Tag: sewing

Charity sewalong: June 2018

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Magic Moments – Grandies

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Grandies was born to put a smile on the faces of a group of people often forgotten by society. This program reaches across Australia, focusing on the elderly, the grandmas and grandpas who may either be at home alone or in hostels or nursing homes with no family nearby to support them. Their teams of volunteers take time out of their busy schedules to give time back to these Grand Oldies (Grandies) to make them feel cared for, honoured and valued as important members of our community.

Sewalong brief

We would like to support Grandies by creating knit beanies and mittens, which will provide comfort and warmth this winter to a number of elderly men and women Australia-wide.

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If you would like to get involved simply download the free sewing patterns below.

Add some embroidery

If you have an embroidery machine, why not embroider these mittens or beanies with the Magic Moments logo to help support the Grandies Charity.

Or feel free to decorate these with an embroidery design of your choice.

SENDING IN YOUR DONATIONS

Send your completed projects to Magic Moments—Grandies. Be sure to include your name, postal address and contact details with your donation.

Postal address: 228 Forest Acres Drive, Lake Macdonald Qld 4563

OR

Drop your projects into your local Echidna store.

HOW LONG DO I HAVE TO CREATE THE PROJECT?

The Magic Moments—Grandies sewalong will run from 1–30 June 2018.

PRIZES

We’ll be giving away a number of prizes throughout in the year. To enter, simply take a photo of your finished project this month and post it to our Echidna Sewing facebook community!

THINGS TO REMEMBER

Sewalongs are a great way to get inspired by what everyone creates, while giving to a worthy cause. If you’re new to sewing and embroidery this is a great chance to get involved and have fun no matter what the outcome. Any excuse to put your sewing and embroidery machines to good use is a great one.

SEWALONG BADGES

If you have your own sewing/embroidery blog you can save the following badges and post it on your blog entry, linking back to this page.

MORE INFORMATION

Create a ‘shabby chic’ apron

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This project will teach you how to decorate an apron using lace, fabric, your machine decorative stitches and applique techniques.

To create this project you can use any style sewing machine. I have used a Brother NV110 sewing machine.

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What you will need

Apron

You can sew your own basic apron using the pattern from our May Charity Sewalong. I have purchased this apron from a Daiso Japanese store for only $2.80. You may also be able to find aprons like this from $2 stores across Australia.

Materials

  • Download the Applique Shape Patterns (PDF, 400KB)
  • Hot Melt Web for the applique
  • Range of matching fat quarters for the applique
  • Lace style 1 – 2 x width (plus 2 inches) of the bottom of your apron and 1 x the top width (plus 2 inches).
  • Lace style 2 – 1 x width (plus 2 inches) of the top of your apron and 1 x the width of the pocket (plus 2 inches)
  • Lace style 3 – 1 x width of your pocket (plus 2 inches)
  • Fabric – 6 inches x (2 x width (plus 2 inches) of the bottom of your apron and 1 x the top width (plus 2 inches))

How to create your apron

First you need to get together all of your fabric, lace and applique pieces. Start cutting out your applique shapes from the fat quarters. You can choose any colours for these applique shapes but I would suggest you choose a white fabric for the circle and then style your cupcake shapes differently.

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Kids or Pet Applique Pillows

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Create these cute, fun and easy pillows for your child or pet! They come in either dog, fox or bunny and take very little time to make.  Plus, if you’re an embroiderer check out this free bunny embroidery design to match the bunny pillow.

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 Patterns

When printing unselect ‘print to scale’. Use the test square to check the correct sizing.

Materials Needed

  • 110cm x 90cm fleece for the pillow. The final pillow size is approximately 50cm x 40cm
  • Mixture of felt or fleece colours for the face
  • Stuffing or bean bag fill (you can buy this in a large bag)
  • Thread colours to match the felt fabric
  • Hot Melt Web

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March – Charity Sewalong

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Life’s Little Treasures

Robbie-with-LLTF-logo easter.jpgThe Life’s Little Treasures Foundation is Australia’s foremost charity dedicated to providing support, friendship and information, specifically tailored for families of children born premature or sick.

Having a child that is sick or premature can be a very traumatic roller-coaster ride and this wonderful foundation strives to give families the support and assistance they need.

Donate to Life’s Little Treasures Easter Event!

Life’s Little Treasures is holding an Easter event on the 3rd of April, 2017 for families who are desperately wanting to take home their sick or premature babies. This is why we are asking for donations including an Easter bunny toy or Easter themed baby bib to gift to these families.

If you would like to be involved, Life’s Little Treasures will require these donations by the 1st April, 2017. This means shipping to Life’s Little Treasures yourself, or dropping off your donations to Echidna Sewing no later than Wednesday, 23rd March.

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Embroider your world with Brother & Echidna

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by Gary Walker

It seems incredible that sewing machinery has been around since the early 1800’s and embroidery technology since 1964. This machinery started off as heavy, complex, incredibly expensive and mostly found in factories. Commercial machine embroidery for high volume orders replaced a much more tedious and painstaking process of stitching by hand. Yet the fundamental principle remains the same: a top and a bottom thread are stitched together over and over again to gradually produce a pattern.

We’ve all worn embroidered garments, we have embroidered articles throughout our homes, we decorate and identify ourselves with embroidery. Automated machine embroidery has influenced fashion and décor since its very inception.

Today, computer technology has put this automatic machine embroidery process within reach of everyone. You don’t even need sewing skills!

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Kids Toy or Lego Bag Project

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by Erin W

The first project I have created for the Koala Kids Foundation – Charity Sewalong is this free, easy to make kids toy or Lego bag, by Toni at Make it perfect. The photo instructions were very clear and simple to follow. I managed to cut out and stitch this project in less than an hour.

In addition, I have also embroidered the full-colour Koala Kids Foundation smiley mouth embroidery design and appliqued it onto the bag itself. You can choose either the coloured logo or an outlined logo if you want to do the same. If you’re interested in getting involved in our monthly Echidna charity sewalong, you can find out more about this months sewing brief on our February Charity Sewalong post.

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This is the perfect bag for children to fit their toys, Lego, blankets or overnight goodies to take to Grandma’s. As you can see there are two drawstrings, which allow you to enclose all of the toys inside, plus it then folds out to create a play mat for your child to sit on.

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Learn to Sew – Helpful Books

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by Erin W

These days with so many online tutorials, YouTube videos, blogs, patterns and programs, it’s very easy to get distracted and not know where to start on your sewing journey. Instead of being overwhelmed or spending large amounts of money on online tutorials, videos or subscriptions, why not start with something a little more basic… a book!

When you have so much information at your fingertips it’s easy to forget about the idea of hiring or buying a simple book that will guide you through the very basics of sewing, fabric types, techniques, tips, tricks and much more! Plus, if you search your local library you will often find a number of different topics whether you’re interested in the very basics, learning how to sew for children, learning how to make quilts, applique, embroidery, dressmaking and the list goes on. Best of all, this information is ready available to you for a simply library subscription.

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Image – Book Depository (Sewing Books)

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