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Great Sewing Books for Beginners (and non-beginners, too)

Best Sewing Books for Beginners - resources for learning to sewI mentioned in a previous post how lucky I am that my mom taught me how to sew, and in my cranky teenage years, no less! She taught me the basics on a machine that is quite similar to the one I use as my primary sewing machine now. Since then, I’ve spent a lot of time poring over sewing books in bookshops and libraries, and investing in the ones I found most helpful. Today I’d like to share some of my favorite sewing books for beginners, although I think many of these are great resources even for more experienced sewers…. 

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Valentine’s Day DIY – Eraser Heart Prints

Patterned valentines DIY from Cotton & Flax

Riffing off my other eraser printing DIY project, which uses a new pencil eraser to make cute polka dotted gift wrap, I thought I’d take that DIY a little further for Valentine’s Day. I love using stamps to make patterned gift wrap or cards, and carving your own heart stamp is super easy!

DIY Supplies

Here’s what you’ll need:

  1. Varied cards or papers
  2. Envelopes
  3. Stamp pad
  4. Carving tools (I use an x-acto knife and a small printmaking carving tool)
  5. One brand new pencil with an eraser, one pencil to draw with

eraser

Start by drawing a little heart on the unused eraser. This will be your guide as you carve.

carved eraser

Proceed by carefully (and I mean CAREFULLY! I don’t want anyone getting hurt!) cutting around the edge of your drawing, and cutting away the edges. It’s very easy to accidentally lob off the whole eraser if you’re going too fast, so take your time. Watch out for your fingers, those x-acto knives are sharp!

Valentine's Day DIY from Cotton & Flax

All that’s left to do is stamp! I used a black stamp pad, but you could use any color. I would love to do this project using neon pink ink. You can go super simple, just stamping a single tiny heart on the card or envelope, or you can go wild!

valentines from Cotton & Flax

I made a few different versions, one of which I am sending to my sister. I made her address label using some of the leftover paper! Hope you’re inspired to send a sweet snail mail valentine to someone you love.

Furoshiki Gift Wrapping

I have been looking for gifts to bring to holiday parties this year, and after reading a little about furoshiki, or fabric gift wrapping, I had to try it with one of the Cotton & Flax tea towels. I think it turned out nicely (it kind of looks like a person wrapped in a cozy blanket!), and gives that gift for the host or hostess a little extra oompf.

You could also really easily wrap a cookbook in a tea towel, another great gift combination for the cook or foodie in your life. There are lots of guides to furoshiki on YouTube, definitely worth checking out!

Find Cotton & Flax tea towels here.

Creative Yarn Wrapping

Did you happen to see this great pom-pom wrapping DIY project floating around Pinterest? Shauna and Stephen from Something’s Hiding in Here had a similar idea a while back too. I was inspired to combine the festive pom pom decorations with my own hand stamped gift wrap as a different take on this fun wrapping paper that has been making the blog rounds lately.

I started by making some simple polka dot wrapping paper using just a new pencil eraser, and a standard stamp pad. You could even do something more intricate, by following my DIY hand stamped gift wrap tutorial.

Then I created a few pom-poms (you can find lots of tutorials online, Martha Stewart has a good overview here.) After wrapping string around the package a couple times like a ribbon, I tied the pom-poms to the top of the package to complete this dotty package.

This is an easy way to wrap larger gifts, and an affordable alternative to some of the fancier gift wraps out there. It’s easy to customize with your loved one’s favorite color, too!

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