Making Curtains - Tutorial

My sister asked me to make curtains.  Here's the basics of how to make a curtain.  First, figure out the size needed by measuring the window.  How much do you want it to hang below the window?  What's the overlap on the outsides of the window?  How much gather do you want when the curtains are closed?  Ultimately you can decide for yourself what you like.

1. The white lining fabric is the exact size that the curtains will be.  I have allowed 1" on each side for seams and 4-1/2" at the bottom and 2-1/2" at the top for a 1-1/2-2" rod pocket.  If you would want that ruffle at the top above the rod pocket, add 2-4" to that figure (depending on how much ruffle you want).  This was not what my sister wanted, so we left that off.

2. As much as I hate ironing, it will make this whole thing much easier.  Fold and iron 1/2" on all edges.


3. Next, carefully place and pin the lining to the curtain fabric, wrong sides together.  If you cut and ironed precisely, the raw edges of the lining should just touch the raw edges of the curtain fabric on each side.

4. Fold and iron the side seams over the lining 1". Pin in place.

5. Then sew close to the inside folded edge. Repeat for other side.

6. If you haven't done so yet, iron 1/2" from raw edge, then fold down 2" (or 4" for the bottom) so that the fold is where the liner begins. Iron, pin and sew as you did for the sides. Top is shown here, but the same applies to the bottom hem as well.

If you want a ruffle at the top, you will need a 4" fold from the top, then after sewing along the folded edge, closest to the center of the curtain, sew 2" from top and 2" from the seam that you just made, in other words, smack down the center of the pocket you just made. 

Here it is finished.  Makes the room bright and colorful, that's for sure.

Starry Baby Blanket

Emerald designed and made this baby blanket for a friend. Simple squares and half square triangles, but the colorful background makes it pop. 

Tied with yellow yarn.  I like the tactile experience for babies since I remember finding comfort in rubbing the ties on my baby blanket.  I think the yellow adds to the stars in the sky on this quilt.

For some reason the color is way off on this photo, but yellow binding is machine stitched on using a decorative stitch - stars of course.  I like to stitch the binding on by machine for quilts that are going to be used a lot, especially baby blankets that get washed frequently.  It makes them hold up better.

Hey! I made that!

This has happened a few times, where I was searching on the net or a fabric store sent me a link to their site with a photo attached and I do a double take.  "Hey! I made that!!!"  Here's one I ran across a few years ago on the fabric.com site, and I snapped a picture with my phone of the computer screen.  I had forgotten all about this since it was before I started blogging.  Kinda fun.

Little Boys Button Down Shirts

Here are some shirts that Emerald made back in 2016 for Trenna Travis Design Studios for the release of the Michael Miller fabrics Tundra and Little Bears.  The pattern used was a Burda Style model #139, style 09/2015.

 Up close on the fabrics and the pattern.

Up close of the little welt pockets. So cute!

Pillows

My apologies to all who followed my blog.  I got a new assignment at church that takes up all my free time. I now teach an early morning scripture study class before 6:00 am each school morning so my time is taken up entirely by my own kids, the kids I watch during the days to help out their moms and planning my lessons.  If I could figure out how to post using my phone, I could post more often when a baby is sleeping. But since I'm not at my house as often as I am at someone else's, the pile of photos on my desktop has not diminished at all. There are two of my goals for this summer.  Post on my blog and learn how to post from my phone.  SIGH!  I'm not a computer wiz as some.  I'd much rather use a sewing machine. ;-)

More pillows made for Michael Miller Fabrics  back in 2016 using the fabrics called "Chase" and "Little Bears" in two different colors.

Bloomers Market Bag - Trenna

 

Here is a market bag made from Michael Miller's "Bloomers" on the outside and  lined with the "Pom Poms" fabrics.  The pattern I made up, but it's pretty basic - 2 large rectangles sewn together with boxed corners and heavy duty interfacing to give it stability.

 

Blooming Border skirt - Trenna - Tutorial

For the March 2016 Michael Miller photo shoot, I made this beautiful skirt from the fabric "Blooming Border."  It was loosely based on the Vogue pattern V8980, with many variations - really the waistband and length is what I used.  I'll walk you through what I did, sorry I didn't take more photos of the actual process, I wasn't planning on doing a tutorial.  I took a few pictures of make shift examples, but know that they are not true representations.

 I no longer have the pattern, it was returned, but if I remember correctly, this pattern had two larger than quarter circle pattern pieces for the front to give the fullness, and the back two pieces were more A-line in appearance with the waistline gathered.  Well, as you know, cutting a circle out of border fabric will not work to have the pattern along the bottom.

What I did is take one of the back pattern pieces and folded it in half  lengthwise (thirds, or quarters are also options).  (Folded side of the pattern piece in photo is on the right side).

     
 




I added the seam allowance along the folded side and cut out 8 quarters skirts panels.  If you'd like it fuller than that, you can always cut more panels.  I can't remember for certain, but I may have cut 12 or even 16 panels to make it extra full.

*If you have a fuller pattern (like my makeshift pattern piece in the photo above), you could cut the piece into thirds or quarters.  Just make sure you have seam allowances on both sides.

 Your skirt panels will look more like the two pieces in the top photo, rather than the one in the bottom photo.

The key is you want to make the skirt panels so the bottom edge of the skirt is straighter so the printed panel on the fabric is seen as much as possible.

In this top picture, the border would loose very little of the pattern on the sides whereas the picture on the bottom would loose a great deal.

One more thing, for best results, try to make sure the stripes (or design) is lining up in the same place on the pattern.  I don't want my stripes to jump up and down, drawing attention to the fact that the skirt is pieced and not printed in a circle.

 Next, I lined up the panels to try make the floral pattern flow.  One might think that you just put it in the order you cut it out from the fabric, and sometimes that works.  For this skirt, it didn't.  The floral design was large enough and the stripes prominent enough, that I actually laid it all out and matched one to the next, remembering that a little bit would be taken out from each side for seam allowances.

Now the pleating.  This is one of those things where the explanation sounds worse than it is.  I started in the center front.  In the photo, you can also see that the size of tuck I took was based on where the seams were.  I wanted all the seams to be less visible, so all the pleats are on top of the seams to help hide/disguise them.

The waistband, I used the pattern as a guide.  It's normal ruching.  Questions, please e-mail me.

Baby Dress, Blanket and Pillows, All in White - Trenna

In January 2016, I was asked to make several items all in Michael Miller's white Cotton Couture fabric.  There were 3 - 18"x18" pillows with trim, 5 - 20"x20" pillows with piping and one without piping, 2 euro pillows (26"x26"), 1 - 36"x36" blanket with a ruffle around it, a 8"x12" pillow with a ruffle (no photo), and a ruffled baby dress made with Burda easy pattern #9802.

Dancing Cats Little Girl's Dress - Trenna

In December of 2015, Trenna asked me to make a baby dress from the Michael Miller fabrics, "Dancing Cats" and "Zipper Stripe."  The pattern I used was Burda Kids #9494.

Big Quilt Blocks - Debbie Bowles style

 I watched a Nancy Zieman video where she had a guest, Debbie Bowles explaining her Big Quilt Blocks.  As I watched it, I was struck that that might be the perfect block for some paneled fabric one of my sisters gave me.  There were 18 panels and I had thought to make a twin size quilt top with it, but as I began the planning, it occurred to me that if I made 3 baby quilts, it would divide more evenly (I wouldn't have to come up with 2 more big block centers to make the 4x5 blocks needed for the twin).  Plus, it would give me 3 quilts instead of one to practice longarm quilting on . . . when I get it . . . in another 3 years or so.

  It ended up being a good thing in another way - using fabric that was given to me, there was not enough of the green to do what I had wanted to do with all of the blocks.  I found a nice brown that complimented very nicely and did one with the green frames and two with the brown.  However, I ran out of the blue that was between the panels, that I was using to make those panels just a wee bit bigger so that it was the full 12.5" squares needed.  So on the one with the green frames, I used the brown, but on the one with the brown frame, I didn't want to use the brown again, so, I used the tiny scraps of the green I had left to frame one of the blocks.  A great lesson in "making do." ;-)