hi, i'm maggie.
(like the rod stewart song)
i'm an elder millennial living in the bay area who loves dark beer, the environment, and sewing for the tiny humans in my life.
(like the rod stewart song)
i'm an elder millennial living in the bay area who loves dark beer, the environment, and sewing for the tiny humans in my life.
my obsession with making play food for maya and neela continues...
today i am going to show how i made some play bow tie pasta for them.
maya loves toy food. which means neela loves toy food, or rather neela loves to put toy food in her mouth.
so for my first tutorial of the new year I am going to show how i made them some felt strawberries for them.
anyone hoping to get a kindle for the holidays?
i got one last year from victor and thought i would share a tutorial for making a simple case for it.
have I mentioned lately that the bay area has the best weather?
then again i spent the first quarter decade of my life in the mid west and northeast, so perhaps i'm easily impressed.
since i no longer need cold weather gear, I've developed a fondness for what i call 'san francisco scarves' or infinity scarves made from cotton.
can we talk about how handsome my cat is?
if you can draw yourself away from that face for a moment you will see he is wearing a purple polka dot bow tie, made from fabric left over from maya's spunky polka library dress. today i'm going to share a tutorial on how to make your own cat bow ties.
if it's not incredibly obvious, i love my cat. chairman percy fitzwallace aka fitz came into our lives this january and is never leaving.
growing up with dogs i never thought I would be a cat person, but I am definitely a fitz person.
today i am going to share a tutorial for some owl shaped cat nip toys i made him.
a few years ago my retired parents, who had shunned off all pets since my childhood dog had passed away a few years earlier, woke up and decided to get a new dog. so rosie the english bulldog entered our lives.
i feel like you might need a visual to really be with me here.
sometimes it's the simplest and easiest projects that bring my nieces the most joy.
my sister sammie is exactly the kind of mom i, as the biggest recipient of her nurturing instincts for 26 years, always knew she would be. that is to say she's amazing. she's warm, caring, disciplined when need be, and most of all really fun. so when i see maya idolizing her, hanging on to her every word, and wanting nothing more than to be like sammie, i can totally relate.
when vic and I did long distance for 819 days (but who counted) one of the few things i didn't like about visiting him in california was that i couldn't bring my sewing with me. then i discovered you could do entire projects by hand. game changer.
one of the early hand sewing projects i did was birthday bunting for the girls. when i referred to them as bunting vic was incredious, insisting they couldn't be as that was something baseball players did. #allboysfamily
all this week we'll be talking about techniques to make your sewing more professional. today it's all about labels.
when i first started sewing i ordered my labels online. however i always felt they were a tad overpriced ($1 apiece), took a little too long arrive (6 weeks or more), and no matter how much time i spent designing them they didn't quite have the look i was going for. so last year i decided to try making my own. they turned out great so i thought i would share my process.
for the holidays a few years back i made maya a fabric memory game. it was such a hit i thought i would share a tutorial.
my sister sammie loves to cook, maya loves to help, and i love to use up scraps of fabric. so it's not surprising this apron came into existence.
did you know disney has an entire movie franchise on the adventures of tinkerbell? in one film 'secret of the wings', we learn about the existence of winter fairies and (spoiler alert) tinkerbell discovers she has a fraternal twin sister periwinkle.
drawing inspiration from this epic motion picture nora and i decided to make her and etta matching fairy sister dresses.
today we are talking about inseam pockets.
a type of of set-in pockets, inseam pockets are ones where the pocket bag is sewn into an existing seam, usually the side seam.
today we're talking about a type of pockets very common in adult clothing: the front hip pocket.
more about sleeves today, specifically my favorite types of sleeves for little girls: cap and flutter sleeves.
more sewing for skills, and today we're all about means to fasten fabric: buttons and snaps.
more sewing for skills today as I talk about piping which is one of my my favorite ways to accent an outfit.
today I'm talking about sleeves. sleeves are one of those things that look like they should be really hard, but in reality aren't that difficult.
so lets start with the basics: flat-set sleeves.
a big reason why I started love aunt maggie was to share, or at least document, all the random knowledge I have acquired about sewing over the last few years. even if that knowledge is just a pattern recommendation or a link to a really awesome tutorial on YouTube. in addition to posting about it here i'll be building all this information in a technique library.
today i am starting this by talking about pockets, in particular patch pockets.
final post in technique week! if you are just joining us here is what we have covered so far:
on monday i did a tutorial for making your very own fabric labels with just fabric, stamps, and ink. on tuesday i covered french seams, or rather the do's and don'ts of using french seams. on wednesday i talked about straight stitch seams and what i feel are the three key benefits of using them. on thursday i wrote a guide to facings, which are my personal favorite finishing technique.
for our final post today we are talking about the benefits of hand stitching.
technique week marches on!
if you're just joining us: on monday we had a tutorial for making your own fabric labels, on tuesday we discussed some do's and don'ts of french seams, on wednesday we had three reasons you should use straight stitch seams in your next project.
today we are talking about facings, which are probably my favorite technique. (i'm only saving hand stitching for tomorrow because so often it's the final step in a project, so it feels right to end the week on it.)
on monday we learned how to make your own fabric labels, yesterday we talked about the french seam, and today we are talking about my love of straight stitch seams and why you should use them in your next project.
for those of you who don't know a french seam is a finishing technique whereby you see the seam twice: once to attach the two pieces of fabric, and once to enclose the raw edge in a pocket on the inside of the garment.
