I grew up watching my mom and my aunts sew clothing, pillows, and curtains for their homes.  There were no blogs to showcase their work, just their fellow community where they shared their tips and advice.  It was the late seventies, times were tough, money was tight, and the economy was in the you know what.  Ladies all across the nation were trading patterns and ideas, and sewing up a frenzy of home decor on a budget.  Sounds kinda familiar doesn’t it?

The very best way to soften a space, to add texture, pattern and personality, is with the use of great fabrics, so I believe one of the best tools for an avid DIYer is a basic sewing machine. You’ll find plenty of tutorials online for ‘no sew’ decor, and they are fantastic, in fact I’ve done several myself.  There are lots of times when fusible web, fabric glue, or safety pins have come to my rescue with a simple hem or a window treatment.  Yay for those solutions!  Yet one thing I’ve learned is that having the ability to work a sewing machine opens up an entirely new world.

Do you ever see a swatch of fabric, be it in the form of a dress, an apron, a napkin, a silk scarf, and you think to yourself, "This would make a great pillow!" or you find a great fabric and think "I want to make curtains out of this."  It happens to me all the time!  You can design an entire space around a single swatch of fabric that inspires, be it a damask, geometric, Ikat or simple stripe pattern, whatever speaks to you.  I am constantly inspired by patterns I find beyond the racks in fabric stores, and I’m a big believer in reinventing them into new things.

For example, take these inexpensive napkins I found in a local kitchen store.  Beautiful robins egg blue background with an apple green botanical pattern.  Love!  In fact, I loved them so much, I turned them into a pillow!

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I love it when a plan comes together !  I’ve been working on the living room all week, mostly the wainscoting, but one of the other pieces I also wanted to makeover was my brown velvet settee.  I love the shape of this piece – it fits on the wall next to the fireplace to perfection, but I was sooooooo done with the dark brown color.  Rather than pay big bucks to have it reupholstered, I decided, for now, to simply slipcover it. 

I’ve mentioned before that my sewing skills are limited, but over time, I’ve been challenging myself to take on more intermediate sewing projects – this was certainly one of them.  I confess, I’ve admired the slipcovers across blogland for a long time, but this is my first attempt at slipcovering a piece of furniture myself.  After four days of piecing it together, bit by bit, I’m pretty satisfied with my new summer linen slipcover. 

Lovely readers, meet my little settee and her pretty new linen slipcover. 

Before:

After:

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I’m such a fool for vintage linens.  I especially love heirloom fabrics with hand embroidered details, or cottons with a touch of ladylike lace.  Vintage tea towels remind me of something I’d see nestled on top of my grandmother’s vanity beside her silver comb and mirror. 

So when I spotted a stack of vintage tea towels at a local antique store for a few dollars each, I purchased three to create some unique pillows for friends who are about to have little ones. 

Just like a bride, I think every nursery deserves a touch of something old and something new.  So I created these tea towel pillows  – they are sewn together with a crisp cotton  vintage tea towel, a scrap of accent fabric, and some modern trim. 

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I was just fa la la la la-ing my way through the fabric store the other day, in search of more velvet for those stockings I have every good intention of sewing whenever I get around to it. 

Darn it, why did I have to spy those bolts of faux fur ?  I was completely stopped in my tracks.  I couldn’t think about stockings, I could only see a fabulous tree skirt trimmed in that cream colored fur.  I’ve never ever ever had a tree skirt -  it’s one of those luxuries I’ve just never bothered to purchase.  In years past, I simply wrapped a piece of crimson velvet around my tree trunk.  In truth, that worked just fine since the fabric always seemed to be covered up with Christmas presents relatively quickly. 

This year, after spying that fur, I just had to make myself an authentic tree skirt.  I wanted a skirt with a luxurious look, but without the big price tag. 

So I came up with this purty little number. 

Here’s the quick and easy way to make this simple sew faux fur trimmed tree skirt in one afternoon.

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