Quick Napkin Ring: Making a Simple Heart Paper Chain

Are you having an at home dinner date for Valentine’s Day? This is a quick and whimsical way to add a little love to your table decor. Combining work and spending time with my daughter who also loves to craft, we came up with making some simple heart paper chains to decorate our house and door for Valentine’s Day. And I added them to our table for some decoration. You can cut them in different colors, using any paper and some clear tape. Attach them to a door, lay them out on a table or string them along a window. There really is only one little trick, which I will get to.

Supplies:

-construction paper or any other paper, we used construction and origami because that’s what we had, try printer paper

-paper scissors

-tape

1. With your piece of paper you are going to fold about 1” wide accordion style, so back and forth. Make a fold then fold this fold backwards making a second fold.

outline the heart you want to cut.

circle part is not cut.

After you fold the accordion you will draw the heart line that you will cut. Now here is the trick, you cut to the fold but do not completely cut on the line around the curve of the heart. This little section is not cut, this is what creates the chain link. I looked up a few tutorials and none of them mentioned this important secret.

that little piece of chalk is the part not cut.

Do a few of these and tape the edges together. You will always end up with a half heart on the end. Connect this to the next chain.

Hang them on a door, window, make a napkin ring from them or you can lay them around your dinner plates.

Enjoy!

Tracey

Free Cloth Mask Pattern - Make Your Own!

A year has gone by and we are still wearing a mask to protect ourselves from Covid. The CDC is now recommending wearing two masks. There are many mask patterns out there and I have tried a few. I worked in the garment industry and for mass manufacturing and I have learned to be efficient with time and materials. This pattern gets the job done. It really doesn’t take much fabric to make a mask. But if it’s time to clean out your stash this is a practical way to utilize fabrics. If you are a beginning sewist this is a great way to practice your topstitching, small seam allowances, pleats, folds and attaching ties or elastics. And this is a free pattern that I have been using for a year selling 1,000s of masks. It is based off of a mask distributed by Deaconess Hospitals in Indiana. I have tweeked the pattern a bit for construction purposes but it is still as beneficial as the original.

The best fabric to use for a mask is quilting weight cotton. Quilting weight cotton is a medium weight cotton that is not light or heavy like a denim or canvas. Think of a quilt blanket you might have or your favorite button down shirt. The top fabric used is of medium weight, about 4 oz per square yard. Most of my masks are made with Liberty of London Tana Lawn which is lightweight, about 2-3 oz per square yard, but a very tight weave preventing those nasty droplets from coming thru. For your liner it’s best to use another tight weave cotton. I use a 200 count muslin. This is unbleached and similar to bed sheets, the higher count the soft the fabric but also 200 count means there are 200 threads per square inch. A nice tight weave fabric. Another plus for using higher quality cottons is less shrinkage. Quilting cottons such as Kona or Liberty of London hardly shrink, if at all.

So if we have to wear a mask might as well wear one that we like. Practice your sewing skills and you can also make for your loved ones or homeless shelters.

Have fun!

MATERIALS

1 10” X 8” piece of quilting weight fabric

1 10” x 8” piece of muslin fabric or other quilting weight fabric

2 pieces of elastic 7” each or 2 adjustable nylon stretchy ear wraps

matching cotton or poly thread - machine friendly or TEX 440 which is what I use

Iron, pressing mat or ironing board

point turner (or chopstick)

pattern

pins / scissors / measuring tape or ruler

Print out pattern here in landscape format and cut out along solid black lines. Remember to click the “do not scale” button on your printer menu.

1. Prewash fabric and dry. Iron out wrinkles. Cut one 9” x 7” rectangle from the outer fabric and one rectangle from your liner fabric.

2. If your fabric is a print it has a face or front side. Lay outer shell face to face of liner. If your liner is a muslin or solid colored fabric there is no face so either side will work.

3. Fold fabric and lay your pattern piece where it says fold to the fold of the fabric. It should be laying right on the edge of the fold. If your print is a directional print make sure the fabric is laying on the paper pattern the correct direction. See pattern for top and bottom

4. Trace pattern, mark pleat lines. Cut out.

5. Fold short edges (4 1/2”) side over towards back side 1/2”. See below. You are folding these over before sewing so at step 7 when we turn the fabric right side out the raw edges are already turned in and hemmed.

Step 6 - sew 3/8” seam allowance along longer sides. Do not sew across short sides.

6. With a 3/8” seam allowance sew along the long (9”) sides. Your short edges will stay open, 3/8” folded over towards the backside (see photo) I have pinned the middle of the fabric to prevent shifting.

7. Iron and turn right side out. Iron and steam. The short sides will be folded in from having them folded inward in step 6.

Step 8 -pleats

8. With tailors chalk or your washable pencil transfer from the pattern the pleat and dart lines on the back side of fabric. Darts will be at the top and bottom of the mask, the folds or pleats will be on the sides. On the back side of the mask at the pleat lines starting from the bottom pinch about 1/2” and fold up, pin. Once you have 6 pleats pinned it’s time to move on to the darts. Fold fabric in half open side to open side, you want to be able to see your traced lines from the darts. If you are an intermediate sewist you can skip this next sentence. BEGINNERS: starting at the top dart furthest away from the seam stitch this dart down back stitching at beginning and end. Move on to the bottom dart repeating same steps. It’s important to sew the darts first since they add shape to the mask. The picture above shows the top dart and bottom dart with the trace lines from the pattern. Once everything is pinned down, steam press with your iron.

9. Time to insert your elastic or nylon ties. Elastic should be cut at 7” . You can use cotton ties here, you will need 4 cut at 16”. I am using nylon stretch adjustable ties that we include in the kits sold on traceytoole.com Insert each end into the corners and pin down.

10. Time to sew and finish this mask! Mask front side up, start sewing at a corner. For security I back stitch at each corner re-enforcing the ties. When you sew the darts down they must fold the same direction. Normally you sew them down towards whatever side they lean towards.

Once you have sewn around clip the threads and wear! These can be machine washed and tumble or line dried. Let me know if you have any questions! Feel free to add to the comment section or email tracey@traceytoole.com Thank you!

New Year means Refresh....In the Kitchen

It’s a new year. Finally. Good to be done with 2020. I don’t do resolutions any more but I still feel the need to refresh or freshen things up. Make an effort to do things like trying new recipes. With the days shorter I feel like cooking more. And especially with my daughter not in school every day, I’ve got a helper. I measure or she does, then she pours. She is in second grade so measuring is a good practice for fractions and multiplication. And at her age she seems to be more interested in cooking and baking. I enjoy baking more than cooking, but find myself cooking more because it is a necessity. I have a small selection of cook books that I like to use. Of course these days it’s easier to find a recipe by going online. But frustratingly I am constantly having to log back into my iPad when I get to the next step. Is this the same situation for everyone? My go to’s this past January have been Bon Apetit and NY Times cooking, my fallback is always Smitten Kitchen by Deb Perelman , Small Victories by Julia Turshen and Martha Stewart Classics. I am trying to find more vegetarian recipes, I’ve got one foot in that world. But my family, especially my husband eats meat. So if you have any recipe or cook book suggestions that are vegetarian send them my way!

Quiche to me is always a lovely winter lighter meal. Checks off the protein and vegetable intake for the meal, which I need to do when dealing with a 7 year old picky eater which is extremely frustrating. But she likes broccoli and I found this recipe on Bon Appetit , broccoli and cheese quiche. I didn’t have a couple of the ingredients so I substituted spinach for swiss chard and I haven’t been liking feta lately so I subbed goat cheese for that. I was thinking the chef who created this recipe might be insulted but I am trying to work with what I have. Regarding the crust, this recipe in Bon Appetit includes a crust recipe. I made this on a week night and was pressed for time so I used a crust I already had made that was in the freezer. It was all quite tasty.

If you try this recipe let me know what you think. And if you made any changes, what changes were they?

Take care!

Tracey

photo by harper s.p.

Setting Table Decor for the holidays.

Now that the holiday season is here, it’s time to entertain friends and family. We’ve been collecting lots of acorns and black walnuts (for dyeing purposes) and buying mini pumpkins or jackets belittles wherever we see them. We have quite the collection going on. Right now I have these on our table and some beeswax candles I made last winter. I like to light them while I am making dinner. It definitely adds a warmth and light to the apartment. How do you decorate your table? I’ve collected some images that have caught my eye for the new season. You don’t need to be having a special dinner party or guests over to add something to your table.

Plates from West Elm, linen runner trimmed with crimson ribbon, leather napkin holders and simple green cypress swag positioned under cutting boards.

eucalyptus and juniper laying down the center of the table with gold vessels holding candles. happywedd.com

Adding candles brings such a sense of warmth. A variety of sizes of pumpkins, candles in different size jars, clippings of sage all on a cutting board placed on a linen runner.. onekindesign.com

Get your use out of seasonal pomegranates. Before cutting them up for your salad or cocktails, use them as table decor along with eucalyptus. This table looks so pretty with white as the background and rose tinted glasses. half-bakedharvest.com

Happy Holiday Season.

Tracey