{Michelle Patterns}

Black Cherry Wooden Buttons with 4 Holes

Black Cherry Wooden Buttons with 4 Holes

Pinterest Challenge - Day 4: Sew Tara and B.Yazoo

This adorable and yet oh-so-functional sewing project was made by Alli who blogs at B.Yazoo. When challenged to make something from her Pinterest boards, Alli chose to make a cover for a Kitchen Aid mixer.

"It took foreeeeeever! First, it took me one night to make the pieced mixer. I cut out all my pieces beforehand, which made the piecing part really relaxing since I could just chain piece all the sections. Then I embroidered the alphabet for a day and a night. I’m so slow! (The viola was a violin in the pattern, but my sister plays the viola)."

I love the embroidery Alli chose for the sides. She found the embroidery alphabet in a Japanese craft book. There are lots more pictures on her blog, so make sure you check it out. 

Today is the final day of our Pinterest Challenge featured posts. But it is not too late to participate. Find a fun sewing or fabric project and make it this weekend! If you share your project, you will be entered to win a fabric giveaway sponsored by Fabricworm.com. Click here for the giveaway details. 

We started out this week by showing Michelle's Pinterest inspired bag, and it seems appropriate to finish the week with another Pinterest inspired tote. 

Tara blogs at Sew Tara. She was inspired by this bag and using some great vintage fabric she got for a steal, was able to craft her own adorable tote bag. 

"The pattern was pretty easy to follow but man, oh man, I’m not a fan of pleats! Also, I’m not sure what I did wrong, there were supposed to be 6 pleats and somehow I had room for 7 *shrug* But that doesn’t change the bag. However, that meant 7 pleats times 4 pieces of fabric, it was tedious. I do love the way the topstitching works and holds the pleats down. I’ve put pleats in totes before but they’ve only been sewn at the top."

Thank you to all our participants in the Pinterest Challenge. The projects were awesome and it was really fun to put Pinterest to some pratical use.  Again, here is the link to the fabric giveaway post.

I hope you join our challenge and make something this weekend!

--Bryanne--

Pinterest Challenge - Day 3: LBG Studio and Pink Patrice Boutique

As soon as I saw this turtle this morning, I knew today was going to be awesome. Welcome to Day 3 of the Pinterest Challenge.

Today we have two projects to share with you in the Pinterest Challenge. This week's sewing goal is to sew an item from your Pinterest boards. Michelle shared her project on Tuesday and yesterday Anna from Urban Stitches shared the Zig Zag Quilt that inspired her to make a pillow for her husband. Here is an updated photo of her project, newly finished. It looks great and is definitely "manly." Thanks Anna!

 

Patrice from Pink Patrice Boutique made an adorable pincushion for her Pinterest project. Patrice pinned this Turtle Pincushion and I love how it turned out. I collect turtle figurines and have my own Eastern Box Turtle as a pet. I'm definitely pinning this pattern to make in the future. 

"I spotted "Mr Turtle Pincushion/Sewing Kit" and thought he was darling! Now, I've never sewn a pincushion before and thought, "How hard can it be?"  And honestly it hasn't been TOO hard, just time consuming {cough::cough:: soooo time consuming!!}"

 

 

Make sure you check out Patrice's blog because she posted a lot of pictures of the process and what sort of sewing supplies fit in the pincushion's belly. 

Our next project was made by Vanessa at LBG Studio. Vanessa was inspired by this pillow. I really love the colors and the way the blocking turned out. Vanessa also posted the directions for making the blocks.

"I'm on a triangle kick at the moment, which may have started by some of the awesome triangle print fabrics floating around like this one and this one. I wanted a throw pillow for my new Ikea chair so that's what I decided to make, based on these awesome pillows I pinned."

Thank you to Patrice and Vanessa for sharing your lovely projects. Tomorrow is the last day for the Pinterest Challenge and both Alli and Tara will share their projects. It is not too late for you to get involved. Fabricworm is sponsoring a fabric giveaway. Tell us about your own Pinterest projects for your chance to win 2 yards of fabric from the collection Next Stop by Monaluna for Birch Fabrics Organic.

The giveaway closes at 10AM PST on Tuesday May 29 which means you have plenty of time to make your own Pinterest project!

--Bryanne--

Pinterest Challenge - Day 2: Anna from Urban Stitches

Yesterday Michelle shared her Pinterest project with you, today we feature Anna from Urban Stitches.

Anna pinned a Lightning Zig Zag Quilt. The quilt was the inspiration for a pillow she made as part of a Father's Day gift for her husband. I've posted a picture below. For the process and story behind her project, visit Anna's blog Urban Stitches. You can follow her on Pinterest, too.

"It was bright, funky, wonky and crazy and it just spoke to me! So I decided to make one out of the scraps from a quilt I’m making for my hubby for his first Father’s Day (more on that later). I figured this way I could practice my quilting and make a pillow to match the quilt, sort of killing two birds with one stone. Well, I sat down on Monday to work on the quilt, in between taking care of my little munchkin who just turned two months old last week, and it really did go super fast."

Thank you Anna for sharing your project! Tomorrow we get the chance to see projects from Patrice of Pink Patrice Boutique and Vanessa of LBG Studio.

It is not too late for everyone to get involved. Find something you pinned on Pinterest, make it, and then tell us about it on our giveaway post. Fabricworm is sponsoring a fabric giveaway and the winner can choose two yards from the collection Next Stop by Monaluna for Birch Fabrics Organic.

Make sure you comment on the giveaway post for a chance to win. You have until 10AM PST on May 29 to enter.

--Bryanne-

Pinterest Challenge - Day 1: My Project

The Challenge: Pick a sewing or fabric project from Pinterest. Make it, share it, inspire.

This week my readers and I are sharing Pinterest inspired projects. I want you to get involved, too. Find a Pinterest sewing or fabric project to make. Then share it on the giveaway post for your chance to win a fabric giveaway sponsored by Fabricworm.

Participants: Anna @ Urban Stitches, Patrice @ Pink Patrice Boutique, Vanessa @ LBG Studio, Tara @ Sew Tara, and Alli @ B.Yazoo

 

This bag is awesome.  I see this bag pinned over and over on pinterest, so obviously I'm not the only one who loves it. Being of somewhat reserved nature, I probably wouldn't carry a bag this bright and flashy, but I do enjoy looking at it and thought it would be fun to make something similar!

Here is my bag:

And yes, I'm probably not going to be carrying this one around either.  But it was fun to make and a good sewing experience. I also have quite a few solid scraps, so this was a great project to put them to use. 

I don't have a lot of patchwork practice, and while it seems like it should be easy, there was a surprising amount of second guessing and general procrastination. 

Since this was sort of new to me, I wanted to use an existing pattern and not spend time a bunch of time designing a new bag.  So this is the Bucket Bag pattern, but without the front pocket. 

I also smoothed out the top at the sides.  In the pattern the sides have a small flat area for attaching the strap, but binding the top required a more smoothly curved top edge.  Because the fabric got to be quite thick the strap needed to be attached to the side of the bag body, rather than sewn into the top seam.  I added buttons to distract from the stitching attaching the straps:

If I were to make something like this again, there are several things I'd do differently:

Add patches of fabric.  The original bag has patches of fabric sew onto the base fabric.  You can vaguely see the frayed edges.  In general, I don't like the idea of frayed fabric with loose threads.  Enough of my time is spent sweeping up thread, brushing it off my clothes, and sometimes even plucking it out of my hair. 

So it isn't easy for me to get excited about having frayed edges as a design detail.  The loose ends might distract me too much.  But I do love how the patches of fabric look on the inspiration bag, and the depth they give the fabric.  It isn't possible to get that look just through patchwork piecing, so next time I try to overcome my peevishness about frayed edges.

Give myself more time.  I'm constantly running behind, so I only had the weekend to get my bag done.  It took some time to make the patchwork pieces, and I wish I'd had more time for planning.  Improv sewing is fun, but when you invest a lot of time in the piecing and quilting it is probably better to plan a bit more than I did. 

Hand quilting.  I love the hand quilting details on the inspiration bag and definitely want to do some hand stitching on my next piece of patchwork.  This also goes back to giving myself more time. 

 

Pinterest Challenge Giveaway - Sponsored by Fabricworm

 

Enter to win the Pinterest Challenge giveaway. Click here to read more about the challenge.

Make sure your project is sewing or fabric related. It doesn't have to be fancy, the goal is find an inspiration and use that to make something new. Think outside the box!

Once you've (hopefully) finished making your Pinterest project, comment below for a chance to win! Please include links to Pinterest, Flickr, your blog, etc. The giveaway winner will be announced on May 29. Please comment by May 29 at 10am PST to enter the giveaway.

Thank you to Fabricworm for sponsoring the giveaway. The winner can choose 2 yards of fabric from the Next Stop collection by Monaluna for Birch Fabrics.

 

Monaluna Next Stop - Captured

Good luck! I can't wait to see the results.

--Bryanne--

Weekly Sewing Goal - A Pinterest Challenge

I heard someone on NPR describe Pinterest as the Facebook of the DIY movement. It is an addictive website and can pull you in for hours. But when was the last time you actually made something you pinned? Recipes seem like an easy thing to reproduce, a girl's got to eat, right? But even though I re-pin things all the time, I've never made a single project inspired by Pinterest.

Michelle and I were talking about this a few weeks ago and decided to take some action in the form of a sew-along.

Tomorrow, Michelle will tell you about the project she picked and post pictures. Then the rest of this week, we've invited some guests to share their own Pinterest projects. Check back all week!

We also want YOU to get involved.

Our challenge to you.

Chose a sewing related item you pinned on Pinterest and make it. The only guideline is to keep it sewing or fabric related. It is okay to modify the pinned item to meet your own needs. We want to see some fun, new, and inspiring projects!

Any person making an item can enter this week's giveaway, sponsored by Fabricworm. The giveaway post can be found here. All comments for entry must be posted on the giveaway post.

Questions? Send me a message or comment below.

--Bryanne--

 

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