Leisure Arts e-newsletter

tip exchange

Helpful advice for Exclusively You crafting

To encourage you to enter our Exclusively You Design Contest, we talked to our designers and studied our how-to publications to compile these practical tips. Armed with everything you need to know about using the Exclusively You materials, you should be ready in no time to show us that "Creativity Is Your Bag!" Have fun!

THE BASICS: Exclusively You is Leisure Arts' new line of fashion elements for creating your own unique purses and accessories. There are purse handles, panels of faux leather and mock croc, embellishments, hardware, and how-to publications.
WORKING WITH FAUX LEATHER AND MOCK CROC:

CUTTING: These materials, which come in 8.5" by 11" panels, can be cut easily using ordinary household scissors, a craft knife, or a rotary cutter and ruler.

  • You can also use papercrafting punches or dies to cut special shapes. Experiment first with scraps.
  • Pinking shears and other decorative-edge scissors also can be used. For best continuity of the decorative edge, don't fully close the scissors; make a partial cut that ends the pattern where it is easiest to re-start cutting, then re-position scissors and continue cutting. If you will be combining layers that have decorative edging, plan ahead before cutting so the edges of the pattern will match up best.
  • When cutting detail areas, such as for leaves around a flower, consider whether the shapes can be cut from a single piece; for example, if you want a leaf on two sides of a flower, you could plan a strip of material that is the width of the flower between the leaves, to simplify assembly of the layers.
  • For smooth cuts or seams, use a pencil or chalk to mark your cutting, punching, or sewing lines on the wrong side of the panel.
  • Any time you will be whipstitching an edge, it will look neater to use a hole punch or punching tool instead of piercing the material with the hand needle; if not using a punching template designed for your particular project, it is best to plan and mark the hole locations on the wrong side so your holes will be evenly spaced. Place the holes at least one-fourth inch from the edge for sturdiness. (Some handy tools include our one-fourth-inch Craft Punch and our Punch-N-Stitch system, which provides a sharp punching tool, grid template, and protective mat.)
  • If you will be joining pieces with whipstitching, plan ahead so the holes will line up.
  • Do not use pins to temporarily hold pieces together, as the pin marks will remain; instead use tape, paper clips, clothespins, or other clamps.
  • Craft or fabric glue works great to adhere mock croc and faux leather pieces together.

SEWING: For even stitches on mock croc or faux leather, be sure to use a size 12 sharp needle in your sewing machine and standard sewing thread. Sew at a moderate, consistent speed. A non-stick presser foot will glide over the leather as you sew.

  • Backstitch at the beginning and end of each seam.
  • When seams meet at corners, stop stitching at the seam line instead of sewing to the edge; end by backstitching or pivot with the needle down and sew in the new direction.
  • After turning the item right side out, carefully push out corners and use your fingers to press the seams smooth.
  • If a project calls for topstitching to hold pieces together, you can glue them together instead and mimic the topstitching with a permanent pen. Test pen on a scrap piece first.

WORKING WITH KNIT OR CROCHET DESIGNS:

  • There are several ways to combine the knit or crochet sections with the faux leather or mock croc sections. You can punch holes in the material and join yarn with single crochet stitches or by picking up knit stitches. You can punch holes along the long sides of a wide strip of material that you will wrap around the knit or crochet section and whipstitch in place with matching yarn. Narrow strips of leather or croc can be woven like ribbon through a mesh or eyelet row of knit or crochet. You can experiment to find other methods.
  • When adding a cloth lining, fold the top edge under and hand-sew inside the purse using coordinating sewing thread.
  • When planning an item that features felting, be aware that results can vary greatly between different yarns. You will need a non "super-wash" yarn with at least 50 percent wool content. We recommend that you make a gauge swatch and felt it.

THIS MONTH'S READER TIP

Embellishing Artwork: I LOVE the idea of using waste canvas to cross stitch on artwork. To take it a step further, you could "enhance" a realistic painting. Add white highlight stitches to the painted highlights on the canvas. Just a few stitches here and there, or maybe add stitches to the eyes of an animal in the painting, or the centers of flowers. I can see this being kinda fun. You could also use varying numbers of thread to imitate layers of paint. –Pam Vogt

(Editor's Note: See the Tip Exchange in our May issue for more information about this technique.)

We want your tips and ideas, too! If you have an interesting idea, or a tip that saves you time, effort, or money, how about sharing it with our readers? If we use it in one of our future e-newsletters, we’ll share something with you, too: a mystery gift from our editor’s stash of Leisure Arts publications (be sure to give us a hint of what topics interest you most).