*** This post is sponsored by EverSewn***

Fall is hands down my favorite. My favorite time of year, with my favorite holiday, my favorite weather, and my favorite sewing. So I was super pumped when EverSewn reached out to collaborate for their #sweaterweather campaign. An excuse to whip up a new batch of Halloween decorations and accessories? Ummm, YES PLEASE! 

The very next day I found a fabulous care package on my porch and dove right in. Getting Halloween fabrics delivered right to my door is basically the grown up version of trick-or-treating. Only you don't crash from all the sugar. Here's what I got:
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The tools are obviously going to get a TON of use, and already look spectacular on my new pegboard wall. The bright cheery colors of tools like these are exactly why I love a good wall of organization. Not only can I easily find all my tools, but they look darn cute too.

On to the fabric! The great thing about fabrics like these, that just scream Halloween (pun intended), is that a little goes a long way. Which means that the precut sheets that I received are enough for a whole cauldron full of fun DIYs. Let me show you everything I made:

As soon as I saw the sheets of glitter fabric, I knew that I had to try putting it through my silhouette machine. The 12" fabric is the perfect width. I never did find the exact right settings to get the cut depth perfect, but I didn't mind cutting the pieces out with my scissors, just following the partial cut I got from the machine. And I'm sure if you experimented enough, and maybe tried a different blade, you could get the right settings. I found this SVG file by Angèle Kamp on the Silhouette website, and decided to put it on one of the large pillow covers I'm making for our screened in porch. For simplicity's sake, I tried to hot glue it in place on the fabric, and it worked like a charm!

Because of course my 2-year-old needed a matching Halloween pillow for his little porch chair as well! He is ALL about the spiders this year, so I found this SVG file from Kolette Hall on the silhouette website for him. Let's just say he's a BIG FAN. He likes to scare me with it, and then tell me that it has become a nice spider and I need to pet it. 

This was a no brainer! I already make these headbands and hair clips for my Etsy shop, and I couldn't resist recreating them in this gorgeous onyx fabric. This black glitter is the perfect mix of subtle and glam. I gotta say, my photos really don't do it justice. I made one plain headband, one with cat ears, and then three bat bow clips of various sizes. 

After seeing so many awesome bags made out of cork lately (like this awesome Huxley Bag by @Creativooz ), I've been dying to get my hands on some. HELLLOOO polka-dot cork! So of course I had to make a bag! I decided that I needed my own trick-or-treat bag for Halloween. I've been really digging circle bags lately, so I went with it. I added some black piping I had on hand, and some black lining on the inside. I used some interfacing to make it extra stiff, and added a few extra creepy details for fun. My D-ring attachments are little skulls with rivets for eyes! And then, let's be honest, I couldn't resist adding another glitter decal since I had so much fun with the pillows. This one is by Jamie Lane Designs. I went with the onyx glitter fabric because I love it so much, but it ended up getting a little lost in the polka dots, so I added a layer of gold leather behind it to make the letters pop a little more. The result? I'm in love! 

Ok, so this last one was a fun little last minute addition, but I feel like Halloween 2020 isn't complete without a themed face mask. I excitedly decided that it needed to have glitter too (I told you, I'm a convert!). But, it wasn't until I had already cut it all out that I remembered that the glitter fabric isn't machine washable. So I'm not sure how much use this mask is going to get as far as official covid masking-up goes. But, at the very least, I have a fun reminder of this crazy crazy year we are in.

Thanks again to Eversewn for sending me the care package and for sponsoring this post! Feel free to ask me any questions you may have about the items I've linked here or the projects I've created, and I'll do my best to answer them!

Happy Halloween!

I'm happy to announce that Eddie has just graduated from his PhD program and is starting a new job! His new job is located just north of Chicago, IL so we will be relocating! 

While super exciting, it is also a big transition for our family and for my business. So, I will be temporarily shutting down the physical product side of my business. Just for a few weeks: until I get everything set up in our new state. And until the movers give me back all my sewing stuff. I expect to be back up and running by Aug 17th.

In the meantime, the digital product side of my business will still be fully open, and I'll be doing my best to still answer any emails or messages that come my way.

With fashion revolution week upon us, I want to draw attention to something that everyone can do to help with this cause: mending. The number one thing we can do to help stop the fast fashion cycle is to actually love the things we already own. Or as FashionRevolution.org says: #lovedclotheslast
This means cleaning them in a way that preserves the garments and this means mending! And although mending usually brings to mind sewing, that's not always the case. I want to share with you 9 ideas for fixing a variety of wardrobe issues. Even if you have never sewn in your life.

Fashion Revolution Week is an annual remembrance of the Rana Plaza collapse on April 24th 2013, which killed 1,138 workers. All year round, and especially this week, FashionRevolution.org campaigns for a clean, safe, fair, transparent and accountable fashion industry. 

I love fashion, and I love sewing. But I don’t want our clothes or our fabric to exploit people or destroy our planet.

This week is a time for each of us to stop, reflect and ask #whomademyclothes? and #whatsinmyclothes? We can take this opportunity to think about how we (as individuals and as a whole) produce, consume, and dispose of clothes. 

I love my Huxley bag pattern as is, but I also love how versatile it can be. After lusting after a few roll top bags on instagram, I realized that my Huxley pattern could easily be converted to create one of my own! So, I decided one of my #MakeNine projects was going to be a hacked Huxley, with a roll top, using waterproof material. And because I can't go simple, I added in quite a few other hacks too. Here is a breakdown:

One of my Make Nine goals for 2020 was to try out the My Body Model app, which is a way to create a customized croqui for creating fashion illustrations and flats that are specific to your own body.

​I absolutely love the idea behind this business. Going through an apparel design program in college means that I was taught to use a traditional croqui, which, as some of you may know, is very unrealistic. The traditional croquis are intentionally altered to be more of a stylized representation of the female body, with extra height, and extra long legs. The formula for drawing a croqui involves using nine heads as a base for getting the proportions correct. Take a look at this photo to see what I mean.

Let me preface this post by saying that this is a classic example of how I work on my projects. And it gives you a little insight as to why I take so long to get anything done.
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If you've been following me for any length of time, you know that every January my ASDP chapter rents out a cabin and has a sewing retreat. And this year was no exception! We each bring a machine, and a few (or a bunch) of our sewing projects to work on, and we all share some of the bigger sewing tools, like irons and cutting mats. Then, we each take a the responsibility for one of the meals for the weekend, so that you only have to stop to make food once the entire time. The only "rule" is that you can't sew for any clients! (since most of us are professional sewists)
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This blog post will continuously be updated to let you know where and how to get your Huxley Kits!

​I love my Huxley Bag pattern! It's a convertible backpack that can also be a cross body bag and a bike bag! I absolutely love this pattern, but I know that finding all the hardware for a project like this can be intimidating. So I've set up some kit options for you!

I had such success with my #makenine challenge in 2019 that I decided to go for it again in 2020! You can read all about my 2019 goals and my 2019 reality in my past blog posts. I didn't finish everything on the list, but I did at least make progress!
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So let's take a look at what I have planned for this year!