Heading to the Beach // Resort Wear

even though it's mid-june, summer still isn't in full swing in NYC. so i've been doing a bit of beach time dreaming. i'll be heading out to our greenport house in july and august, and here are a few of my favorite resort wear items perfect for the beach.



turkish towel via TheAnatolian | tangerine swimsuit via SHOPAT851 | mint triangle earrings via bonnilu | chambray romper via shetigervintage | wooden sunglasses via Capital | blue vintage swimsuit via bonesvintage

New Sewing Pattern Shop: I Make It; You Make It

As you've probably guessed from my (sorta) recent pattern-testing posts, I've had a new shop in the works. And, it's finally open! It's called I Make It; You Make It and has digital PDF sewing patterns and tutorials. The patterns are mostly fashion related with a vintage-inspired twist. Through the years, fashionable sewing patterns have been hard to come by, which generally led me to creating my own patterns. Now I've been digitizing them, and writing up easy-to-follow, detailed instructions with photos to go along with the patterns.

As a follower of the blog, take 20% off any of the patterns by entering GRANDOPENING when you checkout, available until June 25th. You can have a looksy at the DIY sewing patterns in the shop, or sign up to get an email whenever a new pattern comes out (about once a month).

The Patterns

Right now the shop includes:

A men's bowtie that is custom-fit to the wearer and closes with a hook and eye in the back.

A women's turban made from a stretchy knit that wraps around for a custom fit

A ruffled half apron that's reversible

A simple wallet that only requires 3 stitches to make

A snap wallet that comes in 2 sizes: wallet size and business card holder size

After finishing up this Amish Shadows Baby Quilt for my friend's new baby, I finally put together this basic pattern to cut out and make the squares used in this pattern.

Amish Shadows Quilt Pattern

You can download the Amish Shadows Quilt Pattern which includes pattern pieces for making the colored triangle. These pieces don't include the seam allowance though, so you'll need to add that in to all edges of all pieces before cutting your fabric. I typically use a 1/4" seam allowance for quilting.

You can use the pattern pieces to construct each square. For my blanket, since it was for a baby, I assembled 9 squares (each 10" square). Then I added 2 sets of borders around the edges.

To quilt the blanket, I stitched just inside of the lines for each triangle piece, then added a heart to the largest triangle section. The pattern also includes a template for the heart that you can trace onto your quilt.

Typically, I think Amish Shadows quilts are made with bright rainbow colors, and black as the base color, but it just seemed a little too dismal for a baby blanket.

Hopefully you'll enjoy the pattern and make your own baby quilt! Let me know how it goes if you do.

You can also check out my sewing pattern shop or my other projects.

DIY Vintage Button Ring Tutorial

This is a tutorial to show you how to make a ring out of a vintage button. I see so many great vintage buttons, either randomly at a yard sale or thrift store or a part of an old sweater or shirt that I don't want to wear anymore. Buttons are little treasures that are great because they can be so fun, with a lot of detail. There's a bunch of stuff you can do with them, and I'm sort of button hoarder. If there's a nice set of them, I like to replace boring buttons on a shirt with fun colored ones. And below, is how to turn a button into a pretty ring.

DIY Button Ring Tutorial

Materials

big vintage button

ring blank (proportionate in size to your button)

heavy duty glue, like E6000

sandpaper

disposable pointy thing, like a chopstick

Step 1

Using the sandpaper, gently sand the back of the button, and the flat surface of the ring blank. The flat smooth surface of the button/ring blank doesn't give the glue enough to really bond to, so by roughening up the texture a bit it will make your glue hold better. Make sure you don't go crazy here, and try to only sand the button where the ring blank will attach.

Step 2

Apply a small dollop of glue with your chopstick to your ring blank. The key here is not getting too much. You want enough so that when you press the ring on it forms a solid layer, almost forming a suction, and only the tiniest bit peeks out the edges, but not so much that you have to wipe it off.

Step 3

Now press on your ring gently just enough that the glue spreads evenly across and you have a nice layer of glue in between. Don't press too hard where you squeeze all of the glue out of the sides. Now, set it aside and let it dry for a good 24 hours before you wear it.


Now you have a new ring! You can get pretty creative with these, and soon you'll be looking for anything with a flat surface to make rings out of. You can also make rings from geode stones with a flat back, vintage pendants, sliced agate, stone chunks like pyrite, or even little knit items like bows or hearts.

You can check out my statement rings in the shop, or have a look at my other DIY patterns.

Jewel of the Month Club

Recently, I started a Jewel of the Month Club, where I'll select one item from the jewelry shop which will be on super duper sale for the month. It lets everyone get in on the jewelry fun, and you can build up your jewelry collection, one piece at a time. This month, the arrow earrings are now listed at over 40% off.



It's free, and no registration required...but if you want a little reminder every month to see what the new jewel will be, sign up below with your email address.

And...now that April is almost here, which would you want see as the next jewel of the month?

poll by twiigs.com