Reuseable Swiffer Sweeper Pad

My husband is obsessed with Swiffers. I don't know why. I don't even think he's used one before. But ever since we got married he's begged me to buy one. Four years later I found a coupon for $5 off, so I caved and bought him one. I never wanted one because it only does a good job on wooden floors (only in our kitchen and bedroom), it's not really for sweeping, just for cleaning up dust and you have to buy those replacement towels every time you use it. What a waste of resources and money!

I must admit, it works better than I expected. It removes the dust from wooden floors pretty easy. So I decided to use a fraying towel to make a reusable Swiffer pad. This isn't really rocket science. You could just use any rag that was big enough, but I'm OCD, I need one the right size.

 Supplies:
Old towel

Cut off the top of the towel right down to the accent line (if you don't have an accent line, don't worry about it)

This is the line I'm talking about. Also can you see why this towel became a scrap? I thought name brand towels would have lasted longer... Oh well, won't buy them again! Cut a square 9 inches by 11 inches, with the decorative line across the 11 inch side. You can cut as many as you want (I did two, because I wanted a spare if the first one is already in the laundry).

Zigzag (or surge) around the edge of the towel, and you're done! The reason I like having the decorative line across the top is for ease of gripping when you push it into the holding compartments of the Swiffer.

See how nice it fits into place? Now you're ready to dust off your wooden floors. So have at it! Or you can come do my house. I don't dust anything nearly as much as I should.

Friendship Square

The friendship square (above) also uses the Triangle Square Up Ruler to create. We used the ruler last week to create our Pinwheels. You could do this without the ruler, but it would be harder. Wouldn't these squares make a cute baby quilt? It would be work, but worth it!

Supplies (for one square):
4 different colors of material (cut into 3 1/2 inch squares)
1 neutral material like white or cream (cut into 4: 1 1/8 by 3 3/4 inch rectangles)

Lining up your quarter inch ruler so the center line lines up with the corners, cut off one side of the triangle (so it's got an extra quarter inch on one side).

Pin a rectangle on the diagonal of the triangle (centered), and sew across the edge.

Iron the seam with the material in one direction for the two colors that will be diagonal, and the opposite direction for the other two. Sew the second triangle onto the back of the rectangle and sew across the line.

Line the ruler up with the big side of the square. Line the seam of the triangle and rectangle up with the 2 1/2 inch line on the ruler. cut off the excess material. Now flip the square over and line the ruler up with the same seam. You will notice the white takes up most of this half of the triangle, and the color is a smaller section of this half. Measure a few times if you need to, just to make sure you did this right.

 

Sew the four pieces together and you have a Friendship Square!

Easy Pinwheels

 I've been working on my square a month quilt again lately. This month we did two that required the same ruler, and it's a really cool one! It's by the company "Quilt in a Day" and you can get the ruler for around $15 on Amazon. It's called the Triangle Square Up Ruler.

Supplies:
Light material (2 pieces 2 inches square)
Dark material (2 pieces 2 inches square)

 

First, line up your light and dark material on top of each other with the right sides facing in (wrong sides out). Mark and measure a quarter inch from the center diagonal line on both sides. I like to mark the center too (so you know where to cut later). 

 Pin the material together and sew along the two outside lines (leaving the center for cutting). Cut along the center line to separate the two sections.

 Using your Triangle square up ruler, line up your seam with the 2 inch line and cut off the excess material.

 Press your squares open, with the seam going towards the darker color. Line your 4 squares up in a pinwheel formation. Pin the top two and bottom two together and sew. Again, press the seams towards the dark color. 

Pin the top to the bottom piece and sew the pieces together. To iron, we're going to "pop the seam". Grab the two sides of the material you just sewed and twist the material in opposite directions. You'll notice some of the seams are pulling out and a design (like the one above) shows up in the middle. That means you're doing it right!

Now iron the tow sides towards the dark color again. This will give you a very uniform back. But we're not doing this just for looks, we're doing this so the square lays flat. It's just less bulky this way!

Now flip your square over and you've got your completed square.

You can do all kinds of things with these pinwheels. They make cute baby quilts, or whatever you want! You can use this ruler to make anything you need a half square for. Or you don't have to use the ruler at all. You can also do it by hand. Next week I'll show you another way to use this ruler.

Hand Quilting my Second Quilt ever

What am I working on this week? Watching Harry Potter to prepare me for Halloween. And hand quilting my second quilt ever. It's my first time hand quilting. It's slow going, but turning out well. It's been a fun process to learn. I like how it's turning out so far too.

I started this quilt two years ago. It took me a year to make the top, and it's taken me a year to hand quilt so far... Hopefully it won't take me another year to finish!

Adding a leaf to the Yo-Yo

 Last week we learned how to make a Yo-Yo. Now I'll show you how easy it it so make and attach a leaf to the Yo-Yo to make it look like a flower. If I had a daughter, these would become hair clips, pins to go on clothes, etc. But I have a little guy who wouldn't appreciate being covered in flowers.

First, take the outside of the Yo-Yo maker and trace a circle. Cut it out, then cut it in half (this will make two leaves.

Sew across the top. I only did it by hand because I didn't feel like plugging in and setting up my machine just to sew on line. My son tends to get into my machine if I don't put it away after each use... Anyway, if you sew by hand make sure you tie off before the next step.

Flip the leaf inside out, and sew along the bottom (unfinished edge) of the leaf. You want to do this one by hand.

Pull the string tight, gathering up all the material. Sew above where you just sewed to strengthen the sewing. You can do this more than once if desired.

Now attache the leaf to the back of the flower, sewing down several times to give it strength.

Flip it over and you're done! You can attach these to a jacket, dress, headband, clip, or anything you desire. Or just stick it in your pin cushion to make you smile. That's where mine is sitting right now. I'll figure out what to do with it later.

Making Yo-Yos

I got together with my mom this week to start making stuff to give away for Christmas. It may sound early, but we like to get as much done as possible before November so we can not only enjoy Thanksgiving, but also Christmas. 

So we put together some bags with a cute little Yo-Yo sewn on the tie to fill with candy and other goodies (when we get around to baking). So I wanted to feature the Yo-Yo maker we used to make these bad boys!

 We used the Clover Round Yo-Yo maker in size Large. They have three different sizes you can choose from, I make the purple on in the small size. First cut out a square 3.5 inches. Stick your Yo-Yo maker on both sides of the material and click it into place. Test that it lined up by sticking a pin through one of the holes.

Trim off the excess, leaving about 1/4 inch around the circle.

 Fold down the back material, and (starting from the back) sew in and out of the holes. You will notice you want to come up and down on the front so the string lines up with the gap in the plastic. Sew a second time over the first stitch you made.

Pop the tool out and gently pull the center out. Pull the string tight, making sure your edges stay in the middle so you only have a finished edge showing.

Completely pull it together, sew around the end a second time, and push the needle through the bottom to tie it off. Vola! You've got your completed Yo-Yo. Next week I'll show you how easy it is to make and attach the leaf.

Curtains

Like I said, it's been crazy around here with prepping for yesterday's appraisal! I think it went well, we'll hear back later this week and know for sure if our house has kept enough of it's value to refinance. The guy came over yesterday at 3 and I finished sewing these bad boys at 2:55! Just enough time to get them on the wall. Not that he probably even cared, but it made me feel better to have them up.

All of the curtains in our house are homemade, I like it better since you can make exactly what you're looking for.

These are the curtains in the nursery (made by my mom). I love how simple they are!

These are the ones in the kitchen. The top ones are the actual color. I wanted something simple, but something to frame our stained glass window.

Next up? The living room needs something, but I haven't found anything I love yet. Hopefully I'll be inspired soon!

Bed Skirt

I've been busy lately fixing up the house so we can have an appraisal scheduled for Tuesday afternoon. Let's be honest, with interest rates so insanely low, who wouldn't want to save a few hundred bucks every month? We calculate paying our closing costs we would have made it worth our money in about 2 years. But I digress from sewing...

This weekend I rearranged our bedroom to make it look more open and spacious (well, as open and spacious as you can make a 12 by 12 foot room look). So I stuck the bed against the wall and stuffed all our extra junk under the bed. Stepping back and admiring our new arrangement I realized we are in serious need of a bed skirt.

So we took a trip to the thrift store and I found some navy blue knit for $2 (with more than enough yardage to make a bed skirt. I had an old bedskirt that didn't match our room or bedding that I pilfered the top of so I didn't have to buy any muslim.

I didn't just go out and buy a bed skirt because we have our bed on stilts. This makes it nice and tall for my over 6 foot husband, and it makes it so I can store our rarely used luggage under the bed. But it makes our bed substantially too tall for an average bed skirt.

A bed Skirt is pretty easy, but I wanted to walk you through the tough part.

Supplies:
Material to go between the mattress and the box spring (cut exactly the size of the bed)
Material to go around the bottom

First, measure the top of your bed to determine how much material you will need to go between the mattress and the box spring. Typical measurements are:

Crib/Toddler           27 x 52
Single                     39 x 75
Full                         54 x 75
Queen                    60 x 80
King                       76 x 80
California King      72 x 84

Second, measure from the top of your box spring to the floor. Now to determine how much material you'll need for the side of the bed you need to do some math.

I didn't want my bedskirt to be too ruffly, so I decided to put a pleat in the bottom every 6 inches (making the pleat 1 inch wide). This meant I had to add 2 inches of material for each 6 inches total (73 that I rounded up to 76 to account for piecing together and the edge). You can add more or less depending on how ruffly you want your bed skirt.

I have a queen sized bed, so I needed 80 (side) + 80 (side) + 60 (foot) + 76 (pleating) = 296 inches or 8.22 yards. BUT I was able to determine by how long I needed the material to be that I could get three lengths out of one cut of material, so I actually only needed 2.74 yards.

I cut my between piece the exact size of the bed because I wanted the colored bottom part to hang over so none of the white muslim showed. I also cut from box spring to the ground the exact measurement I needed. Because I didn't want the material hanging on the ground, the seam allowance and hemming of the bottom allowed this.

So all math and cutting aside, let's get started! Zigzag around the edges of your middle piece. Fold over twice the top (head of the bed) edge of your muslim and sew down. Around the sides and bottom of the colored material, fold over a half inch of material and sew down.

Now the more tricky part. To create the pleats, start on one end of the muslim. Pin the ends together (right sides facing each other, wrong sides out). Take a ruler and line it up from the end. Measure six inches and place your first one inch pleat. I made sure they were 1 inch apart by lining the pleat up with my ruler.

The rest of the pleats are a lot easier. Line up the crease of the previous pleat with the 6 inch mark on your ruler, then fold the material over the end of your ruler up to the 1 inch mark. Pin the material down and do the next pleat. Keep going around the edge of the bed until you're done!

Either sew two lines around, or use a double needle to sew around the just pinned edge. I used a 1/2 inch seam allowance for durability. Put your bed skirt on your bed and enjoy storing stuff without everyone knowing that's what you're doing!

Men's Shirt to Modest Shirt

I think everyone has some body shape flaw. Whether it's long arms that makes it so hard to find long sleeves or a long torso that makes every t-shirt a belly shirt. I happen to have both, and spend a lot of time making my own shirts as a result.

becomes

Messing with hemming knit material and making a collar takes a lot more time than I'm willing to spend on a t-shirt, so I generally find a men's large shirt that I like the design on, and cut it down to my size. I've found men's t shirts are first cheaper and second have more crazy designs.

First, flip your two shirts inside out and place the small one on top of the large one. Tuck the sleeves of the small one into the shirt so you get the basic shape.

Cut out the large shirt, following the lines of the small shirt.

Pin down the sides and sew 1/4 inch from the edge. I like to do a slight zigzag since t shirts are a little stretchy.

Next you line up the sleeve with the finished edge of the large sleeve and cut a similar shape out. Pin and sew the bottom.

With the shirt inside out, place the sleeve inside the shirt (also inside out so when you flip it all, it's all right sides together. Pin the sleeve into place. I use about 8 pins. Sew 1/4 inch from the edge.

Flip it out and enjoy! You can decorate using freezer paper or sew on different material, or whatever you want!