52 Weeks of Crafting: Fabric

Showing posts with label Fabric. Show all posts

Friday, 7 August 2015

Project 239: A bespoke bridal tote

A few weeks ago my friend Palo got married and I was so happy to be a bridesmaid and be a part of the process. She had asked us to have a bag of some sort to carry emergency supplies in and we came up with this idea of making a tote bag in their wedding color to use for the occasion.

I had a royal blue bag printed with their name and wedding date on it - only to realise when I received it that I had ordered the wrong date! OOPS. So I got crafty and decided to patch over it.

First, I cut a strip of pink and blue fabric from my stash as the main patch over the date. I have a very limited fabric supply so I was so pleased that this not only worked but was a scrap from a bigger piece the bride had given me for a previous project. I folded the edges and ironed them to get a crease using the hotel iron and hand stitched it over the date.

Did I mention that I ran out of time and had to do this while at the hotel before the wedding?? I hadn't known what I would need to do the fix so I brought a bag of flowers, ribbons, fabric, thread and needles and just made it up as I went.

I stitched on a flower to make it a bit more interesting and then added a rosette flower with ribbons on the back to make that side have a focal point as well.

All in I was really pleased! I thought the bag came out well and the bride loved it. She doesn't know that it was really fixing an OOPS moment so unless she reads this....she never has to know :-P

Tuesday, 15 October 2013

Project 114: 20s themed headbands

My friend Jules is having a 20s themed wedding and for her bachelorette party I thought we could use a touch of glam. I talked to her and her maid of honor and we decided that some cute 20s headbands would be the right amount of themed-wear.

Above are my "ingredients" - I went to my local craft store and found loads of great stuff, everything above was less than £10 which is great.

I liked the black and gold card toppers in bows and flowers - perfect for making layers as you can hide all the seams and glue behind the card.

For the ribbon-based bands, I played around and found I liked the gold loop using sparkly ribbon as my base with the bow (but the flower could work as well). I added a sequin in the middle and then in the corner to hide the base of the mini feathers. I love the sparkly white ones but I'm not entierly sure they work. But I love them all the same.

I asked O to take the pictures of me wearing them and as he was lying in bed watching football (I had taken over the big tv watching a baking show while crafting!) I had to squat on the floor to get into view as I was not going to break the flow of the game. Thus the awkward shots!

Next I tried some on an actual headband. I was convinced I had black headbands and I was wrong. So I busted out the sharpies and colored in a cream colored one.

For this one I put some gold ribbon tassles hanging down from the flowers and added a sequin in th emiddle for bling. I added the feathers at the top but then switched the order so the black one is first from the face. It looks better that way. Trust me.

So now I'm going to share this with the bride and see what she thinks - will keep you posted.

I imagine I need more ribbons and bands but I wanted to have a bit of a play with it all first before I bought the full amount of kit. I think that's all I'll need to get to complete them all though which is great!

Tuesday, 2 October 2012

Project 46: Fabric wreaths

It seems like I haven’t posted in ages – please forgive as I’ve been in Wales for 10 days! This is the post week commencing the 23rd as this is when the crafting was done. I'll do another one for this week and then I won't be down on projects!

We had some seriously cold and rainy autumn nights in our little cottage so I put that indoor-time to good use and made a project I’ve been wanting to try. I love wreaths at any time of the year but especially at Christmas. I found this example in a craft magazine and had to give it a go.

First a trip to the craft store to buy materials. I got 6 fat quarters of different red and green vintage-feeling fabrics and 4 1-meter cuts of fabric in plain green, plain red, polka dot green and polka dot red. 10 coat hangers and a pair of fabric scissors and away we went.

I didn’t take any process pictures because it was so simple. I cut a strip of the fabric that was about 4 inches wide and then cut these into 1 inch tall pieces. I then tied them to the hanger (which I had bent into a circle). Honestly bending the coat hanger was about the hardest part, you can see how easy it was to do this sitting in front of a fire watching movies!

And that’s it. I tried a whole bunch of different options, including my traditional color combos (red with a bit of green and green with a bit of tartan red) as the cover photo. I think they're my favorites.

My “Cath Kidston” (for the spots!) combo:

All green:

And all red:

Each is ever so slightly different because obviously my inability to focus enough to do the same thing each night meant I varied the fabrics slightly each time.

My last step will be to cover the hangers, maybe by wrapping them in ribbon. The tutorial I followed had a little scrunchie thing that you made but it involved sewing and I don't think I want to make 10 of them. We'll see. I need to get some other crafting stuff done first before I finish it off.

I’m going to sell these at the craft fair in October and again in December – hopefully they’ll be a hit as they’re so easy to produce!

How much would you spend for one of these? I’m thinking somewhere in the £8-12 range to cover my costs and labor time (even though it was easy it still took about 2 hours a wreath with all the prep). What do you think?