Spoonflower Blog

When I was in college I worked in a vintage clothing shop.  I loved to work my shifts surrounded by gorgeous old dresses, hand-embroidered textiles, and collectible bric-a-brac.  I would sometimes imagine who might have worn a particularly lovely frock, whose hands might have made all those tiny stitches bordering a linen tablecloth, and how all these things survived more or less intact and ended up there.

I have three daughters and have sewed many things for all three of them–baby blankets, bibs, stuffed toys, bed quilts, dresses.  Now I’m on the other end of things.  I enjoy imagining my girls treasuring these things mama made for them when they’re grown up and I’m gone.  I like to think that, while not expertly put together, they’re at least sturdy enough to hold up for their lifetimes, sturdy enough that they might pull them out one day to show them to their own kids.  (Well, except for the bibs which see some pretty heavy, yucky use.)

If this is part of why you sew, you’ll want to read this pdf article on how various fusible and adhesive sewing products hold up over time.  It’s a technical article and I’m sorry about the formating, but it’s well worth getting through if you use fusible web, fusible batting, quilt basting spray and the like in your sewing projects.  If you’re like me and you’d like your quilts and embroideries to hold up through a generation or two for your grandkids to ogle, then it looks like our options are limited.  I guess sometimes the old ways of hand-basting and flannel reinforcement are best.   And here’s to hoping that our beautiful works don’t end up in a random shop someday, presided over by a clueless college girl!

  Toothbrush rug 
  Originally uploaded by Secretsugar

Our local quilt shop regularly offers great sewing classes, some of which have nothing to do with quilting.  Probably my favorite class was one taught by Karen West on how to make toothbrush rugs.  Considering how little there is on-line about these rugs, let me explain here.  A toothbrush rug is made with long strips of fabric kinda looped together with a tool made from an old toothbrush with its bristly head sawed off, a hole bored into one end, and the other end filed to a point.  It looks like this.  The looping technique reminds me a lot of crochet, though I haven’t crocheted anything since I was 5 and my mom taught me how to make a long chain.  You can order rug patterns with instructions and toothbrush tools here.  (Or perhaps a tutorial is in order here?)

I made the rug above from batiks and shot cottons.  Robert Kaufman’s luminous chambray solids would work great, too, I bet.  Ideally, you’ll use fabrics that are dyed on both sides because you do see both sides of the strips.  (Did I mention that it’s reversible?  Woo-hoo!)  That said, these rugs use a LOT of fabric–around 8 yards or so for an oval measuring 2-1/2 by 3-1/2–so using fabric you have on hand that you otherwise can’t find a use for is a good idea, too.  Stick with non-slippery fabrics of the same weight and yours should turn out great–heavy, hard-wearing, washable, and made up of the colors that you’ve handpicked for your room!

  Grocery totes, view 2 
  Originally uploaded by Secretsugar

Anyone else out there have school-aged children?  I’ve got a 4th grader and it all of a sudden hit me this morning that with the end of the school year fast approaching on June 6, I’ve got a couple of teacher gifts to figure out.  Wouldn’t it be nice to make some thank you presents for a change instead of going the box of gourmet chocolates route?  Of course it would.

Earlier this school year, I made a set of cloth grocery bags for the school’s silent auction fund-raiser, loosely based on one of the cloth totes in The Impatient Patchworker.  (This is a great book, by the way.  Jayne Emerson, the author, doesn’t have the blogosphere cred that some crafty authors do, but who cares?  I like an approachable craft book, and she uses a whole lot of Kaffe Fassett fabrics to make up her projects.  How can you go wrong?)  Anyway, I made the bags from some Amy Butler prints I had on hand.  They were pretty well received, so I may make something similar for my daughter’s teacher and assistant teacher.  Teachers always seem to be lugging around a ton of stuff, right?

But I may just make one of the fabulous projects featured on the Sew Mama Sew Tutorial Contest.  So far, my other favorite teacher gift idea is the Square(ish) Bottomed Hobo Lunchbag from Emily at sewing notions.  It’s too late to enter the contest now, but I definitely recommend that you spend an hour (or more!) perusing the several rounds’ worth of submissions.  I guarantee you’ll come away inspired with a fresh list of projects to try.  I know I did!  (Like I need more inspiring projects on my list….)