In order to have high quality finished products, it’s best to prewash your fabric. Without this step, your finished product can shrink and look uneven or lumpy when it is eventually washed. It’s not a good idea to just toss your fabric into the wash, though, as it comes out a stringy, tangled mess. Luckily, there’s a few different ways to make prewashing your fabric painless.
Overlock the cut edges
If you have a serger or overlock machine, serge the cut edges before washing. You shouldn’t have to worry about the selvedges as they won’t unravel. This is my favorite method. I usually just leave the thread tails long and they don’t unravel enough to be annoying.
With a sewing machine, you can sew a quick zig-zag or similar stitch along the cut edges to prevent fraying. Even a straight stitch would probably work, although I haven’t tried it. You will probably need to back-tack or knot the ends to keep it secure through the wash.
Pink the edges for a painless prewash
If you have pinking shears, cut the fabric with the pinking shears along the cut edges. The edges will still get fuzzy, but shouldn’t unravel.
One bonus of using one of these methods is it’s easy to know at a glance which fabric from my stash was prewashed.
I know probably 90% of the people reading this are thinking “Duh!” because it’s such an obvious fix. The other 10% are wondering why they didn’t think of that, much like myself when I first learned the trick.
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I love candles and wax melts, but I hate it when there’s a little left in the bottom of a jar or the wax has lost it’s scent. I don’t want to just throw the wax away. If it’s a jar candle, I won’t throw it a way, so it ends up taking up space waiting for me to find a new use for it.
I’ve always been interested in candle making, but I honestly don’t know much about the correct way to do it. This is just my, for me, kind of chaotic, fun way of using up the leftover wax scraps and jars. If you try to join in my chaos, always take care with the melting, pouring and burning, make sure everything you use is safe for this usage and never leave anything burning or melting unattended.
My solution is to melt down the wax and make my own candles in the old jars. I bought this wick set for the wicks. I start by picking the jar I want to use and then putting in the same number of wicks that were originally in the jar.
My candles still need a haircut. 😀
For the candles in the above photo, the one on the left was originally a three wick candle, so it got three wicks. The one on the right was a yogurt jar, so I just guessed and went with one wick.
After the wicks are in place, I melt down any scrap wax I have and pour it in. Usually, I do this a little at a time as I finish other candles, rather than all at once. That gives it the cool sand art layered look.
With jar candles, to get the last bit of wax out, if I don’t pour it while it’s still melted from the last time I burned the candle, I set the jar on my coffee warmer (do not leave it unattended!). Wax melts just get melted as usual and poured into the jar.
Coffee warmer- Not just for coffee.
I do try to keep the candles mostly the same type of wax. In the photo, the big candle on the left is made from candle wax ends. The yogurt jar candle is made of soy wax melts with a little of the tea light wax remnants added.
My one tea light warmer.
For scent, most of the candles I burn are in the same spicy or vanilla scent family. Since the leftover candle wax usually has a good bit of scent left, I don’t worry about adding my own. With the wax melts, I either just leave them as they are and have a mild to unscented candle, or I add a drop or two of an essential or fragrance oil to each layer as I pour it.
I don’t know if my chaos candle making method will help anyone else, but I have fun with it, and the resulting candles are pretty. It’s also a way to reduce waste and save money.
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My mom gave me several pairs of worn out denim jeans for me to play with several months ago. A few just happened to be my favorite style from Old Navy and in my size. Rather than cut them up for other projects, I decided to make them cute with patches and a little embroidery. Here’s the method I used for patching denim jeans.
First, the knees.
Patching the knees
Prepping the denim jeans
In order to sew at the knees, you have to carefully rip out the stitches along one leg seam. You don’t have to rip out the entire seam, but you need to give yourself plenty of room above and below the knee to work. One seam is usually top-stitched. To make it easier all around, do NOT rip out the top-stitched seam.
After ripping out the seam, press the denim as smooth as possible with an iron.
Prepping the fabric
To patch the denim jeans, I chose to go underneath the rips and leave the torn edges visible. For the patches, I used cotton quilting material left over from sewing masks . I cut the fabric into squares a few inches bigger than I needed to patch. In the future, I will probably interface the fabric at this time. I knew I planned to interface everything at a later step, though, so I didn’t.
I pinned the fabric to the inside of the denim jeans.
Sewing the patches
Before sewing the crazy stitches shown in the photos, I sewed a single line of stitching all around the patch about a quarter of an inch inside the edge of the quilting fabric. This kept it in place while I did the crazy reinforcing stitches. After it was secure, I stitched in all different directions between the edge of the tear and slightly overlapping the first single line of stitching.
This side was more worn out, so it got more reinforcement stitching.
When jeans rip, usually the material around the tear is worn thin as well. In the past, I often left too much of the worn area without reinforcement. This results in new rips soon after the first repair. This time I reinforced at least an inch and a half around the tears.
Reinforcing the patched denim jeans with interfacing
After I was done stitching, I ironed interfacing to the inside. I did the interfacing last to act as a soft layer between my knees and the stitching. In retrospect, I probably should have interfaced the quilting cotton first, and then interfaced again at this step if I felt it was necessary. So far my jeans are holding up with the way I did it, though.
Sew it up
With the patches done, all that’s left is resewing the side seams. I just pinned it closed and sewed it back along the original stitching line. For the overcasting to finish the raw edges, I was lazy and used the overedge stitch on my sewing machine instead of switching to my serger. Zig-zag stitching along the edge to finish it would also work.
Embroidering the pocket
To embroider the pocket, I first removed the pocket from my jeans. Since it’s too small to hoop, I hooped tear away stabilizer alone and secured the pocket to the stabilizer with a glue stick. I used my Damask Rose embroidery pattern for the embellishment.
After the embroidery machine was done working its magic, I removed the stabilizer and replaced the pocket on my jeans using a heavy denim thread in a close shade to the original thread.
Simple, right? Actually, I tried to do that, messed up the hook timing on my Kenmore sewing machine AGAIN within the first few stitches and had to move to my backup vintage Montgomery Ward Signature machine. It took a few minutes of fiddling with the settings, but once I got it set up correctly it sewed through the heavy denim layers like butter.
In all fairness to my Kenmore, I did probably deserve it this time, between the crazy reinforcement stitches and then trying to sew through multiple layers of denim with thick thread. At least this time it let me reset the hook timing without much fuss.
Have you gotten more acquainted with your sewing machine lately? I’d love to see your projects in the comments.
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I’ve been working on some summer sewing and refashions lately. Here’s a quick video showing a few of them. The first is a backless halter top made with quilting cotton and ribbon. The second refashion is a halter tube top with a matching loose kimono/beach coverup. They were made from an old maxi dress that wasn’t getting much love. The beach coverup is my favorite. I love how it turned out, especially the print.
I hope you find these inspiring for your own projects. If you like these kinds of videos, follow me on TikTok. I also post on Instagram and YouTube. I tend to prefer the length options on TikTok, so that’s where most of my complete videos are located.
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I have quite a bit of finished wood furniture that I love, except when it comes to polishing. There’s always some sticky fingerprints or a glob of something unidentifiable (thank you, Thaddeus). Most commercial polishes do okay on relatively clean surfaces, but don’t do a great job on the really messy stuff. Sometimes I’d spray some polish right on the spots, polish the rest and hope the globs loosened up enough to wipe away. Once in a while it worked. Other times it resulted in a ring around the spot while the sticky may or may not have loosened at all.
I finally did a little research on homemade furniture polish recipes. Here’s the one I use.
DIY Natural Furniture Polish
Ingredients:
3 parts olive oil 1 part vinegar Splash lemon juice (optional)
Combine everything in a spray bottle and shake to mix. Some recommend storing it in the refrigerator or only making what you’ll use in a day. I make about 1-2 cups worth at a time and keep it at room temperature. So far I haven’t had problems with it spoiling.
For light polishing, I spray the rag and wipe. For heavier cleaning, I spray directly where needed. I have never had it leave a ring, and it buffs nicely without leaving a residue. It works equally well on furniture with a matte stain and pieces with a high gloss varnish.
I love that this recipe uses things I have around the house and costs less than even the cheap commercial polishes. I also like knowing that it is completely nontoxic. I can let Thadd help without worrying that it might hurt him if he sprays it in his face. Or my face. Seriously, you never know with this kid.
You could probably customize it with a few drops of essential oils, too. I think something citrus-y would be nice. Also, if you don’t have olive oil, you could try swapping it with whatever you have on hand.
Give it a try and tell me what you think. If you’d like more “green” cleaning options check out my recipe for soft scrub and my all purpose cleaner recipe.
For my handmade home and laundry products, click the link below.
Home and Laundry
SubEarthan Cottage offers handmade laundry products, scented wax tart melts and reusable products for your home to reduce waste and synthetic chemical exposures in your home.
Something that I have found very useful since getting my chemo port put in is a port pillow. Port pillows are small pillows that attach to seatbelts to prevent the seatbelt from irritating the port. Luckily, they are super easy to make with very little materials needed. There are many organizations that accept them as donations to give to cancer patients, so that’s something to consider if you are looking for a charitable way to use up your stash.
Materials for a port pillow.
Materials needed for One Port Pillow
2 rectangles of soft fabric, approximately 4 inches by 7 inches. I like using quilting cotton. There is enough fabric in my soap’s wrapping to make one pillow, so upcycle if you have it.
2 pieces of hook and loop tape (Velcro) measuring 3.5 inches each.
Polyfil or other stuffing.
Thread
Step one: Baste the Velcro
Separate the Velcro pieces and baste them in place on one piece of the fabric close to the edges. I just eyeball the placement at about halfway between the middle and short edge of the rectangle for each Velcro piece. I like to make the softer piece face up, but it doesn’t really matter. You could also use pins to hold it in place instead of basting, but I find machine basting easier.
Step Two: Sew the pillow
Sew the fabric rectangles wrong sides together as shown in the photo below. Be sure to leave an opening for turning. I left the opening on a long side for this one, but it’s easier to sew closed if you leave it on a short side.
Leave the opening on the end next time.
Step Three: Turn and Stuff
Clip the corners, being careful not to cut the thread, turn the pillow right side out and stuff. I like to press the empty pillow before stuffing for a crisper look. Just be careful not to melt the Velcro if you do this too.
Turned and pressed.Stuffing. Needs a little more to be semi-firm.
Step Four: Sew it Closed
If you want the seam hidden, you can sew it closed by hand. I don’t mind the seam, so I use my machine to make it quick. This is much easier when the opening is on the end as evidenced by the number of pins I used to hold it closed. I hate using pins.
I can usually manage without pins when the opening is on the end.
Done
The end result should look something like this.
This is one of those projects that I’ve done so often I may have overlooked something in trying to tell someone else how to do it. If anything is confusing, please ask in the comments. I will clarify it ASAP.
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I wrap my soaps in fabric because it looks nice, it allows the soap to breathe (read here for why), and because it feels better than plastic. I often wonder what happens to the wrapping. I’m sure there are some that toss it. I know of one person who collects the fabric for quilts. For those of you who, like me, don’t want to throw away something that could be useful but don’t know what to do with it, I have a tutorial for a drawstring pouch, just for you.
This is done with the wrapping from one of my soaps, but you could make it in any size you like.
Materials
Cloth wrapper from soap (roughly 8×11 inches)
Jute string from soap (about 29 inches)
Thread
Tools
Needle or Sewing machine
Safety pin or Bodkin
Scissors
Iron
First, iron your fabric flat. Then, fold down a long edge about 3/4 of an inch to one inch and press. This is for the casing. It doesn’t have to be super precise.
Sew a straight seam along the bottom of the flap to form the casing. All the sewing can be done by hand or machine. I have no time or patience, so I choose machine. Fold your material in half with right sides together like a book.
The fold is at the bottom of this photo.
Next, starting just below the casing seam, sew down the side and across the bottom. I use anywhere from a 1/4 to 1/2 inch seam allowance for this. Again, it doesn’t have to be precise.
With scissors, clip the bottom corners, being careful not to cut your stitching. You could probably skip this step, but it helps the corners look square and crisp. Turn your bag right side out.
Now it’s time to thread the string. Tie one end of the string to a safety pin, large paper clip, or attach a small bodkin. This makes it easier to work it through the casing. Thread it through the casing, safety pin first.
Once you get the string to the other side, remove your safety pin or other tool and adjust the string so that the ends are even.
Knot the ends together once or twice to keep it from coming out.
Ta-da! It’s done! Perfect for organizing your purse, storing jewelry or other small items, or as a small gift bag.
Or holding your favorite bar of soap.
Tutorials are always a little complicated to write because it’s easy to overlook small steps in things you do frequently. If something is unclear, please ask. 🙂
If you have any other creative uses for a SubEarthan Cottage soap wrapper, I would love to hear it!
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