Pinfeathers Birdie Lace Up Tutorial
Get ready for a whole lot of fabric fabulous-ness! It’s been a lot of midnight sew-a-thons around here to show off this fabulous fabric. Susan and I have been hard at work! Here’s the first tutorial from the studio!

This is a really cute skill-building toy for preschoolers as little fingers will work on gaining their fine motor skills by lacing the strings through the holes! It also makes a darling decorative display item in the home or is a great project for a child’s birthday party.
Materials
- Carina’s Partridge Bird Pattern-Free Download
- 1/3 yard heavyweight fast2fuse, thin piece of cardboard, or heavyweight Wonder Under.
- 1 fat quarter for a single-sided bird or 2 fat quarters (for an alternate fabric) for a double sided bird
- Colorful shoelace or cording 1/8′ to 1/4″ diameter. Length will be vary depending on the size of your bird.
- Fabric glue
- Paper punch
Instructions
1. Your first step is to download the PDF of the partridge from Carina’s Partridge Bird Pattern. At this point you can decide how large you want your lace up project to be. The smaller the child the larger you may want to make the bird so that they will have something substantial to hold in their hand and lace up!

2. Adjust the percent for the size you need and print your bird.
3. If you are using the Fast2Fuse, you will fuse your fabric onto the Fast2Fuse according to the manufacturer’s instructions on the Fast2Fuse packaging.

4. Trace the bird patterns onto the fused fabric and cut them out.
5. Use a good hole punch to punch the holes for the lacing.

6. Knot one end of the the shoelace and lace it through the first hole pulling it to the knot.

Alternate method
You can also make a Pinfeather’s Birdie Lace Up using a very thin piece of cardboard. Tracing the bird onto the cardboard, you cut out the bird’s shape. Then trace the bird pattern onto the fabric. Use spray fabric glue to glue the fabric to the thin cardboard bird. Use a hole punch to punch holes. Finally finish the project with step #6.
Pinfeathers Birdie Lace Up Tutorial Read More »






It’s taken me a little longer than I wanted it to, but here it is! Instructions for putting together the 

















Yes, my daughter wanted me to make her an octopus costume for her birthday. So how could I refuse? I kept it simple by buying a t-shirt (with the gems already on it) and women’s long socks. Add some filling, a t-shirt transfer kit and my sewing machine and I was set. The only problem? Once I made one for my oldest daughter, I had to make a second one for my youngest daughter. Thankfully, it’s project that can be done in a couple of hours.


1. I bought a package of Dark T-shirt transfers and a few t-shirts in blue and dark pink. I picked them all up at Target but many places would have these goods.


It is a season of change at our house. Our oldest daughter started Kindergarten, Josh started a new job a couple of months ago, I recently signed a fabric contract, and we are buying our very first home. It’s a wonderful time, but difficult to say the least. Labor Day Weekend and this week has been particularly hectic as I have been working on a paper and fabric line (collection number 3!) and convention season is upon me (my day job as an event director). And with the move coming up, I’ve been busy getting rid of the old and getting organized.
You’ll notice that I added a bit of artwork to these tags because with little ones cleaning up is easier if there are pictures. So I added words for the adults and pictures for the kids. I am hoping this means that it will be easier to tidy up.
We’re getting started a bit early here (Project Mania officially starts on September 1st!), but I wanted to make sure that everyone has a chance to participate! I’m giving everyone a head start here so that if you have any big projects that need starting or need to clear out your schedule to make way for some great projects in September, you have the time to!

I finally got around to upgrading my sidebar. I’ve been meaning to add these easy links for a while now, but just managed to squeeze in making the icons and putting it all up this morning! I still have to make some adjustments to the posts themselves (so some things can be downloaded directly from this site), but for now I’m just happy to have this up! You can now click on these links: free downloads, (the ever-so-popular) favorite fridays, tutorials, and giveaways. Check it out on the right-hand side!
I just wanted to give you a preview of the line coming in two weeks! I’m so excited about it because it will be a photographers tool set! These digital kits will be SO much more useful than for just scrapbooking…it will include overlays, masks, filmstrips, and frames of all kinds. It’s the kind of set that will really be useful for any type of photography! So the countdown is just 2 weeks away….




















