Six Carina Gardner Free Fabric Projects You Might Have Missed

January 5, 2017 by carina 1 Comment

I posted on instagram the other day a picture of Felicity watching my cut out fabric for my 2017 Block of the Month. It reminded me that I wanted to put together a list of the SIX FREE FABRIC PROJECTS you might have missed.

Hope you get a chance to download all of these!

Happy Sewing!

XOXO- Carina

Laminate Bag Tutorial

July 14, 2012 by carina 2 Comments

I’ve been meaning to post this tutorial for a month now. My kids took a neighborhood art class and the night before I had the hair-brained scheme that they both needed new art bags. After making them, I sketched up the steps for anyone else who is interested in experimenting with these said “hair-brained” schemes.

I’ve sketched up a similar tutorial for my girls’ ballet bag, but this time the bags are substantially larger, made of laminates, and have a single strap. I used the Dainty Blossoms™ laminates (shown in the photos).

Working with laminates was not as hard as I originally anticipated. I like to use Lila Tuller’s oil method for running laminates through my sewing machine. It works like a charm!

A few notes about the sketches for this tutorial:

* They are by no means comprehensive:). That means that I give you sizes, and you can customize as you wish.
* Yardage for the bag does NOT include the “cutout” (in my example I show an ‘S’). Either use a scrap of contrasting laminate or skip altogether (see more notes on this below).
* You may want to adjust the strap’s length for the intended use of the bag. My strap is meant to comfortably fit across the chest.
* I don’t use fusible material for the letters/cutout. I simply carefully laid the letters on the front of the bags and appliqué stitched the letters directly to the front. It was absolutely an experiment in progress since I had never used laminates like this before. Amazingly, it worked (but was not easy!)

After a month of use, turns out these bags are pretty strong and can take a beating. I attribute it to the laminates, which helped my wipe away all the paint my kid’s left undone in the bag. Perfect art bag.

Hope you also get a chance to experiment!

—Carina

Double Ringed Pincushion Tutorial and Free Download

April 20, 2012 by carina 3 Comments

If you head over to Riley Blake’s Cutting Corners today, you will find my brand-new Double Ringed Pincushion Tutorial.

All of my pincushions are made using my Dainty Blossom’s line for Riley Blake. I now have these pincushions scattered all over my studio 1. because they are useful, but also 2. because my kids like to play with the “donuts.” It works for me.

The actual pincushion is relatively fast to make. The stand is made from wood supplies found at my local craft store (spools, doll heads/spheres, and a flat circle for the base).

Head over the Riley Blake here to download the pdf instructions, pattern, and for a quick look at the instructions in the blog post. You can also download the instructions here.

Happy sewing!

Carina

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Dainty Blossoms Camera Strap Tutorial—Free Download

March 8, 2012 by carina 2 Comments

Want to bring life to your camera strap? Here’s a quick and easy tutorial of how to make one. There are step-by-step photos and then I suggest embellishing it with something fun! This strap is made with Dainty Blossoms™ to infuse a little spring into this long drawn out winter.

What else do I like about this project? It’s a short, quick-and-easy project. I sometimes like a tiny project like this because I feel inspired and fulfilled when I finish it, but it only took me an hour.

Download the pdf here.

Hope you get in a little stitchin’ time too!

XOXO-Carina

Dainty Blossoms Is Here!

January 27, 2012 by carina

Yesterday I went to Christensen Wholesale’s new beautiful warehouse. First, it’s closer to me (which is always a plus), but the space is so lovely that I would have loved to wander among the racks for hours. I picked up all my cottons a few flannels and laminates for Dainty Blossoms™ to boot. My kids are hoping for pajamas. I think they are going to get their wish. Now to carve out time to sew.

Hope you have a wonderful weekend! Carina

Quilted Pillows Using Dainty Blossoms

January 24, 2012 by carina

If you haven’t had a chance to check out the Cutting Corner, you are really missing out. It’s a blog sponsored by Riley Blake Designs with all sorts of free tutorials and patterns. I just found this darling pillow tutorial using my Dainty Blossoms™ fabric line and had to share.

I myself have yet to make it down to the warehouse to pick up my bolts of this new line. I know that it is currently being shipped to stores. Have you seen it yet?

I know I’ve been a bit MIA this January, but ’tis the season for sickness. My family can’t seem to get healthy. So much has gone to the wayside as Flissa has been fighting a week-long fever that also involves strep. We’ve never seen anything this bad and ended up in the ER one night with her. Turns out she is just a kid that can run high fevers (107 degrees!—ya, we were freaked out.). Hoping that everyone starts feeling better before I head out to CHA this weekend…and here’s to hoping I don’t catch anything either!

Dainty Blossoms Sling Sewing Pattern

December 27, 2011 by carina

Here it is! Introducing our final pattern the Dainty Blossoms™ Sling! This is a multipurpose, easy-going bag!

It’s a bag that makes toting all your necessaries easy for the mom-on-the-go or the carry-it-all professional. Have fun mixing and matching fabrics for the flower accessory.

The Dainty Blossoms™ Sling is fully-lined for a professional finish.

Wheww! And that concludes the introduction of our next four sewing patterns! Want to see them all again? Here’s our sewing pattern page: https://carinagardner.com/sewing-patterns/.

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas! You’ll see these patterns in quilt shops soon! I expect to see the shipment any day now. (Yippeee!)

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Dainty Blossoms Fabric at Riley Blake Studios

December 13, 2011 by carina 1 Comment

I spent a little time in Alpine last week with my art directors working on some new concepts for fabric lines. I walked into the office and saw this GORGEOUS quilt Jina Barney had made with the Dainty Blossoms™ line. It totally took me by surprise! And even though I knew the fabric was going to beautiful in a quilt, actually SEEING it in a quilt made me want to make one ASAP.

Seriously, this photo doesn’t do this quilt justice. At. All.

And if you are quilter, you KNOW how difficult it is to photograph a quilt decently (Definitely, not on my list of things that are easy to take pictures of).

I made sure to grab some scraps so that I could put one together over Christmas break with the kids.

I also found out that two more of my lines are on presale so I will be introducing them to you pretty soon here.

Oh ya, and I promise to introduce the final sewing pattern this week (But while you wait you can check out how darling the mermaid doll pattern is with the Dainty Blossoms™ fabric for the tail…Yipp-eek!).

Happy sewing!

Carina

Chic Mademoiselle Outfit Sewing Pattern

December 11, 2011 by carina

Sorry I’ve been away so long. Last week got away from me and I had so much to post (and will now have to play catch up all week). Among other things, our little family came down with some nasty viruses, which put me in bed all day Saturday and put Josh on sick-kiddie-duty all weekend. But we are mostly recovered now, and I’m back to the computer again.

Among the many things I’ve been needing to do is continue to announce our new sewing patterns. Up on the list is the Chic Mademoiselle Outfit.

This an outfit that I plan on making alot of. Siri and Flissa loved wearing the samples, and you can bet that the Dainty Blossoms™ fabric will be used for this springtime outfit. The outfit shows yardage for no ruffles, a single neckline ruffle (shown), or three ruffles (across the front of the blouse). The ruffle pants and ruffle barrette are pretty fun as well.

The blouse has an invisible zipper down one of the sides and is fully-lined for a professional finish. I think it is one my easiest patterns to make (even if I do say so myself) and if you don’t like making ruffles, it’s just as cute without a ruffle on the neckline.

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And because I have decided to hijack my own post (don’t mind if I do), here are a list of other things going on right about now:

+ The four new sewing patterns are due out the first week of January 2012 (okay, that wasn’t much of a hijack since I dedicated this post to a sewing pattern).
+ Photos of my finished studio are coming soon…da da dah.
+ Our Dec-Jan newsletter is in the works
+ Two brand new fabric lines for Riley Blake Designs (out March and June of 2012)—announcements to come!
+ Lots and Lots of new digital lines (BTW, have you seen the awesome sale on THESE and THESE over at JessicaSprague.com?)
+ Lots of awesome new projects with Dainty Blossoms™ (due out in less than a month!)
+ Our family has a serious obsession with the Muppets right now.
+ Mah na Mah na
+ Siri played her harp in public for the first time (Silent Night at church…I count that :).
+ I’ve been very good about keeping my December clear and empy-ish of work-ish type things this December.
+ Which means I am thinking about starting a holiday puzzle on my coffee table for kicks.
+ Or doing some much needed sewing.
+ Either way, I’m pretty happy with the pace of things in the studio.
+ Just a reminder you have another week to enter the giveaway here.
+ As well as a reminder to have a happy holiday season!

Cheers, Carina