Back to School basics

When Kerry and I agreed to do a Back to School set, we landed upon a couple of basics.  Pencils and hi-liters.  Kerry's pencils sew up like a dream and are quick, easy and so effective!  I really had a hard time deciding on the fabrics to use for the ones I made.

We both made a version of Lisa's pencil case, pattern here.  Thank you Lisa for allowing us to do that!  I love how Kerry's pencil case is so her; delicate, sweet, and girly.

For our Back to School set, Kerry has included patterns for the pencil wheel block and a single pencil.  She also will be putting up a tutorial here for how to trace and embroider your own message for the center of the pencil wheel.  Also included are my hi-liters, capped and uncapped, and the basic instructions to make this block

Happy back to school!

Tutorial Tips: Spools and Buttons basket

For Kerry and I's latest pattern sets, we decided to use existing tutorials to incorporate the spools and buttons into.  Kerry had the brilliant idea of doing a button card with the buttons and then used it to modify and make one of Ayumi's organizer baskets.  You can read about the details and the how to that Kerry posted here. 

For the spools and button blocks I made, I decided to use them to make one of Ayumi's baskets.

 

The spools and buttons basket ends up slightly larger than the orginal basket of Ayumi's and seems to be a nice size.  I thought it was quite funny that as Kerry and I were emailing back and forth about the project each of us would make with our blocks from the Spools and buttons, that we each had decided we would mail our finished baskets to Ayumi before we knew the other was doing the same thing!
To make your spools and button basket, you will follow Ayumi's instructions for the basket, making these changes:

• Choose 4 buttons and 4 spools and make those blocks.
• Sew 2 buttons and 2 spools together, alternating them so you have a section for the back and a section for the front of the basket. (you will have to trim 1/4" from the top and bottom of each spool so they end up the same height as the button blocks).  The front and back section will each be 3 1/2" X 12".



• cut your linen fabric 6"X12" 
• cut your batting fabric 12"X12"
• cut your lining fabric 12"X12"
• when you get to the step where you box your corners, box them 1 3/4" from the point

If you end up making a spools and button basket or anything at all with our patterns, we'd love it if you added it to our Sew-Ichigo flickr group!

Pattern Snippets

New pattern news is coming soon and we have had a little detour from our plans, we were planing a little 'Happy Hour' pattern set- can you get the hint in there as to what it will be?  That is still coming but to get some new patterns to you a little quicker we are playing with a couple of sewing blocks and adding a lot of variations to give you a range of block use options.  They are being worked on as I write...

More news will follow soon!