Owl & Drum's Sew Very Modern

Happy 4th of July and welcome to Tuesday's Tip! Today we want to tell you how useful it can be to trace your sewing patterns before cutting them. Tracing your pattern will keep your pattern intact and allow you to use it for other sizes. This is especially useful when working with children's patterns. As your child grows, you can easily trace the next size up to create that loved garment again. Pattern tracing is also great whenever you want to make adjustments to your pattern. Want to elongate or shorten? That's easy! Just mark the new markings on the tracing paper. To...

Hello and thanks for visiting our blog. You'll be hearing from different members of our team from time to time - and today you're hearing from me, Mary Perisho of Mary Make & Do, the full-time sewing instructor at Owl & Drum! I'm here to share a few stories about our recent road trip to the Northwest Arkansas Modern Quilt Guild. Last week, we loaded up the car with lots of pre-cut goodies from the store and headed east over the state line, under a sunny blue sky. It was a nice day for the two-hour drive through Green Country into...

This month, April Rhodes debuted two great new collections for Art Gallery Fabrics - titled "Heritage" and "Arizona After." Both lines definitely showcase her love for the Southwest and, with her sentiment being shared in the fashion world, we wanted to be sure to carry some of the jersey knits from April's collections. For those of you who have sewn with AGF knits, you know they are the cream of the crop when it comes to jersey knit fabric! They are soft and just the right thickness for apparel.  And aren't these prints just fabulous? These designs by April Rhodes would make a...

This past weekend Owl & Drum co-hosted a Shibori Dyeing Workshop with textile artist Natasha Ball of House Sparrow Fine Nesting. Held in Natasha's workshop, we learned about the ancient Japanese techniques of Shibori dyeing.  With Shibori dyeing, the fabric is either twisted, folded, tied or bunched and then dyed with indigo dye. It is so satisfying and intriguing to do! Once you unravel or un-tie your fabric, the pattern that is created is both unique and a one-of-a-kind design. Enjoy the pictures - and we hope you will join us for our next dyeing workshop next month at 1 p.m....

Introducing Tuesday's Tip! Every Tuesday we will share a clever sewing or quilting tip that is sure to help you one day or another. Today's tip is about threading your needles. If working with embroidery floss, and you have several strands, use a bit of Thread Heaven or beeswax on your threads. It will help keep your threads together, keep them from tangling and make it easier when putting all of those strands through the eye of your needle. Another tip is to always snip the end of the your thread before sliding your thread through the eye of the...