How to Store Your Fabric

Are you like me?  Do you fall in love with a new fabric every time you go shopping?  Are you running out of room to keep all of your beautiful prints?  Here are some fabulous fabric storage examples:

Colorful Contemporary by Jenny B Allsorts

Country Chic by Cotton Blue

Small Space Modern by Kookii

Vintage Ambiance by Three Red Apples

Here are some fabric storage tips:

• Avoid Creases - If fabric sits too long, creases may permanently set.  Avoid this by rolling long sitting fabric onto a tube.  A great use for empty wrapping paper tubes!

• Use Pest Deterrents - Keep moths and beetles at bay by regularly vacuuming your storage area.  Use moth balls to keep your fabric from looking like Swiss cheese.

• Keep Odors Away -  Cigarette smoke or heavy cooking odors can sink deep into fabric.  If this sounds like your house, keep fabrics in air-tight plastic containers.  This way, they smell as fresh as the day you bought them.

• Stay Out of the Light - Fabric exposed to light sources for a period of time will inevitably fade.  Rotate fabric often, or make some quick drapes to cover your storage area.

• Keep it Dry - Never store damp fabric.  It must be completely dry before putting it away.  Damp fabric is a hotbed for mold that can spread to other fabrics around it. 

-Ava

Halloween Cookies!

I had a fun weekend baking and decorating these sugar cookie cut-outs from scratch!  

Espresso and Cookies are sinfully delicious......mmmmm.

We made a huge batch of mini cut-outs and coated them with royal icing.  They were then sprinkled with Halloween colored nonpareils while the icing was still wet for a little crunch with every bite!

My hubbie and I have made this sugar cookie recipe year after year for Halloween and Christmas with rave reviews.  Here is the recipe if you would like a taste of these scrumptious treats:


 SUGAR COOKIE CUT OUTS

INGREDIENTS:

1 1/2 cups butter, softened 2 cups white sugar 4 eggs 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 6 cups all-purpose flour 2 teaspoons baking powder 1 teaspoon salt   DIRECTIONS: 1.  In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Stir in the flour, baking powder, and salt. Cover, and chill dough for at least one hour (or overnight). 2.  Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Roll out dough on floured surface 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Cut into shapes with any cookie cutter. Place cookies 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets. 3.  Bake 6 to 8 minutes in preheated oven. Cool completely.

Craigslist-TV - Fun with Personal Ads

Have you heard of this?  It's called Craigslist-TV.



Michael Mullen's desperate attempt to design an Oscar dress for Sandra Bullock.

I successfully wasted a good 45 minutes on this site when I came across it and I laughed and I laughed.  Craigslist TV is a YouTube channel produced by Bob Gillan and Drew Brown, a former producer for Project Runway.  The videos are professionally done and really tell a fun story.  So, if you're in need of some laughs and have a few minutes to spare, click over to Craigslist TV and let me know what you find.

GIANT SQUIDS!!!

Now, I don't have any kids, but, nonetheless, I was inspired by LemonSqueezy's Craft with your Kid's week, so I found something really fun for the whole family.  And with Halloween around the corner, who wouldn't want a Giant Squid lying around the house?

Philadelphia Weekly put together this great tutorial and pattern to make your very own stuffed sea monster.  For your viewing pleasure, I give you the photo gallery of some of the calamari concoctions.  And here they are....

Matthew

JPoloWin

laoffscreen

Sub-Pop Tart

Sam

I hope this gallery got you inspired, now go grab 5 lbs of stuffing and an amazing amount of fabric and get to work!

-Ava

MacFriendly Bundle

For those of you reading my blog who have a mac computer, you have 17 hours from the time of this post to get over to MacFriendly and grab a great bundle of mac programs for $40.  Some of that money goes to a charity for homeless animals.

I built the above collage of some of the macfriendly icons with Funtastic photos, one of the 12 programs available in the bundle.

The bundle includes:

• Freeway express - A Drag and Drop HTML editor
• Funtastic Photos - an amazing photo editor and collage creator that even makes Photomosaics!
• iPhone ringtone maker - will record new, or use existing audio including music files to make ringtones.
• Nisus Writer Express - a word processing program
• Elmedia player - which claims to be able to play any media file you can find. (No more unrecognized file formats)
• Daniusoft Video Converter Pro - Rips DVDs (including the encrypted ones) into digital video files that can be stored on your laptop for payback, or optimized for viewing on your mobile device.
• Web Gallery - Takes groups of photos and organizes them into Flash movies that and gives you a code to post them on your website.
• Capture It - A great program that lets you record your active windows and play back your actions for tutorials
• Brush Pilot - A Photoshopper's dream come true.  A program that organizes all your brush styles.  You can even export brushes as a PNG
• IconBox - A quick and easy way to organize all of your icons and to make changes to personalize the look of your dock and desktop.

There is also a handy FTP program and MacPilot which helps navigate the hidden features in your Mac.  So, check them out.  This deal won't last long.

-Ava

How to Sew Corners and Curves

This world would be wonderful if all stitches were a straight stitch.  Unfortunately, we're just not that lucky.  If you are having some trouble with your edges, take a look at these quick tips.

CURVES:  

• Always try and use your hand to guide the fabric across the machine with a nice, fluid motion. 

• Slow down around the curves and don't force the fabric through which may lead to some puckering of the fabric.

•  It is always wise to practice on scraps of fabric until you are comfortable doing this.

• Clip outside of the stitch lines after sewing curves.  Doing this keeps the fabric from bunching on the inside of the seam. 

• When clipping be careful that you only clip the seam allowance, and not through the actual seam itself.

CORNERS: 
For a clean sharp finish, pivot the fabric 90 degrees at the corner.

• Make sure the needle is in the fabric before pivoting. 

• Lift the presser foot, and rotate your fabric 90 degrees.  

• Once you have made the turn, drop the presser foot back down and you are able to continue sewing.

•  Reinforce corners by shortening your stitch length as you approach and then leave the corners.

• To reduce bulk clip the points of all corners at a 45 degree angle.  Be sure not to clip your stitching. 

Tutorial Guest: Very Purple Person

One of my favorite blogs is Very Purple Person.  Beautifully composed by Novita, a stay-at-home mom and artist living in Tokyo.  Do visit her blog and see all the wonderful sewing projects.  She also has a fabulous etsy shop filled with wearable eye candy! 

You can never have enough bags, right?  Today's feature is Very Purple Person's Reversible Bag Pattern.  There are step-by-step photos and a downloadable pdf pattern HERE.  This bag pattern has so much versatility!  Grocery bag, errand bag, farmer's market bag, and with Halloween coming soon, it can also be used to make a super chic trick-or-treat bag!