Have you ever been curious about dying your own fabric? Or have you ever felt that you are searching a particular hue and can’t find it? This is the place for you. Clothworks teamed up with RIT to do a little series on home-dying for quilters and the first post is coming soon. RIT generously sent me a box of dyes to test out at home and I got together with my Mom (of course!!) and some neighbors and friends to try out a bunch of techniques, make mistakes and try and get some results that we liked. In the process of dying a whole load of quilting cotton (and a bunch of other random items which I will also showcase here) we learned a few lessons, figured out how to get intense, fairly consistent colors and took advantage of the amazing color selection tool, the ColoRIT Formula Guide, that RIT offers. If you are planning on dying today or this weekend, I can give you a tip–Use the ColoRIT formula guide. It was RIGHT ON. All the recipes we used from it worked great and came out true to color. If you can wait, stay tuned for the upcoming tutorials and feel free to send us your photos of home-dyed projects. At the end of all this instruction, we’ll be giving away a box of RIT dye and a stack of fresh fat quarters for you to dye at home, so please come back and check out the tutorials during June and July.
Beach Garden Studio is one of our delightful local designer pairs, heralding from Bainbridge Island, just across the pond from Clothworks. Here are a few tasty images of what they have been up to. The project photos below are from Esther’s on Bainbridge Island where they had a celebration in honor of the launch and the above picture is a digital mock-up of a quilt using the collection. Click on that to get to Beach Garden Quilts’ site to buy the pattern. They’ll be featuring projects and fabric in their booth 1320 at Quilt Market.
Hi, Robin here from Create Kids Couture. We are so excited to be visiting the Clothworks Blog today. If you’ve never heard of Create Kids Couture, we publish PDF and paper boutique style sewing patterns. We’ve got over 120 patterns for girls, boys, dolls, and tweens. We’d love it if you visited our Facebook page and our companion sewing support group where our wonderful fans come together to share tips, photos, questions, joys and sorrows.
We were lucky enough to get a sweet little package of fabric in the mail from Clothworks to work with, and La Cage au Birdie by Ellen Crimi-Trent is just delightful!
We’re loving this colors for spring! And the birdie print is just so fun!
We decided to use it to make a free pattern just for you!
And it’s just what every little girl needs….
A purse, just her size!
We’re also sharing the dress pattern free…
Because what good is a purse if your outfit doesn’t match?
These are both beginner patterns, so don’t be scared!
You can download the purse pattern and instructions HERE.
and
You can download the dress pattern and instructions HERE.
We hope you enjoy our patterns and find the perfect Clothworks fabrics to make your own versions!
Please share them on our Facebook page; we’d love to see your work.
Thanks to Kathleen (she’s our Queen of holiday cheer) for sending this one my way. If you haven’t seen this technique, you’re going to be so excited because it really is a so very easy and quick way to make your table festive. This 10-minute table runner video explains it all and Kathleen even sewed one for us to show you how it looks in darling Clothworks fabric. The collection is Santa’s Whimsy by Masha D’yans. Kathleen made a whole stack of these and she said it was a great use for a piece of a panel that has been chopped. So, if you fussy cut something out of a panel, but still have a 1/3 yard selvedge to selvedge, you can use that piece as the center and a coordinating half yard as the backing. If you want to know before you watch the video, here is what you’ll need:
1/3 yard selvedge to selvedge
1/2 yard selvedge to selvedge
2 cute coordinating buttons (optional)
And, just in case you want to know, my lovely Mom made the Santa who has the pleasure of sitting on the table runner. If you want to know the pattern, drop me a comment and I’ll ask my Mom if she remembers the pattern name. She is the Santa master and I have a whole table of cool santas and snowmen that she has made. I’m so lucky! My Mom is awesome. We’ll be featuring her gift bag pattern here shortly.
Thank you all so much for entering our contest. We have 7 winners listed here for the Great Quilt Giveaway and we’re so excited to get all these quilts to folks who need them!! If you see your name below, you should receive an email today with instructions on how to get your quilts shipped. We did our best to give each person one of their quilt top picks, but there were a few quilts that were particularly popular! What can I say? The one using “America” by Karen Roti was a really hot ticket!! Good thing she just released another collection with a similar theme–Air Mail 1930′s! Anyhow, if you’d like to see the original post about this contest, head here. And, if you’re new to this and want to see the gorgeous quilts that will heading out to needy folks and charitable organizations, head to our pinterest board dedicated to the topic.
Congratulations to:
Darlene
Bobbi
Sheila
Marilyn
Cherish
Carol
Kate
Please check for your email!!
We’ll be reporting back on where all the quilts are going and hopefully even showing you a few photos of the recipients if we can convince the winners to follow up!!
Best wishes to all of you and thanks for being part of our community. Quilters sure now how to look out for each other!
Stay tuned for the Spring Edition! This will be a regular thing.
Thanks to theJoyful Abode blog for furnishing some good instructions for making a nicely finished bunting. I have to admit that I didn’t follow every step because I am what you call a corner-cutter. NEVER ask me to test your pattern! I can’t follow instructions, but my projects always turn out anyway. I used scraps from our scrap bins here at Clothworks, made my triangles all different sizes and I even cut up an old dress shirt to make the beautiful red flags. I used pre-made bias tape from the thrift store (or it may have been from my Grandma Pearl’s stash) and the other thing I did differently was that I made my triangles pointier. This resulted in it being a little harder to turn the flags after sewing them so I just clipped the seam allowance down very small and used a dull pencil to convince those flag tips to come out and be darling little points. I highly recommend hitting your scrap bin for this one. It was very easy and, my oh my, did it turn out cute. Last year my sister gave all of the siblings in my family lovely buntings that were handmade (she used felt) and they were such a hit that I thought I better try them. She was right. A bunting makes a great gift and it took me about an hour total to complete the whole project–and that includes interruptions from my 3.5-year-old rambunctious, fire firefighter dinosaur who was busy practicing his drums while I sewed! Head to the Joyful Abode for detailed instructions. And how about Pinterest to see a whole slough of beautifully homemade buntings!
Hi All–Carolyn Friedlander has graciously put together a darling tutorial for us as part of our Easy Homemade Gifts series as we move closer to the holidays. She is a quilt and fabric designer with a background in architecture. Check out her other work here and read on for instructions on how to make this great gift!
This is a fun and fast project that you can make for yourself or for anyone who enjoys a good pot of tea (or coffee). It’s a great way to show off your favorite Auriful thread and to practice your free-motion quilting skills. (The fabrics in this project are from the Organic Solids and Alyssa Thomas Picnic Pals collections.)
Materials :
- 8″ x 8″ fabric (top panel)
- 9″ x 9″ fabric (back panel)
- (roughly) 9″ x 9″ batting piece
- 2 1/4″ x width of fabric strip for binding
- Removable marking tool (I am using a Pilot Frixion(TM) pen. Always test on scraps prior to use on final project.)
Hello there! This is Anshu from Blooms And Bugs. I’m back with another dress pattern and tutorial perfect for fall.
Ever since I have drafted a peasant dress pattern, I have been playing around with different design elements to make the most of it. Here is a cute dress made with mixing a bunch of Clothworks collections ( Suzette, Picnic Pals, Safari Sweet) and adding in some fun details like ruffles, belt, easy appliques etc.
Supplies:
Coordinating fabrics in different prints
I chose the following fabrics:
Suzette for bodice and ruffle at the hem – half yard
Picnic Pals for Sleeves and belt fabric – half yard
Hi, This is Anshu from Blooms And Bugs, did you guys miss me? I’m back with a T-shirt pattern and tutorial for your sewing pleasure.
Here is a really fun boy print from Clothworks. Its called City Streets by Jamie Wood. When I received the fabric, the first thing that came to my mind was Raglan T-shirts. However, all the T-shirts need to have some stretch in them which is not present in cotton wovens. I kept thinking about how I could use the prints I liked so much and still have the flexibility of T-shirts. Finally I found the answer, I just need to mix in some knits and we will be good to go. So I made one Raglan Tee, and then I made some more, and I love them all.
Hi there Clothworks readers! I’m Christina from Sweet Sapling. I have some beautiful fabric from the new line “Hug Me” by Sue Zipkin for Clothworks. Isn’t it darling? I was inspired by this fabric to make Valentines themed princess crowns and I’m happy to be here today to show you how I make them. They’re a quick, fun and easy project! So easy in fact that you could stitch one up in time for your princess to wear for Halloween and give her costume that special handmade touch!
I’ve put together my first video tutorial. It goes through everything step by step in complete detail. I’d love for you to watch it!
Print and cut out the crown pattern. Pin the pattern to your main fabric and cut out two (2) pieces, then pin and cut one (1) crown piece out of the fusible wool. With your accent fabric cut two (2) strips 3″ x 9 1/2″ for your straps.
I hope you liked this tutorial! If you have any questions, watch the video. It’s really detailed!
If you make a princess crown, please add it to my Flickr group. I’d love to see what you make!
