Zakka Sewing Book

I may have mentioned my awesome friend Susan before; in her regular awesome manner she sent me a great book for Christmas called Zakka Sewing.  Zakka projects are functional objects to use in the home, meant to add an element of style and individuality to the environment.

Susan sent the book in this super cute bag she made!

We both love the "shabby chic" style, but Susan is more successful at it than I am; it's hard for me to let go of finished edges and 90-degree angles!  She knows I love pink, and hearts; look at how fun and raggedy this heart is!

Okay...getting back to Zakka Sewing...I decided to choose one of the 25 projects in this book to make and show you.  Here's what I made:  the "Flower Corsage Pincushion".  It is a wrist pincushion meant to resemble a wrist corsage.  Mine looks just like the picture in the book--success!

My one complaint with this project is that the flower patterns in the book are not full size; the directions tell you to enlarge them on a copy machine by 200%.  Well, I'm at home in my pajamas, and my scanner doesn't enlarge like a copy machine...so with a lot of scanning, editing and printing, I finally got the flower patterns to approximately the right size (the larger one is about 3" across, and the smaller one is about 2 1/2").  Would it have killed them to include full-size patterns???

After tracing the flower outline onto the fabric, you are supposed to cut it out and then sew around the edges (which are left raw).  Since I'm always thinking, I decided to sew first and then cut out the flower.  It was quick and easy this way.

Here's the flower, it's almost done!

After making the flower, you make the wrist band; that part is very straight-forward.

Sewing it all together (by hand) took a little figuring out; you layer the flower and wrist band with a felt circle and a plastic disc (cut from a milk carton or a random lid) and blanket stitch it all together on the bottom.  The stuffing is actually inserted here, underneith the wrist band (which seemed weird, but it works out okay).

 I have never used a wrist pincushion before, and I am super excited about this one--it is so cute and feels so nice when it's on (it's just like a fabric bracelet) that I hope I will use it a lot!  Once I got past the pattern-enlarging issue, it went together quickly; there is no interfacing or anything tricky, and I had all the materials on hand (you probably do too).  I can see that this will be a perfect little "extra" to add to future craft swap packages on Craftster!

There are several more projects I would like to make out of this book, and I plan to show you at least one more.  Which one will it be--the bunny pencil case, the slippers, or the sashiko pouch?

Fabric Flower Tutorial

There's been a request for a tutorial on the fabric flowers I used on the "example" journal cover for our swap on Craftster, so here ya go!  (And you can find the tutorial for the journal cover if you click right here!)

This is the original journal cover.  I will use a similar color palette for this tutorial because I like it so much!

This is what my finished flowers will look like in this tutorial. 

1.  Start by choosing your fabrics.  Even though the flowers are "scrappy" and have raw edges, careful color choices make the difference between something awesome and something so-so.  Each flower will be made of two fabrics, but you could use more, so I gathered together the ones I thought looked best together; I didn't actually use all of them, though.  It's better to start with more than enough, and eliminate extras as you go along.

2.  Start cutting.  There are two circles that go under the group of flowers; the larger (black) one is 4" across; the smaller (turquoise) one is 3 1/2" across.  I cut them with pinking shears and will leave the edges raw.  The sizes don't have to be exact, so if you have something circular that you can trace around (a jar, a spool of ribbon) that is a little bigger or smaller, that's fine.

Each individual flower will be sewn to a base, and I used cheap, non-wool felt for mine.  Cut them approximately 2 1/2" across for the large flower and 1 1/2" across for the small flowers. These will not be seen, so your circles don't have to be perfect.

Free-hand cut two leaf shapes.

Your fabric strips should be about 2" wide (a little more or less will work fine).  Total length for the large flower is about 20", and for the small flowers about 15".  (I'm really just estimating here, but it is easy to add strips to your flowers, so don't worry if you come up short.)

3.  Make your first flower:  tie a knot in the end of the fabric strip that will be the center of your flower.  You can fold the edges in, or let them show (even if you fold them in, some edges will end up showing).

Sew the knot to the center of larger felt circle with a few stitches.  Then, twist the strip and start sewing it down around the knot. Continue twisting and sewing the strip, stitching it every half-inch or so.

When you are ready to add your second fabric, cut the first strip and tuck the cut end underneith.  Don't knot the second fabric, just tuck it under too, stitch it in place, then start twisting and stitching it until the felt circle is completely covered.

When the felt is covered, tuck the fabric underneith and stitch in place.  Done!  Here's the front:

Here's the back--this side won't show, so it's okay if it's messy:

4.  Sew the remaining flowers the same way. For the journal cover, I stitched the leaves and flat circles on the sewing machine, then I used fabric glue to anchor the flowers, but you could hand-sew them down around the perimeters.  In this picture they are not yet sewn or glued (because I haven't decided what to put them on yet!)

  That's it!  You can use these flowers in lots of ways--on a headband, on the front of a tote bag, on a t-shirt...let me know if you do something else with yours!