I made this flannel argyle scarf as a Christmas present for my best friend.  I followed a free tutorial which has now become a not-so-free pattern.  It was super easy to make, though.  Especially with my newly discovered AMAZING trick for ruffling/gathering.  I was able to ruffle all of the strips for this scarf in about 15 minutes.  Here’s how:

Simple Ruffling Trick:

To create a ruffle with your machine, set your machine’s tension to the highest number that it will go to and  set your machine’s stitch length to the longest possible stitch.  Sew your strips (or whatever needs to be gathered), and the imbalance between the tension and stitch length will cause the strips to ruffle up simply by sewing them!

Here’s to happy, simple gathering!

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I am hooked on this new tip.

When it comes to piecing together many small squares, there’s often little room for mistakes.  But, if you try out this method, you are basically guaranteed perfect patchwork squares.  The genius behind this method comes from using fusible interfacing as a base to “glue” your squares in place before you even sew them.  I’m not really sure how to explain how this works, but definitely check out the tutorial if your interest is piqued. 

The pillow above was made from 5″ Amy Butler squares that I purchased pre-cut about a year ago from Ebay.  I backed it with an adorable Amy print, and finished off the pillow with a zipper-closure (see my tutorial here).  Such a simple and rewarding project!  This one was a Christmas present, but I plan to try this method again for some pillows to keep.

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