1) Crochet or knit flowers. There are tons of free patterns, and books and classes for knit and crochet flowers available on the internet. Just do a google search and you will have more info than you thought possible on this topic.  Pre-made trimmings or felt shapes purchased from craft shops will work if you can't, or don't want to make your own flowers.

2) Select your flowers/shapes and pile them up however you like. Then sew them with embroidery thread or leftover yarn to a scrap of felt or other sturdy fabric. Take care to secure all of the flowers. I use a few large stitches around the center of the flowers to do the trick.

3) Plug in your glue gun, select a hair tie, and cut another piece of felt the same size and shape as your first.

4) Put a nice blob (that's a technical term) of hot glue in the middle of your felt and place the center of the hair tie on top.

5) Add more hot glue on top of the hair tie, and on the sides of the hair tie.

6) Press the second piece of felt on top of the first, pressing to secure to the hot glue. Be careful not to burn yourself. 

7) Trim the excess felt, and viola, you have a trendy new crocheted accessory.

Now go show it off!

This is a fast and simple project that yields a set of 4 oversized coasters. I've been whipping them up by the dozen and giving them to party hosts and coffee buddies.  I think they would make a sweet new home or teacher gift as well. Especially paired with a handmade mug and favorite tea or half pound of coffee.

Materials: Small amounts of cotton laminate prints, bamboo or other quilt batting, thread.

1) First, pick your laminated cotton fabrics. For this set I used one fabric for all four of one side, and random cuts from four other laminate prints I had leftover from my box bags. 

2) Cut eight 5 1/2 squares of cotton laminate, and four 5 1/2 squares of bamboo or other batting from quilt scraps.

3) Lay a cotton laminate square that you want to be the bottom of your coaster face up on your work surface.

 4) Lay a cotton laminate square that you would like to be a coaster top face down on top of the other laminate square, with right sides touching.

5) Layer batting square on top of cotton laminates. Do not pin. Pinning leaves permanent punctures in cotton laminates and oil cloth.

6) Sew all around your square using a 1/2" seam allowance, leaving a 3" opening on one side. If you use a smaller seam allowance, the coaster will be more difficult to topstitch later. 

7) Snip the corners and trim excess batting.

8) Pull the coaster right side out through your 3" opening.

9) Finger press around. You can iron cotton laminates, but I found that on a project this small it wasn't necessary.

10) Topstitch around entire coaster using 1/4" allowance. Repeat 3 times more to complete your set.

11) Admire.

Gather your Materials:

• double sided fusible web (I used a very lightweight Pellon Wonder Under Transfer Web)
• flexible cardboard cover notebooks (I used a mix of Moleskine Plain Kraft Cahier notebooks, and recycled cardboard notebooks found at Target)
• fabric of your choice (this is a great scrap buster if you use small pocket notebooks)
• scissors
• pencil

Get to work:

1. Lay lightweight double sided fusible webbing out on a flat surface, rough side down. Open cardboard covered notebook to the middle and place on top of the fusible webbing. Holding the notebook flat with one hand, trace the notebook's outline on the fusible webbing.
2. Cut fusible webbing along the outline of the notebook you just drew in step 1. If the fusible webbing is all wrinkly don't worry. All wrinkles and kinks will disappear when pressed in the next step.
3. Choose your fabric, making sure that you have enough to cover your notebook. Then press fabric, removing all wrinkles.
4. Lay your fabric on your ironing board, wrong side up. Be mindful of how you orient your fabric if your fabric is directional, or has a certain pattern that you want to feature. For example, for this blue notebook I wanted to make sure that the "Hello my friend!" was on the front of the notebook, so I took care to orient my fabric appropriately in this step.
5. Press rough side of fusible webbing to wrong side of fabric.
6. Cut along the outline of the fusible webbing.
7. Peel paper backing off of the fusible webbing.
8. Lay your cardboard notebook, open with pages facing down, on your ironing board and place the wrong/sticky side of the your fabric on the cardboard.
9. Press fabric onto cardboard notebook from the center binding out. Carefully press out all wrinkles.
10. If notebook has buckled a bit under the heat of your iron, then fold notebook while warm and press under a stack of heavy books or magazines for a few hours. 
11. Once the notebook has returned to its regular form, trim any excess fabric from edges, or pull loose strings to create a slightly frayed look. 

Done!! 

I designed the Girl's Shirt Dress dress with my daughter S in mind. She loves it when I sew a skirt to a knit t-shirt, so S, this one's for you. 

I should mention that this tutorial is written for an advanced beginner machine sewer who likes to wing it a little bit. Also, I used a ballpoint needle for this project because it involves knit material, and ballpoint needles tend to play nice with knits when other needles may not.

1) Select a dress shirt. I like chambray shirts for this project because they are a little heavier weight, but any old dress shirt should work. Then select a tank top that fits the child you are sewing for. Pre-wash and dry both shirts in the same way that you will your finished shirt dress to prevent shrinkage later.

2) Have the child you are sewing for try on the tank top and mark the child's natural waist with a water soluble marking pen or your favorite marking pencil/chalk.  I found it easiest to mark dots on the side seams of the tank top at S's waist, take the tank top off of her, and then draw a line across the front and back with a ruler connecting the dots.

After your waist line is drawn around the tank top, fold the tank top in half and make a mark the midpoint of the front of the tank top. Do NOT cut the tank top at this time. 

3) Iron the dress shirt and cut it across just under the arms. If the child you are sewing for is young, or vertically challenged, then cut bellow the next button down. You be the judge of where you cut based on the size of the dress shirt and the height of the child.  I used a size small dress shirt here, and S is tall, so I cut just under the arms.

 4)  Gather the dress shirt to fit the tank top.  

Everyone seems to have a different way of gathering fabric. For this project I suggest the following:

First unbutton the dress shirt and sew one row of basting stitches about 5/8" down from the raw edge that you cut in step 3.

Then re-button the dress shirt and lay it on top of the tank top at the waist marking you made in step 2.

Gather the fabric to fit the tank top, arranging the gathers evenly. Be careful to match the side seams of the dress shirt to the side seams of the tank top.

5) Turn your gathered dress shirt inside out and pin it, right sides together at the marked waist line you drew in step 2. Pin in place, securing side seams of dress shirt to side seams of tank top, and lining up the button placket with the mark you made in step 2 at the middle of the t-shirt. 

Please note: The above picture may look strange because the bottom of the tank top (bellow the waist you marked in step 2) is sticking out. In step 2 I advised you NOT to cut the tank top at the waist line because in my opinion, a raw knit hem will stretch more, making it more difficult to sew than the middle of a knit shirt. This is especially true if you use a ribbed tank as I did. 

6) Sew gathered dress shirt to tank top in place with a 1/2" seam allowance.

7) Now you have a dress! Turn your dress right side out and pull out basting stitches with a seam ripper. 

8) Turn dress inside out again and cut tank top bottom to the raw edge of the dress shirt.

Finish seams with a serger, or using zigzag stitch on your sewing machine.

9) With dress inside out, iron finished seams up towards tank top. Turn dress right side out, select a top thread that you want to see on your finished dress, and topstitch.

 10) You can stop here for a very loose fitting relaxed look, and skip to step 11 to attach cuff sleeves, or you create shirring with elastic thread to give the dress a shirred waist like I did. 

First, wind elastic thread (available at craft stores and online) around your bobbin while stretching it. You want it wound medium tight for best results. 

Then, using your favorite marking pen/pencil, mark 2 or more evenly spaced rows at least 1/4"-1/2" apart. I ended up using 5 to create a wide waistband for S. 

Using your elastic thread in your bobbin and regular coordinating top thread, sew with a straight stitch along your marked lines all the way around your skirt. Backstitch at least a 1/2" at the end of each line to secure elastic. Now iron and watch the elastic magically shrink up into a lovely shirred waistband!

11) You are almost done! Now for the cuff sleeves. 

Cut the cuffs off of the dress shirt sleeves with a 1/2" seam allowance. 

 12)

12) Finish the raw edge of the cuff with a serger or zigzag stitch on a sewing machine.

13) Fold the shirt cuffs in half and pin them to the tank top shoulders with the midpoint of the cuff lining up with the top shoulder seam, and with the cuff buttons facing the front of the dress. 

14) Topstitch the cuff to the tank top, using at least 2 rows of topstitching to secure the cuff and ensure that it will lay flat. 

Stand back and admire!