How to Make Continuous Bias Strips

First cut off a 1/2 yard straight piece of fabric. Unfold it so you have your selvedge edges on either end of the long strip. Fold one corner till it is even with the bottom of your rectangle, you will cut here on the fold. Now you are left with this:

Next take your triangle selvedge edge and place with the selvedge edge on the other side, the shape will look like this:

Sew these right sides together and press open your seams. Next you will draw lines parallel to the slanted edges of your fabric on the wrong side. Decide how thick you need your strips of bias to be. I have thick rope so I used 2 inch lines. The long straight top and bottom will be a seam so I marked off 1/4 inch seam allowances, this will help you match up your lines later.

Next you will need to bring your long edges together starting with the first parallel line you drew (on your long edge) meeting up with the second parallel line you drew at the edge on the bottom. IF THEY ARE NOT STAGGERED THEN YOU WILL JUST BE CUTTING OUT USELESS RINGS OF FABRIC.  Ask me how I know this? LOL

So you see you have a twisted mobious looking tube here. It will have tails of fabric on either end because we staggered the lines. It looks all screwed up I know but just trust me and go sew your seam.  Press it open using a pressing sleeve.

Now comes the moment of truth! Take your scissors and start at one end cutting through a single layer of fabric round and round through your yards of bias strips.

Ta da you did it!

Now you can make bias tape, or piping, trim etc.

Cats to Cushions

DIY Chair Cushions

Thought I would share with you some pictures of my redecorating journey.  As you all know I moved to California 3 years ago from Pittsburgh.  Recently my husband and I decided we will be staying put here in California for quite sometime (most likely permanently).

So my Victorian red decor was just not working in my spanish style mediterranean house that has all white walls. We are just renting at the moment so I have no desire to paint.  To purge the old Pittsburgh and embrace our new life here I decided to decorate my place with a beach theme.

Here are a few pics of what I have done so far. I am bringing in blue hues, especially aqua which happens to be my favorite color!

This whale is so cute!!!

Octopus cast iron pot holder for my kitchen.

So getting to the title of this post….see these wicker covered dining room chairs?

I recently got rid of the chair cushions and gave them away as they didn’t go with my color scheme and wicker is perfect for beach theme!! My chairs already have a blue distressed finish on them along with my new dining room rug this room is done!! Or is it? Turns out wicker is the perfect scratch pad!!

My little lion 🙂

AHHHHHHH so either the cat gets declawed (450 dollars) or I make new chair cushions (75 dollars to make all 6, or 20 bucks a pop to buy decent new ones!) hmmm which one would you choose lol. My kitty occasionally gets outside so I would hate for her to not have her nails if she so needed them.

I sent my husband this picture from Jo-Annes and asked him which fabric he liked.

We choose this fabric, along with yards and yards of rope to make piping, also I will be doing covered buttons, I already had some white cotton fabric to make the piping for these cushions. I have 6 to make ugh! This will take precious time away from my drafting courses. lol

But look I put the courses to good use already. I made a template of my chair seat and turned that into a pattern complete with notches, awl punches and grainlines lol.

First off I made yards and yards of my own bias tape and turned that into piping.  I will make a post of how I did that soon. I also made the tie backs for the chairs. This material is an indoor outdoor polyester, thick canvas material. It has been treated for sunlight and stains and is quite stiff. What was I thinking I could turn these little tubes! HA I think not! So I just folded in the raw edges and sewed close to the fold on one side.

So I cut out one cushion I used 1 1/2 inch seam allowance and it was way too roomy. There is always so much anticipation before turning a project right!

My template also needed 1/4 inch shaved off to get that perfect fit. I then changed my seam allowances on the fabric to 3/4 inch. I have 1 inch thick pile batting for the cushions. I also changed my placement for the ties in the back of the chair they were a bit too spread out.

After those changes I am satisfied with the fit! I started to add the covered buttons too! One cushion down 5 more to go lol

PS  did I ever mention I hate hand sewing??? 4 buttons per cushion and closing the hole where I turned them ugh!

 

“Frozen Movie” Cookies

I used to do a lot of cake and cookie decorating with my best friend Jennifer from Pittsburgh. I recently started taking a mini course on cookie decorating and learned all sorts of cool and crazy things.

One of the things I thought was so nifty was that you can stamp a cookie with a regular stamp and food coloring as a decoration.  Coolio, how come I didn’t think of that!! So it got me thinking about winter theme cookies and snowflakes which lead me to think about trying out this stamping-cookie-thing so voila……

 

I also tried my hand at brush embroidery, these are a bit quirky, but it is my first attempt 🙂

Alright so how to make these stamped cookies…..

You will need….

• baked cookies in any shape you’d like I made sugar cookies with a bit of lemon zest thrown in to make them extra yummy.
• regular stamps (brand new never used, you will be using food safe dye for your “ink”
• uninked ink pad if you can find it! (I couldn’t find any so I bought a small hand-held one that was never inked)
• Wilton or other brand food coloring
• brand new palette for your food coloring
• royal icing if you so desire a border to make it extra fancy
• I used shimmery type edible flakes to add some glimmer to the snowflake
• flood icing

Directions:

Take your baked cookie and apply the flood icing. This needs to dry solid (overnight) or when you go to stamp your cookie the icing will crack and depress where it is not yet dry. Trust me I was impatient and tried it. Wait 24 hours to be safe.

Next you will add your food coloring to your palette and add a bit of clear vanilla extract or vodka. Mix well with toothpick. Dab your paintbrush or sponge into “ink” (AKA food coloring) blot your stamp with the color, I suggest you try it on some plain paper first to make sure you have the consistency of the color just right 😉

Once this dries you can add a border as I did, more piping for 3 -D affect and sprinkle on some of the glittery shavings

Ta-Da:

 

My Progress with Feliz Overdress

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE,  the way this is turning out! It is so fun, flirty and girly 🙂

I used the double back sticky tape that is pressure sensitive and will keep all my embellishments in their place untill I topstitch them.

I  added bright pink piping in the seams. All these colors  will complement the underdress which is my dark chocolate fabric with all the colorful kitty cats on it.

For the hem I am going to make bias tape and use it on the bottom of the overdress for that final punch of color. I also made the ties out of my kitty cat fabric to add more color and crazy fun 🙂 I contemplated some colors here for the trim and decided on the pink. I also ironed my flowers in place I am pretty happy with their placement.