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Spring Zig Zag Ric Rac Pillows

04
May 2011

It has been approx. five months since I made a new pillow and almost 6 months since I made something with ric-rac.

Seriously. It’s ridiculous.

One can only go so long without using ric rac’s zigzaggy goodness to make something wonderful.
I bet you were saying that just the other day.

Well if you were – I have a set of fun pillows for you – to fulfill all your ric-rac’n zig-zag’n desires!

Ok. Enough with the silliness – but aren’t they pretty?
I have been wanting some new pillows for spring and I think these pretty blues and greens will be perfect through the summer too!

I have a detailed tutorial for you of the Ric Rac Chevron pillow – and simple instructions for the other because it’s quite a few less steps!

Here’s what you’ll need to get going:

• Fabric – I used a linen and this lovely Amy Butler print.
If you make both you’ll need about 1/2 yard of linen and 1 yard of print.
• Ric Rac – at least three packages for color variations
• 2 pillow forms – one 16″ and one 14″
• Glue and felt scraps (for ric rac rosettes on the smaller pillow)

Start by cutting out your pieces for the large pillow. This tutorial is for a pillow cover – but you could easily make it a regular pillow too.
Cut out of linen one piece 16″ x 10″ and one piece 2″ x 16″.
Cut out of your print fabric one piece 24″ x 7″, one piece 16″ x 12″, one piece 16″ x 8″.

Mark your linen piece for the ric rac zig zags.
Measure 1″ down on the left side and make a mark with a fabric marker. Continue marking down the left side every 2″.
Measure across the width at every mark and make a dot every 2″.

Place the end of your ric rac at the 2nd dot on the left side of the linen. Sew the ric rac in a diagonal up to the first 2″ dot on in the top row of marks.
Sew down in a diagonal to the dot in the 2nd row that is 4″ from the left. Continue sewing in a zig zag, hitting every other dot. You will end your zig zag at the 1″ dot on the right side.

Sew your remaining ric rac zig zags – following the line of your first zig zag and using the dots as your guides.

Gather the 24″ x 7″ piece of the print fabric on both long sides until the sides measure 16″.

Sew the ruffled print strip to the left side of the linen piece.

Press the pieces down and sew a top stitch on the linen piece 1/4″ from the seam.

Set the top aside for now. Take the larger of your two back pieces. Cut a small piece of ric rac (about 4″), loop this and pin it to the bottom center of the piece. Fold the 2″ linen piece in half and line up the raw edges with the bottom edge of the print piece. The ric rac loop will be between the linen and print. Sew the pieces together.

Press the linen piece down and sew a top stitch along the print side 1/4″ from the edge.
On the smaller print piece for the back, turn the top under twice and sew down to finish the edge.

Line the top and bottom up so that the top overlaps the bottom and the total square of the two pieces measures 16″. Sew a basting stitch along both sides 1/4″ from the edge.

Place the top and bottom of the pillow pieces right sides together. Sew around all 4 sides.

Clip the corners so they’ll turn right side out nicely.
Turn right side out and insert the pillow form.
Check the placement and sew the button onto the back. Loop the ric rac around the button.

Pillow One done!!

Ok – for pillow 2 – now that you’re a pillow expert – I have instructions but not step by step photos.
This one is a regular pillow, not a cover.
Cut – 1 – 14″ square of print for the back. 1 – 8″ x 14″ piece of print for the front. 1 - 6″ x 14″ piece of linen for the back.
Sew the linen piece to the print for the front. Press the seam and sew a piece of ric rac over the seam.
Sew the front to the back, leaving an opening at the bottom for turning. Turn right side out and insert pillow form.
Sew opening closed.

For the ric rac rosettes – I used the fabulous tutorial from The Crafting Chicks.
I cut out a 4″ circle of linen and cut a small circle in the center. I gathered the center and glued it to circle of felt.
Then I glued the ric rac rosettes in the center and added them to the pillow.

I love these sweet sweet little rosettes!!
If you like the FB page you might have seen last night that I made another rosette into a pretty ring!
I have a feeling I’m going to making a lot of these. ;)

Aren’t the pillows fun?

Mmmmm. Lots of ric-racky zig-zaggy yumminess!

I’m linking to Today’s Creative Blog, Met Monday, Skip to my Lou, Tutorials & Tips Tuesday, Quilt Story,
and the other fabulous parties on the sidebar – make sure you check them out!

Colorful Retro Christmas Dishtowels

14
Nov 2010

Beverly

I am officially declaring this Christmas Kitchen Week. You didn’t know we were going to do that did you? Me either.

But the stars have aligned and by complete accident – (or I’m subconsciously a much better planner than I thought) I have some fun items this week to give your kitchen Christmas style with a retro flair.

Actually, we started (accidentally again) last Friday with the Crush of the Week. Jen from Rook 17 has some fantastic recipes for you to check out for your Christmas baking and gift giving.

Today, to go along with edible yummies – I have a couple visual yummies – in the form of these two super cute dishtowels!!

They are decorated with fun retro fabrics and ruffles and ric rac. I just love them!
I think they would be great for hostess gifts, or to take to a teacher or neighbor with a plate of cookies!

Ready to make a set? Here’s what you’ll need.

Waffle weave fabric: 17″ X 28″ for each dishtowel (or you can use a purchased dishtowel)
Fabric for ruffles and applique:
For each ruffle you need a rectangle 4″ x 36″
Small pieces of each fabric for the ornaments and tree .
Small pieces of black fabric for the ornament toppers, the tree trunk and the presents.
Variety of Ric Rac
Patterns – Click Here to Download

Begin by cutting out all your fabric pieces.

For each ruffle, hem the two short sides and one long side. On the other long side, sew a ruffle stitch.

Hem three sides of your dishtowel fabric as well, leaving one short side unhemmed.

Pin the bottom ruffle to the unhemmed side of your dishtowel, right sides together. Sew the ruffle in place and press down.

Pin the second ruffle one inch above the seam of the first ruffle. Right sides should be together and the raw edge should be pointing to the bottom. Sew this ruffle on and press down.

Repeat for the third ruffle.

Let’s do the ornament applique first. :)

Lay out your ornament pieces where you want them. You can use heat-n-bond or something similar to iron them on, or you can just pin them on and sew. Whatever you are more comfortable with.

Sew the ornament pieces on.

Sew strips of ric rac from the top of the dishtowel to each ornament. (You can use ribbon too if you want – though it’s not near as squiggly. :)
Make sure with each piece of ric rac that you very slightly burn the edges so they don’t fray.

Sew on your ornament toppers next.

Finish off this one with cute ric rac bows at the top of each ornament.

For the Christmas Tree towel, you will do the same thing. After you sew on the ruffles, sew on your applique pieces.

Fray check all your raw edges so the appliques don’t fray when you wash them. If you don’t like the raw edges, there are a couple things you can do. You can sew all the pieces on with a satin stitch ( a very tight zigzag stitch that covers all the raw edges). Or you can add a seam allowance to the pieces and cut out two of everything. Sew the pieces together and turn right side out, then sew them on.

Add in ric rac embellishments and bows on the packages, and a bow at the top of the tree.

Sit back and admire your Christmas Ric Rac Ruffliness.

These appliques would also look great on onesies or t-shirts! Feel free to go crazy with them! (And send me pictures of course. :)

I’d love to hear what you think!

Category: Holiday, Kitchen, Sewing Tags: Christmas, dishtowel, Ric Rac, Sewing 97 Comments

Family Initial Wall

03
Aug 2010

Beverly

I’ve been wanting to an initial project for a long time – but there are so many great projects out there – I just couldn’t decide what to do. Then I came up with the idea to make four – a personal initial for each of us!

Want to see what they look like?

I have a mini tutorial for each of these. I didn’t go into tons of detail since there were 4 letters, 5 if you count the “M”, and I didn’t want to set any Long Post records. :)

Here’s a supply list for what I did – but you could use any materials that would be personal to you.

Letters – Mine were metal, wood, chipboard and MDF – I got them at Hobby Lobby
Paint
Magazine images
Fabric and . . . wait for it . . . Ric rac
Black Grosgrain Ribbon
Book pages and buttons
Elmers or Mod Podge, Hot Glue

Let’s start with the painted letters. I painted the D (chipboard) a light blue and the R (wood) a light green.

The D is for Mr. F.T. (don’t worry, it will get more manly) and the R is for my daughter.

Once the paint on the D dried I used black paint and a dry brush to give it a wooden, antiqued look. Just put paint on the brush and wipe most of it off on a paper towel, then brush it lightly over the surface.

Hit the edges a little harder, and make sure you do the sides.

For the green “R” I wanted to do some brown polka dots. I used the bottom of one of my paintbrushes, dipped it in the paint and pressed it onto the letter.

Space the polka dots over the letter, with some of them off the edges so you’re not just running polka dots down the center of the letter.

Our daughter is an avid book worm – so to dress up her letter I made a little book flower. I cut two flower shapes out of a book page and burned the edges just a bit. Then I pinched and folded the centers a little and sewed them together.

I glued two buttons on top of each other and glued the flower to the top corner of the R.

The J (made from MDF) is for my son – who loves video games. So I raided his Game Informer magazines, with his permission ;) , and cut out a few images of his favorite games.

I brushed Elmer’s on (I’m out of Mod Podge) and then placed the images on the J, like a collage. I clipped the sides all around the curves and glued them down as well.

I covered the top with Elmer’s and let it dry.

I don’t have a good picture for you but I covered the sides with black 1/2″ grosgrain ribbon to cover up all those uneven ends. I hot glued that down since it was faster.

For mine(the metal “B”) I debated leaving it black but I wanted to dress it up a little. I decided to use this great flamingo fabric I found at the Long Beach Quilt Fair.

I traced the B on the back of the fabric.

I cut out the B and started hot gluing the fabric on. I clipped around all the curves so they would look smooth.

I thought it needed a little something else so I glued pink ric rac around the outer edge. Shocking I know.

(I am obviously not a tidy gluer.)

I tied ric rac to the metal loop at the top for the hanger.

I added several M’s to our photo wall, but I only made one of them, the rest were store bought. For this one I painted it black and then stamped it with 2 stamps in cream paint. The first one is a lettering stamp and the second is a Fleur de lys that I placed off center. I think it looks like a big bow – I’m not sure if I’ll leave it or not.

So here they all are again. I realize these tutorials were all pretty brief – If you have any questions let me know.

The home for these little cuties is on the wall at the halfway point of our stairs. We have some photos there – an assortment of us traveling, on roller coasters, in Wanted posters, general silliness. I really love how they dress up the photos and make the whole collection more personal.