Tutorial: No Sew Fabric Rosette Broach

It's official, fall has finally arrived in the Alaskan interior.  The leaves are yellow and covering the ground.  The temperature has been consistently below 60 degrees and its been raining a lot.

The upside to all of this is that it's time for the cardigans that I love oh so much! I'm especially digging the ones I've been seeing in stores these days.

My closet is already full of cardigans, but they are all rather plain Jane.  So my wheels started turning...why not just spice them up a little? Armed with inspiration I set out to remedy this "situation".

 

Fabric Rosette Broach

What you will need:

6 - 1" strips of fabric of varying lengths

1 piece of felt (about 10x10) cut in half

2 safety pins

hot glue gun

1. Start by creating your rosettes.  Make a few different sizes.

**Little Birdie Secrets has a fantastic tutorial**

 

2. Place your newly created rosettes on one piece of the felt. I like to lay them out the way I'll be gluing them down.

3. Glue them down using your hot glue gun.

 

4. Cut away the excess felt with some scissors.

5. The other piece of felt is used to add stability to your broach.  Cut two sets of small holes in the second piece of felt so that the back of your safety pins will slide through like the image below.

6. Glue your second piece of felt to the back of your broach (safety pins facing out) and cut away the excess.  Take care not to accidentally glue the safety pins down as they need to move freely for pinning ease. 

And WA LA now you have a super cute broach!

  


I intend to add a little spice to the rest of my cardigans and already have plenty of ideas up my tiny sweater sleeves:~)

Jazzing it up!

I have been meaning to make a new ironing board cover for some time now. Mine is old and boring. At one point I thought about just buying one.  There are so many very pretty ones over at etsy.  But then I found this tutorial over at Sew4Home and decided to go ahead and make one:~) Plus there is fabric over at JoAnne's that I LOVE and haven't had a project suitable for it.  Now I do.

  

I used my original cover as my template.  Since it was getting replaced (and it was old and ratty) I had no problems cutting it up.

 

This project was super quick and easy.  I added 5 1/2" to my template.  For the wider part of my ironing board it was perfect. However, for the skinner top part it was a bit much.  But I think it turned out pretty well.  What do you think?

 

Making it bigger and adding some detail

My mom sent me a few items of clothing that my sister no longer wanted.  Among those items was a top from Hollister. Sadly it was a little snug, then again I'm no longer a super skinny 20 year old either.  But I just loved the color and the neck line. So I figured I'll just make it fit:~) I went to Joanne's and picked up a fat quarter for $1.99 in a print that complimented the color of the shirt nicely.

Again my trusty scissors assisted me this project.  I cut off the sleeves, up the sides of the shirt, and straight up the middle about half way. I forgot to take a picture of the shirt in the beginning yet again, but here it is after I cut it up.

I cut two 2" strips for the sides and a triangle for the back from the fat quarter.  I hem stitched the bottoms of all of them to match the existing hem of the shirt and then sewed 'em on.  I left the edge of the sleeves raw and used a decorative stitch to give it a some what finished look. It was super simple for the most part.  The only place I had any issues was sewing on the top of the triangle on the back of the shirt.  The jersey knit fabric of the shirt just didn't want to cooperate. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. 

 

You can see the sides in this picture a bit better.

 

A Duvet fit for a King

I finally finished the new duvet for my king size bed.  It was super easy and a super pain in the butt! The thing was so big I had absolutely no place in my house to lay it out.  Some how I managed to make it work and I would do it again because that is how in love with the fabric I am.  Plus it only cost me about $60 and with duvet covers running about $120, thats a bad deal.

So 12 yards of fabric, two JoAnne's coupons, 3 hours of my life, and 7 hammer on snaps later, here is the finished product.......

(Please excuse my wrinkled bed.  I tried my best to iron out all of the wrinkles, but have you ever tried to iron a king size duvet.....it is not a easy task.)  So now that that is finally finally finished its on to sweet talking my wonderful hubby into helping me make head and foot boards:~)