Monday, October 6, 2008

Primitive Swag Tutorial

Happy Monday Everyone! I missed posting yesterday but I was just finishing up this project and was excited to share it with you!

I thought this made a really cute primitive swag you could hang from a mantle at Thanksgiving time. I know I have tons of stuff for Christmas on my mantle but admit it is a little bare other times of the year. These are so fun and quick to make....I'll show you how!.....
Fabric cutting is a BREEZE if you just run it all through your die cut machine! I ran these pieces of fabric through my little cuttlebug and they cut NO PROBLEM!
Here is a photo of the dies I used and the fabric that I cut. For this project I cut 8 pieces of patterned fabric, 4 pieces of plain fabric and 8 pieces of cotton batting (YES, you can run that through the cuttlebug too!)
Adirondacks new pigment ink line are very nice to stamp with on fabric. Here I stamped the sheep image from the RUMMAGE BIN at Cornish Heritage Farms. Did you know that next week you can purchase some SINGLE images from the very popular "Primitive Beginnings" set?!! Cool! You can buy them mounted or unmounted! The images in this swag are from the singles you can buy!
You can't do country unless you muddy up the edges a little. Copic's airbrush system was perfect for this. The markers are permenant ink and perfect for fabric, a few shots with the air gun and I had the country look I was going for!
Now to the sewing....no it's not that hard! The scalloped edges on the nestability dies act like pinking sheers that prevent you fabric from fraying, so all you have to do is sew down the image in place. This is straight line sewing girls!!!! Easy Peasy!
After I have sewn my image in place I flip it over (wrong side up), lay 2 pieces of the batting down and then use my secret weapon....FABRIC GLUE! This stuff is awesome! I put glue dots in the corners and a few at the sides then lay my top piece of fabric over it and press with my iron. This will heat set the glue, now when you go to sew the fabric will not move on you!

Sew the pieces together. I made my swag with 4 rectangles, but you could make as many as you wish. You could even clamp them together like a book and make a fun "softie" book for kids!

I used my crop-a-dile to make some holes in the top and set my eyelets so that I could string them together and attach some ribbon.

Hope this inspires you to do some stamping on fabric! So fun and easy and what a unique gift you can make!

11 comments:

Wendalyn said...

This was absolutely gorgeous. I am going to try cutting fabric in my machine I never thought of it. Thanks for sharing...

Bonnie said...

Oh my, this is so flippin' cute! I have NEVER used fabric for anything crafty!! Unless you count 8th grade when I made that stupid gym bag (100 years ago).......but this sounds and looks so much better!

Daniela Dobson said...

Wow, this is awesome, what a great idea!

Mary said...

Your swag came out beautiful. If only I coulds sew.

Thank you for making the turorial.

Mary

Kristine said...

OH, WOW!! You are so creative. Love that country charm. =)

Sew This N That said...

This is so beautiful and a great keepsake :0)
I only have a cricut and I don't think it cuts material, would love to have a go though so I think the pinking shears will have to come out of retirement lol.
**hugs** Heather x

Cheryl Hirzel said...

Wow! I never would have thought that you could use Nesties on anything other than paper! I know how good the thick steel dies work, but never thought to try the skinny ones! I am so impressed! This project is wonderful!!!

Conniecrafter said...

such a wonderful idea, and love the primitive images!

Deborah Saaranen said...

This is just gorgeous! I have this set, and it has yet to see ink-- thanks for the inspiration!!!

CreativeMish said...

WOW! This is amazing! What a great project!~

Kim said...

This is soooo cute! Thank you. I really enjoy your blog.