This week you'll see Linda Lee from the Sewing Workshop stitch something to make winter more fun. In the second half Rebecca Kemp Brent turns her travel memories in a charming tuffet, embellished with top-stitching.

Imagine making garments and accessories from “house wrap” and packaging envelopes! That's exactly what Linda Lee uses in this episode. Her projects are made from DuPont™ Tyvek®. This material has been around for 50 years. It is commonly known as the specialty fabric used for envelopes and home insulation. 

To me this synthetic material appears to be a cross between paper and plastic. Leave it to crafters and sewing enthusiasts to take it out of the realm of industrial uses and get creative with it. After seeing some of Linda's crazy samples with paint and printing I'm definitely going to give this a try! I especially like the fact that it's non-woven and doesn't ravel. Stay tuned! I see myself re-cycling postal envelopes and firing up my Brother ScanNCut to slice up pretty shapes with this unusual fabric.

In part two of this week's show Rebecca Kemp Brent shows how to make a spectacular footstool with photo printed fabric. I saw this while at the studio and it was rich and beautiful in every way! The photos and view on TV simply do not do this piece justice.

Perhaps you've seen these kits or maybe even made one or more yourself. If so I'd love to know! I remember these being all the rage about 3 years ago. If you CLICK HERE you'll see Rebecca's customary detailed instructions with a link to purchasing information. Even if a tuffet isn't in your future I would watch this segment with a notepad as Rebecca provides one great tip after another, many of which you can apply to a whole lot of other projects.

Ready to go and watch the show? CLICK HERE. This show currently airs until noon EST, December 22. Enjoy!

Unleash your inner artist this week! You're sure to be inspired and motivated to make something free-form and fun-loving after watching this show!
 
In the first segment, up-cycling designer Michelle Paganini adds a touch of modern art to a refashioned shirt using three-ply reverse appliqué. 

I had the opportunity to meet Michelle at the studio and spend a great day  with her while we each taped our shows. During lunch she kindly offered me a choice of one of her patterns as a gift.

I instantly chose the Cindy blouse, which happens to be the one Michelle is wearing in the show. I liked the asymmetrical panel and immediately envisioned embroidery designs sprinkled down the front with coordinating designs on the sleeve cuffs.

You'll get to see a variety of her patterns on  her show and tell part of the show. These are not really patterns in the traditional sense of the word. They are actually detailed instructions for creating new garments by creatively re-designing men's shirts.  Quite a novel idea and a great way to turning nice shirts and good fabric into a one-of-a-kind fashion statement for women.

The featured blouse is the Sandy style. Each one of her patterns features interesting details with plenty of blank canvas for added embellishments. Be sure to visit Michelle at her website, paganoonoo.com to learn more!

In the second half of the show Angela Wolf creates her own embellished denim fabric with free-motion embroidery using the Brother Dream Fabric Frame.

Take a look at the jackets above and you'll see that Angela has developed many creative ways of taking a simply styled jacket and turning it into a work of art. The free motion techniques she demonstrates on this show are yet another way to put your own creativity into garments sewn from scratch. See her add simple squiggles for an easy yet interesting accent on plain fabric.

Ready to go and watch the show? Go ahead and CLICK HERE. This show is available online until December 16th at noon EST. Enjoy!

This show has you covered if the wind blows, there's a chill in the air, or raindrops are falling on your head! It begins with a simple wrap you can make from fleece and ends with a raincoat sewn from laminated waterproof fabric.

​Here are two of the fleece garments you'll see.

In this show I had the opportunity to feature a new fleece wrap similar to a couple garments from my book titled Wrapped in Embroidery. If you'd like to make your own version of  the ruana wraps so popular in ready-to wear you'll find a free pattern offered on the show, plus tips for finishing a plain one or one with added embroidery.  If anything here looks familiar to you then it's likely you have at least paged through or perhaps even made one or two wraps from the book. If you happen have the book in your possession I sincerely hope you have stitched some of the designs. 

The two mirror imaged motifs you see being embroidered on the show are a favorite pair I've used time and time again. 

By the way, although the back was never shown, there is a coordinating yoke design on the back.         It's always fun to add embroidery to the back of a garment so it gets noticed both coming and going!

In this episode you'll see how easy it is to link designs with a paper template and a feature called the trial key.This technique is useful for matching the top center of the second design with the bottom center of the first. Many machines have this capability or similar ways to pinpoint the positioning for your embroidery designs, allowing for linking designs for as long as you like. I'd love to hear back from you if you found some of the tips helpful, or if any questions pop up after watching this segment. Remember that  further instructions are uploaded to the TV website. You can CLICK HERE to find those. 

The second half of the show will help solve your rainy day woes as Alex Woodbury returns to show you some tricks for stitching laminated fabrics. Her featured garment is the Soho Jacket from the Sewing Workshop pattern line.

You'll see the value of the non-stick foot for sewing rainwear fabric such as vinyl coated cotton.

This unusual fabric can be found currently in some pretty prints on Fabric.com. I've had a lot of fun sewing with this fabric in the past.  A few years ago Brother came out with a great hybrid foot that is not only non-stick but has roller wheels to really keep it gliding freely along the surface. Click on the image below to learn more.