Upcycling Patchwork

One of my favourite shopping haunts is Salisbury as it offers an array of shops as well as numerous charity shops, craft/fabric shops and also an antique centre over three floors.  As I am always on the hunt for interesting fabrics and old textiles, I am usually spoilt for choice and never fail to come home armed with more fabric for my pile.

A few months ago, I was browsing the items for sale on a vintage clothing stall in the antiques centre, when I spotted a piece of folded up patchwork.  It caught my eye instantly as it was made from pieces of tweed and other suit fabrics.  Whether is was actually made from old clothing or just off cuts of fabric I shall never know but it was the perfect weight for handbag fabric.

When I unfolded the patchwork, I discovered it was in fact a long patchwork skirt.  It had been completely hand stitched with even the zip and lining sewn in by hand.  It was quite weighty and I would imagine too warm to be practical with modern central heating.  I loved the skirt as it was but my thoughts were to actually cut it up and turn it into handbags.  At a cost of £22 it seemed a bargain to me.  I hate to think how many hours it took someone to make, not just the sewing but also cutting out all the pieces to start with.

When I finally took the skirt apart, I did feel slightly guilty I have to admit.  Cutting through someones handiwork made me feel even worse!  As soon as I had cut the side panels for the handbag though I knew I was doing the right thing.  The patchwork matched perfectly with some pale green corduroy which I had found in a charity shop.  The inside has been lined with an old shirt and also has two mismatched shirt pockets sewn on one side for a phone and tissues.  A further zipped pocket on the other side completes the bag.


Now that it's finished, I am really pleased with the result.  I love the colours and the fact that it is a totally unique handbag which will never be repeated.  I have enough patchwork for another bag but the fabrics and colours will be different as the original skirt was made up of so many different fabrics.

 

   
 
                         












                                                

Recycling Samples

I am always on the look out for new fabrics to use.  I have to admit it is a slight obsession as no matter where I go, I keep on the look out for fabrics in any form, from new to old, remnants to clothing.

If you don't need large pieces of fabric for sewing projects fabric sample books are a really good source.  Once a range of fabric has been discontinued, the stores no longer need the fabric sample books and often sell them off cheaply.  Needless to say good ones get snapped up quickly, so it helps if you have a good contact in a store.

Yesterday, I spent a fabulous half hour or so rummaging in a shed at the back of a furnishing store - with their permission obviously!  There were shelves and boxes full of old sample books for sale.  When it comes to fabric, I know instantly what I like and also, more importantly, what I will use a particular fabric for.  Some samples are too small to be of use to me and other fabric have a design that is too big, so they get discarded as well.

I ended up with six sample books all with completely different patterns and colours of furnishing fabric.  Looking at the price lists in the back, some of the fabrics were really expensive.  I certainly would never have even considered buying them off the roll as they would not be economic to use.  The sum total for my six books was the bargain price of £20 though.

The best bit but also the hardest bit is taking the books apart.  You can simply cut the fabric out but you lose a few centimetres doing that.  If the samples are small to start with, you don't really want to lose any more that you have to.  I prefer to rip the binding apart and gradually rip the fabrics out.  Most are stuck in with really strong glue, so it's not easy.  I ended up with a large stack of gorgeous fabrics though which will last me a while, so it was definitely worth the effort.

Getting to Grips With Oven Gloves

Oven gloves have been on my ideas list for longer than I can remember.  When I am constantly spending time remaking sold items, I never seem to quite manage to try anything new.  I realised that unless I actually discontinued some items and took a break from restocking, I probably never would.

I finally decided to give oven gloves a go when I found a pattern template in a craft magazine.  I duly cut out the pattern, sewed the bits together and wondered why it had taken me so long to make a pretty simple item.  However, as I was looking at my glove, I couldn't help thinking the thumb looked a bit small.  When I tried it on, the thumb was skin tight and I hadn't even lined the glove at that point.  Looking at the pattern again, even that looked a bit out of proportion, so I don't think it was my sewing skills.

Having wasted some perfectly good fabric, I got annoyed with oven gloves and decided pot holders were far easier.  How hard could a padded square be to make?  Very easy as it turned out, until I came to put bias binding around the edge to hide the raw edges of the fabric.  I had forgotten what a complete fiasco binding things is.  Well maybe that is down to my sewing skills as lots of other people seem to make perfectly bias bound pot holders.  I got even more annoyed and shelved the whole oven glove idea again.

Having calmed down (a few months later!), I decided to have one more go at an oven glove.  This time I drew my own pattern and chose one of my favourite cotton fabrics.  If this had gone wrong I would have been really, really annoyed.  I cut it out, sewed it together and it fitted my hand, well, like a glove really!

The only tricky bit was pinning in the lining as I kept sticking myself with all of the pins.  Next time tacking it will probably solve that issue.  Yes, there will definitely be another and hopefully another after that until I realise that I really do need to make time to try out another item on my ideas list.

CRAFTfest

Before the dawn of the internet, I spent lots of weekends packing up my wares and setting up shop in a village hall somewhere in a neighbouring village.  There was never any rhyme or reason to how many people came to the event but if it rained then you were probably in for a slow day.  Even if lots of people did come to the craft fair, there was no guarantee anyone would actually buy anything.  Most came just to browse the crafts and then go home with a homemade cake.

The internet has certainly changed all that!  20 years ago, I never would have imagined selling my products countrywide, let along worldwide.  Let's face it, I never would have imagined selling via my computer - I didn't even own one back then.

I am still not a fan of packing up my wares and driving them around the countryside to a school or village hall.  It is far too much hassle for hit or miss sales figures.  I would far rather spend the time at home sewing, knowing that my products are being viewed 24/7, globally in cyberspace.

When I heard about CRAFTfest, it seemed the ideal solution.  For one week, from 16th to 23rd March, 146 different craft businesses are gathering for a virtual craft fair.  Not only can the public come and view a huge variety of handmade items from the comfort of their armchair, the sellers don't have to leave home either.  Perfect!

The CRAFTfest concept is very simple.  Anyone can view the products for sale at creative-connections.ning.com where all of the different sellers are split into a variety of categories.  Every seller has a photograph of each of their products in an album and every item has the price, description and a link to where the item can be bought.  Sellers can click through from the photograph of an item  to buy it from the seller's website, Etsy store, Folksy store or whereever.  That's all there is to it.

It's free to visit CRAFTfest and you don't need to join either.  You've got all week, so come and take a peek!

http://creative-connections.ning.com/photo/albums/from-rags-to-bags-craftfest-stall

Are You Sitting Comfortably?

There are three things in life that most women would say you can never have enough of, shoe, handbags and cushions.  A sofa is incomplete without a whole array of cushions in various shapes, colours and sizes.  Once the sofa and armchairs are full, there's always the beds to cover in cushions too.

 On the other hand, most men would probably agree that there are always too many cushions everywhere cluttering up the furniture.  In my house, cushions seem to mysteriously disappear down the side of the sofa or end up thrown all over the floor, only to be placed neatly back on the sofa each night when I go to  bed.  Oddly the culprit complained the other day that he needed a new cushion as his was now too flat.  I suggested he try the one he had secreted down beside the sofa a few weeks ago.

For me, my love of cushions will probably never end.  I can't keep buying them though, there's a limit even for me.  Instead I keep my cushion buying habit at bay by making my own and hopefully selling them on to other cushion lovers. 

I have to admit though that one of my retro ones is now residing on one my sofas and I am rather partial to the tie cushion I made too.  Actually, now I think of it, the embroidered one I made would look good in my kitchen ....

So, if you are reading this, feeling a little uncomfortably in your chair, why not take a look at what else I have in stock?  Everybody could do with at least one more cushion in their life.

 

Make Do And Mend

 In recent years, the slogan "Make Do And Mend" which epitomised the Second World War has been embraced once again, with it appearing on all sorts of merchandise from mugs to cushions.   Even my sewing needle tin sports a picture of the war time poster campaign.  With the increase in crafting, it seems that many of us have followed that advice too, whether it is due to the current recession or we are all more environmentally aware.

I recently read "Nella Last's War" the war time diary of a housewife who lived in Barrow-in-Furness, in the North of England. When war broke out, she was 49, married with two grown up sons, looked after her husband, home and enjoyed sewing and knitting as hobbies. The war and all of its shortages really brought Nella into her own though.

Throughout her diary, as well as day to day accounts of bombings, food rationing and trying to keep domestic life running, Nella gives a constant dialogue of her craft activities from knitting socks for sailors to making dolls for the children's ward at the local hospital. It would seem that if it could be knitted or sewn, the Nella could make it.

One account tells of unpicking a donated mattress, washing the cover together with a dozen sugar sacks and making four single mattresses from them. Realising that she didn't have enough stuffing for four, she sorted out scraps from her rags bag and cut them into small pieces. She added cut up silk stockings and mixed all the bits together with the stuffing she had until four mattresses were finished and delivered to the Sailors' Home.

Reading Nella's diary highlighted an area of rationing in Britain during the Second World War that I was completely unaware of.  Most people know about the food shortages, with many still remembering them as they continued post war.  However, with metal needed for weapons and textiles needed for uniforms, wool, fabric and evening sewing needles became hard to buy.  As well as ready made clothing being rationed, the clothes themselves became simpler with pockets and pleats limited.  The number of buttons allowed on garments was also restricted.  Nella Last mentions in her diary the difficulties in buying sewing needles as they were no longer being manufactured.

The slogan "Make Do and Mend" was born out of necessity rather than today's austerity.  People had to repair and reuse their existing clothing as new clothes simply weren't available.  Whilst today there is an abundance of ever cheaper clothing available, embracing the past is certainly becoming ever more popular.

In Favour of Lavender

For the past few months, the majority of my sales seem to have been lavender bags.  I don't just mean one or two at a time, it has been 20, 30, 40 and even 140 at a time!  The lace ones are definitely the in favour at the moment.

I never quite understand what makes an item sell or not as the case may be.  I wish I could predict the market a bit better, I would make a fortune.  Interestingly though, when my lavender bags were listed as a single item, they didn't sell very well.  As soon as I listed two lavender bags at double the price, they started to sell really well.  Same item, same unit price, so what's the difference?

With discounts offered for bulk orders, the demand for my lace lavender bags as wedding favours has grown this year.  My first wedding order years ago was for a bridal shower though.  I recently made a batch as gifts for a tea party and in the last few months, I have had three large orders for lace lavender bags to be used as favours at Christenings.

Lace has certainly been fashionable this year, particularly after the lace covered wedding dress worn by Kate as she became the latest Royal bride.  It will be interesting to see if lace goes out of favour again soon.