Infinite Love

 My mom is awesome!

So, for Mother's Day this year I thought I would make her something to show her how much I love her.  Tall order.  And I haven't really been doing this sewing thing long enough to be THAT good at it... 



But no matter really because I discovered this super easy tutorial for the Patricia Infinity Cowl from luvinthemommyhood.com.  I mean who doesn't like a cowl?!  So easy to just pair with any old shirt and look awesome.  And this one is particularly cool since you get 3+ looks in one as it uses three different fabrics. AND it is specially made for fat quarters!  OK, so I'll admit that I had no idea what a fat quarter was when I found this tutorial, but it seemed really cool when I found it...


For those of you that also don't know what a fat quarter is, it's a half a yard of material (18 inches) cut in half lengthwise (usually equalling 21 inches for ordinary cotton fabric).  What is cool about the pattern using fat quarters is that they are sold in awesome patterns everywhere and sometimes quite inexpensively.  And then you don't have to measure and cut... Neato.



In my case, I'm not a quilter, so I didn't really care.  I just bought a bunch of cute fabric in 1/2 yard and full yard incraments and cut them down. Easy enough.  The tutorial is super easy too - even for a beginner.  Basically, sew 3 fat quarters together end to end.  Sew another 3 together.  Sew the two strips together.  Sew the tube together.... and there you have it!

The material I used is from Dear Stella.  I have no idea what the name is though as it wasn't printed on the selvage and I didn't pay any attention.  Sorry.  I got it from a lovely store in town called Pacific Fabric and Crafts.  Oh dear can I spend money in that store....

However, I am not satisfied to leave well enough alone when I get an idea in my head, so I actually modified it!  I know, look at me, getting all designer-y.

 One modification was actually not designer-y at all.  Turns out that the lovely people that cut fabric at fabric stores don't always cut the fabric straight....  I know they try and I also know (now) that if I were really concerned, I should buy a little extra. 



So, my fat quarters were actually only 17 inches wide instead of 18 inches...  No biggie, no one can tell, but a little annoying to the perfectionist me.

Any-hoo, for the real modification, I decided that instead of just a big tube, this thing really needed to be "infinite." By playing around a bit I realized that if you sew one fat quarter of your third fabric on to one end of one strip and the other on to the opposite end of the other strip you can actually add a little twist in the middle of the tube of material and connect the third pattern together creating a third continuous fabric block and therefore an unending cowl....  Fancy, I know.

The bottom line is that my mom LOVED this easy cool gift that I put together in 45 minutes.  We played with it for hours trying out all the different ways she could put it on, fluff it and match it to things.  And really it was the least I could do for such a great mom!