Gathering

 My teacher taught me a neat trick to gathering. For this shirt, I'm just gathering a little bit on the back. The trick is to baste at 3/8" and then again at 6/8" and sewing down the middle. This way you don't have any large gathers in your fabric. The 6/8" baste will show on the right side, so you have to pull it. (Remember to pull gathering the SAME way every time).

Apparel Sewing!

I'm currently taking a class on apparel sewing and have picked out a simple pattern to make myself a shirt. My goal is to become a better sewer so that I can make my twins clothes. There's no better way than making myself my own clothes! I'm using a Burda pattern and my instructor has dutifully sized all the women in the class and we will be altering patterns to our unique shapes. What a task! I'm so excited for our homework assignment- just to pin our pattern pieces to our muslin. You will continue to see progress on this project in future posts.

Craft Apron!

I do a lot of crafting and have found I use my hand towel quite often. So, I decided to create an apron made from a towel (you guessed it!). It took me 10 minutes to make it. All I did was take a hand towel and stitched cording on two of the short ends (pick a short side that will be where the cording goes around your neck). Then, I stitched cording about where my waist was.


You could easily make your apron pretty with the variety of towels they sell today and use ribbon or scrap fabric to create your straps. I was being economical with what I had on hand and the towel only cost me about $3. What's nice about this apron is that when I decoupage, and constantly washing my hands, I can just use my apron instead of my nice hand towels. I also get glue on my apron, not on my clothes. Let me know if you have any questions.


Materials needed:
hand towel
cording
thread
sewing machine


Time: 10 minutes