Hooded Towels Part 2

Here are some cute hooded towels I made for a baby gift. I found these cute prints at Kohl's. I bought two bath towels and one coordinating hand towel to make the two hooded towels.

Easy Hooded Towel Instructions

Those hooded baby towels are very cute but almost worthless because they are so thin and not absorbent. I've made hooded towels for my kids and they work great. They are also great baby shower gifts. It is also a project you can do with beach towels for the summer pool outings. This project really only takes 10 minutes or less.

You will need:

1 bath towel

1 hand towel

Cut the hand towel to a length of 11 inches. One hand towel is usually long enough that you can use the other end on another bath towel.

Fold the hand towel right sides together. Trim the corner to make it rounded off. Pin and sew the raw edges with a straight stitch. Zigzag the edges to prevent fraying (or if you have a serger just use that instead).

Find the middle of the bath towel and mark it with a pin. Find the middle of the hood and pin the middle of the hood to the middle of the bath towel, matching up the finished edges. Pin the rest of the hood onto the bath towel. Straight stitch the hood onto the towel. Voila! Finished.

Sew a Dust Ruffle

I made a dust ruffle for my spare bedroom for only $7.00. I had an old flat sheet that I didn't use anymore. I was able to use this sheet for the material that goes under the mattress. It doesn't matter what color it is as no one will ever see it.

Then I bought a twin size flat sheet for $7.00 in the color of fabric that matched the bedding. I cut the old sheet 59 inches by 79 inches (the size of a queen bed is 60x80). For the flat sheet, I measured the length of the boxspring mattress to the floor and added about 3 inches to that length to allow for hemming and for gathering the top. Then I cut the flat sheet into strips of the desired width. I sewed the pieces together to have one very long strip of fabric and then hemmed the bottom. Next the top has to be gathered and sewn. I luckily was given a ruffle foot attachment for my sewing machine which made it very easy and fast to gather the top edge of the fabric strip. The gathered edge is then attached to the old sheet.
(Okay, I'm not so good at writing instructions. Hopefully from the photos you get the idea. It is a pretty easy project and now I can store stuff under the bed without having to see it.)

Amazing Jean Hem

(photo)

My Aunt Lila introduced us to the amazing European hem. This hem keeps the original jeans hem and looks great. It is very easy to do and only takes me 10 minutes. The following blog has photos of each step.

Additional suggestions:

1. Use the zipper foot to sew right next to the original hem. It also is useful for getting over the seams.

2. Make sure the side seams are perfectly matched up and pinned before sewing.

3. If your hem is more than an inch or two, cut off the excess fabric to about 1/2 inch on the inside and zigzag stitch the raw edge (or use serger if you have one). Another non-sew option is to use Fray-Check which is a basically a type of fabric glue for edges.

4.If you don't want to cut off the excess fabric you may have to iron the bottom flap after washing which is annoying. To prevent this you can use Stitch Witchery, a fuseable bonding strip.

Thanks Mom! Mending a tear

Top: finished mend
Bottom: underside of skirt with reinforcing backing

I stood on the hem of my skirt last week and it made this crazy rip in the back. I didn't know if it was salvageable but mom was able to sew it right up. Since it is a full skirt, it won't even be noticeable. Thanks!

She reinforced the back side with what I think was some iron-on backing or stabilizer. She then used a wavy stitch (or you can use a zig-zag stitch) in the appropriate thread color to mend the tear. These mends are good on light weight fabrics. They can be somewhat conspicuous though. If you have a heavier fabric you can use iron-on mending tape. It is fast and no sewing is required! I found the following video which shows how easy it is. The mending tape comes in a pack with several colors. Just choose the color that is closest to your fabric.

Daniel's footed pajamas

My sister Karen suggested I start a blog after seeing how I fixed Daniel's footed pajamas with holes in the feet. I seem to always be fixing something around the house or working on a project. I'm not a great seamstress, but I can sew a little. Knowing the very basics of sewing is one of the best tools I have for using and reusing what I have at home.

Daniel is almost 3 years old. He likes to wear his footed pajamas a lot. He would wear them all day long if I didn't get him dressed in the morning. Consequently, he had two pairs of pjs that had holes in the toes. I thought about getting him a new pair, but then came up with a creative solution to fix them using a pair of slipper socks that I had kept in my sock drawer for years but never wore. I cut the very bottom of his pajamas off. I then used the oval shaped fabric I cut off as a template. I pinned the template to the bottom of the slipper sock and cut out the same shape. I then sewed the slipper sock bottom onto the bottom of the pajamas. Now his toes don't stick out and he doesn't slip and fall on the tile floor.