Pillow Frenzy

Posted on June 25, 2015 by Trixie Lixie

It seems that I’ve had a bit of a run on making pillowcases for my friends. I love giving them as gifts, as they are so easy to make.

With these ones I made for my sister, I’ve used Gutermann fabrics with a touch of pom pom specialness. They go brilliantly with her seaside themed front room. This Gutermann collection has lots of subtle colours which would fit well in any environment.

My friend Fran loves cowboys and loves these pillows too. They are made using the Moda Fabrics Honky-Tonk range.

Gorgeous scarf tutorial

Posted on December 13, 2013 by Trixie Lixie

A while back I posted a scarf tutorial using a beautiful piece of Amy Butler Voile and pom pom trim.

Since then I have made several more as Christmas presents, these ones are even easier because they have fringe trim which is very simple to attach!

On the TrixieLixie website we have the fabric and fringe trim already packed up into kits for £15, so all you need to do is follow the instructions and make a gorgeous scarf.

This is how it is done: fold the piece of fabric in half, right sides together and sew along the width

Then finish the seam with either a zig-zag stitch, a serger or my favourite – pinking shears

Turn the right way around and then fold the ends under by about 1cm and pin the fringe inside, then sew in place.

And thats it! You’re done, either keep it for yourself or give it as a lovely gift!

Mine are all gifts and I have found (in my stash of things to good to be thrown away) these great boxes to put them in and I am going to decorate them with fabric and trim just like this beautiful box that a friend of mine decorated for me for my birthday (it had wonderful hand made shower gel and body lotion in it that she had also made!)

Thats 3 more Christmas presents sorted, back to the sewing machine to make some more! Happy Sewing!

The Lola Apron & the Retro Apron

Posted on December 2, 2013 by Trixie Lixie

This week I have had a go at making some aprons, one is a retro apron pattern that I think is from the fifty’s, the other one is the Sew Liberated Lola Apron pattern that is available from TrixieLixie.

I made the Lola apron first as the pattern and instructions for the vintage apron didn’t seem to be complete. I used gorgeous red gingham, ric-rac and spotty lace trim bias binding. I think it has a very Cow-girl feel to it. The instructions are very clear and it was very easy to make.

I love the curves at the bottom and the circular pockets!

Next I tackled the vintage pattern which only had 2 pieces and very limited instructions,however having made the Lola I managed to bluff my way through this pattern and I even used some trimmed bias binding to finish it off. It was in fact quite easy and is really lovely,. The skirt part is almost a full circle so you can really twirl around the kitchen in this one.

For this apron I used Moda Oh Deer cherry spot fabric and gingham lace trim bias binding.

I can’t decide which one I like best, they are both ear-marked for people for Christmas, they are perfect for the 2 people that I have made them for!

Happy sewing!

Tea Cosy Tutorial

Posted on September 29, 2013 by Trixie Lixie

We have just added some lovely ribbons to the website, I love using ribbons and trimmings so I decided to use them to decorate a Tea Cosy, this will make an excellent Christmas present for one of my friends.

I used the pack of Party Ribbons, they are very retro looking and will give the Tea Cosy a vintage look. I made a pattern on a piece of paper, a half circle to fit my 4 cup tea-pot, I chose a blue spotty fabric for the main piece and a pink spotty fabric for the lining, the wadding is quite thick (6 oz) I used a skinny quarter of each of the fabrics and the wadding.

You need 2 pieces of each, main fabric, lining and wadding, all the same size, except for the lining which I cut out slightly longer.

First of all, go mad with the trimmings and decorate the front and back of the main peices.

Then attach the wadding, a piece to both the front and back, I used safety pins to hold this together and thenzig-zag stitch it in place.

Then I pinned the front and back right sides together, I put a loop of ribbon at the top so that I can hang my tea cosy up when I am not using it.Sew this together, it’s good to use a walking foot if you have one as this is quite thick, it’s not a disaster if you haven’t got one (I haven’t!) just take it slowly. Trim the seam after you’ve done it to remove any bulky wadding. Turn it round the right way.

Pin the lining pieces right sides together, machine stitch around the curved edge leaving the straight edge open.

Slip the lining inside the main piece, it should be longer so that you can fold the edge up twice to neaten the bottom, machine sew in place, this adds another decorative stripe to the bottom of the tea cosy.

Thats it, pop it on your tea pot and admire your handiwork, I’m not sure I want to give mine away now, it looks great on my tea pot!

Happy Sewing!

Crafty Christmas Roses Scarf

Posted on September 22, 2013 by Trixie Lixie

Well here we go, Christmas is less than 100 days away and if, like me, you have a lot of people to make presents for you may want to make a start now.

We had these beautiful Voile fabrics in from our lovely suppliers at Rowan and I have decided to make some lovely scarves for my sisters for Christmas. These 3 fabrics are Wish Voile by Valori Wells for Free Spirit Fabrics.

Patience

Courage

Passion

Haven’t they got great names!

I have chosen to use Studio Sketchbook Roses in Butter from Amy Butler’s Alchemy Studio Collection for the first scarf, it is a very easy make!

I used half a metre of fabric and just under a metre of pink pom pom

Simply fold the fabric in half, right sides together and sew up the full wiidth of the fabric to make a tube, neaten the edge with pinking shears or a zig-zag stitch.

Turn the right way round and iron, turning the unfinished ends in by about 1.5cm pinning the pom pom between both edges;

I then used an ordinary zipper foot to sew this seam, its quite tricky because the pom pom rolls about the place as you sew!

Its as simple as that, one down, 3 more to go!

Here is the finished article;

And here is my cat Spike helping me make it!

Keep reading my blog posts over the next few weeks for more Crafty Christmas gift idea’s for you to make for friends & family.

Little Summer Skirts

Posted on August 18, 2013 by Trixie Lixie

We have added some lovely fabric ranges to the website this summer, including this one from Red Rooster fabrics

They are gorgeous summery colours so I thought I would make some little skirts for my younger nieces, they are very simple to make, I just used a rectangle of fabric for each skirt, some pretty bias binding to enclose and hem the bottom edge

trimmed with a piece of red lace

joined the side seam

Turned over the waist and thread through some elastic (I used pinking shears to finish the edge of the fabric)

And thats it, a really quick and easy make! I made 3 and trimmed them with a variety of ric-rac, lace and bias binding

Of course I couldn’t make a skirt for my littlest nephew so I made him a little pair of shorts with the cute Michael Miller Dinosaur fabric

I will be seeing them all next weekend so I will try and get them to model their outfits for me and post a few pictures.

Easter bunting

Posted on March 18, 2013 by Trixie Lixie

Here’s a quick Easter make, inspired by a recent post by pillowsalamode about making bunting, I decided to use some of the Easter Ribbon available at TrixieLixie and 2 fat quarters of fabric from the Moda Coquette range to make some Easter bunting.

I have done a bunting tutorial before, it was one of my Christmas Monday makes so I used the same template to cut out my flag shapes

I cut out enough triangles to make 12 flags for my bunting (12 of each)

With right sides together sew up both sides of each flag then trim any excess and turn the right way aound, I used a knitting needle to push the point of the flag out.

I then turned the top of the flag in by 0.5cm to neaten the tops and attached them to the back of the Easter ribbon.

Bunting is such a quick and easy project and it makes a great gift.

September ‘Giveaway’

Posted on September 6, 2012 by Trixie Lixie

Ok… We are back from our relaxing fortnight in the West Country and we are rearing to go….
So how about some September giveaways at http://www.trixielixie.com
Every order this September will get a cute little travel sewing kit & a goody bag of trimmings (10m)
All that rain in Devon has driven us mad….

Retro Skirt

Posted on August 15, 2012 by Trixie Lixie

I have made this retro style circle skirt to wear to The Green Man Festival at the weekend. I used ric rac around the bottom to give it a real vintage look.

And to make it even fuller I made a petticoat to go underneath, lovely sheer red cotton fabric with red lace trim.