by Andrea | Jan 1, 2018 | Uncategorized
Hey friends! I’ve got a lovely Magnolia Wreath Tutorial up on the blog today for you. I first came up with this several months ago for my Makers Cottage Night. I really wanted to make a tutorial for all the friends who requested it that live far away but I struggled with finding a good backdrop large enough for a wreath.
I’ll be throwing caution to the wind and using a much too small poster board for this while awaiting my newly ordered one to arrive.
Shall we get started? It’s really pretty easy and Hobby Lobby has everything you need! Make sure you use the weekly 40% off coupon in their app! If you time it right, you can buy the leaves when the greenery is on sale and use your coupon for the wreath part. That makes this project cost roughly $15…
Supplies:
- One large bunch of Magnolia leaves from Hobby Lobby
- One 18” grapevine wreath
- Wire clippers or pliers
- Glue gun
- Glue sticks
Directions:
- Cut each stem off your bush. Each stem has three leaves. Each of these bushes should have 10 stems.
- Next, take each stem and turn all the leaves facing up. Spread them apart by slightly bending the wires inside the stems. They should lay flat.
- Now get your wreath! It’s go time! Carefully find a spot to slide in your flattened 3 leaf stem horizontally. The goal is to make sure these puppies are as flat against the wreath as humanly possible.
- This process will get trickier as you begin adding your next stems and spacing them evenly around your wreath. So keep sticking them in HORIZONTALLY. Don’t be afraid to get a little harsh with your stems if needed. They are pretty sturdy.
In the picture below, I’m showing you that to get even spacing on your stems, you’ll want to go about 2.5-3” apart for point of entry. 
- Once you have all your stems placed, try to make sure the overall outside shape of your wreath is a circle. This may involve bending some wires to tame a wild leaf here and there. Scrunching and pulling are acceptable techniques! Avoid oval shapes or one leaf noticeably farther apart from another. Keep ‘em flat!
- Flip it over! Arrange leaves to be evenly spaced once more. No gaps or “ovally-ness.”
- At this point you are likely to discover that some leaves just will not stay in the perfect place. Here is where you grab your glue gun. Don’t use a mini cool temp one. Use a big momma. It’s like $3 extra and sooo much more efficient when it comes to wrangling a wreath. In this step your likely to need a little patience or Netflix. Hot glue takes a minute or two to cool and set. You’ll want to press down and hold each leaf until set because if you don’t, the finish will get ripped off the leaves and damage them. Make sure to secure each stem entry point as well.
- Last step but most important! To get that “simple” look you want to press your wreath. Leave it facedown and put something on top of it. Like a textbook or a big pot. Leave it for an hour-ish. Go paint some shiplap or something.
TaDa! Your done! Easy Magnolia Wreath Tutorial. So easy, right? Thanks for reading! Comments or questions? Leave them below in the comments box and I’ll get answers for you.
by Andrea | Dec 27, 2017 | DIY, handmade, Sewing
I don’t really know how I could name this sewing pattern anything else but The Hermione. I listened to the HP novels {for the first time ever!} while envisioning this design, drafting it on pattern paper, and then making the first sample. Ironically, I was sewing other things while most of the design gears were turning in my mind, but that’s how it goes. Mindless doing with the hands busy begets the brain space for creative mode to flourish. Do I need to back up and dwell on the crazy fact that I was 35 years old before I read Harry Potter? We can talk about it later….
What I have here is a really quick, super flattering PDF sewing pattern for women! This pattern is truly magical like it’s namesake. Top, tunic, or dress in 2 hours. What is not magical about that? There are no fancy complicated things going on here. First you have a boatneck, which is elegant, and tends to dress up an outfit. The top has a cuffed dolman sleeve, which makes the piece come together quite quickly. { Confession: I used to think Dolman sleeves were super ugly, and basically people were just too lazy to make a real sleeve. I am here to admit I was wrong! I am sorry. Phew. Glad I got that off my chest. Am I the only one? } The waist line is an empire height, which can be easily lowered, if you need a more on trend drop waist look, but as a mother who kind of struggles with a diastasis recti, I like this line up higher. It is flattering if you have a bit of a mummy tummy or not.
This top hits me at the top of the hips, and was drafted for my 5’9″ height. You can easily shorten or lengthen the top, tunic or dress. It’s slightly gathered and has a tulip hem. Seriously, this pattern is very easy to adjust! I provide tunic and dress lengths on the pdf printable pattern but you may want to construct the top and then measure for a custom length from the bodice.
I’m so excited to release this pattern. It was finished this July, but after testing I really needed to make a lot of adjustments. I am BEYOND grateful for the women who joined my new Facebook Testing Group in September and helped me fine tune the pattern. They are amazing! I could not have done it without them. I need to go back and make my first pattern even better now with their expertise!
Check out my Instagram feed for sew and tells of the pattern! @handfulofarrows #hermionepattern
You can join my testing group HERE. I’d be just over the moon to have you! I have lots of patterns to draft and test in the future.
You can buy The Hermione Pattern in my Etsy shop HERE!
Here’s the size chart and few important facts like measurements, yardage, etc… (I’ve included links on the pattern to a FBA Dolman tutorial if needed.)
by Andrea | Aug 1, 2017 | Baby, handmade, Sewing, tutorials
NEW SEWING PATTERN
Hey there! Ruby and I worked on a pacifier holder pdf sewing pattern this Spring. It has a cute bunny shape and snaps to hold her paci’s. She really loves Chicco pacifiers and those are exceptionally hard to find when they are dropped under a crib or in the car because they are clear. Whoever designed those, must not have had actual children….
So here we are. Necessity is the mother of invention! We have not woken up in the wee small hours even once to find a paci since I made this! A few notes about this pattern. This pattern is NOT FOR NEWBORNS. This pacifier holder is for toddlers who have control of their arms and can run, walk, and play. I started using this for Ruby at 15 months of age.
FABRIC
The pattern works best with terry cloth or flannel for the main fabric and quilting cotton for the inner ear pieces. You only need a small amount. I used this terry cloth from the Fabric Shack. The inner ears were Anna Maria Horner’s Loominous Collection.
SNAPS
The snaps need to be really high quality for safety reasons. I suggest using KAM SNAPS. Here is a great little set of pliers and snaps on Amazon that I use for just under $20.
The pattern comes in an easy to print pdf download. The pattern is on one 8.5 x 11″ sheet of paper and the instructions include pictures and are contained to one sheet of paper as well. It’s really a quick and easy project. You can make one in about an hour. May your nights be filled with uninterrupted sleep from now on!
Email subscribers will receive this pattern for free! So if you sign up in the next 24 hours you can get in on the freebie!
Happy sewing!
by Andrea | Jul 1, 2017 | DIY, handmade, quilting, Sewing
Quilts are made for many reasons, and yet I think the common thread that all quilts have are their purpose. I really don’t think that purpose is primarily physical warmth. When I make a quilt for someone, I have an emotional connection to the person and I want to communicate my love for them. In other words, I have “all the feels”… Usually the gifted person has blessed my life or they are dear to me in some way that needs commended or they are a tiny human, soon born to a momma whom I love… and the opportunity to creatively express what a gift they are to me is a quilt.
BESTIE QUILT
My first bestie quilt is not for my first bestie. I’d have to say she is my first mom friend and cultivated my love for sewing in a way that nurtured my creativity. She spent many hours helping, teaching, and encouraging me through the early days of marriage and first baby and hard trials and happy young days. She taught me how to “pick a chicken” when money was tight. She taught me to laugh when my kids made messes, and to just throw away those underwear when I was traumatized at potty training my first daughter! She even showed me how to iron my seams to the dark side….Haley carried on the tradition my mother began of “the older woman teaching the younger woman” how to be a worker at home from Titus even though she wasn’t much older than I. I’m so thankful God placed her in my life.
FABRIC AND PATTERN
It’s been a long time since we’ve lived in the same town, but she is often on my heart and in my prayers. One winter evening as I was gazing at my fabric piles, I felt the urge to make her a quilt. In fact, it seemed ridiculous that I had not done it yet. As I began pulling out the fabric, I knew exactly what she’d want and how I wanted to lay it out. I challenged myself this year not to buy anything new but to persevere and make quilts with what I have. I have so much. It always feels good to use what you have.
I chose to merge two separate collections of farm and canning prints by Riley Blake Fabrics and some denim chambray from AGF. I patched in a few pieces from Joann Fabrics as well that I have had since God only knows when….
The pattern began as a lone star quilt block, but then I carried out it’s border with half square triangles to make the star burst out and featured the center using the chambray as contrast. The quilt was a lot of fun. While I sewed, it was a great opportunity to reminisce, pray for Haley and to finish several books on audible! In fact, I have a link from Amazon for 2 free audible books here if you want to grab it! I enjoyed the last Harry Potter novel, tried to listen to Fantastic Beasts, but it was too tedious, and ended with Missional Motherhood by Gloria Furman.
Fun facts about Haley’s quilt:
-At the last possible minute as she was pulling out of her long farm driveway in Illinois to leave for Arkansas for a week, her postman pulled in to deliver the box. Phew! PTL! She took it with her in the car.
-I tried quilting tiny lines close together for the first time…loved it!
-I used red pearl cotton to hand quilt the chambray sections.
-Ruby Jane loved this quilt, and probably thought it was hers. She helped me photograph it. Why does it have to be so difficult to photograph quilts?! I need help.
I have a few more bestie quilts already in the works, but first I’ll be working on my #4 daughters quilt. She is getting so big and it’s time for her twin size quilt! Her 6th birthday is in a week!
Here are some links to the fabrics and batting I used! Annnnnnd lots more pictures below!
by Andrea | Jun 17, 2017 | handmade, Home Decor, quilting, Sewing, Uncategorized
I started this quilt in 1994. It was the summer of my 7th grade year….Alanis Morissette was singing Ironic on my boom box cassette player. My cut offs were totally grunge and my mom was sponge painting the hunter green walls in our guest/sewing room. She taught me to quilt and I was hooked. For some reason though, life got busy when school started up again. The quilt top was left pieced but unquilted in the sewing room closet. I enrolled in 8th grade, got my Jennifer Anniston layered look and headed off to school with plaid flannel and dr. martens.
Several years later, I got married and my mom packed that quilt into my moving truck with me as we set off to rural Illinois. I was pregnant with our first child and the nesting of our home was in full swing. I got the quilt out and started working on it again. Slowly hand quilting here and there. I just never really stuck with it. I think part of it was because I didn’t like the style of the quilt. I never would have picked it out for my home now that I was a sophisticated newly wed hoping to decorate my farmhouse in trendy style. I put it away and purchased a Shabby Chic Quilt from Target!
After Illinois we had a long string of frequent moves and the quilt got moved about and lost in storage for several years. Fast forward to the most recent summer of 2016. 22 years after starting the quilt, I was mercilessly getting rid of everything I could because we were moving across the country for medical school and I did not want to haul anymore junk around for the rest of my life. I’m not a minimalist, but I decided we would sell everything and keep our moving expenses down.
Despite my ability to get rid of tons of fabric and unfinished projects, I could not let that quilt go. I told my mom, I would finish it. She offered to take it home with her and keep it safe while we moved across the country. She set about quilting it for me this past year and in May she brought it out and we finished quilting it together. I bound it with some Ralph Lauren plaid sheeting I had been hoarding for about 8 years. It was finally done!
I love it because it is finished and it represents the beginning of my love of quilting. Do I love the colors and composition? Probably not as mush as I did in 7th grade! But I still love yellow and it’s a cheerful addition to our slowly growing collection of family quilts. It only took 23 years to finish!
This is the year I finish all the quilts I’ve started over the years! I am excited to get to work on the next one!
QUILTING MUST HAVES:
I tried out a new set of refill blades for my Olfa rotary cutter while I finished this quilt up and I have to tell you about these puppies! They were super sharp and came in a great little case. And the price made my jaw drop to the floor. You get 10 for less than the price of an Olfa 2-pack! Try them!
Also my 2 1/2″ strip die for my accuquilt cutter. I love it. It makes the binding go superfast.
This rubber thimble is my new favorite for hand quilting! Super comfy. It’s the best.
