Skirts from Tshirts and Batwings.

I've always loved revamping and recycling clothing, so when Becca gave me a big pile of her and Dan's old clothes I knew exactly how to put them to good use. I thought the easiest way to make them would be to slice across from armpit to armpit, overlock the edge and then fold over and stitch down to create a channel for the elastic waistband. Tada!! haha

I kept the hem of the tshirt as the hem of the skirt, but added lace from my big collection to the edge. This is the only one I've made with the carousel horse repeat on it so far, I've just done it as a stripe down the front but I'd quite like to do another with it printed all over.

There was another purple tshirt but it had a big print on the front, so I decided to use the back of that for the front of the skirt and do the back of the skirt in a different fabric (does that make sense?). There was this great grey leopard print wrap around dress in the pile too so chopped a bit out of that!!

I was given a huge amount of fabric a few years ago by a friend who's relative had passed away and had a large collection that they wanted to go to a good home. I'm slowly working my way through it and still finding gems. The thing is I always look through it with an intent or purpose (whether I need a certain colour or type) and often don't look at it properly if its not what I need there and then! You have to, to be able to do anything else otherwise I could easily spend all day playing! In this case I went through finding anything that had a stretch to it and was suitable for the style of skirt. This first pastel stripe one is a thick Lycra and was really lovely to sew with, there were others on this post that were more challenging!!

I've made some really cool things out of this fabric before and I had just enough left to do a skirt. I actually made it last year maybe longer ago for myself but didn't wear it for some reason.So when I was searching for things to print on I knew this needed something else.

This is a lovely silky wool jersey. I think its the best colour, really jewel looking. The print is a darker shade and then the lace is a darkish bright green that I picked up in a charity shop in Leytonstone in London when I was visiting my sister one time.

This must be from the 80's, I'd love to know what the lady had in mind when she bought it, I'm thinking a suave polo shirt but I'd love a dress with a little with collar, really Fred Perry looking I think. Anyways I just went for a white zebra and this pretty scalloped white lace.

This one was awful to sew! The jersey is super lightweight and silky so I guess I should have expected it. I've already sold this one to my friend Susie who popped to see me at Buffalo where I was doing a little stall. Can't wait to see her twirling round in it.

This one has a different feel to it because the fabric is heavier than the others. It's definitely more of a sweater weight rather than tshirt but I loved the colours so wanted to include it. The pink frilly trim is really fun and came from the suitcase of habby I was given a few weeks ago. I'm realising I do get a lot of stuff given to me...

I also made a a couple of tops. I've made a few vests that aren't finished yet and I also made a couple of different sized bat winged tops. These 2 are the ones that are finished so far, but there are a few more to follow in a later post :) I used more of the blues and green stripe and added a wide pale pinky lace to the hem. The print is a water based pinky maroon that I mixed up, although it looks much redder in the picture.

The print is a drawing that I did not long after I left uni, the zebra is from the same sketch book. The fabric is really light weight with a bit of a slub in the weave. Its much shorter than the other top but I quite like the shorter style with the bat wing. I'm going to put all of these up on the folksy page so I guess which ever sells better I'll make more of.

This dress is one of mine that I picked up a few years ago but haven't been wearing recently, hence the update. I've used a white plastisol for the zebra which is an oil based ink as I don't have an opaque water based white and thought this would be better for the occasion. I usually prefer using water based inks as they're less harsh environmentally and also there's more scope for playing around with different colours as you have to wash the screen out after about 4 prints on average to stop the ink from drying and clogging up the stencil. Plastisol has other benefits as it doesn't dry in the screen so you can do larger runs of printing. Its the standard ink I guess for tshirt printing, but sits on top of the fabric rather than sinking in.

I like to draw.... and some action shot dressmaking photos

I woke up this morning feeling awful. It's like this weird combination of hay fever; where inside my nose and throat have swollen and my eyes itch like crazy, mixed with nausea. Bad times. So I didn't go into work, instead I drew a couple of pictures and chilled out. They're for Becca from Green City and the festival that we were making the flags for ( see earlier post ;))

Here's what I've done today and some older new stuff that's lying round on my desk!

They're designs to be printed onto bags at the event.

Here's the ol' sheeet...

The British Bulldog and Stamp were for the Chapter Art Centre event CarArtBootique. Back at Easter time they had a massive art carboot style affair and Jude and Tom from the PrintHaus set up a stall printing jubilee themed bunting. I was suppose to be helping out and supplied these beauts to print but was bed ridden ill so didn't make it down. I'll have to ask Jude if she has any pics of them printed.

This is a cheeky toucan from my sketchbook.

More delights from the sketchbook.

And last but not least a drawing I was working on for the last Snapped Up market but didn't end up using.

Here's also some pictures I found on my phone, action shots from the dresses I made last week!

 

Sunday Afternoon Lampshade

A few months ago my Grandparents gave me an old lamp stand and shade. The stand was originally made by my Father's uncle (i think) and has always been in their living room for as long as I can remember. They're now in a little flat so it's a tad large for the room so I gladly took it off their hands! So today I finally got around to giving it a make over! It was covered in a creamish silk with matching trim and had a small rip in it, apart from totally not being in my taste it definitely needed some tlc. So I choose some complementary fabrics and went on ahead. I even used a fabric that I'd printed last year.

I chopped up the original cover to get the pattern pieces, It just took 4 pieces like this one.

Then stitched them all together! Well first I stitched them, then over locked the edges. I knew it was going to be tight pulling it back over the frame so i wanted to make sure i didn't pull on the seams too much.

Next I over locked around the top, folded it over and hemmed it down. Over the top of my stitch line I added some trashy lilac trim.

Around the bottom I over locked the edge and then sewed this delightful lilac fringing on top. I'd picked this up on sale in the fabric shop I used to work in, I always knew I'd find a good use for it......

To jazz up the fringing I also added some turquoise rickrack. I wanted it to be an overload of colour and pattern but tastefully done, I hope I've pulled that off!

It was quite a tight squeeze...

Love this blue and black polka dot :)