Easy Elastic waistband skirt tutorial

Posted on October 1, 2015 by Trixie Lixie

Here is a really easy, quick skirt that you can make in less than an hour. All you need is a metre of fabric and a metre of thick elastic. I used some of our lovely Regents Street Lawn, it is not too thick so it drapes beautifully. The lush pink elastic is a new addition to the website and I can already see myself using it in all sorts of projects.

Wrap the elastic around your waist add 5cm to the length and cut it, sew the two ends together with a 5cm seam allowance, press open and top stitch each seam down.

Fold the fabric in half and cut it, place the two pieces together with right sides facing each other sew these seams using a 5cm seam allowance, you should now have a tube.

Using a loose straight stitch do two rows of sewing around the top of the tube leaving long tails of thread. This is to gather the fabric until the skirt is the same size as the elastic

So pull the tails of thread until the skirt top is the same size as the elastic waistband.

Put your skirt and elastic together with the wrong side of the elastic facing the right side of the fabric,use a zig-zag stitch to attach the elastic to the fabric, sewing close to the edge of the elastic will give a neat finish and use a thread to match the elastic.

All you need to do now is the hem!

I have finally finished my vintage style cardigan which I shall talk about in another post, but it looks so lovely with my new skirt don’t you think? It is such a quick and easy make that will make a great present.

Lampshade DIY

Posted on February 4, 2015 by Trixie Lixie

We have had lampshade making kits on our website for a couple of months and I wanted to use them in a more unique and unusual way than you normally would so I decided to use freehand machine embroidery to appliqué a beautiful garden scene onto a lampshade.

It was really quite easy to do, I have machine embroidered lots of cards and framed images so I didn’t feel particularly daunted by this project. If you want to give it a go I strongly recommend that you get an embroidery foot for your sewing machine. This will allow you to move the fabric about in any direction as you are sewing and gives you the “free motion”.

I would also suggest that you practise a lot before starting on a major piece of work. I chose all my fabrics and made paper templates for all my flowers, bees and butterflies and then placed them all out on my lampshade fabric. You can use a fabric glue stick to hold everything in place while you are sewing.

I used a lot of pins and I moved everything around a lot before I felt it looked right. The beauty of machine embroidery is that you can almost use the sewing machine needle as a pencil and draw with it, or even write, I often write words onto my cards etc.

Here are some examples of my other machine embroidery exploits.

This is a framed picture that I made for my sister when she got married, it’s behind glass so the image isn’t great!

I talked a bit about making machine embroidered cards in a previous post and you can read all about it here!

Happy sewing!

My Lovely Mum!

Posted on June 22, 2014 by Trixie Lixie

This week I made a Colette Moneta dress for my Lovely Mum, so it’s her turn to be the glamour model!

I used some of our gorgeous jersey fabric which is soft and silky to the touch and drapes beautifully.

Colette Patterns are currently doing a Moneta dress sewalong so you can learn how to make this lovely easy to wear and easy to make dress.

I made myself one when the pattern first came out and it made it’s debut during Me Made May, if you missed it, here it is again:

Sew-a-longs and sewing kits

Posted on January 9, 2014 by Trixie Lixie

I made a really nice outfit before Xmas using 2 of my favourite Colette patterns, they were so easy and such fun to make that we have put everything together to make a couple of kits for the website so that you can get everything you need to make them yourself.

The first thing I made was a Zinnia skirt using a gorgeous China blue linen/silk blend fabric

This skirt is really easy to make and drapes beautifully in this fabric, everything you need including the pattern, fabric and zip is available in this kit

To complete the outfit I made this lovely Jasmine Blouse

This is also available as a kit and is also a beginner sewing pattern so it is quite easy to make.

If like me you enjoy a good sew-a-long there are 2 coming up that look great, By Hand London are doing a Georgia Dress sew-a-long starting on 27th January which my daughter is going to be joining in with and also the Albion coat sew-a-long on the Coletterie you could win a Bernina sewing machine with this one! I think I might give it a go! We have got 10% off at TrixieLixie at the moment so if you want to buy one of these patterns nows the time!

My Top 5 Christmas makes 2013

Posted on December 30, 2013 by Trixie Lixie

In at number 5 are the ham burger oven gloves that I made for my brother, this gift went down really well and I have already been commisioned to make some more.

At number 4 my ever popular Memory Photo Christmas decorations, these make great presents all year round, I made one for my sister that she has hanging in her car.

At number 3 are the Scarves that I made, these are available as kits from the TrixieLixie website and will make great Mothers day gifts!

At number 2 are the little coin purses also available as kits which have proved very popular on the website, they make a great gift as you can put a bit of cash in them or a lot of cash if it is the main present!

At number 1 and always a firm favourite with all my friends and family as they say they are really comfortable! It’s my KNICKERS of course! These kits are absolutely the best seller on the TrixieLixie website and judging by the amount of knicker elastic we sold, quite a few pairs of knickers were made as gifts this year!

The new Gingham knicker kits have been really popular this year, I love making knickers and creating new fabric and elastic combinations, watch this space for new kits coming soon!

There is 10% off everything on the website until 10th January 2014

I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas and my warmest wishes for the New Year!

Happy Sewing!

Oven Gloves Tutorial

Posted on November 19, 2013 by Trixie Lixie

It’s always difficult to think of something to make as a mans gift, we are having Christmas dinner at my brothers house this year and he will be doing the cooking (Goose is on the menu I think!) so his present is going to be these oven gloves so that he doesn’t burn himself

The fabric I used is Michael Millers Ketchup and Mustard

Firts of all I made a pattern using an old pair of oven gloves, basically it is a rectangle 37cm by 20cm with rounded edges

Place this on the fold of the fabric and cut 2 pieces, then cut out one piece of wadding

Then fold the pattern so that you have 20cm by 20cm for the hand pieces, you can see where I have marked this on the pattern. You need to cut out 4 pieces in the fabric and 2 in the wadding.

Do the hand pieces first, sandwich the wadding in the middle of 2 pieces of fabric, right sides facing up, pin and baste these together

Trim the edges

Next attach the bias binding to the straight edge

Do the same to the main part of the oven gloves, so sandwich together with the wadding, baste and trim, then pin each hand piece to the ends

Finally, pin and sew the bias binding all the way around the edge of the oven gloves

Next week I am going to be making an apron for my sister in law, its going to have to be a frilly one!

Happy Sewing!

DIY Clasp purse kits

Posted on November 10, 2013 by Trixie Lixie

I am really excited to announce that we have just added our new kits to the Trixie Lixie website, they ar available to buy now! There are 8 kits to choose from and you get everything you need to make one including fabric, lining, interfacing, clasp, pattern and instructions. There is also a tutorial video that you can watch if you need help!

The Ladybird purse kits are £7.00, the spotty fabric purse kits are £6.50 and the lovely pink laminated fabric kit is £8.00.

These purse’s will make lovely Christmas presents you can make them yourself or give a kit as a gift, they are very simple to make and can easily be sewn by hand or by machine.

Happy Sewing

Plastic Bag Tube

Posted on November 4, 2013 by Trixie Lixie

A quick and easy tutorial today, my Mum requested one of these so I thought I would include them in my gift making tutorials, I have made several, they are always useful!

The fabric I used is from the Red Rooster range at TrixieLixie

To start cut a piece of fabric 50cm long x 30cm wide for the tube and 2 pieces of elastic 18cm long. You will also need a piece of ribbon or twill tape for the loop to hang it up with.

zig-zag stitch around all the raw edges to stop any fraying and then turn over the top and bottom edges for the elastic casing

Use a safety pin to pull the elastic through the top and bottom openings, leave .5cm of elastic out at each edge and pin in place

Make a loop with the ribbon and pin it to the right side of the fabric about 2cm from the top of the tube at a slight angle.

With right sides together fold the tube panel in half lengthways. Pin and stitch, sewing in the ends of the elastic and the handle loop.

Turn the tube the right way round and stuff it with your plastic grocery bags.

Happy sewing!

Tote bag tutorial

Posted on October 28, 2013 by Trixie Lixie

I always think a tote bag or book bag makes a great gift, and they are so quick and easy to make.An even better gift is a tote bag with something inside it! I am making lots of these bags in all sorts of sizes for my nieces for Christmas this year, all with a surprise inside. Shhh, don’t tell them!!

I used an A4 file as a template for the large book bag and cut out 2 piece of the main fabric Village Trees and 2 pieces of the lining fabric Village Flowers

Pin and sew up the side, bottom and then the other side of both the main bag and the lining, neaten the edges with pinking shears or zig-zag stitch,

I like to use my trusty Fiskar pinking shears, they are so sharp and reliable, which reminds me, here is my facebook post from today:

Turn the main fabric piece the right way round and insert the lining so that the wrong sides are together

With this bag I wanted to show the lovely lining so I turned the top over to the outside rather than the inside, fold over twice to get a neat edge pin and sew in place.

This bag is to go over the shoulder so I made long handles, so I cut 2 strips of fabric to the length I required and folded them in half lengthways sewing and neatening with my pinking shears

My special trick for turning the handle the right way around is to put a safety pin at the top and pull it through the tube like when you thread elastic

Iron the handle and pin inside the bag, sew on securely

Now, what shall I put inside this one?

The fabric I used on the mini version is an oil cloth called Field Study and I used a red spotty fabric for the lining.

Happy Sewing!

Memory Photo Xmas Decorations

Posted on October 21, 2013 by Trixie Lixie

I got the idea for these personalised christmas decorations from a post that I made for Mothers day, fabric photographic memory albums, you can see the tutorial here

These funky Michael Miller Christmas fabrics are available from TrixieLixie

Cut some 10cm squares, 2 of each style of fabricFor the photographs I used Iron on fabric transfer paper, don’t forget to flip your photo’s when you are printing them off so that when you iron them onto the fabric they are the right way around, iron them onto some plain white fabric.

I used some medium weight wadding to pad out the photo and then I zig-zag stitched it to one of the the pieces of fabric

Next I sandwiched a piece of heavier weight wdding between both pieces of fabric

Put a piece of ribbon in the top so that you can hang it on the tree

They are so quick and easy to make, I made these 4 in half an hour! I think I will be making them for every single member of my family, I’m sure I can find plenty of embarrassing Xmas photos of them all!