embroidery hoop wall art- tutorial

 I love the idea of displaying your favourite pieces of fabric in your home as cushion covers, curtains and as wall art. A simple (and inexpensive) way of doing this is by using wooden embroidery hoops. These can be found in places like Spotlight and Lincraft, but more cheaply on Ebay.

Here is an example of embroidery hoop wall art I found over at ohdeedoh.  I love the quirky combination of fabrics and the way they frame the mirror.  

After being inspired, I decided to try and make my own embroidery hoop wall art as a gift for a friend's birthday and thought a little tutorial might help to illustrate just how easy it is.

Materials:

1. embroidery hoop, any size you like 
2. cute fabric
3. fabric fray stop (optional)

First, take the inside ring of your embroidery hoop and place it over the area you would like to feature in your frame.

Cut around it generously. I used a rotary cutter and left about 1 inch. this enables you to stretch it more easily and get it into the exact position you want.



place inside ring on fabric, cut around it generously

 

Put the fabric over the inside ring and pop the outside hoop on top. Position the fabric and tighten the knob until the fabric is taut between the two rings. You will probably need to pull it at various points around the ring to smooth out some of the 'bubbles' that appear.



 stretch the fabric taught with your fingers

 

When you're happy with it, trim the excess fabric from the ring close to the hoop edge. At this point, I also ran some fabric fray stop over the fabric edge, but I guess you could also use some thin tape to cover it up.

trim fabric close to the edge

Attach a piece of ribbon or twine at the top for hanging and you're done!
 You can customise them for anyone's taste which is nice. My friend likes all things cute and Japanese. I hope she likes them!

embroidery hoop wall art ready to hang!

I am looking forward to making some for myself! Happy crafting! x

ruffled singlet experiment

I am a big fan of girly ruffles. They look cute on tops, layered in skirts and they never seem to go out of fashion. I  like that ruffles can be worn casually with a cropped little cardi or dressed up with some cute pearls and a hair flower. I hope they never go out of vogue!

Recently I stumbled across Ruffles and Stuff and was inspired by Disney's way of re-fashioning clothes and jewellery using ruffles, pearls and all things girly. She has put up some lovely tutorials for a variety of projects, but I decided to test my sewing skills and try to make a ruffled embellishment for one of my plain and boring singlets without help.

Here are the results:

I am happy with how it turned out, even though I ran into some issues. I forgot the cardinal rule of ruffling- make sure you have enough length as the fabric will bunch up when it's gathered. Duh.
Anyway, I managed to fix it and get it to a state where I would be happy to wear it.

The middle piece is a fabric I adore and have been sitting on for 6 months trying to work out how I can use it. I found the lovely lace at Spotlight and I like the way it ties it together.

Next time, I'll make longer ruffles with lots of gathers so they pop out. I'll also experiment with different trims like ribbon and buttons to see what other looks I can create.

Stay tuned for a tutorial on how to add a cute little ruffle to your own boring singlet.

Yay for ruffles!

Angry birds are go! Part 3

The adventures in Angry Birds costume making continues with some exciting developments. I completed one bird successfully (without the usual accompaniment of swearing/tantrums when I am trying something new) and had fun trying on the costume and dancing around like a lunatic.

The boys were happy with the results, so this week i'll be madly sewing the other two before they all come over on Sunday to help with the finishing touches.

Now I don't want to give it all away before the festival, but I will include a few pics of the sewing process captured by Karl as it came together last week.

Carefully sewing....

concentrating....

'Argh! I should have sewed this part earlier!'

Next episode... The final results!