Archive | Sewing

Shibori Bag

the finished bag from my spoonflower shibori fabric

Bag made out of shibori fabric

I finally used this piece of my shibori fabric!

You might remember I had a yard of this design printed on Spoonflower Eco Canvas fabric about a year ago. Since then, I’ve been looking at it and wondering what would be best to make with it.

This is the original fabric piece

If you’ve been following me on social media, you may have guessed that I finally cut into it and made a bag. I used a pdf pattern by Blue Calla Sewing Patterns called the Dahlia Drawstring Bag. I wanted the patterned squares to be the focus so I had to plan the cutting carefully so that all the seams and lines would line up and not look out of place on the finished bag. It used a surprising amount of fabric by the time the pieces were selected (and quite a lot of brain power in the process!).

spoonflower shibori fabric cut up ready to make bag

All cut up and ready to put together!

It is a bucket bag with side pockets. Here is the exterior piece all stitched together.

It has side pockets which I wanted to line up with the side panels

And a front view – the pattern suggested vinyl for the base and top front but I couldn’t find any that I liked so I cut up a Boden raincoat that I no longer wear. I like the fabric and want to refashion the top part of the coat into a kind of waistcoat so I thought I’d use the rest in my bag.

this is the front view

For the lining I used some pinky-red hand printed and discharged fabric that I had in my cupboard. I think it would make a nice lampshade cover with the light shining through it!

The lining of the bag

Here it is all stitched together – the top has a drawstring closure which meant putting grommets in. That was a challenge all of its own. Suffice to say that I’m not too good with a hammer. Unfortunately they were too large for the Crop-a-dile which is what I usually use for smaller eyelets.

Those grommets were the bane of my life!!

And here it is all finished.

All completed!

Can you use an old Singer sewing machine?

By Liz Plummer in Sewing

Okay, this is a different sort of post than usual, but still textile related!! My husband is involved with a local charity called Health Help International which sends various supplies/support to Zambia and India. One of their projects is a sewing studio in Zambia and they regularly send out old manual sewing machines – manual because the electricity supply there is unreliable.

These machines have been given to me because they don’t work (or in some cases might be because they have one of the older type transverse bobbins which are difficult to get hold of, I’m not sure). But I’m tripping over them in my workroom and wondered if anyone locally (South Wales) would like one for a small donation to HHI (since they were donated originally I don’t think I should just give them away outright)?

These are photos of the ones I have and I thought that if you sold at vintage fairs etc you might be able to use one as a display. I’ve seen people using them for hanging necklaces and pendants on or as decoration in shop windows. These old machines are very ornamental, aren’t they?

UPDATE: I’ve now taken all these (and some more) to Tools for Self Reliance Cymru who repair them and send them to Tanzania.

Great British Sewing Bee and some upcycling fun!

By Liz Plummer in Sewing

I hinted in earlier posts that I’d been doing more dressmaking and upcycling than quilting and dyeing recently, so I thought I’d tell you what I have been up to.

I bought a secondhand Harris Tweed men’s jacket on Ebay very cheaply and altered it.

I can’t find any ‘before’ photos but this is it when I had just started and was auditioning that orange silk fabric with it. First of all I unpicked the lining from the main jacket from about halfway up the front and along most of the bottom edge apart from the back vents where it was too firmly stitched on! Then I took out the shoulder pads and restitched the top of the shoulders to make them a bit narrower, more rounded and less military-looking. I then stitched more darts to shape the waistline.

Here it is just pinned. I had to be a bit careful not to pull the pocket flap out of shape. I also made the bottom of the armhole a bit smaller and stitched more tucks in the upper back to take out some nasty puckers that had developed. Once I was happy with the fit, I restitched the lining and then added a few embellishments.

This is some of my printed fabric which I stitched on to the top pocket. I also stitched some narrow burgundy ribbon along the piped top of the bottom pockets and replaced all the buttons with dusky pink ones to make it clear that this was now a woman’s jacket! I thought I took a photo at this stage but the only one I can find is the one below. The buttons on the sleeve are pink too.

The Great British Sewing Bee started last week and inspired me to do a bit of my own! This pinky mauve top started life as a Landsend polo neck top and after a while I decided I didn’t like to wear polo necks anymore but I still liked the top and didn’t just want to chuck it. So I took the neckline off and stitched that burgundy satin bias binding around the raw edges. I also wanted it longer so I thought I’d put a flounce on the bottom. I wasn’t sure about mixing stretchy knitted fabric and woven cotton, but I thought my hand printed fabric which I made with the wisteria screen shown at the bottom of this page of my blog matched the colour well so decided to give it a go. I found a webpage on How to make a pixie skirt and it was incredibly easy – this piece is just a square piece of fabric with a circular hole cut in the middle. A couple of lines of topstitching with a triple straight stitch finished it off and I’m wearing it as I type!

Here it is with the finished jacket.

Not sure whether to sew this flower on or not…

January activities

By Liz Plummer in Sewing

This is what the garden looked like last week. The white stuff stayed there for a whole week (quite unusual for this area), but last weekend a warm front came in and we had torrential rain, thunder, lightning and hailstones and now it’s all gone. The hens were a bit nonplussed by it all, and refused to leave their run even when I opened the door – normally they are falling over each other to get out! And even when they did emerge, they congregated at the back door as if pleading with me to give them their warm mash and shut them back in again…

This was one night last week when the snow was coming down for the last time.

From last October two of my sons have gone off to university, leaving only one at home and it is very strange and is taking some getting used to. As a result I have been a bit at sea here and feeling rather disorientated. I have been getting a bit fed up of making wall art/generally stuck and have been exploring alternative ways to use my printed fabric. Though maybe I’ll just keep it as art cloth… dilemmas, dilemmas…. I have also been getting into upcycling and refashioning clothes. I made this top using one of Marcy Tilton’s Vogue patterns. Every now and again I buy a sale ‘goody bag’ from People Tree, who sell fairtrade fashion, but sometimes the clothes they send just aren’t me at all. I made this one from a couple of ra-ra style skirts in tshirt material plus an old tie dyed tshirt that the boys had outgrown. The colours are not quite true but you get the general idea! I still have to finish the arms and face the neckline but I quite like the result.

I also bought this gorgeous Harris Tweed men’s jacket on Ebay and am busy restyling it, putting more darts in to convert it into a woman’s jacket. I plan to put new buttons on and add a few more decorative features, not sure yet exactly what. The dressmaker’s dummy, by the way, was another recent Ebay acquisition which is becoming very useful!

These are the clothes racks full of printed and dyed fabric that I have accumulated. I think I may reopen my Etsy shop and put some of it for sale there – what do you think? I’m not sure whether to experiment with turning it into clothes or sell it as art cloth.

Another thing I did at the beginning of December was to sign up for a Craftsy class called The Couture Dress with Susan Khalje. So far I’ve made a muslin, attempted to fit it on myself (!), cut out the silk organza interlining and the actual fabric which is tartan Viyella fabric that I bought years ago before the UK textile industry mostly got outsourced to China. This is the result so far! I’ve made it very difficult for myself by cutting lots of pieces on the bias so I am unsure how it is going to turn out, but I’m learning lots of useful stuff on the way, such as how to trace patterns. I doubt if I will ever make another couture dress as it is too slow and fiddly for me (and accuracy doesn’t seem to be within my capabilities which is why I don’t do traditional patchwork and quilting!!). But it is a useful learning experience…

And finally, here are a few handmade books I made recently using the instructions from Sue Bleiweiss’ online class that I took a few years ago…. Hard to believe that those covers started out as brown paper, isn’t it? It was an opportunity to use up some of the gorgeous raku buttons I have bought from various Etsy people….

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I finally used this piece of my shibori fabric!