Making my own fabric buttons is something I’ve always been interested in but didn’t really know how to go about it. I got these little button making kits in a random craft supply bag a few years ago and promptly lost them in my stash until I went through it recently.
Having them sitting there doing nothing seemed silly so I decided to give it a try 😀
They come in two parts like this which fit together. I decided on some pink polar fleece to make mine.Cut out a circle of fabric big enough to go over the button with overhang to spare. Mine was stretchy which really helped.
Fold one side over the large button piece and poke it in so it catches on the metal teeth. I used a nail file to poke it.
Keep doing it all the way around poking it in and pulling it tight.
Now fit the other piece of the button into it and press tightly. I needed a pair of pliers to shove it in properly.
The plier teeth squished the back in a bit but oh well it’s just the back!
Button!
This is the point you probably get a bit addicted to making buttons and next thing you know this happens…
So there you go! Now I’m trying to think of a way I could do this without having buy the metal parts, James suggested just gluing fabric over regular buttons. More thought needed but I’ll come up with a way 😀
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A lot of people have asked if I’m going to make any bunnies to sell. The short answer is yes I would love to make some to sell but I want to do it right so I’m not going to rush things. I’m finalising the pattern at the moment and I have a couple of questions which it would really help me if you could answer 😀
At the moment I’m planning to take pre-orders in 1-2 weeks for the first batch of bunnies. I’ll be away a bit in Dec and they take time to make so I can’t promise they would get there in time for Christmas but if you were getting them as a gift I could send a special bunny tag or something so you can give them as gifts and then I would send the actual bunnies in early January depending on how many are ordered.
Thanks for all of your wonderful feedback, I can’t wait to learn Miss Bunny’s real name!
Thanks again and on to the tutorial!
I haven’t decided how to make my Christmas cards this year, we don’t really celebrate it but everyone we know does so I send them out anyway XD I thought I would show you some of the designs I came up with while trying to decide on my final cards.
This version is a simple yet pretty lace and fabric greeting card.
What you need:
Paper/card
Lace
Fabric
Hot glue
Scissors
First thing’s first, let’s make the card. Take an A4 sheet of paper and place it down landscape. Fold it in half left to right and then again top to bottom. Unfolded it should have these creases…
Folded up it will look like this, it’s a basic greeting card but the way it’s folded will allow you to tuck all of the ends of the lace inside so they can’t be seen.
Cut a heart out of your fabric, you really could use any shape but this fabric looks so cute in hearts!
Hot glue it to the front of the card:
Decide how you want to arrange your lace, I decided on a strip up the top and another on the bottom.
Glue the lace in place around the outside of the card.
Unfold the card and glue the ends of the lace to the inside. When the glue is dry add some more on top of each piece of lace and fold the card up again, this will keep it all in place.
Taadaaa!
Cute card and they don’t take very long to make at all. I really love how simple it is to do, you could personalise each one with a different fabric shape too if you wanted.
Do you guys hand make cards or just buy them? I like putting the effort in but I know most of mine just get thrown away so I’m tempted to not bother any more and spend the time making something better!
One last tutorial to end the week on and this one is a funny kind of collaboration! Months ago, Miss EggVIP suggested making a book cover to use on the train. I pretty much stay in the CBD now so training places isn’t a huge thing from me but I have been wanting to make some kind of folder to keep letters you guys send in. Enter Hear Mum Roar who kindly donated an old filofax for crafting a long time ago too!
Add some scrap fabric I had and this was the result:
I haven’t really decorated it yet but I thought I would show you how I made the basic cover and leave the rest to your imagination ^_^You need:
Fabric
Needle/thread or a sewing machine
Pins
Scissors
Iron/ironing board to make it nice and neat
Book to cover
First step is to lay out your fabric and place the book on top, you need to measure enough to cover the whole thing and still leave several cm on all sides to be the seams. I only had enough for a small amount of overhang on each side but if you want to have pockets on the inside I would suggest cutting it twice as wide as the book.
Lay the fabric out with the bad side up and fold the top and bottom over twice to form a seam like this then pin it in place:
You want it to be a little taller than the book so it will protect the edges a little and there’s enough room for the cover to side in and out.
Next flip it so the good side is up and fold the sides over the cover edges and pin in place like this:
Fold the other side over and make sure it’s fairly snug on the book but not so tight so you can’t close it. You’ll notice all the seams are facing outwards, we’re basically making it inside out so the seams are hidden on the inside.
Take the book out and fold the raw edge back on itself so it will be hidden at the end and pin in place.
You should have something along these lines. In a perfect world you would fold the raw seam under twice so it’s completely incased but I didn’t have enough fabric to do that.
Now stitch everything! Sew around the outside seams that you pinned so it’s all completely secure. Once you’re finished you can turn it right way out.
My filofax had an elastic band to hold it closed so I poked a hole out the back to allow it through. DONE!
On the inside you can see what I meant about leaving more fabric to turn the cover into a pocket on each side. Mine was much too thin but if you have enough fabric it can be very useful!
Now you just need to fill it with letters! Or in my case, you need to sit down and reply to your letters instead of procrastinating by making a pretty folder to keep them in >_> The beautiful one you can see on top was written to me by the awesome Frolickings, she even drew this beautiful picture of me!! So freaking awesome!
So I love my vanity table thingy but the seat part had been covered with some pretty ugly worn material. So what else to do than cover it with something more my style? Eventually I’m going to get it properly reupholstered but for now I wanted something quick and easy.
I flipped it over.Unscrewed everything…
And the seat part came away easily.
I cut out enough fabric to cover it with plenty of overhang.
I folded the overhang to the back side…
And stitched it all tightly together.
I pulled the corners nice and tightly and pleated them so it looked smooth from the top.
Not pretty but as it’s on the bottom who cares!
After recutting the holes for the screws…
…I put the whole thing back together again.
Taadaa!
Much nicer and easily removable later 😀
This is a little more me ^_^
Now I just need to get some more time to do our big couch XD
Ages ago someone requested a pin cushion tutorial so this idea has been bouncing around my head for a few months but I didn’t have the materials until now.
You need:
Felt
Stuffing/fabric scraps
Needle/thread
Lace
Rose ribbon
First you will need to decide how big you want your heart to be, I was using scrap lace so I had to measure how much I actually had to go around the heart!
So cut two hearts…
…and one long rectangle which is long enough to go around the outside of the heart. You will also need 2 pieces of lace as long as the rectangle and two pieces of the rose ribbon to cross over the top.
Sandwich the lace between the rectangle and one of the hearts like this:
Carefully stitch all around the outside, wrapping the rectangle all the way around the heart. I’m using white thread so you can see what I’m doing:
Make sure that you pleat the lace as you sew so it goes around the curves of the heart. Trim the excess of the sides and stitch it shut. From the top it should look like this:
Now put the rose ribbon across the top in an “X” shape. In the photo below I accidentally put the top heart felt on first but it needs to go ribbon then felt on the very top otherwise it will be on the inside!
So stitch around the top heart leaving a couple of centimeters gap on one side.
Turn it inside out through the hole and it should puff up with the lace sticking up nicely. Fill it with stuffing!
Then you just need to stitch the hole closed and you’re all finished.
Done! Pretty cute.
You can use it as a regular pin cushion or to hold larger things you’re using like small scissors under the rose ribbon.
Took around 20 minutes to make and I’m sure if you did a better job than I did it would make a lovely present! ^_^
Phew! Way behind schedule as per usual but finally I am finished this bunny crochet tutorial! Sorry it took so long >_< Hopefully the wait was worth it and those who wanted to take part have had enough time to get some yarn and a crochet hook!
This tutorial is made up of both a video and the photos so you can pick and choose the way of learning that suits you the best or use both for supersized learning 😉 It is picture heavy, there are around 50 photos plus the 10min video so if you’re on dial up beware.
The finished project (with a silly drawn on face)….
Pretty cute? Yes! And all you need to do is make 2 rectangles so nice and easy for a first project ^_^Now a couple of things to think about before you go ahead and start the tutorial: I am a knitter first and foremost, I have been knitting since I was 3yrs old but have only been crocheting for 4ish years so my technique is not perfect. I learnt via friends, books and videos and I am by no means the be-all-end-all crochet genius. In fact, I have been told that I crochet like a knitter XD If you are looking for perfect beginners technique then check out some of these links:
If you prefer my style of tutorial and are happy with my results then read on!
What you need:
Main colour yarn (mine is pink)
Corresponding sized crochet hook (mine is 3.75mm)
Tail yarn (mine is white)
Needle and thread in the same colours as your yarn
Scissors
Something to stuff the bunny with, I’m using scrap fabric
Patience <- very important
First here is the video I made, even if you don’t want to learn watch it anyway because James made me an awesome new introduction to match my new video set up. LOVE IT! . .
Ok so on to the photos.
Untangle the end of your yarn and make sure you have a decent amount unraveled to work with. A note on which yarn/crochet hook to choose, here I am using 8ply yarn and a 3.75mm hook. If you live overseas, here is a needle size conversion chart. You need a hook which is the right size for your yarn otherwise you will end up with big holes or a very tight stitch (like amigurumi animals) here is a chart to help you pick.
With that out of the way let’s get started.
To cast the first stitch on to your hook, start to tie the end of your yarn in a knot but don’t pull the tail through the hole. In the photo below you can see that the tail is underneath the loop of the knot. If you were to pull it tight, it would just all come loose rather than tying into a knot.
Poke your hook through and pick up the part of the tail which is inside the loop. Like this:
Grab both the very end of the yarn and the part still attached to the ball and pull them gently downwards.
They will form a kind of slipknot around the hook.
Pull the tail of the yarn to the left and the rest of it to the right to tighten the knot around the hook. That’s your first stitch!
From this point on you’ll have to excuse how I’m actually holding the hook, generally I hold the hook in my right hand but I was holding the camera so it was a bit hard to juggle XD
So holding your hook upwards you should have something like this…
Now to start off we will need to make a foundation chain which is the base row of stitches. The head needs to have 20 chains in the foundation row.
To make a stitch take the yarn (make sure it’s the part attached to the ball, not the tail or else you will run out very quickly!) and wrap it completely around the hook clockwise. See my awesome arrows below!
Point the hook to the left and gently move it down so the yarn you wrapped is caught under it.
Keep pulling down so the hook with the trapped yarn actually slides through the first stitch you had on there.
You can see how it’s being pulled here:
Now you’ve got a new stitch on your hook! 1 down, 19 to go 😀
So wrap the yarn around the hook again.
And pull down through the other stitch.
It’s quite quick to do once you get the hang of it.
When you have 20 chains done, add two more. So you should have done a total of 22 chains. The reason we are doing an extra 2 is because we will make them into a right angle (and an “L” shape”) to give us enough space to start the first real row.
Ok so lets start the 1st real row.
Skipping the 2 extra chains, push the hook through the next one.
Wrap your yarn around the hook.
Pull the wrapped yarn down and through the first loop on the hook.
Now you have this:
Wrap the yarn around again.
And pull that wrapped yarn through both of the loops on the hook
So now you should only have on loop left on the hook. One stitch DONE!
Now it’s really just a matter of rinse and repeat over and over again until you run out of chain to do it into. You should be able to do 20 of them, one for each chain.
Once you are finished the row, chain 2 extras, again this will give you enough room height-wise to start the next row.
Then begin again, skipping the two chain and pushing the hook through the next stitch.
You can see this is halfway through the second row.
And finished the second row.
So keep adding rows until you have enough! For the head you will need 28 rows.
Aaaaaand done! On the very last stitch you can cut the end of the yarn leaving a 5-10cm tail.
Use the hook and pull it completely through this time.
Pull tight and it forms a knot!
So the head piece is 20 chain and 28 rows. To be completely honest, it really doesn’t matter the exact number of rows or chain as long as you end up with a rectangle so if you have too many/few don’t stress about it.
Now you just need to repeat all of that and make the body! This time start with 28 chain and do 30 rows. Again the exact numbers don’t matter so much in this particular project as long as you have 1 bigger rectangle and one smaller for the head.
You should end up with something like this…
So let’s put the damn thing together! We’ll do the body first 😀
Take the body and fold all of the corners into points. I didn’t get any clear photos of this part so if you need more detail, check the video! Basically you get the middle of each side and push them into the middle so the corners become pointy legs.
Stitch up 3 of the legs and stuff it with fabric/stuffing/yarn/whatever. Stitch the last leg closed. Then you need to fold all of the legs forward and stitch them in place. You can see below where the stitching should be and how it forms the body.
I’m using black thread so you can see what I’m doing but obviously you should use a colour that matches your yarn so it can’t be seen!
See how the legs look from the side:
And the top! DONE!
Oooook almost finished! Pat on the back if you managed to make it this far!
Take the head piece and fold the bottom in half, stitch it shut. Once flattened out it should look like this…
Fold the little top edge over and stitch it to the seam you already made. Add some stuffing!
Now flip it over to the front and pleat the the points so they actually look like ears. Once you are happy with how the ears look, wrap some yarn around it very tightly and tie it off!
Something along these lines:
And that’s the head! Here’s the back:
And the front!
What you need to do next is stitch the bunny’s head to it’s body in the corresponding place.
So close to being finished! Now the last step is to make a little pompom for a tail. Wrap some white yarn around your fingers, tie the middle, cut the loops and stitch it on to the bunny’s butt XD
And there you go! Cute little bunny all finished, congratulations!
Such a cute little bunny!
If you want you could stitch on a cute face but I liked him plain so I just drew one on in Photoshop XD
Big congratulations if you actually read this far and even bigger congratulations if you actually gave this a go and made your own bunny! I would love to see if any of you actually did 😀
Now if you enjoyed that I’ll be doing the striped knitted scarf next… but I think I need a break first because this took so long to put together!
Illustrator. Strong tea, knitting, watercolours, and making a video game called Moonlight in Garland. Living with her adorable husband Jimmy, fluffy puppy Miss Lottie and Bergamot Bunny in Melbourne, Australia.
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