Suburban Belle

I’m hemming pants for my short husband which makes for a totally uninspiring post but look at this cool littl deal I got a few weeks ago. It’s a hem guide and it’s magnetic so I can stick it to the needle plate and go. I love it for sewing wider seams because I often forget which guide line I was trying to follow. This saves my brain the trouble. I bought it at Atlanta Thread for a couple of dollars. You should get one, too!

I’ve seen these floating around the interwebs for quite awhile now, and I’ve been wanting to make some from the first time I saw them. I finally got around to it the last few days. Love, love, love how these turned out.

For the larger one, I cut out letters with my new-to-me Cricut (gifted to me by the awesome cousin Elena again!). I used directions I found on the Cricut message board to cut fabric. It worked pretty well…would have worked better on chunkier letters, probably, but they were usable, for sure. I hand-stitched the individual triangles together and added buttons, rick rack, and tulle for dimension. Each triangle is a sandwich of two pieces of vintage cotton woven with a layer of Warm and Natural batting in the middle.

For the smaller one, each triangle is a layer of vintage cotton woven backed with Warm & Natural. I put eyelets in each top corner to thread rick rack through for hanging.

My husband has a super cool cousin whom I was fortunate enough to get to spend some quality time with recently. Elena (the fairy princess in residence at Scrapbook Royalty) was so fun to have around and was a huge inspiration. She suggested I make some scissor covers for her scrap booking friends. She’s so full of good ideas. I love her.

This is what I came up with. I love these little cute scissor sheaths. They each have a matching snap-on charm to attach to your scissor handle so you can identify your pair.

The first batch sold out right away, but I have more on my sewing table and hope to list them on Etsy early next week.

…Suburban Belle on Facebook! “Like” us HERE.

Thanks to everyone who has already joined the group.

Looking for a great stash buster for the Dollar Store Crafts April Stash Busting Challenge? Looking for Lots Of Capitalized Words? I Have Both.

I love this project. It’s an excellent way to use up scraps of fabric that aren’t big enough to make a complete item from by themselves. It’s also a really fun way to showcase bits of those favorite fabrics you are hoarding because you love them too much to use up the whole piece. I know I can’t be the only one who has that particular neurosis.

So anyway…let’s start by making the pattern. For this one, I wanted to make a skirt to match a onesie I appliqued, so I just made the skirt about 1/3 wider than the onesie to allow for gathering. For the larger size pictured in some of the photos, I had measurements (waist & length) and added about 1/3 again to the waist measurment. Choose how much flare you want in your A-line, and don’t forget to add extra length at the top for a casing and at the bottom for hemming. *I-Learned-the-Hard-Way-Tip*: Cut the casing seam allowance out at an angle so when you fold it down, you have enough width to fit the flare of the skirt. If you cut it straight or continue the A-line line the casing will be too short and the skirt will pucker at the top to fit. Not a huge deal since it’s a gathered skirt anyway, but if you plan ahead, you can avoid that.

Cut out two pieces of your base skirt fabric, with straight side on the fold.

Next, choose your ruffle fabrics and cut strips. For this step, you will thank the powers that be for inventing the rotary cutting system. If you don’t have one, save your pennies and buy a mat and a rotary cutter. Oh, and a big ruler. I wouldn’t try this with a standard school-supply ruler. [I didn't have a rotary cutter until about a year ago and I seriously don't know now how I managed so long without one. It's my favorite thing ever, now.]

Cut strips all the same width, varying widths, stepped widths, it doesn’t matter. I try to make strips that are approximately 1.5 times the length of the total skirt width. (So if my skirt has a finished circumference, my ruffle strips are approximately 30 inches long, maybe a bit longer.) Lay them out on your skirt piece and arrange until you achieve the desired look. For a full-ruffled skirt, I overlap the ruffles about 1/4 inch. For the tiny baby skirt, I only put 4 ruffles and spaced them out. Mark the placement with a mark at the top edge of the ruffle strip. (If you have a lot of ruffles of different fabrics, you might want to snap a picture with your cell phone so you don’t forget which order you wanted them in).

Draw guide lines for attaching the ruffles with chalk or fabric marker; repeat on other skirt piece.

Sew up one side seam. Finish the seam by whatever method you choose. In this tutorial, all seams will be serged. Hem the top and bottom edges. I used a rolled hem on my serger, but you can fold, press & topstitch or cut with pinking shears or whatever.

Hem both sides of your ruffle strips (rolled hem again, here). Start gathering. Here’s something fun to try for gathering. It works for me. Set your sewing machine to the highest tension (9 on mine) and longest stitch length (5 for me) and it should gather automatically. Saves a TON of time if it works for you. Otherwise, run a basting stitch and hand gather the ruffles.

Attach ruffles to skirt, placing the top edge along the line and stitching down. At this point, the skirt is still open. It’s much easier to sew the ruffles to a flat piece of fabric than to a circle. You can do it the hard way if you want though, and it would probably look a little bit nicer, but for me, the time savings is worth the slight loss of aesthetics that happens by having the ruffles sewn down in one spot. /sewingconfessions

Match the open side seam, right sides together, lining up ruffles as best as you can. Sew side seam and finish.

I like to thread the tail end of serger threads back up into the seam for a really nice finish. Use a yarn darning needle with a big hole. *I-Learned-the-Hard-Way-Tip*: If you accidentally cut the thread off too short, you can stick the needle in the seam first and then thread it and pull it through.

Fold down and press your casing allowance.

Stitch closed close to the bottom edge, leaving a small hole open for inserting the elastic. Thread elastic through, stitch ends together, tuck them up inside the casing and finish sewing the casing shut.

And done! Admire your handiwork and take some pictures to show the rest of us, please!

They are done! Now that I have two unpredictable children, projects seem to take 2-3 times longer than I expect. You would think I would get a clue and readjust my expectations, but I remain optimistic. Unrealistcally so.

Oh well. Here they are. I mainly used scraps of fabric I knew would appeal to a 3 year old boy, so they aren’t as matchy and pretty as I would like, but that’s not really the point of this exercise.

I used the Little Fishies Undies pattern by Bonnie at Fishsticks Designs.

Currently under my needle: “practice underwear” for Mr. T. He was confused by the term “training pants”. He kept looking at them asking where the train was. I love three year old brains.

Here are the pieces all cut out. I just used scrap knit to blow through some of my smaller pieces.

Two down, eight to go.

Maggies first birthday hat, originally uploaded by suburbanbelle.

Vintage fabric, new trim. Constructed by sewing. No hot glue involved.

This is possibly the best steak marinade ever. Let me tell you how good it was: we used it according to the directions…marinated the meat, then used extra to pour over the steak after it was cooked…and there was still a little left over. As I was cleaning up the kitchen after our meal, I couldn’t help myself. I was dipping my finger in it for another taste. Then I switched to bread and used the marinade as a dipping sauce. So delicious. Try this at your early possible convenience.

Here is the recipe as given to us from our friend Danny, with his notes. I don’t think it’s his original recipe, but he didn’t cite a source.

Danny’s Steak Marinade

1/2 cup soy sauce
1/3 cup vegetable oil
2 tablespoons dark brown sugar
1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
4 medium cloves garlic, minced or pressed through garlic press (use fresh garlic)
2 tablespoons minced fresh chives
1 1/2 teaspoons ground black pepper
2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar

Directions:

1. Combine Soy, Oil, Sugar, Worcestershire, Garlic, Chives, and Pepper in medium bowl. Remove 1/4 cup marinade and combine with Vinegar in a small bowl; set aside.

2. Place remaining marinade and steaks in ziplock bag or dish. Make sure meat is covered most of the way in marinade. Refrigerate for an hour and flip steaks half way through.

3. Remove steaks from marinade and grill as desired. Make sure to discard the marinade that the raw meat was in.

4. Transfer cooked steaks to a pan and poured the reserved marinade that was put aside over the top. Cover dish with aluminum foil and let sit for at least 10 min.

(I usually double or tripple the batch to actually get enough marinade. The given amount is only enough for a small portion of steak. Also instead of removing the 1/4 cup and setting it aside, I usually just make another batch with the balsamic vinegar in it.)

Merry Christmas!, originally uploaded by suburbanbelle.

I just got done counting approximately 10,000 teeny, tiny snap pieces for a group buy I ran. My eyes are crossing and my shoulders are killing me. At one point, I looked down at the studs I was counting and they were in this great Christmas tree shape. Cool, huh?