making bias tape

I'm sure I am WAY late to this party... I've been making sleep masks, which I like to edge with bias tape. I've been using store bought, but I made a mask with a scrap of beautiful brocade and the store-bought just looked too plain. To the internet!

I found this tutorial. I wish I had one of these neat little doohickeys that helps you fold the tape itself (or even better, this awesome simplicity one that does almost all of it for you), but I am both poor and impatient, so it's just me, the sewing machine, and iron meeting this challenge!

I'm sure this would have been easier using a lightweight fabric. I was using brocade to match my pretty sleep mask, and I wanted to try it out with a relatively small piece to be sure it would work, which meant my seams were awfully close together and probably made it harder to fold and press. Ah well. Who wants to do things the easy way??

FOllowing the tut, I made my little parallelogram,

Marked my cutting lines:

Cut my strips and sewed them together:

And then ironed away!

Here is the finished product, going onto the mask... it is a little uneven, but I am totally addicted and think I'll do better once I use a larger piece of fabric (which I think I"ll try pretty much now).

=

All Done!!

See it on Whipperberry!

more tiny sundress fun!

I can't stop. Seriously, what did I do before I knew about elastic thread?? I want to shirr everything that isn't nailed down!

I had this bit of eyelet lace; I'd tried to make a skirt with it several years before but it was frumpy, so it just sat in my scrap pile until the shirring bug struck. I cut a small rectangle, shirred it, folded the bottom up to make a bit of a belt area at the waist, and then gathered a slightly longer rectangle of the pretty eyelet bottom for the skirt. The ties are just folded over and sewn. I am thinking this may be for my niece Gracie's bday... she is a tiny faerie changeling girl so I am hoping it will fit, because it seems very small now that it's finished...

I need to start on my own sundress before this fever passes, but the tiny ones are so fun (and satisfying, since they are wee and take almost no time)!

I crafted, and now I'm writing about it! YAY!

I did it!

I have been eyeballing the smocked, tiered maxi dresses that I'm seeing everywhere... they look breezy and super comfortable and I WANT one! I have a beautiful sunny yellow sheet that I've been planning on remaking into a sun dress since last year, so this seemed like the perfect opportunity... I'd seen an awesome tutorial on shirring at Threadbanger and was READY. But then, last night, I dreamed about a tiny little-girl sundress made out of a tshirt. So that's what I did!

The smocking/shirring was really easy, though I really need to work on making my stitching a little straighter... Pretty much, I cut the arms and collar off of a men's large shirt, and cut the hem off. The top part of the shirt was thinner from cutting the arms off, so I cut it into a smaller rectangle. I then gathered the wider part from the bottom of the shirt and sewed it to the smaller rectangle to create the tiered look. Then I used my newfound shirring knowledge and smocked the top! I braided some scraps to make ties, and voila! Now I just need to pick a niece to give it to...

AAAH! A craft blog!!

I have been going back and forth about whether to start a craft blog of my own... I LOVE browsing some of the blogs out there and have been a little awe-struck and cowed by how amazingly talented my fellow crafters can be - both in crafting and blogging!

BUT. I need inspiration. I'm hoping that by starting one of my own, maybe I can stay on track, keep trying new things, and avoid the craft-lethargy I've been feeling lately. So, here goes!