designs, believe it or not. I'm just not sure why this typically simple task seemed so daunting to me. Here are some screen shots of what I was dealing with.
I started out with this design, thinking I would take some cues from the Graphic Motifs print. This felt so, so forced and far busier than what I normally would do. It just didn't feel like me. I think this would look great in solids perhaps, but it wasn't right for Tsuru. NEXT!
I know what the problem is! The first quilt is too big, so let's make it a nice, neat lap quilt. Yep, that's the.......*sigh*. Still not working for me. I think I may revisit this one again, though. NEXT!
Yes! Triangles! With stripes, too?! Yes? No. This one felt very tight and strict to me. I like the design, but it just felt so stiff. Survey says........eeehhhhhhh! NEXT!
What's this now??? *Angels singing* The room fills with bright beams of light, the Yankees win the World Series, I'm a size 6 and with the metabolism of a 16-year old again, and I suddenly have the ability to wiggle my nose like that lady on Bewitched and all of the quilts I want to make suddenly appear and are perfectly, beautifully quilted by Angela Walters!
This is the one! Clean lines, shows off the prints nicely, easy piecing, simple, and modern. Love! So Michelle sent it to print and this is the pretty quilt pattern that I decided on. The end. :)
But, I didn't want to just give away a quilt pattern. Quilts are fun, but one of the best things about Quilt Market is all of the awesome goodies you get to take home, right? I typically give out a postcard or business card, but I wanted to do something a little different this time. The question is what to give away?
Well, buttons of course!
They're the cute, wee 1.25-inch ones and they should be arriving on my doorstep on Friday. I can't even stand the waiting and I'm beyond excited about them!
I also ordered some cards to go with them, also sweet and wee. Two inches square, in fact. Fingers crossed that everything gets here before I leave for Houston next week. I'd hate to show you all of this pretty and end up in Houston withou...neeeeeeevermind. I'll just stop talking now. :P
Many of you know of Rashida Coleman-Hale from her lovely sewing books featuring zakka projects, Zakka Style and I Love Patchwork, or maybe from her Washi fabric collection released through Timeless Treasures last year, or perhaps through her beautiful blog I Heart Linen. Here at Spoonflower, we first heard of Rashida through her Spoonflower storefront where she sells her unlicensed designs (just before they’re snapped up by fabric companies, it seems), and we definitely count ourselves among her biggest fans!
That’s why we’re so excited that this week, Rashida is beginning a series of International Quilt Market reports for the Spoonflower blog! In this series, which we’ll be posting throughout the month of October, Rashida will be sharing her preparations for Quilt Market as she debuts a gorgeous new collection of Japanese-inspired designs called Tsuru which is being put out by Cloud9 Fabrics. I hope you’re all as excited about following Rashida’s progress and the progress of Tsuru as I am!
Hello everyone! I'm SO over the moon excited that the lovely folks at Spoonflower invited me to do this! Spoonflower??? Asked me to do a guest post??? *faints*
Quilt Market Season is the greatest time of the year for me (Seriously, it's right up there with Christmas in my book.) and I'm so thrilled to have the opportunity to share my QM adventures with you! I'll be debuting my newest collection at the Cloud 9 Fabrics booth as well as walking the floor and taking in all of the fantastic that will be there and I hope to share as much of it with you as I can.
Right now, I'm just busy getting everything prepared for the show and this is the first time that I won't be a frantic mess trying to sew samples! Unusual, yes. I wish I could say it's because I'm a super rad, organized, cool as a cucumber, sewing machine and I've been cranking out tons of amazing quilted goodness and garments and giving the Project Runway contestants a run for their money. But nope.
The strike-offs JUST arrived last week and some of the colors are wrong! Womp woooomp wooooomp. It took everything in me to not edit these photos to make the colors richer. But I wanted you to see them as they are currently, so I resisted. The S/Os are quite rough and crunchy as they haven't gone through the treatment that the final yardage will. There's also some misaligned registration and a few splotches and bleeds.
As you can see from the Cloud 9 site, the blue should be waaaay more Indigo and far richer than it appears here. The pink is also quite pale so this will be punched up a bit. The red is too hot and should have been a little milkier. My speckled cranes are dissappearing on the pink moon! Noooooo! So there will be a bit of tweaking in this area.
We're waiting for a second round which, fingers crossed, will arrive before the show. I doubt there will be sample yardage available for us to make samples, but fabulous Art Director, Michelle has her backup plan in action so we're good to go!
Overall, other than the color errors I'm really, REALLY pleased with how these came out! I absolutely cannot wait to see what everyone creates with them.
I'm especially excited about the Graphic Motif print. See that cute little blue motif there in the middle? Yup, two inches. The scale is GINORMOUS!! LOVE!
This floral border print also makes me giddy, but I'm dying to see it with the dark indigo that we have planned. So we'll wait for round two and see how it goes!
I have lot's to do and show and tell between now and Quilt Market, but I'll keep you posted on my little Tsuru adventures! See you next week!
This week guest author Emma Jeffery from the blog Hello Beautiful visits to show us how she used old love letters to create a personalized fabric lampshade.
My husband and I got together in the days when people still wrote letters to each other, and because we’ve both lived in various different countries (and not necessarily together, at the same time) we both accumulated a healthy stack of correspondence.
On a recent trip back to my parent’s house where I grew up, I rediscovered the large box of letters I’d amassed that he sent me over a 5-year time frame, chronicling my various university addresses, a summer stint as a nanny in France, a year I spent on a remote island in the Indian Ocean....The envelopes had postmarks and stamps from his various travels too -- a windsurfing trip to Spain with his friends or snowboarding in the Alps. And because he tended to doodle on the front of the envelopes or use folded magazine ads as an envelope, there was an interesting mix of color and design in my collection.
I photographed various parts of many of the envelopes, concentrating on the addresses, stamps, postmarks and my husband’s handwriting and doodling. I zoomed in on various points of interest and panned out on others, for a more overall impression.
Once I had taken approximately 50 - 60 photos, I edited them in Picasa by cropping the photos to highlight the most striking parts.
I then created a collage of the images. Setting the purple background color helped to make the images stand out from each other. Picasa allows you to easily move and turn each element of the collage to create an image you love. Although my usual design comfort zone is subtle and orderly, I very deliberately decided to go bold, random and large-scale with this collage. It felt good to let my design inhibitions go for this project.
In Microsoft's Paint program I resized the image to fit 1 yard of Spoonflower’s linen-cotton canvas. I wanted to use my fabric print for an oversized lampshade for my side of the bed in our room. I purchased the largest lamp base I could find at the thrift store - which cost me less than $3 plus the cost of a can of spray paint to change the ugly black and red design to white.
I selected a large lamp shade to recover and traced a pattern on large piece of paper. I started by rolling the shade over the paper and marking a line with a pen as I rolled it from one side to the other, marking the top edge and then the bottom edge.
I then joined up the two lines at the sides with a ruler.
I cut my pattern out of the paper and checked it was the right size by placing it over the shade temporarily.
Assured my pattern was the correct size, I was ready to cut my fabric. I added a ¾” seam allowance all the way around the outside of the paper pattern so that I had extra fabric as an overhang.
To adhere the fabric to the lampshade, I began by spraying the shade with a spray adhesive. It’s best to do this outside or in a well ventilated area.
I then rolled the lampshade over the fabric, checking its positioning as I rolled.
At the seam join, I pressed the top raw edge ¼” to the wrong side and glued it down neatly.
In order to neatly finish the top and bottom edges, I first folded the over hanging fabric
to the inside of the lampshade and glued it down.
Clothes pins and paper clips were helpful to keep the fabric in place as I waited for it to dry.
Next, I glued a length of twill ribbon over the raw edge of the fabric. It’s an easy and pretty way to hide the raw edge and prevent fraying.
Finally, I secured the lampshade to my new and freshly painted base and placed it in our room.
I'm an obsessive sewer, often leaping into projects with more enthusiasm than talent, more bravado than skill and more good luck than anything else. This technique has worked well for me so far and more often than not, I make things I love, even if they're not absolutely perfect. And though I'm no expert, I have a passion for fabric, color and design. I know what I like and what I like makes me smile.
This week guest blogger Diane Gilleland from CraftyPod returns to share a tutorial for turning five favorite Spoonflower designs into a beautiful bag.
Confession Time: Spoonflower's Fabric of the Week contests are one of my favorite workday distractions. It's lovely to spend a few minutes immersed in beautiful designs, and my favorite part is this:
When I see all the fabrics I've voted for in one place, I always think, "Wow, those would look so great together in a project!" So I decided to design that project – a tote bag that showcases five fabrics, and only requires one test swatch of each one. (In fact, with careful cutting I was able to get two totes out of my five swatches!) You can whip one of these up in just a couple hours.
Download and print the PDF patchwork pattern, and decide which of your Spoonflower swatches you'll be using as Fabric A, B, C, D, and E. Then, use a ruler and rotary cutter to cut one piece from each fabric, using the dimensions labeled on the pattern.
Cut a long strip from your background fabric, measuring 1" tall by the width of the fabric (selvage to selvage). Now, cut this strip into four lengths as labeled in the pattern: 4", 4 ½" 5" and 10 ½".
When you sew the patchwork, always place the right sides of the fabric pieces together.
All seam allowances in this project are ¼", unless otherwise specified. Feel free to pin the fabric pieces together before you sew them, or not – however you're most comfortable sewing!
Step 1: Sew the 4" background fabric strip to the bottom edge of Fabric A. Press the seam allowance toward Fabric A. Then, sew the top edge of Fabric B to the other side of that background strip. Press that seam allowance toward Fabric B. (This is the finished unit you see on the right side of the photo above.)
Now, sew the 5" background strip to the right edge of Fabric C. Press the seam allowance toward Fabric C.
Step 2: Sew the two units together as shown here. Then, take a moment and trim any edges that are a little on the wonky side so they're straight. Just line the fabric edges up with the guide lines on the cutting mat, and use your ruler and rotary cutter to make straight cuts.
And with that, the top half of our patchwork is done!
Step 3: Sew the 4 ½" background strip to the right edge of Fabric D. Press the seam allowance toward Fabric D. Then, sew the left edge of Fabric E to the other side of the background strip. Press that seam allowance toward Fabric E. This is the bottom half of our patchwork. If you need to, go ahead and trim its edges so they're straight.
We'll connect these two finished units with the 10 ½" strip we cut earlier.
Step 4: Now, take the patchwork unit we just completed in Step 3. Sew the top edge of this unit to the 10 ½" background strip. Press the seam allowance toward the print fabrics. Then, sew the bottom edge of the patchwork unit from Step 2 to the other side of that background strip. Press the seam allowance toward the print fabrics again.
Step 5: Now,we'll just tidy up our finished patchwork. Use your ruler, rotary cutter and the guide lines on your cutting mat to trim all four edges so they're straight and at 90 degree angles.
Looks good! Let's add some background to the edges.
Step 6: Now, cut another long strip from your background fabric, measuring 3 ½" tall by the width of the fabric (selvage to selvage). Cut one 10" length from this strip. This goes at the bottom edge of your patchwork block.
Next, cut two 13" lengths from the long strip. Take these, and trim them so they're 3" tall by 13" long. These are the sides of your patchwork.
Finally, cut one 2" by 10" strip. (Depending on the width of your fabric, you may be able to get this out of the remaining long strip, or you may need to cut it from the rest of your background fabric.) This 2" tall strip goes at the top edge of your tote.
Step 7: Let's sew these strips to our patchwork block to finish the front of the tote. Sew the 2" by 10" strip to the top edge of the patchwork. Sew the 3 ½" by 10" strip to the bottom edge of the patchwork. Press the seam allowances toward the patchwork.
Step 8: Now, sew the 3" by 13" strips to the right and left edges of the patchwork. Press those seam allowances toward the patchwork as well. Your finished piece may have some wonky edges again now. Don't worry about it – just trim them! At this stage, I like to use the edge of my patchwork as a reference line for trimming. Here, I've lined up my ruler with the patchwork, and then lined the bottom of the ruler up with a guide line on my cutting mat. With that alignment, I can then move my ruler to the edge of the background fabric and trim it so it's parallel with the edge of the patchwork. (See how I've lined the raw edge of the background fabric up with another guide line on my mat? That's handy for making that trim accurately.)
Step 9: Now that your patchwork block is all straight and square, measure it, and write down those dimensions. (You'll need them again later to make a lining.)
Your patchwork will measure somewhere in the neighborhood of 14" by 13". If it's a little larger or smaller, don't worry about it! As long as the background strips on the right and left edges are the same width, all is well. Just use whatever the measurement is to cut an identical piece from your background fabric. This will be the back of your tote.
Making Straps:
Cut two more long strips from your remaining background fabric, each measuring 4" tall by 26" long. (That's just the length I like. If you prefer your tote straps longer or shorter, by all means, cut them to the length you like!).
Fold each strip in half lengthwise with the right side facing out, pressing the fold with a hot iron. Open this fold back up and then carefully fold the two raw edges in so they meet at this fold line, as shown above. Press these two new folds as well. Then, refold each strap in half again so the raw edges are to the inside, and press the strap flat.
To finish your straps, stitch about ⅛" away from each long edge.
Assembling the Tote:
This video walks you through the assembly process from this point. We'll add the straps to our tote, make a lining with some pockets in it, and put the whole thing together. I made two pockets for my tote: the larger one used a 12" tall by 8" piece wide of fabric, and the smaller one used a 12" tall by 5 ½" wide piece. You can actually make your pockets any size you like – or even leave them out!
Varying the Size:
This tote is a little on the diminutive side – just large enough to carry your wallet, phone, sketchbook, a paperback, and a small water bottle on your day's adventures. If you'd like it to be bigger, you can always cut the background strips in Step 6 a couple inches wider and longer.
Can you imagine having a little collection of these bags, each one with a different fabric theme?
About Our Guest Blogger
Diane Gilleland blogs, podcasts, publishes, teaches, and makes videos about all things crafty over at CraftyPod.com. When she's not doing those things, she's doing whatever her cat tells her to do. And what's wrong with that?
This week Diane Gilleland from CraftyPod shares a tutorial for making a modern placemat set using large scale Spoonflower prints and simple quilting techniques.
I love English paper piecing and fabrics with great big prints, but these two things don't always play so nicely together. So I decided to experiment with super-sizing some traditional paper pieced hexagons. I love the way they showcase these three beautiful designs from Spoonflower designer Holli Zollinger: Coral Lined Mosaic, Fish Scales Slate Full, and Diamond Circles Aqua, and the chevron lines of quilting make a nice frame.
Materials (per placemat):
½ yard background fabric (I'm using linen-cotton canvas here, but cotton would be lovely, too.)
¼ yard flannel (for batting)
3 Spoonflower Kona® cotton test swatches in prints of your choice
Thread that coordinates with your background and hexie fabrics
For this project, you'll need prints that are large, but not too large for the hexagons. So, download the hexagon template. The hexies I'm using in this project are 4" across, and this measurement is useful as you're browsing for fabrics. Compare that 4" measurement to the same measurement on the handy scale ruler that's pictured with each fabric. How much of the pattern repeat will appear in a 4" x 4" area?
Making giant hexies:
Now, we'll create the big hexies and sew them together. This video shows you how:
Making the placemats:
When you have your set of three hexies all sewn together, it's time to assemble your placemat. I highly recommend that you install a walking foot on your sewing machine for this project. We'll be sewing through several layers of fabric here, and a regular presser foot has a tendency to shift those layers around too much while you stitch.
Check with your local sewing machine dealer, or try an online search for "(make and model of your machine) walking foot." If you don't have a walking foot, I've added some suggestions below for alternate ways you can this project.
Cut three 12" x 16" pieces of fabric: two from your background fabric and one from flannel. You may notice that my flannel doesn't match my project at all, and this is okay! It's just used as a batting layer here, and will be invisible in the finished placemat. This is a great opportunity to use up any scrap flannel you have in your stash.
Layer these three rectangles as you see here, with the flannel between the two pieces of background fabric. (The wrong sides of the background fabric pieces should be facing the flannel layer.) Match all four edges.
Now, take the hexie unit you made earlier and place it on top of this fabric stack. Center it side to side, and position the top points of the hexies 2" below the top edge of the background fabric.
Place lots of pins all over to keep all these layers in place. Pin a couple times inside each hexie and all over the background section.
Now, head to your sewing machine. Depending on the colors you’re using, you may want to thread your bobbin with a color that matches your background fabric, and thread your machine with a color that matches your hexies. Stitch the hexies down, sewing close to all the outside edges.
If you don't have a walking foot: You can hand sew along these edges, using a tiny hand stitch.
Next, sew right along each of the seam lines where you sewed the hexies together. If you don't have a walking foot: You can hand sew along these lines, or even skip this step.
With the hexies in place, we'll do some quilting to solidify all these fabric layers. I'm using "echo quilting" here, which simply follows the shape of the hexies. Start by stitching ¼" away from the edge of the hexies. Then, stitch another line ¼" away from that line, and repeat until you've covered the entire background with chevron stitching. I think this design accommodates precise lines or wonky lines equally well, so if your quilting lines get a little crooked, go with it!
If you don't have a walking foot: You may want to play with hand quilting – a placemat is a nice, small project for that technique. Try drawing the lines you want to quilt with an erasable fabric marker, and then sewing through all the layers along these lines with a small running stitch.
Once the quilting is done, it's time to bind our placemat. We're using a time-honored technique here called a "double fold binding." For this placemat, you'll need to make about 60" of binding. Take your leftover background fabric and cut two strips measuring 3" high by the width of the fabric. From here, you can follow Heather Bailey's excellent PDF tutorial to finish and install your binding. The's just one small alteration to this process when you're binding a placemat. Heather's tutorial says to begin sewing the binding on "in the middle of one side." With a placemat, begin sewing the binding along the bottom edge of the placemat, about 2" from one corner.
Give your freshly-bound placemat a good pressing, and you're all set! Variations: You can do all kinds of fun things with this design. You might use a background fabric with a tiny, subtle print alongside those large print hexies. You might quilt it in a more free-form pattern. You might bind it in a contrasting color. You might even arrange your hexies in a different configuration. Have fun giving this project your own unique stamp!
About Our Guest Blogger
Diane Gilleland blogs, podcasts, publishes, teaches, and makes videos about all things crafty over at CraftyPod.com. When she's not doing those things, she's doing whatever her cat tells her to do. And what's wrong with that?
This week, Spoonflower designer and paper collage artist, Sally Harmon (aka, Boris_Thumbkin), shares a tutorial on how to create a collection of fabric designs out of a single large paper collage. We're in awe of Sally's low-tech, approachable design technique which uses only scissors, paper, a camera, and the editing tools available right here on the Spoonflower site. Read on for the full tutorial below!
The process I show here is just one of many ways that you can create a whole collection of fabric designs from a cut paper collage. It's a method that works for me because it's low-tech, low overhead, low pressure, and no-stick since there's no glue involved. WIth a little luck, you can create an entire collection of fabric designs sharing colors, shapes, and motifs!
1. CollectPaper. For all but the largest and most intricate shapes I like to use paint chips from a hardware or home improvement store. They're free, they're colorful, and they lay relatively flat.
2. Cut the Paper Into Shapes. First, trim any writing off the paint chips. Then just start cutting out shapes! I try to do a mix of shapes: geometric and organic, large and small, vertically- and horizontally-oriented, etc. Simple shapes can be cut freehand or, if you want some fancier shapes, try drawing them on the back of the paint chips first and then cutting them out.
Shapes with parts inaccessible to scissors can be cut out using an X-Acto knife fitted with a #15 blade and a cutting mat or board. Change the blade frequently and don't rush or worry too much. Most mistakes can be repaired later and some turn out not to have been mistakes after all!
3. Lay Out The Cut Shapes to Create a Collage. I lay my shapes out onto sheets of 20"x30" foamcore. These are good because they're stiff enough to carry around in case I need to move my collage while working on it. Some of the black ones reverse to white so you get two background colors in one piece. And, if I lay out a composition that I end up really liking, I can rubber-cement the pieces down. The 20 x 30 inch size is easily photographed and if I do decide to keep it permanently, it's also easily framed.
Here's my first pass. Although I'm underwhelmed by the composition as a whole, I think parts of it will probably work well as fabric designs.
This week Anda Corriefrom Etsy shares a tutorial for making a kid's art smock. She made one using fabric created from her daughter's own drawings! For more on how to turn drawings into fabric designs, check out Anda's previous Photoshop tutorial.
This tutorial will show you how to create a very basic pattern and then sew a simple art smock for your child. In this example I’ve first created Spoonflower fabric based off my daughter’s artwork — the techniques I describe in this tutorial might be helpful if you want to do something similar.
Materials:
a few sheets of 8.5 x 11” paper
tape, scissors, pencil, & ruler
sewing machine, matching (or contrasting) thread
3 yards of ¼” double-fold bias tape
1 yard cotton quilting-weight fabric, or ½ yard of fabric for main and a 16”x6” scrap of fabric for pocket (for a toddler or preschool-aged child)
How-To: Tape two pieces of paper together along their long edge. If your child is older than 4 you may need to tape more pieces together — or just rustle up some bigger paper.
Get a shirt that fits your child comfortably and lay it flat on the paper. Line up the center of the shirt to run along the longest side of your paper.
Trace around neckline, shoulder, side, and bottom. Lift up the sleeve a bit and carefully trace along sleeve seam. Now add ½” seam allowance at shoulder and an extra inch to the side, as shown in the photo.
Cut two pieces of your main fabric from this pattern. On your pattern piece, measure 5” from bottom and draw a straight horizontal line, then cut off that part. This is for your pocket.
Cut one piece of pocket fabric on fold — it can be the same fabric or choose a different fabric.
Sew bias tape along top edge of pocket piece.
Line up pocket to bottom of front piece, pin and then baste around the edges to hold it in place.
Measure halfway point and sew a perpendicular straight stitch to connect pocket at center as shown (creating two pockets).
Sew shoulders. Use a serger if you have one but a straight stitch will do fine. I like to use French seams* purely because they look nice.
*French seams in a nutshell: with fabric wrong side together, sew a straight stitch using a ¼” seam. Trim fabric as close as you can to where you’ve sewn. Press down seam and turn smock inside out so right sides are together. Now sew a ⅜” seam and press. The seam is now hidden and looks very smart, I think! This technique is more often used for delicate fabrics like silk... but to me they make everything look better.
Open up smock, measure to center of front neckline and cut a 4” slit.
Carefully sew bias tape around slit.
Now measure 36” of bias tape and sew around neckline, leaving about 8” at each end. Those 8” ends will become the tie at the neckline.
Sew bias tape around (open) sleeves.
Sew up the sides of smock. Again, you can use a serger, a straight stitch, or French seams as I’ve done in the photos.
Turn smock right-side out again and sew the last of your bias tape around the bottom to hem the smock. You’re all done!
About Our Guest Blogger
Anda Corrie is an American illustrator, Etsy designer, and émigré living in Berlin, Germany with her small family. In her spare time she obsesses over vintage children’s books, makes homemade schnapps, sews tiny dresses that her 4-year-old stubbornly refuses to wear, and draws. Visit her Spoonflower shop for some lovely hand drawn fabric designs and her Etsy shop, Boosterseat.
This week Anda Corriefrom Etsy shares a tutorial for creating fabric designs out of drawings using Photoshop.
Make cute and simple fabric from your drawings!
Get some ordinary printer paper and your favorite brand of black marker or art pen. For this project, a thicker-lined pen is best. Decide what you'd like to draw--here, I'm drawing a bunch of smiling little kids--and draw your subject all over the paper, repeatedly.
Don't worry if some of the drawings look a little off, just keep drawing—you'll get better as you repeat the image. Try a few variations as you go. Once you have a ton of little images all over the page, take a pencil and circle the ones you like best.
Take a second sheet of paper and lay it on top of the first paper. If you can't see the lines you drew through it, you may have to hold both sheets up and tape to a window. Grab your crayons and "color in" the drawings you like on the second paper. Color loosely, a bit lightly, and use blocky color. Let your coloring go a bit out beyond the lines if you like.
First, make sure the background of the crayon image is pure white. We'll use Replace Color for this.
Click Image > Adjustments > Replace Color, make sure Preview is checked, and set Fuzziness to 25.
Click on the background of the image in the Preview window—this is the hue that appears next to the word "Color".
Now drag the Lightness slider all the way to the right—the "Result" box will turn white. You should see your image background turn bright white as well. (If you start to lose image detail in the crayoned parts, adjust Fuzziness to 15 or 10.) Click OK.
Now's a good time to crop your crayon image. I like to leave around 1-2cm at the top and left sides, and crop closely on the bottom and right. This will usually make the repeat flow nicely once it's uploaded to Spoonflower.
You can also open Image > Adjustments > Hue & Saturation if you want to quickly tweak your colorway.
Now for the line art image. Open Image > Adjustments > Threshold, set it to 128 and click OK. This will make your image completely black and white without any gradient.
Zoom (+) way, way into the drawings you've decide to work with. Using the Magic Wand tool, hold down Shift and click all the black parts of the image until it's completely selected, then copy what you've selected to your clipboard. Just work with one little drawing at a time here.
Head back over to your crayon image and Paste the drawing as a new layer. Move it so it's positioned on top of its colored-in background, and use Edit > Transform > Rotate if you need to line them up better.
Repeat with the remaining drawings you've colored. Flatten all the Layers of your image and if you like, open Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast—bumping both up will give you a more vibrant fabric, lowering them a touch will give a more muted image, which can be nice for a vintage look.
Open Image > Image Size and set the print size for your design. I like to set my image dpi to Spoonflower's default of 150dpi here, too.
Save and upload to Spoonflower! You can preview your pattern in different repeats—here I've decided half-brick is best. You're all done!
About Our Guest Blogger
Anda Corrie is an American illustrator, Etsy designer, and émigré living in Berlin, Germany with her small family. In her spare time she obsesses over vintage children’s books, makes homemade schnapps, sews tiny dresses that her 4-year-old stubbornly refuses to wear, and draws. Visit her Spoonflower shop for some lovely hand drawn fabric designs and her Etsy shop, Boosterseat.
This week guest author Emma Jeffery from the blog Hello Beautiful shares a tutorial for sewing up a waterproof washbag.
A washbag is a useful accessory to have at any time of year, but they’re particularly useful to have around when packing for summer vacations or trips. This oversize bag is big enough to hold all essential lotions and potions and by using an iron-on vinyl fuse, you’re able to choose from the glorious designs in the Spoonflower marketplace and turn the cotton-linen canvas into a laminated, wipe-down surface! Sewing with vinyl can sometimes be challenging but with a teflon coated machine foot that easily slides over the ‘sticky’ surface, it becomes very straightforward. If you are looking to sew with vinyls, laminates or oilcloth fabrics, I recommend investing in one of these for your machine.
Supply List:
1 yard Spoonflower’s linen-cotton canvas (I used Krople by Ravynka.)
1 yard iron-on vinyl fuse
Zipper (I used 22" heavy duty chunky zipper with plastic teeth, for durability.)
Cut:
2 pieces of fabric measuring 19" x 13". These will be the side pieces.
1 piece of fabric measuring 19" 5". This will be the front pocket.
1 strip of fabric 4" x 8". This will be the loop/strap.
I sewed using a ½" seam allowance.
Carefully remove the release paper from the back of the vinyl fuse and lay on top of one piece of 19" x 13". Smooth it down gently with the palm of your hands to remove any creases or air bubbles. Place the release paper back on top of the fabric and with a hot, dry iron, press the fabric and ensure the vinyl fuse adheres successfully. I recommend you read the directions on your package of vinyl fuse as the technique may vary depending on the manufacturer. Repeat for the remaining pieces of fabric you cut.
Trim the edges of the vinyl fuse so that they are even with the edges of the fabric. A pair of scissors with non-stick blades are very useful when cutting tacky surfaces.
Using the release paper to protect the vinyl surface from melting under the iron, press the 4" x 8" strip in half lengthwise with the wrong sides together. This will be your loop/strap. Open up the fold, and press each side in towards the center fold and fold in half again.
Top stitch along the two sides of the strip to secure the folds and put to one side for now.
Take your 19" x 5" piece (your front pocket piece) and fold over each long edge to the wrong side by ½". Top stitch all the way along the top edge, leaving the bottom edge folded but not stitched, for now. Place this pocket piece on top of one of your side pieces, measuring 3" above the bottom edge and pin at the sides and bottom edge. Stitch the pocket piece to the side piece along the sides (within the seam allowance) and the bottom edge, securing the folded edge down.
Pin the zipper along the top raw edge of the side piece. The zipper will be facing downwards with the zipper pull facing the right side of the fabric.
Using a zipper foot to make sure you’re able to stitch close to the zipper teeth, sew the zipper to the fabric. Remove the fabric from the machine and fold over so that the zipper AND the fabric are both facing upwards. Top stitch along the folded edge, close to the zipper teeth.
Repeat for the second side piece.
Fold the bag in half with the right sides facing in and sew the bottom edge closed. These seams will be visible from the inside of the pouch so I prefer to finish them with pinking shears to make it look tidy.
Keeping the pouch inside out, bring the bottom seam up so that it is resting immediately above the zipper.
Fold the loop you made earlier, in half, and slip it between the bottom seam and the zipper. Pin in place and stitch up both sides of the pouch.
Measure a 3" square in each of the 4 corners and cut away.
Open up the cut area and press down in the opposite direction to make the gusset bottom. Pin then sew each corner closed.
Turn the pouch right sides out and poke out the corners. It sometimes helps to use a point turner or unsharpened pencil.
Your washbag is complete! You’ll have a convenient pocket along the front of the pouch (sew one on the other side for extra storage space) and a looped strap, which will allow you to hang the bag on a hook.
I'm an obsessive sewer, often leaping into projects with more enthusiasm than talent, more bravado than skill and more good luck than anything else. This technique has worked well for me so far and more often than not, I make things I love, even if they're not absolutely perfect. And though I'm no expert, I have a passion for fabric, color and design. I know what I like and what I like makes me smile.
This week guest author Emma Jeffery from the blog Hello Beautiful shows us how she turned her grandmother's handwritten recipes into tea towels for her own kitchen.
For a woman who keeps a newspaper from the day she was born, my mum has surprisingly few keepsakes or handwritten memorabilia from her own mother who passed away in 1999. When I asked her to trawl through her old papers and files, she managed to find three handwritten recipes from my grandmother. They appear to be the only remaining examples of her handwriting left in the world, and they are therefore as precious as they are priceless.
I decided to use these recipes to make a set of dish towels for my mum and I. This way, the handwritten originals can be safely stored away yet the joy of being able to see my grandmother’s handwriting in an everyday context will continue to make us smile and feel close to her.
Spoonflower’s linen-cotton canvas is the perfect fabric for dish towels. Linen is known for it’s super absorbent qualities, and with a 54” wide printable area, they are perfectly sized to fit a set of four dish towels on to one yard.
I began by taking photos of each recipe page, saving them to my computer and opening them in Picasa. The originals were old and yellowing with discoloration in some areas, but by using some of Picasa’s edit tools -- specifically the ‘retouch’ option (to minimize some of the blotchy discoloration) -- I was able to get a cleaner appearance to each page.
I then turned each recipe into a landscape orientation.
After selecting all three images (I only had three recipes, so two of my recipe dish towels are identical), I selected the ‘Picture Collage’ option under the ‘Create’ tab. Picasa automatically places the images into a collage arrangement, that you are able to edit and move as you please. I added a grid spacing in between each image so that I would have a convenient cutting line, and by making the grid lines a color, I had an eye-catching feature for the back, hemmed edge of the finished dish towels.
Under the ‘Page Format’ option, I set the size of the collage to 54” x 36”, which will fit exactly on to one yard of the linen-cotton canvas and uploaded the design to Spoonflower.
I always recommend ordering test swatches before committing to ordering the actual yardage, that way you are able to make color and size adjustments without spending a lot of money.
The dish towels were simple to sew up. I cut them out along the grid lines and turned back the hem. I also sewed a small length of twill in one top corner of each dish towel for convenience.
The linen-cotton canvas is a beautiful fabric and will only improve with extensive washing and use. The really nice thing about these is that if they ever do suffer from wear and tear I can simply have more printed, without even having to dig the original paper copies out from storage.
Addendum to original post (11/9/12):
It seems that there is an extra step involved to have your collage of tea towel designs print to fill the area of one yard of linen, which measures 54in width by 36in length, which equals 8100 pixels x 5400 pixels at 150 dpi.
When exporting out of Picasa, the image resolution will be 72 dpi, which is standard for web viewing but which caps the exported file size at 5120 pixel width x 3414 pixel length. Because of this, there is an extra step involved to increase the size of your design collage exported in Picasa before uploading to your design library in Spoonflower.
You can open the design in Preview on a Mac. Once open, go to Tools and Adjust Size. With "inches" toggled, enter in "54" width and "36" length and "150" for the resolution dpi. Export the resized file as a PNG, and then upload it to Spoonflower.
If you don't have access to a Mac computer, you might want to try downloading a program called Paint. Here is a great tutorial for resizing using Paint.
I'm an obsessive sewer, often leaping into projects with more enthusiasm than talent, more bravado than skill and more good luck than anything else. This technique has worked well for me so far and more often than not, I make things I love, even if they're not absolutely perfect. And though I'm no expert, I have a passion for fabric, color and design. I know what I like and what I like makes me smile.
I recently pounced (literally!) on this old ottoman when a friend of mine told me she needed it out of her house. Yes, it was ripped in places, some of the covered buttons were now rather naked and the dark brown covering wasn’t really to my liking, but it was structurally sound, clean and it fitted in the trunk of my car. I just knew it was begging to be brought back to life and recovered in some gorgeous new Spoonflower cotton-linen canvas.
Though each individual piece of furniture will be slightly different to recover, I thought I’d share some of my methods and findings in case you are also tempted to give something like this a whirl.
Before I could even start thinking about browsing through the mouth watering array of new fabric possibilities in the Spoonflower marketplace, I had to set about taking the old ottoman apart, removing the foam from the wooden base and legs, ripping off the old fabric and sanding down the wood. All the fun messy stuff. I must admit to never having recovered a piece of furniture like this before, so if you are an expert and spot some fatal flaws or errors in my methods, please feel free to leave a comment and advise.
I began by ripping away the covering on the underside of the base and once able to get to the screws, I used an electric screwdriver (thanks, husband!) to take the legs off and separate the base from the foam.
As with any project like this, there are going to be a lot of staples to extract before you can remove the old fabric completely. I’d estimate that there were about 5 million staples in this ottoman (or thereabouts....) and I summoned my inner dentist and removed them with the help of a screwdriver and a pair of pliers. I also discovered a little magnetic dish that was the perfect way to keep the staples away from being stepped on by little feet.
With the wooden base dismantled from the legs, I then sanded down the wood. I didn’t remove the old varnish completely, I just ‘roughed up’ the surface so that it would hold a new paint.
Aside from choosing the fabric, the second best thing about this project was choosing the paint! I consulted with the friendly experts in my local hardware store, who were more than happy to advise me on which kind of paint to use. I ended up using a semi-gloss, which is a paint and primer in one, in bright turquoise. I recommend talking to your local hardware store experts if you have questions about your own projects.
After painting all the woodwork with two coats of paint (and allowing the first coat to dry before painting the next) I was able to move onto the fabric part of the project. I recommend using Spoonflowers heavy- weight linen-cotton canvas. This gorgeous print is called Art Deco Rio De Janeiro by Zesti, the second runner up from the Art Deco Fabric of the Week contest
I wanted some tufting on my ottoman and whilst there were originally 3 buttons on the old ottoman, I decided to add a few more to make a total of 11. The fabric I used lent itself to having buttons placed in the center of the triangles on the design, so I started out by taking measurements from the the fabric. I recorded how far apart the centers of the triangles were, up and down and side to side. My foam was glued to a wooden base so -- turning the base to face me and starting by finding the center point and working outwards -- I measured and marked the position for 11 buttons.
I then used my hand drill to drill holes into the wooden base on each marked point.
I wanted to check I had measured the position of each hole correctly (math is not one of my greatest skills....) so I poked cocktail sticks into each hole I had drilled, and lay the fabric over the base. By doing so, I was able to make sure that the cocktail sticks poked the fabric in just the right place for me to center my buttons. Which they did. Success first time!
Assured that my holes were drilled in the correct places, I covered 11 buttons with the fabric I was using and, having hunted down an 8” doll making needle, I stitched the buttons through the foam. I secured each covered button with a large plastic button from my supplies at the wooden base to make sure the thread couldn’t get pulled back through the foam. No one likes loose, dangly buttons, right?
With all 11 buttons tightly secure and holding the fabric to the foam (I also checked that I pulled them into the foam evenly) I finished by pulling the fabric taut over the foam and stapling the sides to the wooden base underneath.
I made sure that the corners were tidy by stapling each side almost to the end of the base, then folding one side of the fabric over the other, to create a neat fold.
All I had left to do was screw the foam back onto the base and put the legs on, and I was finished. Although I worked on this over a couple of weekends, the total work time was around 8 hours.
I am thrilled to have rescued an old piece of furniture that was no longer loved or wanted and turned it into something beautiful. I haven’t let my children sit on it yet. But I will, once I’ve stopped gazing at it.
Upcycling an old ottoman with fabulous Spoonflower fabric is an easy project
I'm an obsessive sewer, often leaping into projects with more enthusiasm than talent, more bravado than skill and more good luck than anything else. This technique has worked well for me so far and more often than not, I make things I love, even if they're not absolutely perfect. And though I'm no expert, I have a passion for fabric, color and design. I know what I like and what I like makes me smile.
This week guest author Emma Jeffery from the blog Hello Beautiful shows us how she used satellite images of her neighborhood to make some very cool throw cushions.
I must be getting sentimental in my (not so) old age as I’m increasingly drawn to surrounding myself with meaningful and thoughtful items. Sure, I’m inspired by designs and trends I see in stores online and locally, but I’m often searching for ways to translate these ideas into something more than a passing fad. I love it when items or objects in my home have a story to tell or a memory to share. They seem to give a depth and richness to my environment that store-bought items cannot.
Ask my husband, and he’ll probably share with you his opinion that we have more than enough throw pillows in our house, but anyone who enjoys fashion, design and sewing as much as I do knows that cushions are a great and easy way to change the look and feel of a room.
Have you noticed the prolific array of map designs at the moment on all kinds of home decor items, stationery, wall coverings and clothing? I've been thinking about how nice it would be to incorporate this design element into a fabric that actually portrayed a familiar and special part of the world -- a favorite vacation spot, a childhood home, a mountain range once conquered...
I went to Google Maps and typed in the zipcode of the house that my husband and I own, where we were married and into which my eldest child was born. I actually ended up switching to the satellite view, but you could of course use the map view instead.
Next I zoomed in to get a view of our house and its surrounding area. I don’t recommend zooming in too closely as the image will become pixilated when you enlarge it. I did maximize the image on the screen by ‘hiding’ the large directions/places sidebar on the left and turned off all of the map annotation so only the satellite view remained.
I then took a screen capture of this image, saved it to my computer and opened it in Picasa, where I cropped it and used the ‘boost’ option under the image processing tab to brighten the colors and to really make that lovely patchwork of fields pop.
Once I was happy with the image, I then needed to make it the right size - big enough to make three 16” x 16” cushions. I opened the saved image in MS Paint where you can easily increase or adjust the size of an image.
I had this printed onto Spoonflower’s linen-cotton canvas, which has a printable area of 54” wide. I wanted each of my cushions to be unique and to have a different part of the satellite image printed on them so that no two were alike, and I kept that in mind when resizing my image. Spoonflower prints a good quality image at 150 dpi, so to resize you need to do the following math:
Desired fabric width (in inches) x 150 = ___
Desired fabric length (in inches) x 150 = ___
In my case, I wanted the printed fabric image to measure 17” x 51”, to give me a enough fabric to sew the cushions with a ½” seam allowance.
17 x 150 = 2550 pixels
51 x 150 = 7650 pixels
I had my image centered and printed onto 2 yards so that I could use the excess white, unprinted fabric around the edge of the image, for the back of my cushions. Adjust the sizes according to your own preference and projects.
I then sewed them up in one afternoon, and suddenly my couch became not only a comfortable place to relax, but also a great talking point with our children and visitors.
Of course, these cushions will still get thrown around the room and end up on the floor as the kids makes camps and play games (that’s why we have so many cushions!), but it’s so nice to know that we have a few little reminders of a special place that is very dear to our hearts.
I'm an obsessive sewer, often leaping into projects with more enthusiasm than talent, more bravado than skill and more good luck than anything else. This technique has worked well for me so far and more often than not, I make things I love, even if they're not absolutely perfect. And though I'm no expert, I have a passion for fabric, color and design. I know what I like and what I like makes me smile.
This week guest author Emma Jeffery from the blog Hello Beautiful shows us how she turned a vacation photo into a summer dress.
I love the graphic photo print fabrics being used for all kinds of clothing items and accessories at the moment. Although I am sometimes guilty of falling into the gray-black-white comfort zone combo when it comes to the colors in my wardrobe, there’s nothing like a bright splash of color to lift the spirits, put a smile on your face, and make you feel like summer is on its way! Rather than buying a dress in a store, I went a step further by immortalizing a simple vacation photo I took earlier this year and having it printed onto Spoonflower’s beautiful cotton silk blend.
I felt that this photo in particular was well composed for clothing potential, with a good contrast between the land, sea and sky, and with most of the ‘action’ towards the bottom edge of the picture.
You may have realized before now that I am a graphic design novice and that most of my projects involve software that either came on my computer when I bought it or that I have downloaded for free from various online sources. I am always looking for ways to push my computer to its limits and come up with design methods that bypass the typical Photoshop or Illustrator route that I neither own nor know how to use.
I began by editing my photo in Picasa and using the posterize option under their image processing tab, the photo became more graphic with high contrast and dramatic colors. I also rotated the photo as the landscape orientation worked better for my dress pattern layout.
After saving this version, I opened it up in Paint (yes, really!) where, under the resize option, I was able to increase the size of the photo. I worked out that if I sized up the photo to fit on 1.5 yards of cotton silk and set the design to basic repeat, 3 yards would give me enough fabric to sew up this Pleat Front Dress by Salme, and allow me a bit of extra room for good pattern placement and matching.
Spoonflower produces a good quality print at 150 dpi so in order to make this photo fit 1.5 yards of fabric, you have to do a bit of math, which is easy if you have a calculator. And I do! The cotton-silk is 40” wide and 1.5 yards is 54” in length, so to resize the fabric I multiplied 40 by 150 (which give the dpi for the width) and then I multiplied 54 by 150 (which gave me the dpi for the length).
40 x 150 = 6000 54 x 150 = 8100
In Paint, I set the resize measurements to 6000 x 8100 with the ‘Maintain aspect ratio’ tab clicked off.
I then saved the file and uploaded it to my Spoonflower account. Once I set the fabric to print onto 3 yards of Cotton-Silk with a basic repeat, the photo fitted perfectly with a join line down the center that I knew I would be able to avoid when considering my pattern placement.
I’m now thinking about other kinds of landscape photographs that I may have that could be used in a similar way. I’m sure I have plenty of cityscapes and skyscrapers but market crowds, rainforests, underwater scenes or even sports stadiums printed onto clothing or accessories would certainly be a great conversation starter. What sceneries would you use?
I'm an obsessive sewer, often leaping into projects with more enthusiasm than talent, more bravado than skill and more good luck than anything else. This technique has worked well for me so far and more often than not, I make things I love, even if they're not absolutely perfect. And though I'm no expert, I have a passion for fabric, color and design. I know what I like and what I like makes me smile.
This week guest author Emma Jeffery -- Fiskars design team member and author of the sewing and crafting blog Hello Beautiful -- brings us a lovely tutorial for designing fabric from children’s artwork and for making the custom iPad sleeve she created with her fabric.
A couple of decades ago when the Internet was still in its infancy, we would have found it hard to imagine that the new digital, technological age would be instrumental in securing the future of more traditional hand crafts skills. I’m sure I’m not alone in admitting that the inspiration I get from reading craft blogs or tutorials, and seeing many entrepreneurial handmade careers succeed online, has helped me hone my own skills enormously. In fact, it almost seems that even in order to be successful offline, an online presence is essential.
If I get stuck on a sewing project (zippers usually, in case you were interested) or want to learn a new crochet stitch or even find a free pattern, the first and often only place I turn, is to my computer. And if you’d told me a few years ago that one day I’d have the opportunity to design a few of my own fabrics and sew them into unique creations, I’d probably not have believed you.
First off, as much as I’d like to be, I am not a graphic designer. I even downloaded the trial version of Illustrator but we did not get on very well with each other. The cursor always appeared at random on different areas of the screen, everywhere it seemed, except where I clicked, and though I did watch some very helpful beginner’s tutorials, I quickly realized that anything I’d be able to create would pale into comparison against the beautiful and professional looking prints available in the Spoonflower marketplace designed by people with amazing talent.
However, what I may lack in skill, I make up for with good ideas and enthusiasm, so I decided that in keeping with my interest in technology versus tradition, I would turn to a somewhat older design method than my embarrassing computer-based effort. I also decided to involve my children in this exercise because, well, they are much better artists than me.
My take on a traditional block printing method required some well-washed Styrofoam food containers, a couple of wooden skewers, paint and paper. I also found a small craft roller brush more useful than an actual paintbrush.
I cut the Styrofoam into pieces and had my kids use the sharp end of the skewer to etch drawings into them (larger, basic designs are more effective than ones with too much detail). When they were done, we rolled over the designs with paint and stamped them onto plain paper.
When dry, I took photos of the designs, uploaded them to my computer and edited them in my basic photo editing software, flipped around the writing and added simple frames, as well as playing around with the colors.
When my printed fabric arrived, I knew immediately what I’d use it for. What better symbol for the meeting of two worlds - the digital and the handmade - than an iPad sleeve made with a block print fabric created by my children, digitally edited, and printed just for me by the mighty Spoonflower! And until they make iPads that bounce when dropped, some sort of robust padding is essential (at least in my house).
To make your own iPad sleeve like mine:
1. Cut 4 pieces of main fabric measuring 10” x 12”
2. Cut 2 pieces of main fabric measuring 9”x 5” (for the tab)
3. Cut 2 pieces of quilt batting or felt measuring 10” x 12” (for padding)
4. With right sides together and leaving ½” seam allowance, sew two of the 10” x 12” pieces together leaving one long end open plus a 6” opening in the opposite long end. This will be your lining (inside) piece.
5. Repeat step 4 with the other two 10” x 12” pieces and also with the two felt pieces but don’t leave the opening hole. Sew all the way around 3 sides, leaving one long side open. Clip all corners and trim seam allowance to reduce bulk.
6. With right sides together, sew the two tab pieces together, leaving one long end open. Turn right way out and press. Top stitch around the 3 sewn edges of the tab.
7. Turn your outer sleeve piece right sides out. Keep your felt piece wrong sides out. Insert the felt piece into the main piece with wrong sides facing. Baste together along the long edge.
8. Pin and baste the tab piece to the outside of the main piece. Trim raw edges if necessary.
9. Keep lining wrong sides out. Insert the outer piece (with the felt insert and tab attached) into the lining with right sides facing.
10. Sew all pieces together, catching the edge of the tab in your sewing.
11. Pull outer section through the hole you left in the lining and stitch the lining hole closed, folding the raw edges inwards.
12. To finish, sew Velcro onto the tab and front of the sleeve.
I used about ½ yard of linen-cotton canvas to make one sleeve, which means that because I started with 1 yard, I have enough left to make another one-- perhaps for a gift for a doting grandparent!
I'm an obsessive sewer, often leaping into projects with more enthusiasm than talent, more bravado than skill and more good luck than anything else. This technique has worked well for me so far and more often than not, I make things I love, even if they're not absolutely perfect. And though I'm no expert, I have a passion for fabric, color and design. I know what I like and what I like makes me smile.
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