Seen the new June/July 2011 Quilters Home magazine? I just love that cover quilt, Drunkard’s Flower Path, don’t you? Looks like a perfect summer quilting project.

If quick quilty crafts are more your thing during the lazy days of summer, check out the article, Hot Buttons for the latest on whimsical buttons you can buy and fun button crafts you can make. And the instructions for all three projects can be found in the web-exclusive feature, Button Joy (click here to download or view pdf). Learn to make my embroidered button hair jewelry (below), Virginia Robertson’s one-of-a-kind stacked button pins and a decorative button jar.

What’s your summer sewing project?

Share your comments or summer sewing projects!

More Button Projects:
Cover Button Blossoms!
Bloomin’ Button Brooches
Fabric Ribbon Rosettes
Pocket Full of Posies (scroll down for Kurumi button tutorial)
Find Creativity in Everyday Life

Here’s a fun spring project: Cover Button Blossoms.  Use them with push pins as shown above to brighten a bulletin board, or try a magnet, jewelry pin back or bobby pin finding, or even scrapbooking brads.

Join me Wednesday, April 20, 2011 at 6 pm PT ( 7:00pm MT; 8:00pm CT;  9:00pm ET) at Wednesday Night Live in C&T Publishing’s Digital Lounge for a tutorial and more creative fun. Lynn Koolish will also be showing her fabulous fabric clocks. Hope to see you there!

Not these kind of buttons!

Hope you were able to take a little time from your busy day to celebrate. If not, join me for some eye candy and enjoy what I did to celebrate buttons today (fabric cover-buttons, of course. My favorite kind of buttons!) They’re samples for some of my upcoming Fast, Fun & Easy Fabric Cover-Button Jewelry workshops.

Takumi Brooch

Takumi Mini Purse, view 1

Takumi Mini Purse, view 2

Hope you enjoyed your mini tour of Button Wonderland. Where did I find that gorgeous fabric, you say? Glad you asked. It’s from Kona Bay Fabrics’ Takumi Collection. And yes, for those of you enrolled in one of my upcoming workshops, it will be available in the workshop kits.

While Christmas-time can be frantic and stressful, it doesn’t have to be. With a little help from our friends, we can reduce our stress and not only survive the holidays, but thrive! Here are my top ten holiday survival tips:

1. bake some Christmas cheer

There’s something special about the taste of made-from-scratch cookies, but making them doesn’t have to be an all-day affair. Gingerbread and sugar cookie dough can be prepared a few days in advance and stored in the refrigerator. Or if you prefer, uncooked dough can also be frozen for up to 9 months. Just thaw your frozen dough overnight in the refrigerator. Then enjoy a magical afternoon of cookie baking with the kids.

2. crafty decorating

If the kitchen’s not your thing, you can still have an afternoon of holiday fun with ready-to-paint Christmas tree decorations. One Christmas my daughter and I painted these mini wooden birdhouses. We still enjoy hanging them on the tree and the memories of making them together. You can also find paintable ceramic ornaments.

3. use your imagination

I have a red felt poodle skirt that I made for myself one Halloween. It doesn’t fit me very well, but the poodle skirt makes a fun Christmas tree skirt. What unusual things do you have around the house that would make unique holiday decorations?

4. personalize photo cards the easy way

If you’ve got a digital camera, chances are you already have all your family photos right there in your computer. I like to order my Christmas photo cards online because you get a wider variety of sizes and styles to choose from and you get to preview onscreen what your pictures will look like in the cards before you buy. Tiny Prints Christmas Cards even has fun die-cut designs.

Tiny Prints provides stylish, modern and unique stationery from photo cards to personalized greeting cards to thank you cards and business cards. Offering exclusive designs from the nation’s top designers, easy card personalization, a powerful preview engine and top-notch customer service and paper quality, their designs have been lauded by numerous television networks, publications and celebrities. With Tiny Prints by your side the Holidays will be a cinch! They offer adorable Thanksgiving Cards, Christmas Cards, Hanukkah Cards, and even New Years Cards. All fully customizable and personalizable.

5. craft a Christmas tradition

Crayola fabric markers are a fun way for children to create holiday mementos. How about a Christmas art quilt? Prewash 100% cotton solid white or muslin fabric, cut into the desired size squares and iron fabric squares to freezer paper (find it in the plastic wrap/tinfoil aisle), shiny side facing the fabric. This stabilizes the fabric so it’s easy to draw on. Let the kids draw Christmas pictures on the freezer paper-backed fabric, then remove freezer paper and heat set according to marker directions. Make a few new squares each year and save them up for a Christmas-art-through-the-years quilt.

6. treat yourself

In the midst of all the holiday hustle and bustle, don’t forget to take a moment or two to treat yourself. My fave is a coffee treat, but others might prefer a chocolate truffle,  a soak in a bubble bath or watching a favorite movie. Afterward you’ll be refreshed and ready to jump back into the middle of all the holiday fun.

7. kid friendly decorating

Have small children in the house? Decorate a mini tree or wreath just for them. Find party favors in their favorite theme: princess, pirate or whatever they’re into most this year. Tie them to the tree or wreath with pretty ribbons. You won’t have to worry about the decorations breaking, and after Christmas is over, pass the party favors out to your children and their friends or save them for birthday parties or small rewards in the coming year. Next year choose a new theme to decorate the mini tree or wreath with.

8. gift from the heart & hand

There are probably at least a few people on your gift list who would love a handmade present. Try a mini purse or piece of jewelry from my book, Fast, Fun & Easy Fabric Cover-Button Jewelry: Make Gifts & Glamour in an Afternoon (C&T Publishing). They really are fast, fun and easy, and with all that wonderful fabric out there to choose from, you’re sure to find the perfect print for that special someone.

9. customize a gift

Tiny Prints’ Customized Day Planners make a perfect holiday gift. There’s nothing more quick and simple to do if you already have a photo ready in your computer, and it’s a stylish and thoughtful gift the recipient will enjoy using all year long.

10. stock up for Christmas crafting

When you’re hitting the after-Christmas sales, don’t forget about holiday fabric. Pick up a few yards and stash them away. You can sew up Christmas trinkets in April, August or whenever the crafting bug bites. Then next year you’ll be ready for Christmas gift-giving, decorating or stocking a booth at your holiday craft bazaar.

What about you? Please share a holiday survival tip or two of your own.

I love Asian fabrics for my cover-button jewelry. Here’s a sample I made recently for Maeda Importing. This one is the Silk Fabric Cord necklace from my Fast, Fun & Easy Fabric Cover-Button Jewelry book. I substituted Maeda’s beautiful hand-dyed satin cord for the silk fabric cord. Wild Iris is the colorway I used.

If you use craft glues you’ll be interested to know about a new adhesive I tried for the findings on this necklace, Beacon’s Tiger Bond. I don’t like using glues with fumes, and my previous fume-free favorite was discontinued last year. I was excited to give Tiger Bond a try. Here are my results:

Tiger Bond vs. E-6000

As you can see, Tiger Bond performed equally as well as E-6000 with the added bonus of not having to worry about health issues and headaches from the fumes. This will be especially useful for my jewelry-making workshops. If you think the fumes are bad with just one person in the room gluing stuff, imagine what it’s like when there’s 20 people gluing stuff, even with the windows open.

I’ve also noticed with jewelry that even after the 48 hour curing process is complete, you can still smell the fumes for days and sometimes even a week or more afterwards if you put the jewelry on. (Depends on the weather how long the fumes stick around.) I always set my finished jewelry in the garage to air out for a week or two before I wear it if I used E-6000 on the findings.

Tiger Bond is more expensive. But here’s the thing, I don’t use my glue every day, or even every week. So usually my tubes of glue, whether large or small, dry up before I use it all. I don’t know how many large tubes of nearly full dried up E-6000 I’ve thrown out over the years. So unless you’re making stuff like crazy to sell on etsy or give as gifts, you’re probably not going to use up that entire super-sized tube of glue anyways. (And if you are using that much glue, you should really consider something that’s easier on your lungs.)

I used a 40% off coupon at the craft store for the Tiger Bond, but now that I’ve tried it, I like it so much that I’d buy Tiger Bond again, even without a coupon. In fact, I can’t imagine why I’d ever go back. E-6000 has been around for over 25 years, and it has served crafters well. But technology is changing at a rapid pace, and it’s great to now have more products to choose from that are just as effective, but safer.

If you like glue (and who doesn’t like glue?), there are some great resources on Beacon’s website, including a glue guide and helpful hints for working with glue.

“I often have a difficult time finding the ‘perfect’ button for many of my projects; I also like to have matching accessories for my outfits. So finding the book ‘Fast Fun and Easy Fabric Cover-Button Jewelry’ by Laura West Kong was a windfall. Now I can always have the perfect (and matching) button for any garment, any purse, pillow, etc that I am making. I can also have unique (and matching, of course) accessories for any outfit I desire. To complement this book I used ‘Button-Ups’ software from Hope Yoder, 4D software (both the fabric decorator and digitizer) and the Floriani software to design some wonderful designer covered buttons.” —Rocky Mountain Sewing & Vacuum

Resources

• Rocky Mountain Sewing & Vacuum (homepage | Facebook page)
• Fast, Fun & Easy Fabric Cover-Button Jewelry (buy a signed copy
  | C&T Publishing | Amazon)
• Hope Yoder Button-Ups
• Husqvarna Viking 4D Embroidery Software
• Floriani Embroidery Software

Watch the video and then scroll down for the supplies list and step-by-steps. Don’t forget to download the free pattern sheet. (Pattern sheet is in PDF. You’ll need Adobe Reader to open this document.)

For each brooch you will need:
3 1/2″ square background fabric
2″ square fabric for flower
1″ square fabric for flower center
3 1/4″ square lightweight fusible woven interfacing
2″ x 3″ fusible web
40 wt. rayon thread for appliqué
2 1/2″ square cotton batting or low loft polyester batting
Double-stick tape
Small pair of pliers
Hot fix crystals
Crystal applicator wand, mini iron, or household iron to apply crystals
1 1/2″ half ball cover button (brass)
1″ long pin/pendant finding with double-faced adhesive pad

1. Trace the flower of your choice and circle patterns onto paper side of fusible web.

2. Following manufacturers’ instructions, iron the fusible web to the wrong side of the flower and circle fabrics, and iron the fusible interfacing centered on the wrong side of the background fabric.

3. Cut out the flower and circle appliqués and fuse to the middle of the interfaced background fabric. You can place the circle in the middle of the flower or slightly off-center. When making the Jasmine pin, it is easier to fuse and stitch the flower shape before fusing the circle on the flower.

4. Using a small zig zag or machine stitch of your choice and rayon thread, appliqué around the raw edges of the flower and circle shapes.

You can choose matching or contrasting thread depending on the effect desired.  Other machine stitch possibilities include blanket/buttonhole stitch, satin, invisible, or straight. You might even want to experiment with a fun decorative stitch.

Stop needle down in the background fabric to turn the fabric on the curves.  It will be every stitch or two on the tight curves such as on the tips of the Jasmine petals. Pull the thread ends to the wrong side with a hand needle and tie off.

5. Put a small piece of double-stick tape on the top of the button form. Stick the button to the center of the piece of batting. Cut the batting even with the edge of the button so you have a circle of batting on top of your button.

6. Use the pattern from the button package to trace around and cut out the appliquéd fabric with the flower centered in the middle.

7. Use the pliers to pull the wire button shank out of the button top.

8. Stretch the appliquéd fabric circle over the button top and assemble the cover button according to the manufacturer’s directions.

9. Embellish with hot fix crystals, following directions of your applicator wand.

If you don’t have an applicator wand you can use a Clover mini iron or a household iron with crystals up to 4mm in size. Use a cotton setting, no steam. Be extra careful not to burn yourself if you are using a regular household iron. Place the crystal, glue side down in the desired spot. Surgical tweezers are sometimes helpful in placing crystals. Press lightly for 10-20 seconds, and check with your fingernail to make sure it is well adhered. If not, press a little longer.

10. Attach the pin/pendant finding to the back of your brooch according to the manufacturer’s directions. Enjoy!

If you’re not into brooches, why not turn your Bloomin’ Button into a pendant, magnet, purse jewelry, or an embellishment for quilts or scrapbooks!

Download Bloomin’ Buttons pattern sheet. (Pattern sheet is in PDF. You’ll need Adobe Reader to open this document.)

For more fabric cover-button fun see my book, Fast, Fun & Easy Fabric Cover-Button Jewelry: Create Gifts & Glamour in an Afternoon, by C&T Publishing.

Here’s a peek at one of the most exciting things I’ve been doing recently: taping some episodes for the Creative Living with Sheryl Borden Show.

I thought it would be a breeze, since I’m used to teaching quilting and crafting techniques, but there are a few significant differences between TV and the live classroom. For one, your time limit is minutes, not hours. And two, if you mess up, you have to start all over from the very beginning. But Sheryl made the taping easy and fun, so I wasn’t stressed at all. I’m so excited to share my fabric cover-button techniques in hi-def!

dressing your coffee cup in style

blooming button jewelry to embellish clothes & quilts

vintage fabric fabric cover-button crafts

fun fabric appliques for card making & scrapbooking

These segments will air on Creative Living in 2011, but I’ll give you a YouTube preview soon!

Today I demonstrated fabric painting and fabric ribbon rosettes at the CHA Winter Trade Show. For those of you who couldn’t make it, here’s an online tutorial for fabric ribbon rosettes just for you. (Click here for my CHA fabric painting tutorial)

To make a really special rosette, add a beaded fabric cover-button (button-beading techniques can be found in my book, Fast, Fun & Easy Fabric Cover-Button Jewelry, by C&T Publishing.)

1. Choose two contrasting fabrics and a coordinating button.
2. Cut the fabric 18″ wide by as long as you wish. You can use one painted fabric piece and one paint-free, or two paint-free pieces. I don’t recommend using two painted fabrics back-to-back unless you plan to use glue to secure the rosette. It’s a little tough getting the needle through two layers of painted fabric. (I bent a very hefty needle trying.)
3. Fuse a sheet of Wonder Under to the reverse side of one of your chosen fabrics. (Wonder Under is 17″ wide so it will fit nicely on a piece of fabric 18″ wide.) Trim off the excess fabric with a rotary cutter and ruler.
4. Peel off the paper backing and fuse the reverse side of the other fabric to the first piece of fabric. Trim off the excess fabric. You now have a double-sided piece of fabric.
5. Use a decorative blade rotary cutter to cut fabric ribbon strips 1/2″ – 5/8″ wide x 17″ long.
6. Sew two lines of contrasting thread down the center of the fabric ribbon if desired. Use a different color in the bobbin for the fabric on the reverse side. (This stitching is more decorative than functional. The Wonder Under and fabric paint do a really good job of discouraging fraying.)
7. Thread a large needle with strong thread and make a big knot near the end. (Big needles make big holes and you don’t want the knot pulling completely through.)
8. Find the center of the ribbon’s length and pinch to mark the center.
9. Make a loop at one end to form the first petal. With a 17″ long fabric ribbon you can make six 1-1/4″ petals.
10. This is the view from underneath your petal. Fold the ribbon at an angle to start the second petal and show the contrasting fabric.
11. This is the view from the top again. Fold the ribbon back to the top to make the second petal.
12. Fold the fabric ribbon on top to start the third petal and bring the ribbon to the back again to complete the third petal. Look for the center crease you made in step #6. If the crease is part of the third petal then your first three petals are too large for the length of your fabric ribbon. You won’t have enough ribbon left for three more petals. If the crease is at or beyond the fold of the third petal, then you will have enough fabric ribbon for three more petals.
13. Continue folding the fabric ribbon from front to back and back to front until you’ve completed all six petals.
14. Pick up the needle and thread and make several hand stitches through the center to secure all the petals. Make sure the stitches are close enough to the center to be hidden by the button. If you have a large button you can spread your stitches out further where there are fewer layers of fabric.
15. Finally stitch the button on the side you want to call front.

Voila! Now all that’s left is to decide what to do with your fabric ribbon rosette. Sew a pin back on, glue to a round magnet, or embellish a quilt or purse.

More CHA  fun to come!

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See my Pocket Full of Posies post for step-by-step directions on how to cover a kurumi button. Want to see kurumi buttons on some quilts? Check out the Pocket Full of Posies block on my Pocket Full of Posies post and my Bling Your Bindings! sample quilt on the Muse Monday: Bubbles! post.

These are my all-time favorite earrings, the ball & chain kurumi earrings, made with kurumi buttons and some fab vintage fabric I recycled from a thrift shop house dress. They’re super light, super fun to wear, and go with just about everything.

See my book, Fast, Fun & Easy Fabric Cover-Button Jewelry for more about making jewelry from kurumi buttons. {You can find my book and kurumi buttons in my online shop.}