DIY Maker's Tags

Every so often I will come across something at the thrift store with a “handmade with love” tag sewn into a seam. Seeing this instantly gives the item life as I start thinking about the makers creative process, their choice of fabric and thinking about who they made it for. In all honesty I haven’t labelled many of my makes. I don’t really like the look of most store bought labels, and while I love embroidered labels, they are very time consuming. I’ve been finding that by the time I get to the final steps of sewing and adding embroidery to a dress I just don’t have the energy to embroider a label as well. So I’ve been thinking about how I can make something I love that’s a little faster then embroidering my entire name in tiny letters. Here are a couple of the fully embroidered tags I’ve made in the past:

For the new DIY tags I decided to use stamps and fabric paint. A couple years ago I was a member at a local pottery studio and so I had a stamp made so I could label all of my pottery pieces. The stamp is made of metal and intended to leave an indentation in clay, so I wasn’t sure how well it would work with paint on fabric, but it worked great! To get this stamp made I sent an image of my name in cursive writing to this Etsy shop. The brass stamp is a more expensive option but I’ve also had acrylic stamps made from this shop that work as well. And of course you could use a simple set of alphabet stamps to spell your name out too. That was my plan for stamping the year, but my basic set of stamps didn’t have numbers included so I just used a paintbrush to paint the year on these tags. The fabric paint I used is the Pebeo Setacolor Opaque.

The stamping technique that worked best for me was using a paintbrush to spread paint on the bottom of an empty yogurt container, pressing the stamp into this thin layer of paint, and then pressing the stamp down (quite hard!) onto the surface of the fabric and holding for a couple seconds. I tried this on cotton, linen, and some scraps of Nani Iro double gauze (that’s the blue fabric). The more tightly woven and fine the fabric is, the more crisp your lines will be. After letting the paint dry it needs to be heat set, which means you need to hold an iron on it for a few minutes. I ended up adding a couple simple embroidered flowers to mine and now they are ready to go!

To sew a label onto your garment, turn each edge under 1/4” and stitch down by hand using whip stitch. Basically you are attaching them the way you would an applique patch. With thread that matches the garment and a delicate whip stitches you will barely be able to see the stitches from the right side of the clothing. Give this a try and let me know what you think! I will be labelling everything I make with these tags from here on out!

My Finished Alabama Studio Camisole Dress

This post is a part two in a series, see the first post here. Where I left off last time was right after painting my fabric pieces with the Magdalena stencil, and then testing out the couching embroidery technique on swatch. Since then, I’ve spent about a year embroidering this fabric. This was my first year of being a Mom, so most of this stitching was done while my baby was napping or while I was sitting next to him and he was doing his tummy time. Looking at all this embroidery brings back sweet memories!

I did all of the outlines first, and then decided not to cut out any fabric within the outlines. You can see that I played with this technique in my swatch, but once I finished the embroidery I just loved the way it looked. Piecing the dress together felt like it went so fast after the embroidery, so I think I ended up putting the dress together in just one week, which felt fast considering it is all hand sewing!

To piece the dress I used Coat’s & Clark Button & Craft thread in brown, and then I felled all of the seams down with a top stitch in the same thread. The binding on the neckline and armholes is sewn on using the same thread and the cretan stitch.

During construction I did end up making a couple modifications to the pattern. I never made a mock-up for this dress so I was crossing my fingers it would fit okay, luckily the modifications I made were very easy to do. I shortened the straps and lowered the armholes by an inch, which essentially just lifts the neckline as it was too low on me. I had also cut a size large from the pattern, which matched my postpartum body measurements, but I am a little smaller now so I took out a 1/2” at each side seam and also graded the waist into more of an hourglass shape. I left the extra slack in this seam in case I ever want to make this dress a little bigger again! I didn’t take too many progress pictures of these modifications, so hopefully I explained it alright!

I got to wear this dress out to dinner already. It does feel like a fancy dress both because of the heavy weight of it but also because of the shape and structure of it. The skirt really holds it’s shape well. I will definitely sew this pattern again but next time I will try with just plain fabric and adding a corset tie to the back. And as for the embellishment technique, I am very happy I gave it a try! I loved working with the fabric paint and the stencil, it’s such a great way to give yourself an outline for embroidery. Couching stitch was fun too, although I would not attempt to do it on such a large piece again, maybe just for a camisole shirt instead. Overall the Alabama Chanin style it so unique and fun to play with, I recommend taking a look at the books and giving it a go!

Adding Embroidery to my Henrietta Hinterland Dress

I posted a wrap up of my Henrietta X Hinterland linen dress that I finished a couple weeks ago. The dress is a mash-up of two sewing patterns, the Henrietta Skirt and the Hinterland Dress bodice. I chose some sweet little yellow flower buttons, and after wearing the dress a couple times I wanted to add a little bit of embroidery to the neckline. My thought process being that the embroidery would help the buttons fit in with the dress a little more naturally, so they weren’t the only yellow bits on an entirely blue dress.

I chose an embroidery pattern from a book in my collection. It’s a Japanese embroidery book by Mayuka Morimoto which I ordered from Etsy. The embroidery patterns in the book are all of whimsical forest creatures, but for this dress I just used a simple greenery pattern from the mouse page. I chose a couple shades of green from my DMC cotton floss collection, and the beads are all tiny Miyuki Delica glass seed beads, the same ones I used on my wedding dress embroidery. I traced the pattern from the book onto a wash-away interfacing (I use a sew-on interfacing). Stitching this design only took me a couple of days, and then I rinsed the interfacing away and gave the dress a final wash and it’s been in heavy rotation ever since!

In some of the photos here you can see that I added a maker’s tag to the dress, I’ll share more on that soon!

A Handmade "Baby’s First Christmas" Ornament

An Attelier Pippalotta Kit Review

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When I was pregnant with my son Josey I was so excited to work on a couple baby related crafts. I decided to add his first Christmas ornament onto the project list because I wanted to make sure I made something for him a little more permanent than the baby clothes I knew he would very quickly grow out of. This craft got me so excited for his arrival and I had so much fun making it! It was a great way to learn some basic Waldorf Doll making techniques as well. I can’t wait to use the skills I learned from this kit to make more ornaments from my own ideas. Maybe a little character made custom to his interests each year.

This is the “Forest Gnome Baby” Attelier Pippalotta kit and even though I’ve never made a doll like this before I found it pretty straightforward! I do have basic hand sewing skills, so I think if this was your first time ever sewing you might have a more difficult time following along. I stitched the baby exactly as instructed and only made a couple modifications to the leaf bed. I cut a second leaf out of felt from my stash and blanket stitched the two layers together so the bed would be sturdier. I stitched the design on the leaf using chain stitch which I prefer the look of to the more basic back stitch. I also added two cords for hanging so that the bed would hang in the tree like a cute little hammock.

We didn’t decide on a baby name until we met our son at the end of May, so I waited to stitch the tag on the back of the ornament until just now, about three months after his birth. For the embroidered tag I used a washable sewn-on interfacing. So easy to draw my design on with pencil, I stitched it onto the felt with big basting stitches, and then a quick rinse after stitching and it’s gone. Starting this project so early in the year made it easy to get it all done in time for Christmas! Now let’s see if I can get some sort of Halloween costume made in time for his first Halloween. Maybe I should have started with that!

Some Helpful Links:

English language Attelier Pippalotta kits: Bear Dance Crafts

Interfacing: Water Soluble Stabilizer (affiliate link)

How to Cross Stitch on Jersey Knits

Some links in this blog post may be affiliate links. This means if you click through and purchase the product, I earn a small commission at no additional cost to you. Thank-you.

So, I titled this post as if it was more of a tutorial, but really it should read more along the lines of “I did something one time and it worked so well, so I want to share what I did!” I’ve only done cross-stitch a handful of times, and usually on linen fabric, but I really loved the idea of stitching little scenes onto pre-bought baby clothes, which are usually stretchy. I’ve gotten so many simple little onesies as hand-me-downs and gifts, so this is a fun and quick way to add some personality to them.

I used a cross stitch pattern from Fifi Grace Designs on Etsy and the little scenes she comes up with are so sweet and whimsical. As for actually stitching the design on the fabric I used a wash-away 14-count cross-stitch fabric (affiliate link). It’s genius! I use a similar wash-away interfacing for regular embroidery designs, but this one has a little stiffer feel to it and of course tiny holes so you know exactly where to stitch your little x’s.

Using the interfacing is very easy. You first need to figure out how big of a piece you need for your design, and then cut that out giving yourself a little extra space on each side. Baste the interfacing onto the knit fabric around the edges using a long running stitch. If you are sewing a big design you could also add a couple basting stitches in the middle to hold the interfacing to the fabric better, these basting stitches will all get removed later anyways. Then once your interfacing is in place, stitch your design, remove the basting stitches, and wash away the interfacing in water!

If you decide to try this out let me know how it goes! I hope it works as well for you as it did for me!

Links:

Fifi Grace Designs: Duck and Ducklings Cross Stitch Pattern

14-count water soluble canvas (affiliate link)

Thread: DMC 6-strand embroidery floss (affiliate link)