Free Pattern: Classic Color-Block Tote for Janome

Everyone needs a basic tote pattern in their stash - and I have the perfect one for you! I created this pattern and tutorial for Janome and based it on a vintage pattern I had as well as several popular models sold today in iconic catalogs.

Sewn with canvas or thick twill fused to a decorator-weight interfacting and lined with your favorite quilting cotton, this will quickly become your go-to bag for lugging around your everyday essentials. It's also the perfect beach bag, pool bag or all-around-kid-stuff bag!

To get the free pattern and tutorial, visit the project page on Janome.com. Enjoy!

T-Shirt Neckline Twill Tape Tutorial

Do you ever feel like your handmade clothes are just missing that certain something that higher-end, ready-to-wear clothes always have? Maybe I'm the only emotional dresser, but for me, it's oftentimes little Anthropologie-esque details that determine whether or not a handmade garment makes it into regular rotation. I've been making a ton of tees from the Union St. Tee pattern by Hey June Handmade. (I'll dedicate an entire post on the pattern soon along with actual modeled shots, but alas, my 45", almost-40-weeks-pregnant waistline does not currently agree with these!) Some people might think I'm crazy for making tees in the first place - I mean, I can go buy them at Old Navy for $6 apiece and be done, right? Maybe I *am* crazy, but there's just something about the process of sewing simple garments - but making them look really professional - that I find extremely satisfying.

Before sewing these shirts, I'd noticed that RTW tees often have the back neckline seam covered with either velvet ribbon, knit fabric or twill tape. I hadn't given it much thought since the serged edge has never bothered the back of my neck. (I assumed the reason it was done was to prevent scratchiness.)

But lately, I've been sewing assembly-line style quite regularly, and when sewing knits, this means choosing one neutral serger thread color for several pieces and only switching the far-left needle thread to match (and therefore prevent show-through when the garment is stretched. In other words, when I serged this blue tee, the far left needle was threaded with matching, blue thread, and the other needle and two loopers contained the cream that you see below. Something about that cream-colored thread poking out at the neck was bothering me, so I wanted to do something about it.

Enter this simple method of using twill tape to cover the neckline seam.

First, gather your materials:

• T-shirt with completed neckline
• 3/8" - 1/2" Twill tape - my pieces measure 11" long, but this will depend on the size of your tee
• Thread to match your twill tape
• A bobbin of thread to match your tee
• Wash-Away Wonder Tape

Measure from one shoulder seam to the other on the inside of your tee. Add 1" to that measurement, and cut your twill tape in this length. (Mine measured about 10", so I cut my tape to 11"). Obviously, your tee will not be crumpled up like mine is above. You will to move the front of the neckline out of the way to measure from shoulder seam to shoulder seam.

If you haven't already, press the serged (or stitched) seam allowance to the shirt (away from the neckline edge).

Apply Wash-Away Wonder Tape to the back side of the twill tape.

Fold one end of the twill tape under about 1/2" or less.

Starting at one shoulder seam, apply the twill tape to the neckline. Do your best to center it right on top of the serging.

When you get to the other shoulder, cut it about 1/2" beyond the shoulder seam. Fold it under so it's flush with the shoulder seam. (I don't like to sew over the shoulder seams as that's often asking for trouble with so many layers of things going on.) (And yes, I know this is the same shoulder as shown in the previous photo. Use your imagination.)

If desired, you can add a size tag or a decorative twill tape tag, too! Just use a little more Wonder Tape to anchor it in the center of your neckline. I wanted to keep these tees simple, so I didn't go through with this today. Many of my other garments do have similar tags though.

This is how it should look!

It's time to sew! I like to use a walking foot since the sides of the presser foot are on different things and thicknesses. It helps me prevent getting hung up at the beginning/end of the stitching, too. This is totally optional though. I also like to lengthen my stitch length to whatever I used for the neckline topstitching. Again, totally optional (and you may have opted to NOT topstitch - that's cool, too).

Make sure to use a bobbin with thread that matches your tee since it will show on the outside, and use a color that matches your twill tape on top.

Backstitching at the beginning, very slowly and carefully sew along one of the edges of the twill tape. Backstitch a stitch or two at the end, too. Repeat for the other edge of the twill tape.

The one trade off of applying the tape to your neckline is that you will have a couple extra lines of exposed stitching on the back neckline of your shirt. With practice, you can get it to look a lot more perfect than mine does above.

Oooooooh la la, pretty, right?!

Give the back neckline a final press to work out any puckering.

If you are doing several tees at once, don't forget to change the bobbin thread between each one, or you will end up with something that looks like the above. I was too lazy to unpick this. But hey, my lines of stitching look better than the ones on the blue shirt! Not all is lost.

Another assembly-line sewing tip: Wind all the bobbins you need to do all the tees at once. You can leave the top thread the same and just switch out the bobbins! Easy.

Isn't looking at these necklines so much nicer than seeing a bunch of poorly-matched serger or zigzag stitches?! I love opening my closet door or dresser drawer to see these. It makes me feel like I'm shopping at an expensive boutique.

I purchased all my twill tapes at Fabric Depot's retail store here in Portland. Here are a few places you can find twill tape like mine online:

Somerset Market on Etsy Creative Trims on Etsy Mimi's Ribbon on Etsy Little Red Cottage on Etsy

You can also do your own search for "printed twill tape" to see what you can find. :)

Enjoy!

How to Double Your Blog's Pageviews...Overnight!

I'm sure you read the title of this post and thought, "Really? Overnight? No way. There must be a catch." Nope, no catch. There are some very simple and easy things you can do in about 10 minutes to dramatically increase your pageviews. When I say dramatically, I mean like double or triple OVERNIGHT. Seriously.

And the best part? You can apply these techniques to Wordpress OR Blogger! Make sure you read to the bottom because I give you a second technique after detailing switching to teasers for Wordpress and Blogger...

Switch Your Posts to Teasers (a.k.a. Excerpts or Magazine Layout)

A lot of bloggers are hesitant to switch to teasers because they think their readers won't like it. But let me tell you why switching is doing your readers a major favor (even if they don't like it at first!): it allows them to quickly see more of what your blog offers at a quick glance. Rather than scrolling through one or two endless posts that may or may not appeal to them, they can quickly see..."Oh, hey, she has tutorials! And sew-a-longs! And free patterns! Awesome!"

And for you, using teasers means lots more pageviews. Imagine this...if a reader comes by your blog homepage (one pageview), and they see that first post as a teaser, they then click through to the full post (two pageviews). Already, you've doubled what would have only been a single pageview since previously they could see your post in its entirety upon the initial visit. Now, imagine if you have several posts on your homepage as teasers that they want to check out. Instead of simply scrolling down the column of full posts (one pageviews), they have to click through each teaser to see the different posts (multiple pageviews). Before, they may have never even seen all your great content, but with teasers, they get so much more.

So, how do you set up these teasers? It's easy. You can have your theme do it automatically in Wordpress (if you have one that offers the capability), or you can set them up manually in Wordpress OR Blogger. First, I'll show you how to do it manually since more of you are probably in that boat.

Setting up Teasers in Blogger

In Blogger...there's a little icon at the top of your post box that looks like a piece of paper torn in half. If you hover over it, it says "Insert Jump Break":

Then, just click on that icon, and the break will appear:

It's as simple as that. Now, your readers will have to click through a "Read More" link to see the rest of the post.

Setting up Teasers in Wordpress - Manual Style

Manually setting up teasers in Wordpress is just like setting them up in Blogger. You simply put the cursor where you want to insert the break:

And then click to add the break:

See? Easy as pie!

Setting up Teasers in Wordpress - Automatic

Not everyone is going to have this capability - it totally depends on your theme. I use a heavily modified Canvas by Woo Themes, so that's what I'll be using in my example. Just click around in your theme settings to see if you have something similar.

In Canvas, this is called the Magazine Template. I have set my featured post to be an excerpt, as you see below:

...and I've done the same for the grid of teasers that shows up below the featured post:

Done! Pageviews will double pretty much immediately!

Truncating Your RSS Feed in Blogger

Now, there's another thing you can do to dramatically increase your pageviews (and your unique visitors, too!): truncate your RSS feed. This is super easy-to-do in Wordpress AND Blogger.

In Blogger, go to Settings-->Other. You will see you have a few options for setting up your feed. I recommend setting it to "Until Jump Break" or "Short." You can experiment with them to see which looks best to you in Bloglovin' or an RSS reader.

Truncating Your RSS Feed in Wordpress

Truncating your RSS feed is done almost the same way in Wordpress. Simply go to Settings-->Reading, and you will find the settings there:

Where it says "For each article in a feed, show," select "Summary:"

Perfect! The next time you make a post, check to be sure a featured image is still showing up on Bloglovin' or Feedly. If it's not, you should add the Add Featured Image to RSS Feed plugin in your Wordpress dashboard. All you have to do is upload and activate it, and it will do its job.

Checking Your Pageviews in Google Analytics

After just a couple days, you should notice a dramatic increase in your pageviews and pages per session metrics in Google Analytics. You can see a definite jump in my pages per session when I made these changes. To see these analytics, simply click on the drop-down menu under the "Overview" tab...see the little box that says "Pages/Session?" Yeah, just click on that to access the drop-down. You will also see Pageviews there. :)

Okay, looks like you guys have some work to do! I hope you enjoyed this tutorial!