Fab Fabric Upcycling

Well it was a rotten wet day yesterday. The Free Festival in Colchester that I chickened out of going to because of the weather seems to have been a success. So I spent the day sewing.

An upcycled bag made from denim jeans, vintage table cloth, woven silk remnants and inside a 1950's woven table cloth.

Stamp onto the vintage table linen, iron after 5 minutes to heat set. Stazon will fade when washed at 30c. But you are not going to wash a bag very often!

Cardboard templates for squares. Make yours to suit the fabric or size of item you want to make.

 

Cut out the denim or other base fabric

 

Arrange stamped fabric on the denim. Then whizz away on your sewing machine. Have fun trying out all those stitches you never use or do some free motion embroidery.

Looks fab! Here I have added a band of striped woven silk and embroidered on that too.

A 1960's inspired patch. Here I have satin stitched around the edge and cut the excess fabric away.

Do you love the wee ducks?

Same stamps different embroidery.

All the squares joined using the woven silk fabric. I've added some orange top stitching as reminder of the jeans.

Inside the jeans pockets were just right for keys or a mobile. Straps are made from the denim jeans and the woven silk. I made the straps long enough to fit comfortably over your shoulder, but short enough so the bag does not drag on the floor.

Some doilies got added as the colour was a good match.

The finished bag. I used medium weight iron on interfacing on the lining. This has made the bag really strong.

Ideal for tins and bottles on your supermarket shop or heavy books if you are at college.

 Lots of info on line on how to make the bag and so on. Hope you get some good ideas from this mini tutorial.

Molly and I have been having some adventures. We got separated on a walk over an unfamiliar field. We both arrived home exhausted. She had gone to the neighbours to tell them I was lost! Then yesterday Molly started digging up the carpet near the front door. A bird had died and was wedged under the door edge outside. She is not impressed with my sniffing ability.

Now its sunny so off I go to mow the lawn which looks like a meadow.

Easy Wrist Pincushion in Denim - Tutorial

There were some bits of denim left from making the last batch of Denim Divas and I hate waste. So I whipped up a quick wrist pincushion. Took all of 15 minutes, including the photographs!

You will need denim, size in picture, scrap of embroidery or use pretty fabric or scraps of lace. Whatever you have to hand.

Sew trim to centre of denim.

Make 1.5cm hem on one short side.

Fold hemmed side over so the edge is on the centre of the denim. Then fold the unhemmed side over so that it overlaps by 2cm.

Sew two short sides on your machine.

Turn right side out. Remember to poke out your corners.

Can your read this? blogger turned this one round - again.

And again again wrong way round. Cut a piece of card a bit smaller than the pincushion. This stops pins going right through!

Yay right way up.

Two scrunchies, these are small so I used two. If you have a bigger scrunchie just use one.

Not very clear but you make a figure of eight by threading one through the other. Then pull. Some scrunchies are large enough to go round your wrist as they are. Fit one on your wrist before making to see how it feels.

Stitch scrunchie to sides of pincushion.

Sideways again! Fed up with this blogger fault. All finished and ready to use.

You can use most fabrics, but a slightly heavier one works best. Curtain weight is nice too. Scrunchies are available at most £1 or $1 stores in big bags. This is a great item to make for flea markets or fund raisers. 

Hope you have fun making yours. Love to hear your comments.

The Girls are Strutting Their Stuffing on Etsy

Today's work was listing my lovely vintage inspired Happy Scrappy Dolls on Etsy.

Group Photo

Aurelia

Indie

Petunia

Rose

Florelle

Bless they were good. All that posing and having your bloomers photographed too!

Last Doll's before Christmas

Had a really rough week with a bad bout of depression, but determined to carry on making my doll's as they brighten my day. Retro Diva's all finished, well just got to sew on their hankies.

Pompii has sneaked into this group picture.

This is Diva 3, not got names for them yet. A lovely 1950's flowered curtain for her dress and spotty legs.

Such big blue eyes and lush pink lips. 

Diva No 1 A little more demure another 1950's curtain scrap for the dress.

My lovely friend Julie gave me a bag of fabric and most of the hair and legs came from that bag.

Diva no 2 onto the 1960's for this dairy and stripe curtain fabric. She's a bit of a square girl especially in the leg department.

Amazing how you can make a lovely flower hair decoration from the dress fabric. A white damask napkin has been used for the face and arms.

Next it's onto surprise dolls for ???

I seem to get on better with machine embroidered faces, rather than sewing by hand. All their legs and arms are sewn and stuffed. Tomorrow I'll sew up the bodies, stuff and then sew on the legs. Also got to make clothes for them as well. Then hair and find some trinkets to finish them off.

No more posts of these until after Christmas.

Happy Christmas to my band of followers and friends.

x Joan

Indie & Aurelia More Happy Scrappy Dolls

Phew just finished number 5&6 in time for a visit to The Chelmsford Community Pop-up Shop Tomorrow. I hope they are going to have room for me to squeeze these in on my cushions stand. At least the dollies will be nice and comfy there.

Number 5 is Indie as she has lovely blue hair and Indigo is a blue dye.

Here she is sitting on some of my vintage cushions, with Pompii my Teddy bear. I've had him since I was 6 months old. He came to visit the  Ideas Hub last week.

A close up of Indie's face, she has little hearts for her cheeks and cotton bullion fringe for her hair. I think this fringing makes super doll hair.

This is number 6 Aurelia, she has yellow highlights and aurelion is a yellow colour. I have it in my watercolour paints. She's sitting with Blue Ted, I've had him since I was about 2. They are also on some of my handmade cushions.

Aurelia has little bunches - really tassels on furniture fringing. I'm having lots of fun with the fringing you can make loads of different styles with it.

So it's off to be sold for these two and number 3&4. Hope they make someone happy this Christmas.