Tag Archives: sewing

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Here is a great tutorial on the sorbetto top from Colette patterns which is a free download that you can get right here. This is a great pattern because it’s simple, chic and great for summer, which is sneaking up on us fast. If you’ve never printed out a PDF pattern before, it’s really simple. Just print the pattern and follow the triangles with letters to match up the corresponding pages and then tape and cut out at your correct size. This pattern already comes with great instructions but sometimes seeing it done makes life a lot easier so I hope you get inspired and make your own sorbetto.

First you will need 1 1/2 yds of either 44″ or 60″ fabric.

I chose a leopard print rayon fabric from Anna Maria Horner.

The you will either need 1 package of 1/2″ bias tape, bias tape by the yard or you can make your own bias tape, you will need 3 yards total.

First tape and cut your pattern.

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Cut your fabric out to the correct size.

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Then you will take the front piece and mark your darts and sew them. Press down.

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Now we are going to make the fun front pleat that gives this top such a fun look. Mark your fabric where the pleat is indicated on the fabric.

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Fold in half matching up the marks with fabric face out and sew a straight line down the center.

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Now press the pleat flat.

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Now with faces of fabric together take both the front and the back of the blouse and sew the tops of the straps and the side seems.

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Were almost done! Incredible right?… such a cute top in so little time!

Now press a 1/4″ hem at the bottom of the top and sew in place.

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Now on to the bias tape finish.

Unfold your tape completely and with the right side of the tape facing the right side of your top pin the tape into place all around the arm hole. photo1 2

Once its pinned stitch along the very top crease of the bias tape leaving a little bit of a gap with a tail of bias tape on each end to finish it off in place.

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once you reach your gap then sew the ends of the tape together leaving enough space to finish the arm hole, cut off extra and sew bias tape down all in place.  pho1to 4 ph1oto 5

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This technique gives you a great finished look to your garment without having to do a rolled hem.

Repeat the bias tape steps on the other arm hole and along the neck line, trim your threads and that’s it!

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This is a fun simple top to get creative with. Experiment with different prints and different bias tapes, or even add a fun lace trim or buttons to the front pleat!

I hope you all enjoy the sorbetto!

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Here is a great easy tutorial on how to make a cute skirt from a batik fabric that would make a great beach cover or fun summer skirt. All you need for this project is:

1 1/2 yds of fabric

about 2 1/2 yds of 3/8″ elastic

An iron, scissors thread and your machine… simple enough right?

I used a Robert Kaufman Batik fabric that is actually a made from rayon because I liked the way it draped.

First I cut my fabric in half along the 44″ width of the fabric giving me two pieces of fabric that were 44″ wide and 27″ long.  The 44″ side is the top and the bottom of the skirt.

First you want to sew the side seems of the skirt like so..

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Then after sewing both sides we will turn up the edge on the inside 3/4″ and press, repeat again so you have a clean hem, then sew

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After hemming your skirt we are now going to work on the waist band which is comfortable and cute!

First press down a 4″ flap just like you did with your hem except this time were not going to roll twice.

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Now we are going to stitch as close to the fold as possible to keep everything in place and to be the top of our band.

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No we are going to make 5 more stitches around but make sure to leave a 2″ gap to pull the elastic through on each stitch.

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The stitches do not have to be perfectly straight (they are going to get scrunched anyway) but just make sure they are each 1/2″ apart.

Now we are going to cut our elastic into three pieces that are all the same size and about 4″ smaller then your waist.

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Now feed your elastic through the casings starting at the top and hit every other one on the way down. I like to use a safety pin to push my elastic through but if you have a loop turner they work great for this too.

After you feed the elastic through sew the ends of the elastic together and then finish the stitching to the casing making it one whole seam.

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Make sure you stretch the elastic to get a straight seam here, I only had on hand because I was taking a picture but this should be tight, not gathered.

Then trim all your threads and pat yourself on the back because you just made an adorable batik skirt to strut around town, or the beach!

Happy sewing!!

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One of the best parts about working at Harts is seeing what becomes of the fabric that we sell. I love cutting fabric for customers and imagining what their projects will look like! We have so many talented and creative customers, it is always a treat getting to see pictures of their finished projects!

Many of our awesome customers have fantastic sewing blogs with pictures of  projects they have made using our fabrics. Here are just a few of our many talented customers and their crafty sewing blogs:

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Treasure Seeking is a fantastic blog run by Erin, recently she posted a tutorial for making a fabulous eco-felt wreath!

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A Good Wardrobe is a blog dedicated to what makes a good wardrobe and how to make one! This adorable top was made with our organic cotton/lycra Jersey!

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Queen of the Flies has an adorable blog filled with sewing projects and family fun. She recently made this amazing dress from one of our printed cotton voiles.

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Sweet Little Chickadee is a favorite blog of ours, Juli has made a few projects out of fabrics from us, our favorite is probably her hip tourist skirt, made from Japanese imported cotton/linen.

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Susie Homemaker, MD is a super cute blog with tons of awesome sewing project posts! Check out the recent post about the Sewaholic Lonsdale dress made with our Classica Flora Rayon Challis!

Do you have a sewing/crafting blog? We would love to see it! Be sure to leave a link in the comment section! Also, you can always share your project with us on our Facebook page, or by emailing your photos to us at customerservice@hartsfabric.com! We look forward to seeing all your projects!

 


Hey everyone! Thanks for joining us again for our last part of our Multitasker sewalong. We are in the homestretch and our bags are almost finished!

Last week we left off with Step 15, where we finished the “box corner” of our bags. We now have our interior and exteriors all prepared and sewn, and the next step is to sew them together. We will make sure our exterior is right side out, with our corners pushed out nicely, and we will insert it inside of the lining which is inside out. We will now make sure our edges are matched up and we can pin our pieces together. I found that if there were any parts that weren’t lined up perfectly, I’d just make sure my front center panels were lined up and that extra slack in my fabric would be made up on my pocket panels – because our pocket panels will be rouched when our bag is finished and the straps are in place!!


Floor Interfacing

In the picture above you can see our next step. We will take our two Floor Insert interfacing pieces and sew them together. I opted to get the single sided Pellon Peltex utlra firm instead of the double sided, so in this step I made sure I sewed the fusible sides out, so both sides are fusible and it acted like the double fusible!

This next step can feel like a little juggling act, we need to place our floor insert into the wrong side of our exterior piece. Make sure it is in nice and snug and if you need to, feel free to use any pins you need (just make sure you pin only to the exterior and not the lining!)

We will now maneuver the bag so the lining is inside, the exterior is out, and the floor insert is inbetween. We’ll do this by flipping our bag right side out through the opening of the lining. Once we’ve done this we will stitch up our hole in our lining, and set our floor lining in by ironing/fusing it to both our lining and exterior.

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Above you’ll see how we fuse the floor insert first to the lining, and below fusing the floor insert by ironing the exterior.
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Now that our lining is secured, we will topstitch the exterior and lining together from pocket to pocket, sewing only our center panels and not our pockets! :) Once we’ve done that we will fold down the tops of our pocket panels to create the pocketing for our straps. The diagram picture in Step 24, was a little funny to me, the V-shaped line of one of the creases didn’t really seem to make any sense, so I did what was written and what did make sense, and just fold down the tops, as you can see below. And then I pinned.

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STRAP TIME, WE ARE AT THE FINISHING LINEEEEE!!

Okay folks, we are almost finished. :) We now will take our strap pieces and sew them together, wrong sides facing eachother. Once we’ve sewn up both straps, we will flip them inside out! If you have a Loop Turner then this part will be very easy – I did not have a loop turner, and this step took me a few minutes of struggle!! Once I flipped the straps right sides out, I then ironed and topstitched them.

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Now that our straps are finished we are going to secure them to our bag. We will be sewing the strap ends to the center of the underside of our pressed pocket panel tab.

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This part confused me!!! I didn’t read the directions right and I sewed both the ends of the same strap to the bag, instead of sewing one end from each strap down! This was a funny seamripper alert!!

Once we have sewn down the straps to the bag, we will now fold the pocket panel tab down over our straps and topstich this down. And we will do this to both sides, and our straps will be fixed into our bag.

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In this step, I realized my straps seemed to bit just a tad bit wider than what I had given myself room to sew down. So as you can see in the picture above, I had to just fold the actual strap pieces down a little to give enough room to sew down the pocket panel tab nicely.

Now that we have done this….. WE ARE FINISHED OUR ANNA MARIA HORNER MULTITASKER TOTE!!!! YAYY!!!

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We are so happy that we could do this Sew Along together, and we hope that it was helpful and everyone had a great time sewing this bag. We look foreward to seeing the images you submit to us! And stay tuned to see who the LUCKY WINNER will be. Don’t forget to tell your friends and family to vote for your tote!

If you have any questions, feel free to send us a comment, email, phone call, or drop by~


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Easter is only 2 Sundays away, Yikes… that snuck up on us!

Here is a cute little easy Easter dress for a baby girl,  you just need simple supplies:

2 Fat quarters , or half yard of fabric

Elastic Thread, white or black depending on your fabric

4 buttons

Sewing machine, scissors, thread and a ruler

(it can be altered to make it for a girl of any age just use 1 or 2 yards of fabric instead of 1/2)

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First, Cut off the salvage edges and if you are using a 1/2″ yard of fabric, cut it in half so you have 2 fat quarters.

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Now Take both of your fat quarters and with right sides up measure  2″  inches in on the width of the fabric and cut, these will be the straps of the dress.Photo 2013-03-18 01.08.11 PMNow you will have 4 pieces of fabric that should look like this:

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Set aside your strap pieces for now, we will revisit those later. Now your will take the two other pieces and fold them in half with both of them together width wise, a hamburger… not a hotdog fold if that helps.

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Now on one edge opposite where the fold is measure in 3″, we are making the slope on the side of the dress.

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Mark your 3″ mark and use a straight edge to slop the line from your 3″ mark to the other side of your fabric like so:

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Now cut through all of your layers to make the slope

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Now you should have two identical pieces that look like this:Photo 2013-03-18 01.07.21 PM

Now we are going to prepare to do out sheering, which you shouldn’t be afraid of.. it’s ridiculously easy. The most annoying thing about sheering is that you have to hand wind the elastic thread on the bobbin. You don’t want to stretch the thread too much but you also don’t want it flopping on the bobbin, so use you best judgement on how tight you are winding it. it will look like this:

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Now just load the bobbing into your machine as you would a normal bobbin, my machine has a top loading bobbin but most machines should have no problem with elastic thread. Also don’t be afraid to consult your machine manual if you are having problems, most machine manuals have a section about sheering. Okay, now we are going to mark on our fabric where our sheering lines will go.  I did six lines of sheering on my dress, you can choose to do more or less it depends on the look you desire. Photo 2013-03-18 01.05.25 PM

I also stitched down the top hem of the dress, but I then go over this stitch with my shirring, I kind of use it as a guideline to keep my stitches straight.

Then go ahead and go for it and stitch your shirring in.  Make sure you stretch your fabric out as you go and the machine will do the rest.Photo 2013-03-18 01.05.15 PM

Always stitch with your fabric face up, because you want the elastic on the back and that’s where your bobbin thread will go. Repeat the shirring on both the front and back pieces of your dress, trim all your threads, attach the front to the back  and we will then move on the the hem. Photo 2013-03-18 01.05.10 PM

Now you can cut your dress to the desired length, it helps is you make it slightly curved so that you dress will lay better on the body. Photo 2013-03-18 01.05.05 PM

Now fold your hem, press and sew:

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Now for the straps! Yay! almost done

Take out your strap pieces and fold them in half with the wrong side of the fabric facing out, Turn them right side out Then sew and press with the seam in the middle.

Now measure the length you will need your straps, you can eye ball this or if you have the actual child handy you can measure from them. Cut the excess off.Photo 2013-03-18 01.04.47 PM Photo 2013-03-18 01.04.39 PM

Now fold the ends of the straps in and under and top stitch all around the strap.

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Now we can add our button holes.  I’m lucky enough to have a machine does a one step button hole, but you can read your manual to see how your machine does a button hole or you can op out of the button hole step and just sew the buttons and straps directly to the dress, you wont be able to change the straps from straight to cross or vice verse but you can still get the cute button hole effect.

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Repeat the button holes on all 4 ends of the straps and then sew the buttons on the top of your dress. Attach the straps to the buttons and TA DA! Cute little Easter dress!!

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Enjoy,  Happy Easter and Happy Sewing Everyone!!