A Little Happy Tutorial ~ How to make sweet labels and patches

Thank you so much for all your orders for the 'Pretty Handmades' fat quarter bundle....the original bundle sold out in a flash...in fact causing our website to do all sorts of strange things!!!  The second 'inspired' by bundle sold out before it even made it to the website, so today I'm sharing the third version, which I love just as much as my original choices!!!

As you can see I have now used the brown Little Heroines fabric by Lecien and I switched the labels on my pencil case, so you could see how lovely it looked. Whilst doing that I thought it might be useful to share how I make my labels...it's so easy, but so effective and they add something extra to your projects for really not very much effort...win win!!!

Here's some other examples of where I've added them to a project.....

On the next one, I made two labels to create a layered look......

Fun aren't they!  So here's how I make them......

First I fussy cut my 'label' fabric allowing a 1/4" seam allowance.

Then cut a piece of light weight sew in interfacing the exact same size.  I use Vilene Sew In Interfacing Light White L11/310, available on my website HERE.

Place the interfacing on to the Right Side of the fabric and sew all the way round with a fairly small stitch.  I use 1.8 setting on my Janome.  A little happy top tip.......I always start on a straight edge of the 'label' and when I get all the way round I continue over my original stitches just a smidge to make sure it will not come undone!

Then trim off the corners and cut a small cross in the interfacing, taking care not to cut the fabric underneath.

Then turn through, I use a chopstick to push out the corners.  Finally give a gentle press and you're label is ready to be added to your project.

For the pencil case, I added a little lacey loop underneath, I secured this in place before hand sewing the label on top.  As you can see from my previous pictures, sometimes I machine sew my labels and other times I hand sew them...it's really up to you!  As a final touch I added a sweet little wooden heart button, which I secured in place with a hand tied knot.

So here's the fabrics I have carefully cherry picked for the new 'inspired by' bundle they have the same feel of the original and I hope that you love them as much as I do!  You can find the new Fat Quarter Bundle HERE..... whilst stock allows. For the ribbon trim, my original Tommy and Riviera choices both by Ebony and Ivory would look lovely as would Bastille, Napoleon, Toscana and Tricolour, all available HERE.  Zipper wise, you'll need the 35cm size and both Light Blue and Ecru look fab and we will be restocking all the colours and adding more... find them HERE.

Of course to make the 'Posie Patchwork Pouch' you will need the pattern, which can be found in Laurens fabulous book 'Pretty Handmades' and hooray our shop copies have now arrived and can be found HERE!

That's it for today....I hope that you have a super weekend with a little time for some sewing!

Happy Stitches!