Sewing Room Wall Decor

I completed a fast little project for my sewing room earlier this week. 

I chose this project because I have boxes and boxes of fabric scraps that I hope to use in future projects.  Because I already had all of the fabric, this project was under $10 to complete thanks to some 40% off coupons for JoAnn Fabrics.

My supplies included:
10 embroidery hoops in different sizes (these were all priced at between $1.29 and $1.89 originally, I used coupons to knock that down just a little bit more.)
Hot glue and hot glue gun
Fabric
Nails to hang them up (Completed, these weigh almost nothing.  I just used little finishing nails that we had laying around.)

I started by inserting the fabric into the embroidery hoop.  I pulled it taught and tightened the hoops as I went.  Then, I trimmed the excess fabric, leaving just enough to fold over the inside frame.  After applying a thin line of hot glue around the edge of the frame, I folded the excess fabric in and laid it upside-down while the hot glue dried.  Here is a pic after the fabric has been pulled nice and tight, the excess was trimmed down, and the hot glue was applied:

After the glue dried, I was ready to hang the finished hoops up.  Here is what they look like all glued and finished:

This fabric might look like a hot mess, but it holds a very special place in my heart.  It was used to make costumes for the inhabitants of Hades' underworld for a show I worked on last year and I spent hours and hours and called in a lot of favors to have dancers, my husband, and my in-laws help me cut, dye, and sew hundreds of strips of fabric together (here's the original rendering and a pair of the pants on one of the dancers before they were completely fitted):

Anyways, back to the project that this post was supposed to be about.  After I had filled each of the hoops with fabric that I have used in the past and love to look at and reminisce about, I played around with the arrangement on our coffee table before I started nailing holes in the wall.  Here's an arrangement that I liked and kind of loosely based my final set up on:

After I had figured out what I liked and didn't like in an arrangement, I got to hanging the hoops up on the wall.  Here's what I ended up with:

I still have a few empty hoops that will fill the space out even more, but I think of this project as one that will evolve and grow over time.

And since I called this post "Sewing Room Wall Decor", I can't help but sneak in a shot of my other arrangement in this room, my rendering "photo" wall.

And some close-ups:

Throw Pillow Thursday

I LOVE making throw pillows from placemats.  Half of the work is done for you.  I made this week's throw pillow from two IKEA MARIT Placemats.  They cost me about a dollar each and measure 14" by 18".  I used IKEA's 16" by 20" pillow form, which runs $2.99.  It's the same kind of pillow form that I used for this pillow a few weeks back.  These placemats are only one piece of fabric and don't have a ready-made pillow back like some that I use (and added a few extra steps to my pillow-making process).   

To make my pillowcase, I lined my two placemats up on top of each other and sewed a white zipper down one side.  As always, I sewed a zipper into this pillow case to make for easy cover removal and cleaning down the line.  I then sewed the remaining three sides closed.  Usually, I would do this by lining my two placemats up with their right sides together (meaning that the pretty fabric that will eventually show is inside and what will ultimately live inside of the pillow is facing out).  But, these placemats kind of have a woven, rustic, scalloped edge on the two long sides that I really liked and didn't want to lose.  You can kind of see it along the top here: 

In order to keep that little edge in tact, I lined the placemats up (after inserting the zipper) with their right sides facing out.  I pinned all along the edge of the placemats and used a straight stitch and sewed along the long sides as close to the edge as I could.  My pillow is actually different colors on each side (one blue placemat and one white placemat), so I loaded my sewing machine's bobbin with blue thread and the top part of the machine with white thread and sewed with the white side facing up.

I hand sewed the final side using a slip stitch and blue thread.  The stitching is blends into the fabric in the completed pillow.  The only reason that I sewed it by hand was because I could do it on the train and I knew that it would be a little bit more hidden than if I sewed it by machine.

And here is the front and back of my completed pillow:

Shelving Unit - Part II

I've put some more decorative items on the shelving unit that Matt built.  Since we have a lot of books (think boxes and boxes of books) and nowhere else to put them (...yet), this shelving unit became home to a lot of books. 

Also on there are (from the top shelf down):

IKEA candleholders, picture frame; Target mix and match lamp and shade, books;

books, metal grasshoppers that Matt's mom gave us as a housewarming present, even more books;

picture frame, bud vase that my bestie Lauren gave me when we were 16 (it is nothing short of a miracle that it has survived since then), hurricane vase thing filled with pinecones (for now);

our paper organization solution (more on that in a coming post).

And one with the light on.  I love it.