easy sewing projects for beginners Archives - Once Upon a Sewing Machine

Throwback Football Tee

January 7, 2013 by onceuponasewingmachine 24 Comments

In celebration of a Packer playoff win, I sewed up a football tee for my little guy. You can use this tutorial to add a fun stripe detail to any of your little guy’s (or girl’s) shirts. Depending on the application, you can use it to make something more sporty or preppy, whatever your preference.

I FINALLY ordered a copy of Sewing for Boys. It was a little like Christmas morning when it got here. I sewed up this shirt using the Raw Edge Raglan pattern size 4/5.

A common boy sewing complaint (and I’ve made it too) is that boy sewing is just so much more involved then girl sewing. You can whip up a cute girl’s dress in no time, but boy sewing involves more waistbands and other techniques without as much wow factor at the end. May I suggest to you the raglan tee? The sewing technique is very similar to a girl’s peasant dress. It sews up just as fast and is really easy to add fun details to.

Adding Stripes to Sleeves

Peppermint Candy Coasters

December 7, 2012 by onceuponasewingmachine 28 Comments

It’s December and we’re actually getting a little crafting done! Today we’re going to show you how to make these little peppermint candy Christmas coasters. These little coasters will work great if you are looking for handmade Christmas gifts, or if you are going to have a house full of people mingling about with drinks.

These are done with some minimal sewing, and really you could probably manage them without a sewing machine if you like. Here is what you will need.

Quick Sewing Projects: Christmas Trivets

November 4, 2012 by onceuponasewingmachine 2 Comments

This is a great project for beginner sewers or those looking for quick sewing projects!

There are so many fun fabrics out there for the holidays and some things are easy to do using just basic skills. I don’t know about you, but I never seem to have enough trivets at large holiday meals. My husband and I both come from large families (by today’s standard anyway) and add our children, spouses and grandchildren and our table expands to seat 15-20 at any given holiday. Of course everyone likes something
different for Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner so the number of dishes is abundant.

We know how blessed we are to have a group at dinner and to have a selection of goodies, but I am always scraping the bottom of the drawer when looking for trivets to put hot dishes on.

So today we will show you how to make use of the fun fabrics to create you own hot
dish holder in less than no time. At my local fabric store I found a fabric that I could cut
apart and use individually (or fussy cut). You could also choose to purchase fabric with panels on it specifically for projects like this.