Revamp!

I've been away for a month! I knew it had been a while since my last post but a whole month has shocked me! Unfortunately though I haven't really been crafting so haven't had much to share. That's the problem with being really ill is that even your favourite things become a chore :(

I have been dragging my butt into the shop and selling lots of things to some lovely people so I need to do lots of replenishing this month so hopefully there will be lots of posts over the next few weeks to catch up with!

The past 2 days have all been about revamping, upcycling, breathing fresh life into old clothes. There's never much need to throw things away, its a huge problem our society is conditioned with; if we don't throw things out then how will we have room for all the new things that we need to buy!! Oh how I hate the commercial, capitalist world we live in! Maybe this post can inspire some folks to take a step back and just update the wardrobe they already have rather than constantly buying new.

I went to town with some great charity shop finds and some screen printing. 

The first two pieces are a St Michaels shirt and a handmade vintage dress both on beautiful emerald green shades and I used a new screen print of mine 'happily ever after' to print onto the backs. I'd made the screen up to print some cushions with but decided it worked on these items too!

I picked up a few tshirts and vest tops on my collecting days and cheered them up with a few carousel horses, lions and zebras. The red and white tshirt below I also added a blue and white spotty pocket for a bit of extra colour. The stripey dress was also a handmade vintage piece that I added some balloons and also a big red polka dot pocket to.

I've also been working on a range of jumpers to sell in the shop. I wanted to combine my love of printing onto found fabrics with cosy jumpers and lots of lace and this was the result! Each is a one off piece.

You've Been Framed

So this week has been more about looking after the cat and getting him sorted. My sister's cat Zorro came to stay with us about 5 weeks ago and after 3 days managed to escape out the cat flap and that was the last we saw of him for 4 1/2 weeks! He'd come down from London and people kept saying maybe he'd tried to go home which wasn't helpful! But he was sat on the kitchen table last Saturday morning when I got up. We've been to the vets quite a lot this week getting him checked out and sorted with antibiotics and painkillers; he had a weird limp :(

So in between all that chaos there's been a slowing down on the craft front. I have managed a few bits so I thought I'd share them now whilst enjoying a lazy Sunday at home.

I picked up some old annuals for the Green Living Festival workshop that I took part in a few weeks ago and had a brainwave of other fun things I could do. My first project for them was picture frames. So I got the ol' Mod Podge and Stanley knife out the box and set down in front of the telly yesterday having a fun Saturday play afternoon!

I used a pack of cheap Ikea frames that I'd picked up ages ago ( one of those stupid shopping moments when you don't want to come away empty handed; yes I realise I'm being a slave to consumerism). They had a good wide frame though which I thought would be better for showing off the comic strips.

Check out how lovely the two colour screen printed pages are.

I used the craft blade to cut around the edge of the comics and shape them to the frame. I used the Mod Podge to stick the strips and to varnish over the top. The one I have leaves a lovely matte finish but you can get others in different finishes. It's good that you can finally get it in the UK, I've always seen so many lovely projects on crafster.org using the stuff and have always wanted some; pretty  pleased with the results so far.

Finished frames. I ended up making four different ones; it was great that they used to use different colours for the two colour prints to keep the annual interesting and define different stories.

There was a final story in one of the books that had a full colour 'Tarzan Jane' story that I couldn't resist using too.

After my last embroidery piece I wanted to do another screen print/ embroidery mix up. This time I used the carousel horse repeat that I'd printed onto a pink and white polka dot fabric.

I think it needs just a tad more before its finished but I thought I'd share anyways :)

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.