Cucumbersome » sewing

Printing on Fabric, the Lazy Way

britt — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 18:39:08 +0000

Here’s the short story for you skimmers: Freezer paper + fabric + inkjet printer = banner.
And now for the slightly longer version: When thinking of how to make a banner for my brother’s wedding, I contemplated the freezer paper stencil method which I have used before (seen here, forgive the bad photos) with some success. The idea of cutting out intricate letters wasn’t thrilling me though. Suddenly I remembered reading that you can use freezer paper to stiffen fabric enough to feed through an inkjet printer so you can print directly on the fabric. I was skeptical but I had a bit of freezer paper lying around and a designer to help execute the idea (he wasn’t lying around mind you, but kindly offered to help with the type. Thanks, hon!).

All you do – and it’s really deceptively simple – is iron the glossy side of the freezer paper onto the wrong side of the fabric and then cut it down to fit in the printer (8.5″ x 11″). Then just print on the fabric side, and peel the paper off.

This example (above) shows the heart with the backing on the left, and the same heart sans freezer paper on the right. I love how pulling the backing off pulls at the threads and warps it ever so slightly.

For the banner part, I cut the letters down to the same size and folded and sewed over the tops to make a pocket for the twine. The whole project – from start to finish, from layout to threading the letters onto the twine – took less than an hour. Easiest banner ever.
I recommend checking out this instructable, which goes over the process in better detail and discusses what to do to make the fabric washable.

Sewing & Simple Syndication

britt — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 19:36:03 +0000

These patterns really inspire me to start sewing again. The dress with the white lace around the neck reminds me of a dress that I fell in love with at Athropologie. The bodice was so cute and fit really well, but the bottom half was wonky and unflattering. All these photos are on Burda Style, which is a great sewing community where you can download patterns from Burda (like the ones above) and from other members.
Patterns (top to bottom, left to right): Minna | Melissa | Gail | Marie | Anda | Jenny

Thanks to Re-Nest for the shout out the other day! This might be a good time to let you, my darling readers, know about my subscription options. You can subscribe to the RSS feed via the button in the header and add Cucumbersome to your reader. (Sidenote: With Google Reader you can read the posts in your RSS feed on the original pages by installing the “Next” button in your browser bar. I’ve been doing that ever since I read about it here.) Now I am also providing an email subscription option. If you would like to receive a weekly email with links to my posts from that week, please use the contact form in the sidebar to let me know and I will add you to the list. It will really just be a notification, and you’ll have to click through to read the full posts. Phew. Enough business. Thanks for your support, everyone.
We’re planning on checking out some of the free events going on this weekend. There will be free concerts every night of the Olympics, just a couple blocks from our place. Have a great weekend!

Downsizing

britt — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 14:43:27 +0000

I’ll admit it. I get a little emotionally attached to clothes. It’s not like I cry each time a sock goes missing (although that sure does happen a lot), but I have a tendency to hold on to things past their prime if I have fond memories associated with them. This skirt is a prime example. The eyelet had ripped off in one area and I had stitched it back on. The lining was threadbare in places, and a couple of the side seams were starting to pull apart. I have had this skirt for at least five years, three summers of which I wore it to death. It served me well in Mexico because it was comfortable to tromp around in, ever so light, and it actually looked better a little wrinkled. Now that’s my kind of skirt.

But it really wasn’t wearable any longer. In fact, I hadn’t worn it at all this past summer. It was too worn to donate, but I held on to it because it seemed to have a little life left. And now, with this dress for Piper, I have found a way to happily part with it.
First, I removed the little metal grommets from the eyelet. They had started to fall out, and I didn’t want them to be a choking hazard. Then I ripped the skirt apart (and cried a little… just kidding), reinforced some of the seams and added light fusible interfacing to the panel that would end up being the top of the dress. For the pattern, I used a dress that I bought for Piper, tracing the outlines onto kraft paper with a spoked tracing wheel. It left a nice little dotted line on the paper for me to cut out after adding seam allowances. (This Built by Wendy book taught me that trick for transferring patterns.)
The skirt had a string attached to the waist, I guess so you could hoist up the top layer a little to show off the eyelet. I promise I never did that. But I was able to repurpose the string into little ties on the back to accommodate a baby’s adorably large head.

(Forgive the wonky hanger – I had to twist it up to get the tiny dress on it.) The whole project took just a little over an hour. It helped that I didn’t have to hem it at all. It’s much too large for Piper now, but it will hopefully fit her in the summer, when it’s much more weather-appropriate.
It’ll be good to know that my skirt went to a better place… on a cute baby.