Saturday Social - Pillow Talk

Our favourite tutorial from around the web this week comes from the super talented Cluck Cluck Sew. I love this bold, graphic, applique project which is great for using up small scraps of fabric. It is described as a "Fall" pillow, but you could easily turn it into a spring or summer pillow just by changing the colour of the fabrics you use for the leaves. Find the tutorial here.

The Saturday Social - Sewing Fabric Friends

Our Saturday Social project today from Sew4home features these beautiful fabric animals.  So dig out all your tiny fabric scraps and get sewing.

Saturday Social - Leather Notebook Cover

With the introduction of genuine leather hides into our shop. I thought that this week's Saturday Social should give you all a taster of some of the lovely things that you can make with this amazing material.

So today's tutorial is from Squidoo and is an in depth look at how to make a leather journal cover. 

Here are some more leather projects you could try...

Cool Leather Necklace by Wanted Again - Find out how to make it here 

This cute leather corsage would look great on a handbag or worn as a brooch.

Or if you are feeling very crafty this chair is rather fabulous - though it would take more than one leather hide to make.

Hopefully this has inspired you to start creating - all you need now is the leather - find it here and here.

Doggy bag

Well, Easter is over and the bunting from the royal wedding has been taking down. It is back to reality after all those lovely bank holidays. Here is a cute little bag that I made last week...

Embroidered Eggs - No, really!!!!

No, this is not a late April fool.

Check out this Design Sponge tutorial for the ultimate Easter project.

Despite it's undoubted wonderfulness, with my limited free time this Easter holiday - I'll think I'll stick to chocolate eggs.

Tote-ally Tweet!

Yes, I should firstly apologise for the awful pun-tastic title...it won't happen again.
Moving swiftly on. A couple of weeks ago I reviewed Martha Stewart's Encyclopedia of Sewing and Fabric Crafts and this sweet little wren embroidery pattern is one of the many bird patterns from that book. I embroidered the design onto plain white linen (possibly the quickest embroidery project ever) and turned it into the focal point of this tote bag. I should say that I was lucky enough to work on the embroidery while sat next to a waterfall in Wales on a very warm day - so this piece will always have happy, sunny memories for me.
The side panels and handle fabric was chosen to match the embroidery thread I used (even though I chose the embroidery thread colour as it was the nearest to hand - must plan better in future). A tote bag is a great, quick project for smaller remnants (and is very eco-chic too). You can make a straightforward bag out of half a metre of fabric, or even patchwork much smaller pieces together to create a one off masterpiece. I didn't use a pattern for this tote (can you tell?), but if you would like one - this one from Skip to my Lou is great.
Don't forget as well as adding embroidery to your tote, you can print/paint your own designs, add buttons and ribbon or applique something fabulous on the front. Happy sewing xx

The Saturday Social - Embroidery Basics

Welcome to the Saturday Social (Designer Remnant's favourite tutorial from around the web).

This week we have found this fantastic online course from Mollie Johanson at Wild Olive. The photographs are beautiful and clear.

The course, so far (it is an ongoing course) has covered fabric and thread selection, what needles to use, basic stitches, transferring patterns and colour selection.

It has really helped with my latest project...

My Mexican day of the dead embroidery is coming along great guns (pattern is from Urban Threads where you can find the coolest hand embroidery patterns to download for $1 each).

So if you fancy giving embroidery a go, or you just need a refresher course - check out Embroidery Basics and you'll be embellishing every bit of fabric you own in no time at all.

Have a great Saturday!!