Today's tutorial comes from an amazing Australian seamstress, Sophie from Cirque du bebe. Sophie is new to sewing, though you would never believe it looking at the clothes she makes. They are always super hip and beautifully finished: like this hoodie and this outfit and this stylish number.  She can pick a bold print and make it look so effortless, so right. For example she pairs a crazy-glasses-wearing-man print with stripes, pastel blue, and safety orange and it's awesome! So I knew whatever she was going to come up with for a tutorial was going to be good, but I didn't know it was going to be this good...

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Hello, Sophie here from Cirque Du Bebe. Today we are going to take an ordinary kiddie shirt and transform it into 'lift-the-flap' clothing. Because, lets face it, those books are more fun! You will learn how to make a simple 'stuffie' (completely removable for washing) and watch your kids turn it into an interactive prop for creative play. You could even make a few and rotate them.

1. Get inspired. What do you think would make a fun prop? A moustache? An ice-cream? An envelope with a felt letter? Your fabric stash can be a good place to draw inspiration...do you have some stripes that scream villain or conveniently, a fabric with a ready made prop lurking in the print (see telephone). You could put something noisy inside; crinkly plastic, a bell. The cord can become part of the game too! You guys are the creatives. Go wild.

2. Gather materials, including some stuffing to fill the shape with.

3. Cut the cord and attach velcro. The cord should be long enough to reach where the prop will be used (but not long enough to go around a neck) plus an extra inch that will be fixed inside the stuffie. Cut a narrow strip of velcro (about an inch) and secure it to one end of the cord with a zig-zag stitch, going up and back several times.

4. Draw the sewing line. This will be the perimeter of your stuffie when it is poofed up. This line should be just out from the edge of the image so you don't lose any of it when you sew.

5. Cut the shape just outside the sewing line this time. This will become the seam allowance.

6. Flip over and re-draw your sewing line on the wrong side.

7. Cut the felt backing. Pin the fabric to your felt and cut around the shape.

I'm very happy to have Sascha from Piccoli Piselli (it means little peas!) here today to tell us a bit about pintucks. Sascha is a very talented sewer who cranks out fantastic clothes for all three of her kids. She is a wiz with knits and totally hilarious to boot!

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A few years ago I made this top with freestyle pintucks on the bottom of the sleeves.

ever since then I've been meaning to experiment a little more with pintucks. Generally pintucks are sewn with a special pintuck presser foot and a double needle.

I've never gotten around to buying one that fits my machine and then I'd be limited to the fine, evenly spaced pintucks (which are beautiful and can be used in children's wear in so many ways, especially heirloom garments).

So here's some ideas for adding pintucks and pleats to your sewing:

I know it's difficult to see from this photo, but I added pleats to the A-line dress as well as the pocket. For the dress I decided that re-drafting the front to accommodate the pleats would require too much math, so I stitched pleats to a piece of fabric that would roughly cover the size of the front panel of the dress.

Here's a better picture of the pleats. What you do to create the pintucks or pleats is really pretty simple:

• First you press down the length of the fabric where your first fold will be (wrong sides together).
• Then choose the size you want you pintuck/pleat to be. On the dress above I made them about 3/8" wide.
• Stitch down the length of your fabric.
• After stitching one row, take the fabric over to your iron and press fabric open.
• Next you want to determine how far apart each pleat will be. Again, I'm no fan of math so I kind of just picked where it looked nice.
• Fold your fabric again (wrong sides together) and press.
• Continue with the stitches until you've created the amount of tucks you need.

Here is a photo of some smaller pintucks I made for the pocket on the dress (I ended up making another set for the pocket with wider pleats to match the dress). I used this little measuring tool during pressing which really helped. I have no idea what it's called, but I use it a lot in sewing.

When making small pintucks it can be a little difficult to keep the fine lines parallel. I guess the smaller pintucks would be better off sewn with a pintuck presser foot, but honestly the set I made above turned out pretty nice and I didn't end up pulling out too much of my hair.

Here's what I call "freestyle pintucks". I wanted to go for a more wavy look (better luck next time) but I like the different widths I created here. I stitched the tucks across the grain of the corduroy. I think this is a great way to embellish boys clothing. Kristin from Skirt As Top did a great tutorial for how to make elbow patches yesterday. Just use her tute to add the patches to the knees of the pants.

Here is another pleat variation. Again, I made the pleats on fabric and then laid my pattern piece on the fabric and cut as usual. Can you see something odd in the left photo? Yup, I forgot that corduroy has a nap like velvet. It's not too bad in person and as you can see by the photo on the far right, Vinny is happily wearing the pants. This is the best only photo I could take of him wearing any of the clothes I created for this post. He's gotten very camera shy these days.

I saved my favorite for last...

I only recently discovered Kristin's blog, skirt as top,  but was hooked right away. I think I found it first because of this beautiful top she made for herself. Turns out she makes cute kids clothes like crazy! I'm happy to have her here today to share her awesome tutorial for elbow patches.

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Hi, I'm Kristin from skirt as top and I'm here today to talk about elbow patches!  I've been spotting lots of elbow patches on adult shirts and sweaters this fall, and I love the trend.  I thought it'd be fun to add them to homemade kids' clothes for a little "mini-professor" style, too.  Problem is, kids' sleeves are very narrow and that means it's pretty much impossible to sew the patches on after the garment is already completed.  That makes finding the correct placement for your elbow patches a bit tricky.  In this tutorial, I'll show you how to add properly placed elbow patches when you're making a shirt from scratch.

MATERIALS:

 I discovered Mary Frances work during one of the first KCWCs. She spent the week making outfits inspired by illustrations in children's books--the frog and toad trousers were so stylish I wanted some for myself! For this pre-kcwc party week, Mary Frances has written a fantastic tutorial for hoods. You can add a hood to an existing shirt or a pattern you are working on, she has directions for both.  Plus she's put a bit of elastic in the hood to help it stay on which I think is absolutely genius! 

Hello elsie marley readers!  I was so excited when Meg asked me to guest post about clothing details that I quickly signed up for pants closures... then spent half that night lying awake, gripped by visions of HOODS and the finer points of their construction.  Luckily Meg is one who understands late night visits from the (pushy, pushy) sewing muses and she tolerated--nay, encouraged!--my change of heart.

But really, who could blame me?  Hoods are a fun and easy detail to add to any shirt or jacket.  They provide the functionality of convenient warmth (no more losing track of hats) and the fashion bonus of being particularly cute on kids.  They are great for boys' or girls' clothes, evoking the fly-behind feeling of a superhero's cape as easily as the fairytale mood of Little Red or a princess-in-the-woods.

Hoods provide a surprising number of opportunities for personalization and creativity.  The tutorial below is for a pretty basic lined hood, but you could use the same techniques to come up with many different variations:

--Experiment with shape--this pointy one (via Meg's pins) makes me swoon.
--Add cat/dog/bear ears or dinosaur fins for a Halloween (or any day!) costume.
--Play with different kinds of gaps and overlaps at the neck, like these from Trula.
--Use the liner to showcase a special or wild fabric that might be a little much for a full garment: I like this one by Heidi of mypapercrane.
--Add embellishments like decorative topstitching, edge lace, fancy drawstrings, or piping.
--Once you have mastered the two-panel hood, experiment with three-panel construction--these are more common on heavy garments like rain jackets and offer yet another fabric "zone" to play with; the jacket in Anna Maria Horner's Handmade Beginnings is a great example.

Ready to add a hood?  Here's the higly official

Gather Your Materials

You will need:
--The shirt you'll put the hood onto. I used a hand-me-down storebought shirt, but you could also modify a pattern to include a hood. Just make the shirt/jacket/cardigan up to the point of attaching the collar, and make and attach a hood instead.
--1/3 yard outer fabric
--1/3 lining fabric
(I used an old knit shirt for the outer and an old sweater for the lining.  You can use any fabrics that you think will complement and sew nicely onto the base shirt.)
--3 inches of 1/4" elastic (optional)
--paper and pencil for tracing the pattern
--pins, scissors, thread, measuring tape and whatever other sewing gadgets you like to use

Make Your Pattern

1.  You can use a hoodie you already have to get the general shape.  Fold your hoodie in half longwise, lay it on your pattern paper (I use freezer paper so I can iron the pattern on at the cutting stage) and then trace the hood with a pencil.
2.  After you trace the hood (or maybe you just winged it and drew a hood-like shape; that's OK too), you'll need to check your dimensions and adjust slightly:
--With a flexible measuring tape, first measure from the top of your child's head down to the base of their neck.  Add 1 to 2 inches to this number (1" will be a more closely fitting hood, 2" will be looser; err on the long side if you are planning to cut an exisiting collar away from a shirt) and adjust the height of your hood pattern to match.
--Now measure the circumference of the collar of the shirt you've chosen.  If you're going to cut off a pre-existing collar (see below), be sure to measure below it at the cutting point (the measurement will be slightly larger than the top-of-collar circumference).  Take half of that measurement and adjust the width of your hood pattern: a larger width will mean your hood overlaps at the front, a smaller width will leave a gap at the neck.

3. Add 1/2" seam allowance all the way around the new pattern.
4. Cut your pattern out!

Cut Out Your Hood Pieces

1.  Fold your outer fabric in half such that the hood pattern will fit onto it.
2.  Lay the hood pattern on top (not directly along a fold), pin or iron in place, and cut through both layers of fabric (cutting the two sides at once helps keep you from making the unfortunate mistake of forgetting to reverse the pattern piece on one-sided fabrics).
3.  Repeat for lining fabric.
4.  You will have 4 identically-shaped hood pieces: 2 outer and 2 liner.

Sew the Hood

1. Take your two outer pieces and, with right sides together, pin along the curved side of the hood (you are making the main seam that goes from the top of the head all the way down the back).
2.  Stitch a 1/2" seam, backstitching at beginning and end and removing pins as you go.
3.  Repeat steps 1-2 for liner fabric.

4.  For outer and liner, trim seam to 1/4" and clip notches along the curve.
5.  Press seams open.

6.  With right sides together, slide outer hood into hood liner; match center seams and pin together along "face edge" of hood.

7.  Stitch a 1/2" seam along the edge you have just pinned, backstitching at beginning and end and removing pins as you go.

(**Steps 8-10 are optional and a little fussy, but I think they really help the hood stay on the head!**)
8.  Take your 3" piece of elastic and mark the center.

9.  Spread the outer and liner of the hood open (I found this easiest to do over my knee) and pin the center of the elastic to the center seam of the liner fabric only.  You want to position the elastic as close to the edge seam as possible (without crossing into the seam allowance)--you are going to enclose it within the topstitching.

10.  Using a zigzag stitch, stretch and attach the elastic to the hood liner.  I pull the first part of the elastic out about 2" extra (or as far as it will go) and use my presser foot to catch it, then use my hands to stretch the elastic as I stitch.  Make sure you are only stretching the elastic, not the fabric itself.

11. Turn the hood right side out and press.
12.  Pin along the face edge again, making sure to match center seams.  This is so the two layers won't slip around while you are topstitching.

13.  Topstitch along the face edge about 1/2 to 5/8" in. from the edge.  If you used elastic, sew carefully along that area, using your hands to keep the liner flat as you go (don't stretch the hood fabric itself).

Attach the Hood to the Shirt

1.  If you are using a premade shirt, you will probably want to remove the existing collar.  Cut it away from the shirt closely and carefully.
2.  Fold your shirt in half longways and mark the center front and back of the raw collar.  Use these points to guide you as you pin the hood to the shirt, right sides and raw edges together. Make sure the overlap or gap at the front lines up the way you want it to.  (I pinned with the shirt inside out, so the hood is inside the shirt in this picture.  It would have been easier, however, to turn the shirt right side out.  I ended up doing that anyway before I sewed.)

3.  Stich all the way around the hood to attach it to the collar.
4.  Turn the shirt right side out and check to make sure the hood looks ok!  Then turn it inside out again.
5.  To finish the inside, trim seam neatly and press toward bottom of shirt.  Topstitch all the way around the collar within the seam allowance, catching the gap fabric (if you have a gap) to hem it as you go.  (If you are the fancy type, you could also use twill tape or a serger to finish the seam.)
6.  Admire your new hooded garment!  I mean, your kid's.  Unless you cheated on kcwc and used this tutorial to make a hoodie for yourself, which would work, but would be highly, highly unethical.  So don't even think about it.

Mary Frances blogs bits of craft and life at this is marzipan.  Come say hello!

Next week is the kids clothes week challenge! Have you signed up? Do you have a plan? Are you making piles of fabric? My list consists mostly of pants, coats, and some shirts. Not particularly exciting, but it's what my kids need.

This week I wanted to have a slew of tutorials to get everyone excited to sew next week. There are so many good tutorials out there for simple pants and shirts already. Like these--

1. simple pants pattern
2. basic coat pattern
3. ringer shirt tutorial
4. hoodie to pullover refashion
5. kimono pattern
6. raglan shirt pattern

So instead of patterns and tutorials for pants or tops, I've asked some super fantastic children's clothes makers (and bloggers) to come up with tutorials for details you can add to basic pieces: patches, hoods, pintucks.  Sounds awesome, right? This week will be like the pre-game party for kcwc!

I'm going to kick it off with a little detail tutorial of my own: the bunting tag tutorial. I try to remember to put tags in all the clothes I make, because if I don't my son will inevitably wear his pants backwards. The elsie marley tag I have is gray--nice and subtle, but not very noticeable to a four year old. So I've had to come up with other, more visible tags to use. Bunting, banners, triangles on strings, whatever you call them they are everywhere, so I figured why not put them in your pants?

the bunting tag tutorial

Materials

• bias tape--double fold, single fold, it doesn't matter just use what you have
• pins
• scissors
• iron
• an article of clothing to put your tags in

Directions

1.  Cut five 2 inch pieces of bias tape. You can use all the same color or different colors, whatever you like. Oh yeah, that is some metallic gold bias tape up there!

2.  Open up one side of the bias tape and iron it flat. Then fold up the folded side to make a triangle--see above photo. 

3.  Turn the triangle over so the fold is in the back. Line them up in the order you like.

4.  Check to see if the triangles are evenly spaced by placing a piece of paper over the raw edges (the bit of cardboard that comes with bias tape works well for this).  This also lets you see what the tag will look like when it's sewn into your clothes--the triangles overlapping no longer shows and it looks more like a proper bunting.

5.  Pin the triangles and sew or bast them together.  Trim the raw edges to about 1/4 inch.

6. Insert the bunting where you would normally put a tag (the back, duh) and sew that sucker in. Ta Da! A bunting in your pants!  Now your kids won't put their clothes on backwards and while you are folding the laundry you'll smile a little when you see these little tags .

posting a project I did for grosgrain's free pattern month:

Meg from elsie marley here and I'm very happy to be a part of all of this fantastic freeness on Grosgrain this month. For my contribution I'm going to show you how to alter a plain old pants pattern into one that will make super cute shorts for your little girl: knot shorts!

Materials

• an existing kid's shorts or pants pattern
• one yard material
• quarter yard (or so) contrasting material for facing
• elastic (1 inch wide, or whatever you have lying around)
• freezer paper, or some other paper to trace patterns

It might seem silly that for free pattern month, you first need to have a pattern. But making a kid's pants pattern is easy as pie--you just trace some kid pants. Dana from Made has a very clear tutorial for making pants patterns that you can check out if you don't have a pattern on hand. I have only made these for kids, but I don't see why altering a grown up pattern in the same way wouldn't work just as well.

Directions

1. First you need to trace your pattern onto pattern paper, or newsprint, or I like to use freezer paper.

2. Now you need to decided how long the inseam on your knot shorts will be. I made mine 4 inches long. This is a medium length pair of shorts on a 5 year old girl. A one or two inch inseam sounds scandalous, but I've made knot shorts that short and they look great. And besides, kids have very short legs, so it's really not that short at all.

2. Whatever length inseam you choose divide it in half and make a mark. From that mark draw a line through the pattern and extend it 6 inches past the outer seam of the pants.

3. From the end of the line draw a nice curve down to the bottom of the shorts. And draw another line that gracefully curves up to meet the outer seam.

4. Repeat the process for the back pattern piece.

5. To make the facing for the shorts, first trace the front pattern piece. Then on your new piece, draw a straight line from the crotch (ugh, I can't stand that word) to where the tie begins to curve out. Cut on that line. This will be your facing pattern.

6. Now that the pattern is made you can cut your fabric. Cut two front pieces and two back pieces out of your main fabric. From the contrasting fabric cut 4 facing pieces.

7.  Sew two facing pieces together, on the short straight side, right sides facing. Then serge or hem the long straight edge on top. Do this  for the other set of facing pieces as well.

8. Sew the inseam together on both legs of the shorts.

9. Open up one leg of the shorts and put the facing on top-- as above--right sides facing.

10. Sew all around except where you hemmed (or serged). Clip the corners, turn out, and press.

11. Sew down the outer seams on both legs of the shorts. Stop right after you catch a bit of the facing, then backstitch a few times to secure.

12. Turn one leg inside out and the other right side out

13. Put the right side out leg inside the inside out leg--now the right sides are together. Sew all around the crotch (that word again, ugh).

14. Turn it out and press. You should have a very funny looking pair of shorts.

15. Make sure you have thread that matches exactly to your main fabric, then sew around the top of the facing to attach it to the shorts. Or if you want the seam to be even more invisible, you can sew it by hand.

16. Tie the knots, silly!

17. Fold the top edge under and press. Sew around to make a casing for the elastic. Insert elastic, insert child to see if they fit, sew up elastic and seam and ta da! Knot shorts!

I hope you enjoyed the knot shorts tutorial! Thanks so much for having me, Kathleen!

posting a project I did for luv in the mommyhood:

Hello Mommyhood readers, Meg from elsiemarley here! I was absolutely thrilled when Shannon asked me to be a part of her fabulous crafty boxing match. It was a little hard to pick teams, I have to say. I learned how to crochet last year and very quickly fell in love with it. My winter was spent sitting on the couch, cranking out whatever cool crochet patterns my little fingers desired, as my poor sewing machine sat dusty and unloved in the corner.  But sewing has always been my true favorite: the instant gratification of sewing wins out over the sitting on your butt part of crochet (or knitting) almost every time.  And with that in mind, let's crank out a bag that will go with everything in a few measly hours. Take that Cozy Knits! Kapow!

Every spring I get the urge to buy a completely new, bright, flirty, floral wardrobe replete with matching bags and strappy sandals, but it never happens. Even if I did have the cash for a springtime shopping spree (ha!) all those accessories wouldn't fit in our little house. So I came up with a bag that can be many different bags all in one. It is completely reversible, so it will match all the springy outfits you already have and make them look fresh and new. It is also adjustable, so it can be a very ladylike shoulder bag or if you need to jump on your bike and go, it can become more of a messenger bag. Awesome, right? So without further ado, I give you...

materials

• 1/2 yard fabric A
• 1/2 yard fabric B
• 1/2 yard lining fabric, I prefer to use canvas or a home dec weight fabric rather than interfacing
• 20 buttons, yes 20! all the same, or 10 of one kind 10 of another, but they all should be about the same size
• sewing machine, buttonhole attachment (you can do it!)
• iron

directions

1. Out of each 1/2 yard of fabric cut two 14 inch wide by 15 inch tall pieces and one 2 inch wide by 41 inch long piece. You should have plenty of fabric to work with, but I want you to mark all the piece on your fabric first to see how it will fit. The strap will go along the top (the long side will be perpendicular to the salvage) and the two main piece of the bag should fit below it (the short side going with the salvage).

2. On the bottom of each piece cut a 1 1/4 inch square out of both corners. This is going to make a boxed bottom for the bag.

3. Now you need to sew all the pieces together.

• Start with fabric A: before you sew, mark a 4 inch wide space in the middle of the bottom edge, sew the bottom of the bag together, right sides facing, but in between the marks use a basting stitch (just a very long stitch). Take it to your ironing board and press the seam open. Then sew up both sides,right side facing. Don't sew around the notches we cut out! the easiest way to press the side seams open is to lay your bag flat and fold down one side of the seam, iron it (see above), then flip it over and fold the other side of the seam down and iron.
• fabric B and lining: Sew the bottom seam first (no basting) right sides together and press the seam open. Sew the side seams and iron as above.  Again don't sew the notches!

4. At on of the square notches, fold the bag so that the bottom seam and the side seam line up. Iron it flat and sew closed. Do this on both notches for fabric A, fabric B, and the lining.

5. Take fabric A where we did that bit of basting and rip out all those basting stitches. This will be the hole where we turn the bag right side out, which is the next step...

6. Turn the fabric A bag right side out and put it on your hand (really!). Then take the fabric B bag, inside out, and pull it on top of fabric A. It's important that that the right side of these two bags are facing each other. Then lastly, fit the lining (inside out or right side out, it doesn't matter) on top. You should have a big oven mitt like thing on your hand now. Poke your fingers into the boxy corners and try to get them all to match up.

7. Line up the raw edges at the top of the bag. If all the fabrics don't line up (mine never do) trim them so they do. Now sew all around the top of the bag.

8. Stick your hand through the hole we made in fabric A and pull out fabric B and the lining. Then stuff fabric B and the lining into fabric A. This is a little confusing to explain and weird the first time you do it, but it works I promise!

9. Iron the top edge.

10. Hand sew the hole in fabric B closed. It should be easy to make it straight and pretty much invisible because you can just follow where the basting stitches were. The best stitch to use for this is the ladder stitch.

11. Now for the strap. You should have three strap pieces--42inch by 2inches--one from each fabric. Stack them all on top on one another making sure the right sides of fabric A and fabric B are touching.

12. Lay the strap out flat. On the left side, on the bottom measure in one inch and cut from there to the end of the top edge. This just makes a pretty angled end to the strap. Do the right side, except measure in one inch from top and cut down to the end of the bottom edge.

13. Sew all around the strap, leaving about a foot wide opening in the middle of one side, so we can turn it out easily. You could also do the basting stitch trick here if you like. Turn that sucker out! You can use a chopstick, a pencil, a tweezers, whatever works, but be sure to poke the corners at the ends of the strap out. Iron it well after it's all right side out.

14. To sew the opening closed you can topstitch all around or hand sew it--it's up to you. If you want to topstitch it and want to match your thread to your fabrics, just put the one that matches fabric B in the bobbin and the one that matches fabric A on top. Then be sure to sew with fabric A side on top and you're good to go.

15. Now we're going to attach the strap to the bag! Place the strap so the pointed part is at the bottom edge and it is centered over the side seam.

16.  Starting about an inch from the top of the bag lay 5 buttons along the strap all the way to the bottom (about an inch before the angled bit begins). My buttons are 1 1/2 apart, but your bag might have turned out a little bigger or smaller, so just make sure they are evenly spaced.

17. Mark where all the buttons go. Then do a test run with your buttonhole attachment on your sewing machine.

18. You can see above I have my test buttonhole next to my strap (with the mark on it), so I know about where to start the buttonhole. When you hold your awesome bag all full up with awesome stuff the button will slide down to the bottom of the buttonhole, so keep this in mind for where you place the buttonhole in relation to the button. I hope this isn't horribly confusing--I'm trying to be extra clear so you don't have to rip out any buttonholes, because that's no fun.

19. Mark the buttonholes in the same way on the other side of the strap as well. Sew those buttonholes! You should have 5 on one end and 5 on the other. Carefully cut the buttonholes open. Pin the strap onto the bag and make marks through the buttonhole for where the buttons go. All the marks should all be on the side seam.

20. It's time to sew all those buttons on. Settle in on the couch with a needle and thread (and a podcast or two). You are going to sew two buttons at a time: they will be in the same place, but one will be on one side and one on the other. The awesome bag is reversible, remember? Start at the top and attach the first button with one stitch, then when you go through the fabric attach the button on the other side. This is a little fiddly, but it will cut your sewing time in half. When you are finished you should have 20 buttons sewn on!

21. Button your strap up however you like, on whichever side goes with the very cute outfit you have on today. Ta Da! you made The Awesome Bag. You are awesome!

Edited to add: It was brought to my attention that it isn't actually Anthropologie who makes the Primal Cuts dishtowel, but a very talented indie designer Sara Selepouchin. She sells her butcher's diagram dishtowels and many other amazing things at her shop, girls can tell. They are beautifully designed (the coffee one is my favorite) and professionally printed--definitely not a slap dash affair like mine.

Ellen asked me to do a little tutorial for her handMAYde month and I was happy to oblige.  There were some fabulous tutorials for weddings, babies, and kids, but this last week is for knock offs. Being the cheapskate that I am this was the week for me. I was perusing everyone's favorite store to knock off and saw these dishtowels:

Actually, last christmas I wanted to silkscreen a set of butcher diagram dishtowels for presents, but that meant learning how to silkscreen, so the idea kind of fizzled. Sadly, I still don't know how to silkscreen. I thought maybe freezer paper stencils would work, but then the images would loose a lot of detail. Iron on paper or ink jet transfer? Well then you'd have to find and buy supplies and wrestle with your printer. I wanted a quick and dirty project. So I went downstairs to my studio, rustled up some supplies and this is what I got:

to market, to market dishtowel:

a tutorial in 3 easy steps

materials:

• large embroidery hoop
• flour sack towel
• fine point fabric pen
• image to trace (2 copies)

This is the fabric pen I used and it worked surprisingly well. I haven't the faintest idea where I got it, but I'm guessing some crafty big box store. The flour sack towel I picked up at the grocery store a while back (3 for 5$). They shrink up a lot in the wash, so you should probably wash, dry and iron them before you start. The image might get all weird if you do it after.

directions:

1. fit your embroidery hoop on your towel where you want the image to go. Make sure to put the hoop on upside down--so the towel is right side up, but flat on the table.

2. Then just trace the image. I found it handy to have another copy of my picture  I could refer to as I traced. The flour sack towel is easy enough to see through, but it's nice to know exactly what the image should look like without picking the towel up to peek under it.

3. Heat set the image with your iron. And that's it! Quick and dirty--and pretty stylish too.

I don't know if you've seen what is going on at Grosgrain this month, but it's pretty amazing. Kathleen has asked bloggers from all over (me included!) to draw up a sewing pattern, so everyday until June you get a fabulous free pattern! All of this is working up to a new blog for Grosgrain and more free patterns--hers! If you haven't seen the amazing dresses she's made you are in for a treat and you will be just as excited as I am about making them.

see what I mean? and her kid's clothes? even better:

You can see all of her creations here. And you can check out my pattern for Knot Shorts while you are at it. Maybe even make some or at least put them on your list for KCWC. Do you have a list yet?