Tutorial: How to Make a Wonky Tea Cup Block

Ready for some fun? Looking for a fun block to add to a mug rug, kitchen wall hanging or table runner? How about some wonky tea cups? These are really fun and easy to make, once you get the hang of it.

Just a note: some of my photos from my first blue block didn't work out, so a few photos are from another, purple cup. Don't let it throw you off -- its just different fabric, but the same process.

Fabric you'll need:

• One coloured square 4 - 6"
• Two white or background coloured squares 2 - 3"
• Two coloured strips 1" wide and about 8" long 
• One white strip 1 - 2" wide (depending on the size of handle you want) and about 8" long
• extra white fabric to be cut later 

Please sew everything with a 1/4 inch seam.
First, lay one white square over the corner of your teacup on the angle of your choice, and sew. Trim the corner off.

Press the white back over the coloured fabric.

Trim to a square.

Now, do the same thing on the other corner of the square.

Now, set aside the "body" of your teacup and start on the handle.

Sew a white strip across the top of your teacup body.

Sew the long white strip to one of the long coloured strips.

Press open.

Cut into 3 pieces.

Lay the strips perpendicular (on an angle) to one another, so that the coloured strip is facing down on the top strip, and to the outside on the bottom strip. If you want to add a little bit of an angle, feel free to do so. Lay the top fabric on top of the bottom fabric right sides together, and sew.

It should look like this:

Press open.

Now, line up the first part of the handle with the teacup, so you can eyeball where to put the bottom piece of the handle. (Note: this is a tiny teacup, about 3". The handle will be easier on a bigger teacup).

Line up your third strip section so that it makes a handle that fits on your teacup body. Remember that an extra 1/4" of white will be added to the space you see now, so adjust your piece accordingly.

Put the two pieces right side together, and sew. Check that your handle is a good length, then trim off the excess fabric.

Press your handle open.

Line up the body piece of the block with the handle piece. Adjust until you are happy with the way the length of the handle and its placement on the body of the teacup. Place right sides together and sew.

Press your handle open: You now have a teacup!


Square your teacup up by using a rotary cutter and a ruler to straighten the edges.

Sew the second long coloured strip to the bottom of the teacup, right sides together. Press open. Now your teacup has a saucer.

Make your teacup block into the quilted item of your choice. Enjoy!

Hope you like this tutorial. Drop me a note if you use it for something, I'd love to see your teacups. Thanks.

Wonky Cups

So, Jill, on days when you don't get a substitute teaching job, and your kids are gone to day care, what have you been up to?

I've been making mugs. And teacups. Yep, that's right:

This is my first batch of wonky mugs and tea cups for my Doll Quilt. They are, of course, tests for the five million of these babies that I'm going to make for my toast and tea quilt. Wow, these are fun. They're like chips or popcorn. Once you've made one you just want to make more and more.

Lucky for you, I'm in the midst of making some tutorials for you all. Want to learn to make a wonky tea cup or coffe mug? Stay tuned. As soon as I get some time, I shall write up the instructions.

Aren't you glad I'm using my time wisely?

How to Patch Pants

This little tutorial will show you how to patch a pair of pants. The decorative embroidery floss is not necessary -- you could use regular thread instead, but it sure is cute on little boy pants.

Materials:
You will need a pair of pants with a hole, sharp scissors, thread, a sharp needle, a piece of cotton fabric, and a piece of fusible webbing. If you want to make a colourful stitch around the edge, also get embroidery floss and a bigger embroidery needle (make sure its a pointy one).

The cotton fabric can be quilting cotton or a piece of an old shirt. Make sure its not stretchy -- like t-shirt fabric. Fusible webbing can be found in any fabric store -- just ask the helpful staff. You only need about 5 or 6 inches, unless you have a lot of patching to do.

Wash the pants. Before we put the patch on, we need to mend the pants so that the fabric is strong enough to hold the patch.

Thread your needle and tie a knot at the end.

To tie a knot, make a loop and push the end of the thread through the loop. Pull it tight. You will probably need to knot the thread two or three times to get a big enough knot to stay.

Push the needle into the pants just below one side of the rip, were the fabric is still all together.
Pull it out at the edge of the rip, and then weave your needle in and out of the strings left by the rip. Make sure the needle comes out for the last time on the other end of the rip, where you are pack to undamaged fabric. Pull tight. Turn the needle around, and do the same thing, starting from the other side. Go back and forth, weaving the thread through and tightening it before each turn until you come to the end of the rip. Then tie off your thread (I explain how to do this below).


You rip will now look something like this.

Now, but a piece of fusible webbing slightly longer and wider than the size of your stitched up rip. Lay the shiny, slightly textured side down on your patching fabric. Iron in place, following the directions that come with the webbing.

If this has been done properly, it should stick to the fabric like this.

Let cool and peel off the paper. The webbing should now be shiny and tacky. Cut the patch to the size you want it.

Place the patch over your mended rip. (Do you like my funky blue nail polish?)

Iron the patch in place. Make sure the iron is not too hot, and that you put lots of pressure on it.

If you are feeling lucky, you could stop here and let the patch be. But the directions on the webbing say "gentle wash only" and that doesn't give me a lot of confidence that its going to survive a day in the life of a little boy's pants. So I'm going to stitch it in place, just to make sure.

If you want to use normal thread to stitch it down, just re-thread your needle and tie a knot at the end the same as before. If you want to use embroidery floss, take an emboidery needle and some co-ordinating embroidery floss and do the same.

You might want to put a book or some cardboard inside the pants leg so you don't accidentally sew the patch to both the front and the back of your pants, thus causing a mess and much cursing and grumbling and stitch picking. Want to know why I'm researching Montreal? I'll tell you later.

Starting from inside the pants, push your needle through the fabric about a 1/4 inch (5cm) from the edge of the patch.

Pull the needle through, and push it through the fabric so it goes in and out again.

Pull through to complete the stitch. Continue to stitch along all the edges of the patch. You might want to do this in a few sessions, as it is hard work for your fingers.

When you are done, flip your pants inside out, and push the needle through to the inside of the pants.

Now we will tie the floss off. Do a small stitch in the back, but don't quite pull it all the way through. Instead leave a little loop. Slide your needle through this loop and pull the thread through to make a knot.

Pull tight to make a knot. Trim your knots.

Congratulations, you're done! Good work.

Tutorial: How To Make a Simple Hand Sewn Softie, Part 2

Welcome to the second part of my tutorial. Part one of the hand stitching tutorial is here . When I was stitching, I realized that I don't usually use polyester thread. I thought it would be good because it is stronger. In practice, I found it to be really slippery and annoying. I'm going to go back and change part one, but if you've already started, and you're having trouble with the thread slipping out of the eye of the needle, its not you, its the thread. Hie thee to your stash or a fabric store and pick up cotton thread. My appologies.

I should preface this section of the tutorial with a disclaimer: no happy bunnies were harmed in the making of this tutorial. Felt creatures enjoy having faces sewn on, no matter how gruesome the photographs might make it seem.

So, at this point you should have stitched all the way around your softie, leaving a hole that is a couple of inches big for stuffing.
Take a handful of polyfil out of the bag:


Squish it a few times until it gets smaller, like this, and then stuff it into the hole. Stuff the extremities first: legs, ears, tails, that kind of thing. You want to stuff it firmly enough so that it is 3 dimensional, but not so firmly that it looks like it is about to burst.
If you are finding you can not pack the stuffing in as much as you would like with your hand, use the flat end of a pen or the eraser end of a pencil. I did this for the ears:

See, I stuffed the legs and the ears first, since they are almost impossible to get to once you start stuffing the middle. If you find you have a section where you stitched too loosely, so that even a tiny bit of stuffing is pushing the two sides apart, go back and re-stitch it with a new piece of thread.

Once you have done the legs and ears, stuff the arms, and then the middle. You will find that the fabric stretches. This is okay, so long as it doesn't thin out so much that you start to see the stuffing through the fabric. You can see that my bunny is now taller than he was before. When it is nicely full but not overstuffed, stitch up the hole. Start about a cm. away from the beginning of the gap, and stitch 1cm over the other seam on the other side.

You should now have a softie that looks something like this guy below. It is now time to embellish! You may do whatever you like to him. Below I will show you how to do basic embroidery (a back stitch), put on buttons, and add contrasting felt decorations. You should know that I have sort of learned all these things on my own over time, so my techniques are not professional. They do, however, get the job done.

Thread your embroidery needle with your embroidery floss. If you want a thinner piece of thread, you can divide your floss. Cut the length you want, and then pull apart the number of strands you would like to use for the project. Because I am lazy, I usually use all 6. You might have to lick the end of the floss and flatten it with your finger to help manouver it through the needle. You could use a little bit of lip balm on the end if you are averse to giving away a creature that contains your saliva. After your needle is threaded, tie one knot of the end.

Decide where you want to place your first button eye.


Poke your needle into and out of the fabric. Hold the button nearby, so you can make sure that your stitch will be hidden under the button.

Pull the thread through. Try to pop the knot to the inside of the fabric by tugging gently. If it doesn't work, clip the thread close to the knot (but don't cut into the knot or it will unravel). Put your needle through the hold in the button, and pull the thread through.
Lie the button flat against your guy's face. Poke the needle through a button hole opposite to the one you just used and into the fabric below it.

Then push the needle kind of flat and poke it back out of the fabric. Make sure all of the stitch will be covered by the button, then pull it tight. Now push the needle through the button hole you started at and pull tight. Repeat two or three times for each set of holes. This takes a bit of needle wrangling, but its the best way I know to secure a button.

Now, poke the needle through any hole. If you want the buttons to be a bit more secured (and your mass of threads to look a bit tidier) wrap the thread around all your previous stitches once or twice. Then tie a knot the same as you did when you were ending a thread while stitching along the sides. Make sure the knot will be covered by the button as well, and clip your thread very short.

Congratulations! You just sewed a button on. Here is my buy with both eyes stitched in place.
Now for a mouth. The simplest way to do this is by using a basic embroidery stitch called a back stitch.

Figure out where you want your mouth to be. Draw it on with some chalk or a light white crayon line if you want. Tie a knot on a fresh piece of embroidery floss and thread it into your needle. Now insert your needle at the very edge of the line.

Push the needle through about .5 - 1cm, depending on how big you want your final stitches to be.

Pull the thread through. If possible, pop the knot inside the fabric or clip the thread close.

Now, reinsert the needle in the spot where you want the mouth to start (this is why it is called a back stitch). Push the needle back out where you want your second stitch to end.

Gently pull your thread through. Don't tug too tight, or you'll just pucker the felt and you won't be able to see the embroidery stitch. Congratulations. You have achieved a backstitch.

Now back stitch again, putting your needle into the fabric right next to your first stitch, and pushing it out of the fabric where you want your third stitch to be. Repeat until you have a mouth the length you want.

If you don't like the shape of your finished mouth (it takes practice to not make a really evil looking or just really crooked mouth), cut the string off and pull the stitches out. You can do this by sliding your needle under the stitch and using it as a lever to pull the stitch out. If you sew for any length of time, you will become really good at taking stitches out.

Now, for your last stitch, you want to put the needle into the fabric close to your last stitch, like before, but push the needle through a lot of stuffing and out somewhere else on the head. Pull tight and clip the thread close to the fabric. Push the thread around with your fingers until it disappears into the fabric. This should keep the stitching in place. Congratulations, you have just done your first basic embroidery.

You can also use backstitches to add any other details you might like. If you want to make circles, or fill things in, do a vertical backstitch (where the stitches are next to each other instead of end to end).

Now I will show you how to add felt decorations. If you are a pro stitcher, you can use a blanket stitch. There is some sort of funky trick that I have yet to figure out to make a real blanket stitch, so I will show you my cheater blanket stitch.

Cut out your felt shape, and decide where you want it to be. Thread your needle with a fresh piece of thread and tie a knot on the end.
Put the needle into the fabric in a spot that will be underneath your felt piece. Push the needle out through the fabric and the felt piece about .5 cm in from the edge.


Pull your thread through. Push the needle into the fabric just behind the felt piece.



Push the needle so that it comes out through the fabric and the felt piece. It should be .5 cm to one side of your original stitch, and .5cm from the edge of the felt piece.
Now, pull it gently, so it is flat but not too tight, and you have your first stitch. Repeat this until you have gone all the way around your shape.

When you are done, make a small loop and tie a knot just underneath the felt. Clip the thread close to the knot.

You are finished! Congratulations on completing your first sewing project!

If there are any errors in these tutorials, please leave me a comment and let me know so I can correct them. If you have any alternate ways of doing things, also let me know in the comments. AND if you make one of these little guys, please post him or her or it somewhere and leave me a link to it.

Happy stitching!