Home Life

http://www.angelfire.com/planet/mcshelpsite/sewingstuff/freepatterns.html/ I’ve never seen so many free patterns in one place! 

http://sewing.about.com/od/freeprojects/Free_Sewing_Projects.htm About.Com’s Free Sewing Projects page

http://www.craftfreebies.com/sewing.html Many, many more sewing patterns

The above sites include patterns for children, dolls, babys, adults, objects, kitchen/bathroom/bedroom/home, and so much more.  I’m a woman on a mission, preparing for Christmas a bit earlier than usual this year because I want to sew a lot of my gifts (for my children and family and friends) and time for sewing is incredibly limited between homeschooling, raising three small children, taking care of my husband, trying to rest while pregnant, taking care of our home, gardening and running a busy business… But I am so inspired thanks to these links!  So many cool things I never even considered making, and things that I’d never buy, but if i can make them out of the fabric I already have, it may be worth making!

http://tipnut.com/35-reusable-grocery-bags-totes-free-patterns/

Grocery bags, all purpose carry bags, produce bags…  My favorite are #1 and #2 so far.

I was thumbing through one of my favorite country living books, Storey’s Basic Country Skills, and came across some great curtains for the country home.  These are great because they are #1 functional, #2 cute, and #3 Very easy to make.  I’m going to start on mine tomorrow I think - I need curtains on one of my windows and am just sick and tired of making simple straight curtains!  By the way, if you want really easy directions for making curtains I’ll include them here (how I did them, anyway).

To see tab curtains in action and how to make them, visit Here and Here.  If you shop at wal-mart, the one in Monroe has $1/yd fabric and I love their selection. 

To make basic, simple no-frills curtains you need to start off with your window measurements from the rod to the bottom of the window (or a few inches below it) and from side to middle (or a couple inches wider)

Cut your fabric according to those directions (you’ll need two peices), but be sure to add extra length and width for hemming.  If you plan to use these curtains from one room to another and mix them around a bit, make them long enough to fit your longest window, and just hem it up if you move it to a shorter window.  For a super wide window moving to a narrow window this idea may not work so well though, so keep width in mind.  Fold and press the edges, and fold and press again to hide the raw edge.  Sew the edges.  Then for the top you want to create your opening for the curtain rod by folding the top down a couple of inches and sewing again.  You can line the edges of your curtains with a color or pattern that compliments the main curtain color if you wish.  I did this by measuring my edges before folding the top down for the curtain rod, figuring out how wide I needed this strip of fabric including width to fold in the raw edge and press to keep it in place.  Then I lined the strip of fabric up with the edge of my curtain and sewed it on.

It’s live!  Finally!  I’ve gotten around to creating a resource website on the things my family and I do to ‘work with the land’ and save money.  It’s no where near done - I have a ton of articles I am still working on but felt I had enough content to put the site up.

http://www.motherhoodnaturally.com/homestead/home.htm is the link.  Bookmark it and check back often.  As I go through my day I keep getting reminded of things that might be helpful to add to there, so I add it to my list and when I have a few minutes to write it up, I will!

Let me know what you think!

Making Skirts

  I’ve looked at stores to see if I could just buy skirts because I felt that option would be much easier, but they are all so colorful, short, frilly, lacy at the store… Everything but what I’m looking for: straight, long, and simple.  In all honesty, making a long, straight, simple skirt is VERY easy, and will end up saving you a lot of money in the long run, especially if you buy your fabric on clearance (or better yet, try to find fabric at a garage sale. One year my husband bought me a huge box of fabric from a garage sale - years later I am STILL trying to work my way through it). 

Gather your fabric, a measuring tape, cutting board, marking pen, paper for the pattern and marker, sewing machine, thread and elastic… Let’s make a simple, long skirt!

Make your pattern

1. Measure the WIDEST part of your hip and add 8 inches.  You want the widest part of your hip - around the point of your hip and around your bottom.  Not where your waistline would be.

2. Measure the LENGTH of the skirt you want to make (your hem).  Add 3 inches.

3. Lay out some paper - tape a few pieces of paper together to start your pattern.

4. Divide the number of inches from #1 by Four.  This is the width and waistline for the top of your pattern.  Using your measuring tape, measure out the inches at the top of your paper you taped together.

5. Now drop your tape vertical down your paper from the end of your waist - measure out the length now and draw a line from your waist to your hem.  Mark your fold line along one side - this will be the side that you line up against the fold in your fabric. It will be helpful to mark “Cut Two” on your pattern because you will need two patterns cut to make your skirt.

6. Line your pattern up on the fold of your fabric.  Trace or go right to cutting the pattern. Cut two.

Now, it’s time to sew it together.

1. Once cut out, pin your skirt front and back together, so that it looks inside out.  You want the OUTSIDE of the skirt touching together, and pin the edges.

2. Using a 5/8in. seam allowance, straight stitch the sides together. 

3. Now finish your seams by zig-zagging the edges.  You can also just serge them together if you own a serger.

4. Fold in the top of your skirt 1/4 in. It is helpful to iron down your seams before you sew, to keep them in place.  Straight stitch down the middle of your seam. Remember you have two layers of fabric - only do one layer of fabric at a time (don’t sew them both together!) and also remember that the inside of your skirt is the side you want the edges of your seams to show - so be sure to fold UP and not UNDER when you are sewing on this layer.

5. Fold the top again about 1.5 inches and pin. This is where your elastic will go and you are creating a casing for it.  I suggest laying string as you pin, and once everything is pinned and sewn down, you can tie your elastic to the string and pull the elastic through the casing.  Once pinned, straight stitch around the waistline leaving enough space between your stitch and the fold, so your elastic can move freely.  Leave an opening.

6. Measure your waistline and cut elastic the same size.  Thread this through (helpful to tie to string and pull right through).  Stitch the elastic together.

7. Try your skirt on to be sure it fits well.  If it’s a good fit, stitch the opening closed.

8.  Now it’s time to work on the hem. It’s really helpful to have someone there to help you with this - or a full length mirror.  If you have someone there to help you, put the skirt on and have your helper mark where you want the hem.  Then take the skirt off, fold up the hem and stich 1/4in., and again to the length you want your hem at and straight stitch it.  If you don’t have someone there to help, sew your hem 1/4in., and take your skirt up to the length of hem you think you’ll want.  Hem it, and look at it in the mirror.  Make adjustments until you get the length you want, then straight stitch your hem.

All Done!

In the spirit of being environmentally-friendly with all of that gift wrap, why not wrap your gifts using fabric?  You can also make gift bags out of fabric, and they can be re-used again and again.

 Here is a link to making and folding your cloth gift wrap

http://layersofmeaning.org/wp/?p=325

Have you ever wondered how to lay out a sewing pattern?  Here is a nice tutorial. 

I’ve been busy sewing drawstring bags (for kid toys) cloth baby wipes, and dresses/skirts for myself and my girls.  I’ll be sewing up some pants and shirts for my son also - what are your sewing projects?

A skill I have been trying to get good at over the past few years has been sewing.  I started out sewing cloth diapers for my kids, and now have been working on clothing.  Some patterns are hard for me to understand, but I have a bunch of “simplicity” patterns that seem, well, quite simple.

My kids need summer clothing and PJs for the warm summer nights, and my husband and I just upgraded our bedsize and have leftover comfortable sheets  from our last mattress that I’m using to turn into clothing. The sheets are plain colors, so the kids clothes are plain but honestly what more do you need for general play and sleep clothes? 

I made my daughter a jumper last night, and it was very easy and looks nice.  She enjoyed it, because it was a dress (she loves dresses, skirts, jumpers, etc.).  Shorts and shirts are next.  I still have a bunch of cut out fabric that need to be sewn into diapers for our baby coming in August, and I am getting the urge to complete all of my open projects before the baby comes!

I found a great deal on fabric at a garage sale two years ago - a family was moving to Texas and the wife had a huge assortment of fabrics and it was going to be too heavy to move (they were flying I guess) so she wanetd to sell it, and I picked up all that fabric for $20!  I am still trying to use all of it. 

I believe you can save a lot of money if you buy fabric and notions on clearance or on sale, check garage sales and freecycle groups.  You can then turn this fabric into clothing for yourself or your kids, household items (tablecloths, handtowels, placemats, grocery/plastic bag storage, etc.), storage containers (I made a few hanging laundry baskets and also some drawstring bags for kid toys), bedding, anything you buy you can find a pattern for and make.  Many people believe the cost of fabric these days makes sewing your own clothing more expensive than buying new or used but I think with a good eye you can buy everything you’ll need for less. To get the most for your money, cut your patterns out with an eye on your entire peice of fabric and lay your patterns out to get the most from your fabric and save your scraps (the bigger peices).  You never know when you might need reinforcement underneith your top layer (and your reinforcement in most cases doesn’t have to match the outer layer), or might want to make a cute add on for another outfit out of fabric scraps you’ve saved. 

Do you sew?  what do you enjoy most?  What type of sewing level do you think someone needs to sew what you sew?