Have Felt, Will Decorate

Delia and I decided this year to forgo the crepe paper streamers and instead make some decorations for her birthday that could be reused. These banners are the result of our first night's work. The big one is made from triangles we measured and cut out of a length of felt. Each is 5 inches wide at the top. They are machine stitched along with a piece of black ric-rac. Super simple, mega cute. I wanted to cut the felt triangles with pinking shears so they would have zig-zaggy edges to kind of echo the ric-rac, but alas, my Grandma's pinkers are plenty old and not as sharp as they used to be (much like me). They wouldn't cut the felt, so the edges of these pennants are just straight.
These little guys are made from scraps I had left over. They came out pretty awesome, for being all kinds of random. I did sort the triangles generally by size, and then stacked them so the littlest ones would be closest to the ends. Just overlap the triangles a little bit as you feed them through the machine and they come out strung together. I made little loop hangers for the ends out of pieces of felt, and stitched them onto the end triangles.
You could make the little doorway garlands from the notebook paper sized pieces of felt you can get at the craft store. I bought a little more than 2 yards of felt from JoAnns when it was on sale. About 6 dollars invested in it, tonight we used up less than 1/4 of my felt stash.

I am jazzed by how easy this little project was, once I brought my sewing machine down from the attic and got it all set up on the dining room table. Now that it is ready to go, I might have to round up some more colors of felt and make decorations for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Button, Button

Just call me Mrs. Green Jeans.

I am in LOVE with bargain shopping. When I found these Ann Taylor pants on the $1 clearance rack at Gabes yesterday and they actually FIT (how often does that really happen?) I had to buy them. The only problem was, they lacked a button.

I have a fairly large stash of buttons, so I sorted through them till I found one that fit through the buttonhole. The trick to sewing a button onto thicker clothing (like denim) is not to forget to build up a bit of a shank if your button does not have one. The shank provides a bit of space between the button and the garment. Many buttons already have a shank, but if your button is flat with holes in it, you are going to need to make one.

See how this leather button has a raised loop on the back? That's the shank.

My chosen button didn't have a shank, so I used a little trick to give it one.
Place your button where you want it and sew through the holes once, inserting needle first into the wrong side of the fabric, coming up through one buttonhole, going down through the other buttonhole and then through the fabric. The button will be loosely attached, so here's where you place a thick needle (or a toothpick if you don't have a stash of yarn needles) between the button and the fabric. Just slide it in between the two threads holding the button on. This raises the button up a bit. Finish sewing the button on as usual.
Once you have the button attached securely, bring the thread up through to the right side of the fabric but not through the hole in the button. Remove the needle (or toothpick). Wrap the thread around those stitches, under the button, several times. Once your shank is built up, you can poke the needle back through to the wrong side and tie off the thread. Easy Peasy.