Loft32

Macaron <3

Please indulge me as I swoon over food for a moment:




I've always love macarons but they are so hard to find in my city. A little bakery made them during the summer but stopped so I was out of luck. Then I went into one of our grocery stores the other day and noticed they redid the bakery...low and behold MACARONS were there. In a vast variety of flavors, my favorite being the lemon.


Have you tried French Macarons before? Did you like them? Are they easy to find where you live?
I'd love to learn to make them and even have a book on them with recipes but I have heard how difficult they are do create so haven't bothered trying. I'll just buy them for now.  :)

Needle Cushion

If you are like me and sew multiple types of fabric you probably have various different sewing machine needles that get mixed up together in your pincushion.
Sure if you have great vision you can read the numbers on the side of the needle...OR you can make a needle cushion!


All you need is a scrap of linen fabric, some rubber alphabet stamps, and fabric ink.


I stamped knit and leather on my linen scrap since those are the two I interchange most frequently.
Then I cut the linen piece into two rectangles and sewed them together with two other linen prints from my scrap box. All in all I am really pleased how this came out and how useful it will be. I put my regular machine needles in the printed linen areas so it will be a quick change without having to dig around for the right needle package or trying to read what # is on the needle.  :)

Alabama Studio Sewing & Design Book Review

Alabama Studio Sewing + Design is my first Alabama book (she has 2 others) and I love it!! It's filled with great techniques and clothing projects. I have only made a couple of garments before and wish I would have had this book before attempting them.

Here are a few snapshots of the pages:

I love this tiered skirt and will definitely be making one in the future.


There are lots of photos and instructions on stenciling on fabric and beading fabric.

This is my favorite photo and biggest inspiration.

I have always wanted to bead fabric. I bought the supplies to do so a few years ago but never really knew where to go with it. The ideas this book gave me really started my creative thoughts. I immediatly went out and bought some cheap jersey to test the pattern on.


The tunic top turned out really well. The beading is taking forever though and I've been so busy I've only got half of one sleeve edge done so far.

Here is the beading detail. I hope to be done with this top in the next week. I have other projects up my sleeve.

:)

Thanks for visiting :)

~Staci

Patchwork Coaster Tutorial

Okay this really isn't rocket science for anyone that has sewn before but I am trying to show my friend an easy project to use her serger on soooooo here we go!


First gather your scraps (I am partial to Japanese prints for this to make them zakka style)
They can be any sized scraps to fat quarters but you want to cut multiple pieces out in squares or rectangles fairly close in size.


I have made many sets of patchwork coasters. Sometimes I use squares but with these I tried rectanges about 3x5. Next go round I want to try them really small and see how it looks.

Lay them out to try and space out the colors etc. You will be making one giant patchwork piece. Here I used 25 rectangles. The amount of pieces will depend on the size of pieces you are using and how many coasters you want. Since this set was for a person that lives alone I only made 4 coasters.


Start sewing together your rows. Once you are done with each row join them together. Don't worry about matching corners it won't really be noticable once you are done.


Now you need to cut a piece of batting and a piece of linen or other plain fabric the same size as your finished patchwork piece. We are quilting it!

I chose straight lines but any quilting would do.



Now you cut your coasters out. I cut out 6x6 squares.


Now serge the edges. If you happen upon this post and are making this and do not have a serger you could probably do a satin or zig zag stitch. If you do and it works (or doesn't) please let me know so I can edit this. :)



Now you have a nice little set of coasters. I would love to see how these look in modern fabrics like Flea Market Fancy or something..maybe next time. :)