A sewing machine dust cover has been on my to-do list for a while. I used this tutorial to guide me. I used a jelly roll I bought on clearance once upon a time for the exterior and pockets, double sided fusible foam interfacing someone gave me for the "batting", a fat quarter for the sides, and muslin for the inner lining. I added pockets on the side for storing the food pedal because it gets in my way when I'm not using it; it's like 98% of why I wanted to make a cover. I quilted the stripes by stitching in the ditch with clear thread. I didn't bind the seams like in the tutorial. I just serged the inner seams and rolled under and stitched the lower edge.  I might go back later to make an opening for the machine's handle. I didn't do it now because it was late and I just wanted to finish up and go to bed. I'm really happy with it! I tried to make a quick and dirty cover a month or so ago and it turned out pretty crappy. This is a worthy upgrade. Now ...

After my first test pieces this dresser went pretty smoothly and much faster. Part of that was the joinery was simpler, and part of it is I had all the tools and design finished before I started. I based my design on this tutorial then modified it to match my own aesthetic.  We have a Black and Decker Matrix power tool which allows the user to buy different attachments to use it as different tools. We have the circle saw attachment but it's a pretty small blade and not adjustable so it's not great for ripping down big sheets of plywood. We have a table saw but it requires two people to cut a full sheet of plywood because the sheet is so big and our table saw is a small job site saw.  So I bought myself a new 7 1/4 in circle saw from Harbor Freight (my new favorite store 😍) so I could cut down the big sheets by myself with greater ease on the work table. It worked great. I rough cut pieces a little bigger with the circle saw then cut them precisely to size on the table saw....

As the next step toward building myself a dresser, I made myself a nightstand. I've been using a step stool for a nightstand for a while and it was really getting old. This also seemed like a logical step in my learning process. I used skills I learned for the box (mitered corners, dados) and added to it drawer making, drawer slide installation, and leg construction and attachment This took me way too long to finish. I knew what I wanted it to look like, but didn't have all the specific design details decided in advance. It took me a while to figure out what kind of legs to put on it, what wood to use, and how to cut and attach them. It kind of became a "give a mouse a cookie" scenario where I decided I wanted to do one thing, but that necessitated a tool or a jig or a whatever in order to do it so I'd go about procuring/making that first before I could go back and finish the step I originally started with. The good thing is I now have a complete design with all t...

I wear clothes designed for women, so for my whole life I've suffered from Girl Pockets . I decided to finally do something about it. Enter Pocket Extenders. I referenced lots of YouTube videos and tutorials to get an idea of what I wanted then did my own version.  Basically I turned my pants inside out, cut off the bottom of the pocket, inserted a prepared pocket extension from cotton fabric I had on hand, sewed them together, then turned the pants right side out. Pocket fabric tends to fray badly so I took the extra step to serge the seams to clean them up but I found that does add bulk to the junction between the old and new parts of the pockets which creates a visible pocket line when wearing if the pants are fitted. I don't really care about that, I'd rather have the clean hem. In addition to improving my casual pants, I added phone pockets to my athletic pants as well. I had a couple pairs of shorts that had pockets built in and wanted to spread the goodness. Also I d...

I have a habit of having in mind exactly what I want in something I want to acquire, shopping all over and not finding precisely what I want, and then determining to fabricate the thing myself (or more accurately, usually asking my husband to make it). My current occupation is remodeling our master closet. I want to put a small dresser on my side and since I can't find what I want to purchase, I found free plans to make a dresser in the style I want. It seems simple enough but in a moment of self-realization I acknowledged to myself I have close to zero experience with woodworking and decided to make a small project using some of the skills that are required to build a dresser to make sure I don't totally screw up the end goal. Last weekend my husband taught me how to use our table saw and dado stack and supervised while I did the actual cutting. Then I assembled this box all by myself using techniques I've seen used by various woodworking YouTubers. I learned to cut mitere...

I used to have a prodigious t-shirt collection, mostly shirts you get from participating in sports and school activities and travelling. My style, activities, and size have evolved over the years so I cut up my old shirts to make a t-shirt quilt. That only required the front and/or back design so I kept the shirt remnants. I cut up the remnants into strips to make t-shirt yarn. Most of the shirts are about 1.5" wide strips but some I did wider if they were a thinner fabric in order to maintain consistent yarn size.  I made myself a loom based on this tutorial , strung it with some yarn I had on hand, then wove this lovely rug.  I started out by looping the lengths of t-shirt yarn together like the tutorial shows but later I discovered that gluing the strips was faster, a lot less work, and produced a smoother rug. I use this fabric adhesive . It sets up fast and strong and rubs off easily if you get it on your fingers. It doesn't dry clear though and it can be easy to use too ...