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Sew A Patch To An Automobile Seat Cover

7/29/2021

I had a unique project to work on this week. One of our friends purchased seat covers for their vehicle and they wanted patches sewn to the headrest portion.

Here are the patches sewn on and you can see what the covers looked like before. They were made of a stretchy material backed with foam on the front. The back was a thin polyester knit and the bottom had elastic. Once I looked at the construction, I knew that taking the side seam apart would make it much easier.

The patches were actually a gift I made for my friends. I sent them in the mail as a surprise to Texas and thought they would be able to have them installed there. Well, I recently made a trip to Texas and the patches travelled back with me along with the seat covers. Life is weird sometimes isn't it? NO worries. I really enjoyed doing the project because I got to see how good they looked with the bright blue color they chose.

When I was looking at the covers I did however notice that the foam material although stretchy was fragile. You can see it beginning to split in several areas. So I knew I needed to be extra gentle as I took the outer seam apart.

A Seam ripper was the best tool to use and after I started with the point, I switched to the ball so the material would not become more damaged.

I only opened the seam enough to fit under the foot of my sewing machine. Pins helped place the patches and I used a ruler to ensure even placement.

I used a 75/11 needle in my sewing machine and made sure to start with the needle down. The seam was sewn inside the satin edge with matching thread and bobbin all around the perimeter.

Here is a close up of the seam. It is barely visible as long as you use the matching thread colors.

Once I had the patch sewn to the cover, I used some clips to hold the fabric edges together so I could repair the opened seam.

I set my Serger up for a four thread overlock and stitched along the edge. I was very careful to keep the trimming to a minimum along the knife edge. My bamboo skewer helped me guide the fabric also.

I used a large needle to run the thread tails through the seam also. This will help it keep from raveling.

Here are the completed covers ready to be installed.

I had to try them out so I could send pictures along before they were shipped back to Texas. I think someone got a car ride as well.

I have a video you can watch below that shows all of the steps. Maybe it will inspire you to sew a patch to a seat cover as well. This method will work for just about anything as long as you can fit it under your sewing foot and your machine will sew it. I hope you have enjoyed this post, share what you learn and are generous with what you create. Someone will appreciate your hard work.

Sew A Dog Barricade For Your Bed

7/19/2021

This project has been on my mind for a long time. I have a small loveseat that sits at the end of my bed. Our household is VERY dog friendly. They are allowed to lay on the furniture and pretty much go anywhere they like. The only place that I want them to stay off is my bed. I am a person that makes her bed every morning. I love to wash my sheets and crawl in to sweet smelling linens. For me, it is very difficult to watch two boy dogs coming in and out of the house and jumping on the comforter. We also have a tick problem in our area this time of year. Even though we treat our dogs with medicine, I have found critters and that is not fun. So I have been using a baby gate with pillows stuffed around it to block their path from the loveseat. If I am not careful and the pillows are not tall enough to create a visual barrier, my dogs will walk right through them.

So, here is my new dog barrier. It was an easy project with all straight lines to sew. I just had to take some measurements.

I measured the space in between the posts and then around the bottom and top. I wanted to have a height that would allow TV viewing even when you were laying in bed but tall enough to keep the dogs from jumping across. So it is a rectangle panel with webbing that wraps around each post and secures with snaps. I did add one inch to my overall measurement of the panel to allow for a 1/2 inch hem around the perimeter. I also cut the webbing extra long so it would wrap around the posts and give me enough to pull it taut while I installed the snaps.

The fabric I chose is Screen mesh from Lowe's. I had some extra from a previous project where I sewed a Screen Door cover. I am still using that screen and it is one of my best home upgrades. The screen is very easy to see through and lightweight. Since my dogs are used to the baby gate, I figured they would understand this was just a "NEW" gate and would stay off as usual. If your dog isn't used to a gate, you might want to try something a little sturdier at first and then transition to the screen. If they push with their nails, they could puncture the screen.

I had a large spool of webbing in my stash. It is one of those materials I found at a local sale and I purchased it knowing one day inspiration would hit.

The snaps made installing the panel easy. If you are using heavy duty webbing, you may need stronger snaps.

I used polyester thread and matching bobbin as well as a 90/14 needle. This helped pierce the webbing. A zigzag stitch worked great. I did use a small amount of sewing glue on the reverse side of the webbing along with a few pins.

Here you can see three vertical pieces of webbing. They made the screen much easier to handle after attaching and gave structure. Using the cutting mats helped me mark everything nice and straight with my chalk marker.

I did fold over a 1/2 inch hem on both sides before I laid the webbing on top and then sewed it with the same zigzag stitch.

When I was ready to sew the horizontal pieces of webbing for the top and bottom with a 1/2 inch hem, I made sure to cut enough to wrap around the posts with some extra. My webbing was thick and I did have to do some hand stitching on the overlaps as I didn't want to damage my machine.

The snaps were installed with the panel on the bed. I used my clips to hold it in place. You will also notice I added a piece of webbing in the middle because I thought my dogs might try to push around the side of the panel. Once I had the snaps installed, I trimmed the extra web and heat sealed with a lighter.

Here is a close up of the snaps. They make installation very easy. If I need to take it down for cleaning or flipping the mattress, it shouldn't be a problem.

BEFORE

AFTER

Someone has been blocked! Looks like a successful project! I have a video of the project as it was being sewn below to give you more inspiration. I hope you have enjoyed this post, share what you learn and are generous with what you create. Someone will appreciate your hard work!

How To Lay Out Multiple Embroidery Designs On A Grid

7/12/2021

Laying Out Multiple Embroidery Designs can get frustrating if you have an item that is an odd size; or if you are like me and math and measuring don't always come easy. I have gotten so much better at using tape measures as I have practiced, but my latest project gave me an opportunity to figure out a simple way to work around using just measurements. You can see in the picture below that trying to get many designs placed just right when they are separate is very time consuming.

This baby blanket was the item that I wanted to work with. I found it in the clearance section of Hobby Lobby for a great price so of course I purchased it and stored in my stash until inspiration hit. One morning, I woke up and Gingham Embroidery Letters flashed in my head. I thought, I will digitize an entire alphabet to go on that little quilt and it will be so cute. Then I set to work in my software.

The Gingham Alphabet letters are stitched in a 4x4 hoop. Once I laid them on the blanket, I discovered it was wider in the middle and sloped toward the curved ends. When I tried to take measurements from any point, I couldn't get a good center mark to even begin with. The edges were not an option because my letters would rise up. In order to get a grid set up, I would need to do some figuring and each time I tried, I just couldn't get it right. The individual printed letters would slide on the quilt and move out of place when I bent over the surface. Then I noticed that each letter I had printed out would be really difficult to get straight. That would affect my ability to hoop them squarely. I knew this was going to be a wall hanging, so any skewed letters would show up prominently.

So I got several pieces of regular copy paper and I cut them out to a 4x4 size. That way they were the same size as each of the letters.

Then I used regular tape and put all of the letters and blank squares of paper together to form one large template.

Now this was so much easier to work with. I could place it anywhere on the blanket and slide it around without fear of the letters becoming skewed. Also since the center grids were printed on the designs, I had a ready made place to mark all of my letter placements. It was so much easier to be able to take just a few measurements now around the edges. I used a heat erase marker and my long ruler to mark lines and then I removed the template and connected all to create the grid.

Here is everything laid out.

To make it easier to keep up with the exact placement of each letter, I wrote in the center of each cross mark the name of the letter design that would be sewn. This helped tremendously. Embroidering 26 letters can get monotonous and I would have hated to sew the wrong one in the wrong place.

Another great simple tip is to use a check off list. I crossed off each letter as they completed. I also wrote the colors ahead of time and used this to double check I had the correct thread color sewing each one.

Once I had everything set up, I was able to work through them one by one with my Echidna Hooping station and Mighty Hoops. I have a small plastic template that I made to help me make sure the letters were placed well. I also did not use any stabilizer when these sewed out. The baby quilt was thick enough and the Gingham Embroidery Letters did just fine.

Here you can see how I arranged the quilt in my Multi Needle machine as it was stitching out.

I finished the blanket with a couple of quotes from the Alphabet song. Since I had my grid already laid out, their placement went really quickly.

All of the grid lines went away with a quick pressing.

Here are all of the Gingham Alphabet Letters In the design pack.

Guess what? There are numbers in the Gingham Alphabet pack also. I stitched these on a different color background and thread so you can see that they are just as cute in baby color tones. These designs can go from the nursery all the way up to classroom. If you home school, you could add these to your home study area or even make a soft book. How about using the letters for monograms? Maybe add a name across the letter? Have I got you inspired yet? I have a video below that might help even more. It shows you how I laid the blanket grid out and shows some of the letters stitching.

I hope you have enjoyed this post, share what you learn and are generous with what you create. Someone will appreciate your hard work!

Sew A Patch To An Automobile Seat Cover

Sew A Dog Barricade For Your Bed

How To Lay Out Multiple Embroidery Designs On A Grid

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