Chevron Pallet Thread Holder

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I'm so excited about sharing this post! After sewing for a while now my thread and bobbins were starting to bust out of my plastic container so I started searching for a few fun DIY ideas to create your own thread holder since the ones at JoAnn are about $20-$30 and only hold around 20 spools of thread.

Here are a few of the inspirations I found on other blogs while trying to come up with ideas.
(Click on the blog text to check them out)

Sugar Bee Blog 

The Creative Homemaker

Craptastic Katie
I really loved all three of these ideas with the last one being my favorite. So I wanted to try and do this as cheap as possible. I was thinking of where I could find free or almost free wood and did some research. I decided that I would use a pallet since I've seen a ton of really fun wood pallet ideas on Pinterest.


I found in our town that the local college has a wood junk pile that anyone can take pallets or tree remnants to and its all FREE!! This was pallet heaven so my wonderful husband helped me choose the best one for this project.


Once we removed the back part of the pallet we saved the smaller wood strips (from the back) and screwed them into the front pieces to make it secure. I then sanded the wood and stained it. After the stain I put multiple coats of polyurethane to make it shine! We had the stain and shine cans from a previous wood project so that was awesome.


Now comes the hard part...seriously...it was WAY harder to figure out how I wanted the chevron to look. I've seen blogs and posts talking about making a square and then marking your chevron from that, but this was a little harder because I wanted the chevron to go across 2 boards for a bigger look and all of the boards are close but not perfectly the same. So I just taped together a bunch of printer paper and started marking out my measurements with the help of my smart husband since math is not my strongest area. :) Then cut out the chevron and used painters tape to mark it in place.


I've seen a few really cool sewing rooms that have gold accent pieces so I was really excited to choose the color gold for my chevron! I bought some spray paint from Lowes for only $5 and went to town on my pallet. It was a wonderful day outside so it took less than an hour for each chevron to dry.


Here it is with all the chevrons and I was really happy with the results!


Then with painters tape I marked out where I wanted the nails to go. I purchased 3" nails from Lowes for $2. I wanted a longer nail so that I still had a long enough space for my thread and a bobbin to go either on top or underneath.


Final product and I love it! 

It will hold 54 spools of thread and if I really want to I could add more nails to the top and bottom row, but I figured I don't have enough thread to fill it out now so that will be down the line if I need it. Right now its just leaning against the wall but in the future we can definitely hang it once we live in a house that I can have a sewing room in. :)


From start to finish! Coming in at under $10 what a bargain!

-Colby






T-Shirt Maxi Dress

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Oh the weather outside is...WARMING UP! For me that means back to sewing fun summer/fall dresses and skirts. For as much as I've sewn in the last year I've come to realize those are my favorite things to make so far.

Recently I came across a tutorial on one of my favorite bloggers websites. She created a t-shirt maxi dress. So essentially its a t-shirt from your closet attached to a maxi skirt. In my case I had a favorite white Gap t-shirt that had some small stain at the bottom of the hem which was perfect for this dress! Then I had a large amount of black knit jersey material that I had purchased a while ago at the last sale from JoAnn Fabric.

Click on the picture for her tutorial

Here are the simple steps:

1. Choose your t-shirt you want to use. I would suggest one that isn't super fitted. Then cut the shirt 3 or 4 inches from the hem or even more depending on how long your shirt is. I just put the shirt on me and put a pin a few inches below where I wanted the skirt to sit.

2. Cut the jersey material. I used the exact measurements from MerricsArt tutorial, but it ended up being to long for me so I had to trim a few inches off before hemming  So just measure the length from your waist to your feet then add a few inches for the hems. Also you don't have to but I also made POCKETS for this skirt!! Check out the pocket tutorial here. It rocks and its another great blog that I follow!!



3. Once you have it cut sew the pieces together or I HIGHLY recommend serging the skirt together if you have access to one.

4. Sew the t-shirt to the skirt. I had to gather my skirt a little bit first (by sewing a long stitch and pulling) because it was wider than the base of my t-shirt. Then sew another stitch a little bit away from your first stitch so that you have room to insert the elastic band. Be sure to leave a space somewhere so you can insert the elastic.

5. Insert the elastic band into the skirt slot (between the stitches that you just created). I used a similar size to the one she used in her tutorial. I wrapped the elastic around my waist and then pulled it tight (not too tight) so that I could feel how tight it would be on me. Then you cut it to that length, put a pin in one of the ends and feed it through. Once its all the way fed through you sew the ends together and close the hole between your stitches.

**Step 5 is probably the part that I would change. If I create another one of these I would make the skirt with the elastic band, then once I have that I would sew the t-shirt to the skirt.**

6. Hem the skirt and you are DONE!

Here is my final product. Super comfortable and awesome.


One of my biggest pet peeves with maxi skirts is your t-shirt moving or bunching up under your skirt at the waistband...well this dress DOES NOT do that! It rocks.

Until next time
~Colby


Butterick B5526 ~ Chambray Blouse

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What happens when you start a project before the holidays? You end up not finishing it until a few months later....okay so I may have had days where I was fighting my sewing skills and not going into my sewing room because something wasn't turning out the way I wanted so I was boycotting my project...but otherwise we were super busy with family and having my husband to myself for school vacation was awesome. Now that school is back in session I hope to accomplish a few more projects.


A CHAMBRAY BLOUSE


I used Butterick pattern B5526 and option A. I really enjoyed this project even though I had to rip out a few seams after much trial and error. Cutting the pattern can sometimes be the hardest part. I started out thinking I needed a size 10 based on the pattern sizing instructions, but when I looked at the sizing on the pattern pieces themselves it looked like I needed a 6 so I went back and trimmed the pieces down.


The difficulties for me on this project where the collar stand (not the collar itself), the placket on the sleeve (bottom left pic above), the front pockets and the sleeves....which basically sounds like the whole shirt, lol. :) With my personality I like to create first and then check my work later which does NOT work well with sewing. Like for instance I put the pockets on and measured the distances from the top and side to make them even but I didn't actually see where they would sit on my bust! (See how they are high looking in the pic above) So in the end I had to lower both pockets which left small stitch lines on the shirt.

Watching Downton Abbey while sewing :)

I did enjoy this project overall because I've never attempted anything like this and now that I have I could probably work on a shirt like this again which I hope to do in the future. Another tough factor was this type of fabric really doesn't have a right and wrong side so that was a little challenging so maybe next time I will pick something with a clear right and wrong side to help clarify when cutting and sewing the pattern.


I loved my buttons that I picked out, but I'm thinking now that I should have used a thread that matches the button..not sure on that one. I used the button sewing foot on my sewing machine and that was FANTASTIC to sew the buttons on for the first time with a machine and not by hand!


Finished shirt above & below


Just like with anything that you create from scratch whether its a new dinner meal, a house project, or a sewing project YOU are your own worst critic. So in the end we need to learn to enjoy and appreciate our creation even if we feel it has flaws. :) 

My sweet husband loves my shirt and I am so thankful for a supportive man. 

Until the next project!
Colby




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