Busy, busy little bee

Hello everyone, once again I have been busy refashioning. I am still working through the giant pile of charity shop fabrics which I was given, so I can't show you any brilliant transformations from one thing to another, but what I have made won't dissapoint.

I have also decided to show you more pictures of my festival jacket, which is my longest
running refashion project to date, I have expanded on it for years. I have also another of my ancient projects, a blaizer I started working on it in England and have now completed it more than 5 years later on.

I have made the ussual assortment of shopping bags, my goal is about 40, so I am still far below my target. The image above is one of the latest made out of a earthy green pastel coloured curtain fabric. I have also included pictures of a vest I made and a pillow tutorial. A pillow cover tutorial will be here soon, so.... Watch this space.

The festival jacket

The jacket serving as the base layer is a cheap denim jacket, it is a quite brilliant dark blue. On it I have sewn badges and patches. It has several studs, in various shapes. My interpritation of the cover off "bat out of hell" has been painted with a special acrylic paint for fabrics on the back of the jacket. There is also painted, sewn and embroidered the names of the festivals I have been to on the back of the jacket. It is in fact the only souvenir I have from the festivals.

The black and white tartan striped shopping bag.

The flower suit, which has been referd to as my clown-jacket, by some I know. It was started as a self-esteem excersize in the field of sewing. What I had done in order to create it was to unstitch an old suit and use it as a template for this suit. I learned a lot by making it, one of the big things is that certain things are made at certain intervals in the process otherwise you can make it very difficult for yourself later on. The flower suit has a deep blue inner lining and white buttons. I have stil a bit of the fabric left and I hope to make a few other things out of it soon.

I have now had this on at so many parties, it was made about 6 years ago in co-operation with my mum. It has asian motifs, butterflies, vases and silver coloured buttons. I wore it once at an art exhibition in Liverpool, after which my cheap pocket watch was stolen. I price this vest far more dearly than the watch, after many years of use it is still in good shape, a testament to the strength and durability of home sewn things.

The pillow tutorial

Amature and experience hobbyists alike will know that pillows are probably the most simple thing you can possibly make. The truth is that there are a lot of different designs and tons of ways to personalise and modify pillow covers, but only really one design for pillows.

- You will need -

. Fabric
. fill for your pillow (sponge, feathers, left over fabric, straw, plastic bags...)
. Thread
. Needles
. A pair of scissors
and possibly also pins.

Step one

Decide how big your pillow should be, fold the fabric so you get one large piece covering both sides of the pillow.

Step two

Cut the fabric, remember to preserve the joint between the two sides of the pillow, so you have one folded piece of fabric.

Step three

Sew the folded piece of fabric together. Leave a hole just big enough for you to fill up your pillow with the filling material.

Turn the fabric inside out, possibly with the aid of a pencil or other item.

Step four

Stuff the pillow with the filling material.

Step five

Sew the material where the hole is, no one will see it because your pillow will most likely be covered by a pillow cover, so dont be afraid of the stitching showing.