Welcome to the blog! Here you’ll find a hub for all my tutorials, advice, videos and other sewing news and inspiration. Choose a category or simply explore. Enjoy!
I can’t possibly choose a “cutest thing I’ve ever made”, but if I had to, this bunny rag doll would come close. I’m in love!
I wanted to add a bunny to the Phoebe Rag Doll collection of sewing patterns and since Easter is coming up, there was no time like the present. Sew up some soft bunny dolls with changeable clothes for your little ones’ Easter baskets this year!
Read MoreI have a great, easy kitchen sewing tutorial for you today! I wanted to sew a little something for Mothers Day gifts and I had the best little border print in my drawer, just perfect for some pretty, sewn tea towels. DIY kitchen towels are so easy and they make such sweet gifts. Also, these tea towels somehow last a very long time. I received a few from my sister when I was first married and while other kitchen towels have come and gone, I still use the ones she made!
I’ve since made even more tea towels for myself after scoring a couple of fun prints and a heathered linen at Hobby Lobby in the clearance bin recently. A ruffle and/or fun trim take these kitchen towels to the next level, so I went ahead and filmed a video tutorial to share with you here.
Read MoreI’m here to share with you the next installment of my 18 inch doll clothes sewing patterns! I’m having so much fun creating these patterns and I have unashamedly added a few dolls to our collection in the process … for the business, you know ;)
The Market Day collection is available now in my shop! The PDF pattern includes all the pattern pieces, plus step by step instructions with photos for sewing the raglan dress, bloomers, wide brimmed hat, and market tote. This new pattern, along with the Sleep Tight collection, are both meant to be easy sewing patterns for doll clothes, and will fit any 18” doll, such as American Girl, Journey Girls, Disney ILY, and more.
Read MoreSewing doesn’t have to be an expensive hobby. Although you can definitely save money on certain types of sewing like home decor, you might find you can’t make your clothes for as cheap as you thought you could. Today I’m going to share some tips for making sewing cost less, so you can feed your sewing hobby, even if you’re on a tight budget!
Read MoreI got the quilting bug recently and really wanted to make something for the Valentines season that I could share with you here too. I came up with a simple heart quilt block incorporating scraps of fabric. I turned my first version into fun mini quilt to hang up in my sewing room, but I’m planning to turn my second version into a pillow. It’s in the prettiest pinks and purples, so it will look so cute on the comfy chair in my sewing room.
Quilting doesn’t take any difficult skills, I promise! If you can use a sewing machine, you can make a quilt. In this tutorial, you’ll learn to make half square triangles, which is a common technique in quilting. Once you learn that, you can make so many different blocks! All those star blocks you see in quilts use half square triangles.
Read MoreI had a pretty successful sewing month, if I do say so myself. I don’t always feel like get a ton of personal sewing time, but looking back over the month and seeing that I did manage to make several things, helps me see that a lot can be accomplished in many short sewing sessions.
This year on my YouTube channel, I thought it would be fun to share what I’ve made at the end of each month! In January I managed to make 6 things and they were a good mix of garments, projects for patterns for my shop and just-for-fun projects (although it’s truly all fun).
Read MoreLast summer my husband and I went on an anniversary trip and did some thrifting (like ya do). He spotted the cutest vintage Kenmore sewing machine and snapped it up for $10! I finally spent some time with it last week and got it working like a champ, so I thought I’d write some tips for getting these old vintage sewing machines working.
If you have an old machine that you’d like to get running again, or if you’re wondering if you should buy the next vintage sewing machine you stumble across, this post will have plenty of tips for you.
So, read on!
Read MoreOne of my most visited blog posts last year was my list of 10 quilt block of the month clubs you could join in on, so it was a no brainer to write a similar post for 2022. I had an even easier time this year finding Block of the Month opportunities, so I hope you’ll find something here to join in on! It’s still only January, so now’s the right time to pick one and get started.
A Block of the Month club usually works like this: A quilt designer releases a set of quilt block patterns, one block at a time over the course of a year. So at the end of the year, you’ll have enough blocks to put a quilt together! The blocks are usually kept a secret until each month’s release, and I find that very fun. I love not knowing what the whole thing will look like until it all comes together! At the end, usually the designer or website will have several ideas for putting the quilt together with instructions for adding sashing, finishing, etc …
Read MoreHey, friends! I asked for a few new little sewing tools for Christmas and my husband came through and put some of them in my Christmas stocking. I took some time yesterday to film a video describing them and demonstrating these five new-to-me sewing notions and today I’ll share them here too.
If you’re looking for a few new toys to add to your sewing room, maybe this will give you some ideas and I bet they’re things you may not already have. There are always more sewing notions to check out, but it’s hard to know if they’re really be useful, or if you’re better off sticking with your tried and true methods, so I’ve tried these things, and while there are a few I already love, there are a couple more that they jury is still out on.
Read MoreI’ve been using the basic brown Moleskine Cahier Notebooks for many years. I’m a big fan! I like that they’re small and lightweight, the lines are the perfect distance apart, and best of all, the covers are a blank slate, easy to decorate or embellish!
I’ve given these notebooks as gifts with pretty art or quotes Mod Podged to the front, but I recently came up with the more reusable idea of sewing up some simple journal covers for them! These covers turned out so sweet, were very easy to make, and were a great way to use some single quilt blocks I had lying around. I can see myself making these for Christmas gifts next year, with a Moleskine journal included, of course.
Read MoreIn one of my recent YouTube videos, I said that I had made my husband several things for his Christmas stocking this year and enough people asked to see what those ideas are that I went ahead and made another video to tell you what I sewed for my husband this year!
Men can be hard to buy for and maybe even harder to sew for, but I’ve made my husband several things over the years that he’s loved and has actually asked for more of. So I’ll share those ideas with you here and then hopefully it may spark some other ideas for you if you’re stuck on what to sew for the men and boys in your life.
Read MoreLast week I posted a tutorial for how to make a small circular drawstring pouch for hair accessories or jewelry when you travel, or your quilting pins, or anything like that. This week I’m back with another drawstring bag tutorial, but this one was designed specifically to board hold game pieces: tokens, tiles, dice, or other components! It has a square bottom and is interfaced, helping it to stand upright on the table when you pass it between players.
Of course, you can use this little pouch for lots of other things! It would even make a great little gift bag that’s like a gift in a gift! The recipient can keep the bag to use for whatever they like.
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