>Ruffle Crazy

>Yeah, so I think I’ve gone a little ruffle, gather and ruching crazy and so has blogworld! OR maybe it’s one of those things where you decide to do something that involves a new skill and suddenly it’s EVERYWHERE! Just tell me that’s never happened to you when you buy a new car! Well, so, long story short, I thought I’d just compile ALL the ruffle, gather, and ruche-ing tutorials all in one bloggy post and then let YOU add your links! Here’s a quick list of definitions of the difference between ruffles, ruching and gathers. (As far as I can tell)

Gathers: A gather is created (one of many ways) by using a gathering stitch. What the HECK is that? Just set your stitch length to the longest it will go (also known as a basting stitch) and run a stitch down your strip of fabric. The general rule of thumb is to do this twice and fairly close together, because when you are pulling your thread, if one breaks, you have the other as a back up. Leave a long tail of thread at the end of your stitching. Gently pull the thread tail from the back of your fabric to gather the fabric along the stitching. Here is a great video showing how to do this.

A gather will have the raw edges of the fabric encased in a seam.You can make the gather as subtle or noticeable as you want, depending on how you pull the fabric.

Look at this cute gathered clutch I made using the AWESOME tutorial over on Noodlehead.

Ruffles: As far as I can tell (from my in depth research – 2 hours of blog surfing) ruffles involve a gathered piece of fabric, but one or both edges of that fabric are open to the world. Otherwise, the technique seems to be the same. Some sewing machines and sergers have a ruffler attachment which is usually very pricey and complicated. I’m sure it’s very useful if you do a lot of ruffles. Here is a tutorial for a CUTE little clutch with a ruffle on the top! It’s over at Just Sew Sassy, a cute new blog I found today that inspired me to write this post!

Ruffles Table Runner Tutorial

Ruching (pronounced “rooching”): I think “ruche” might just be the French word for ruffle or gather, but I could be wrong. I think (again, from my in depth research) that ruching is the use of multiple gathers on one item. OK, I was wrong, according to http://www.thefreedictionary.com/ Ruche is actually the French word for beehive. Go figure. The free dictionary also defined ruche as “a ruffle or pleat of lace, muslin or other fine fabric used for trimming women’s garments.” So, to me, that means it’s almost the same as a gather or ruffle. There is an awesome tutorial over on Little Birdie Secrets for a Ruched Pillow. I think it’s a really interested approach to the entire gather/ruffle thing.

Now, have YOU made anything or seen any tutorials around blogworld that include any of these fun techniques? Please link them below!

Happy Stitches,
Anna

>The Ultimate Blog Party!

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So the party has started! OK, I’m a little behind and that’s probably because I don’t have any sweet little ones (yet) and sadly, don’t read the 5 Minutes for Mom blog. (Gasp!) BUT I do read Craft Buds (just became a sponsor actually) and THEY posted about the UBP. Apparently, this has been going on every year for the LAST 5 YEARS! Where have I been!? Well, I am participating now so PLEASE hop over there and visit some AMAZING blogs. There are 5 or 6 different categories and it truly is the ULTIMATE party because there are at least 150 blogs listed in EACH category! (Most of them have more than 300 EACH!!) Wow. There are prizes to be had as well, if you enter your blog on the list. I’m linking my blog up on the Business Blogs list, although I think it could be added to the Specialty Blog list as well. But we have to play nice and leave a little room for others to play too. So go on! Stop by and get the party started!

UPDATE: Alright, so did I miss the part of the instructions where it said I needed to introduce myself? Hmm? Well, here’s a little bit about me.

I LOVE to sew and to teach and in the process have become a sewing teacher! I have a sewing studio where I teach sewing and quilting classes and I even learn something along the way too. Recently I’ve started teaching home school children during the day which works great for me and them. Also, I try to teach my classes in the evenings and on weekends when the regular working folks have semi-free time.

I have an online shop where I sell fabric and patterns and the occasional kit. I have all sorts of fun PDF patterns and printed patterns for making anything from Tote Bags to Kid’s clothes, aprons, and even quilts. If you sign up for my e-mail newsletter (either on the right sidebar here or on the website) you’ll receive all the great updates about the shop in your e-mail every month and that includes COUPON codes! I try to keep this blog limited to posts about my crafty/sewing/quilting endeavors instead of really shop focused. But I DO sew and I DO use the fabrics I have in my shop to make samples (see previous posts).

I guess that’s about it about me. I hope you’ll say hi and I’ll send you a FREE pattern!

Happy Stiches,
Anna

P.S. And don’t blame me if you get lost in blog world and completely forget you have laundry to wash, food to cook, diapers to change, THINGS TO SEW or even taxes to pay (UGH!)

P.P.S. IF you do go and visit some blogs AND if you come back HERE and leave me a comment mentioning some of the blogs you visited (make sure your e-mail works or include it in your comment), I’ll send you a copy of my Pillowcase Tutorial/Pattern. FREE!!

>Spring Spruce Up: Progress Report

>Well, I really wanted to draw a “winner” from the people who posted their links or commented on last Saturday’s blog, but since it was just a small group, I’ve decided that you are ALL winners! So, I’m going to send you a very special Pin Cushion custom made by ME! How about that? Please e-mail me your mailing address at anna@craftygirlsworkshop.com if you have decided to join in the Spring Studio Spruce Up.

IF you are just joining us today, no problem! I’m going to do a BIG drawing at the end of the spruce up and I’m going to give you an extra entry for each comment on blog posts between last Saturday and May 1 (the end of the Spruce Up). SO there is still time to join in!

MY Progress Report:

I’ve drunk the fabric folding kool-aid (you know that already if you’ve watched my view-torial) and I LOVE it! I DON’T love having to re-press all my fabric again, but it’s worth it to be able to get much more fabric on a shelf! That means, MORE room for MORE fabric!! Have you drunk the fabric folding kool-aid and tried it out? If so, please tell me and if you’d like to send me a picture, I’ll post it on THIS blog. Before and afters are great, but just afters are great too.

I also tried to ribbon storage idea of wrapping ribbons on wooden clothes pins and storing them in jars. I LOVE it! Yes, I had to hunt around town for those wooden clothes pins (NOT the kind with the wire thingy) and then I had to actually wrap the ribbon the pins, but it was fun and since I don’t have an overwhelming amount of ribbon, I think it looks pretty cool.

Other than that, not much else has happened on the storage spruce up front. I went to a wholecloth quilting class on Thursday and these are the fabrics I brought for my quilt. They are from Meadowsweet by Sandi Henderson (and yes, we have them in the shop!) The big flower is one side (1 1/2 yd) the pink flowerish pattern is the other side (1 1/2 yd) since it’s a wholecloth quilt there isn’t ANY piecing involved! All we did was bring it to the class already sandwiched with the batting (I used fusible, which I LOVE) and then she showed us how to do this really cool technique to quilt it which ends up looking like PLAID!! I’ll have to show you when I get it done. I have to bring it already quilted to class next Thursday so we can put the binding on, which I’m going to use the orangy-pink fabric and we’ll add a piping, I’m using the stripe. FUN, FUN! Oh, and I get to use ALL the threads I have in the picture, that’s the fun part!

Now it’s time to LINK UP your Spring SPRUCE UP! If you’ve taken any pictures and posted them, please link up below. If you don’t want to post pictures, just add a comment to tell me you’re participating. (Does anyone think I use capital letters too much? I can’t help it I’m EXCITED!)

Happy Stitches,

Anna

>Spill the Beans Sunday

>NOTE: If you were sweet enough to comment with your opinion about the option of offering advertising on this blog a week or two ago, please e-mail me and I’ll send you a FREE pattern for a quick quilt made with a jelly roll!

Now it’s YOUR turn to spill the beans (and I don’t mean coffee because it’s past 1:00pm). Please take a moment to answer the following questions. I had SEW much fun reading about how people learned to sew and where you are from. If you answer this post with a comment, PLEASE make sure to include your e-mail and I’ll send you a FREE pattern too! Last thing, I’ve decided to add McLinky at the bottom. SO, if you answer these questions here in a comment, link up your blog (main page is OK) and we can visit each other and make some new bloggy friends!

1) Name
2) Favorite hobby (sewing, quilting, scrapbooking, cooking, etc.)
3) What sort of patterns/designers/colors do you like? (i.e. bright and funky, soft and floral, Amy Butler, anything by 3 Sisters, Basic Grey, Sweetwater, etc.)
4) What patterns would you like to make? (i.e. tote bags, quilts, baby clothes, stuffed animals or softies, adult garments, home stuff like aprons or pillows, etc.)
5) Of the previous list, is there anything that you’d like to make more of?
6) Who do you sew/craft for most? (kids, family, friends, neighbors, customers, yourself!, etc)
7) Anything else you’d like to share?
8) Now add a link to your blog on McLinky!

OK, me first.
1) Anna
2) Sew and quilting although I think I have Crafters A.D.D. because I can’t seem to focus very long on one project and have started making paper cards and even made a calendar with scrapbook paper!
3) I love bright and funky fabrics and have recently purchased 12 different fabrics with a lime green and turquoise blue color scheme for a new quilt! (Forgot I already had a set of FQs at home in that same color line!) I totally love Amy Butler, Heather Bailey, Anna Maria Horner, and I really like the Basic Grey fabrics most of the time. I know a lot of fabric designers are also designing for scrapbook paper companies and visa versa now. Basic Grey and Sweetwater are good examples of that.
4) I have plans to make lots of quilts (bought the kits for them!) but I also have lots of patterns for totes. I just saw a TON of cute patterns to make stuffed animals and I think that would be interesting but I don’t know who I would give them to. I also like to make pillows, like I said, Crafter’s A.D.D.
5) Pretty much more of EVERYTHING! I need to get myself OFF the computer so that I can actually SEW! In fact, I’ve started trying to make two things at a time since I seem to have so little time to spend sewing!
6) At the moment I’m sewing a tote bag for my mom and another one for my close friend as a gift. I also have plans to sew for our shop for samples and sale. I’m looking forward to seeing what people add to our flickr pool so I can get some more inspiration!
7) Hope this is fun and not too redundant with the previous meme (I’m calling it that because it’s easier than anything else.)

>I’m on a Roll!

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I made something again, that’s two weeks in a row! This time I used a funky sheet I found at a thrift store in Houston. I thought these cats would make up into a funny and ironic toy for my hyper dog (see last post for a picture of Starbuck). I put a cat picture on each side of the toy, lined it with thick canvas for durability and stuff it with polyfil. Then I stitched it closed and top stitched the entire thing! Fast and CHEAP project! Don’t those cats just look like the are daring you to play with them? I’m linking this up to Everything Etsy and any other linky party I can find today. Sew Proud of myself!

Happy Stitches,
Anna