Seems it was a weekend for Upcycling!!

 So, I got all quite obsessed last week with sorting through my big pile of 'to do' sewing projects that have been sitting around the house now for a year or so; all this thanks to the Great British Sewing Bee - cheers for that, really inspired me to get on with it! Sew (hehe)...I spent the weekend upcycling my dad's old 1990's levi's denim shirt. Bless him, he hung on to that shirt for an awfully long time hoping one day he'd fit back in to it, but sometimes you've just got to move on! I cut the panels up from the shirt, cutting it to my size but keeping the oversized shirt element in the body to rock that 90's vibe. I used some awesome russian doll print fabric that I bought an age ago to cut new front panels from and inserted these in to the old button down. The printed fabric was also used to add a thin panel along the back of the shirt, and along the inner sleeves so that the print flowed better with the original denim. I've got to be honest, I'm loving it and have been wearing it pretty much all week! I even got style spotted!

I'm the kind of girl that hoards fabric and hates to throw even the tiniest scrap away.  Therefore the remnants of the denim shirt were made in to a quirky fabric necklace.  The hemed and seamed scraps of the the shirt were gathered in to roses and finished with old buttons, and then all stitched down on to a denim backing, which was then studded afterwards.  I actually really like how the hemmed demin created naturally rounded edges on the gathered roses, and will definately use hemmed edges in the future off other old clothes to create the roses.

An Obsession with Kantha!!

 Another thing that I've been working on whilst I've been gone are these embroidered designs.  I have been totally obsessed with the traditional Indian embroidery technique of 'kantha', which is made up of lots of running stitches to add in block colour.  It's simple, easy and utterly effective, even if it does take an age to do!

I'm particularly in love with these embroidered tattoo designs that I've done, and am now in the process of turning these in to a fully kantha stitched quilted jacket, featuring traditional tattoo designs.  I've been working on the jacket now for a year (although not constant, as I'm swamped at and with work the majority of the time, so I have to grab short chances to sew it when and where I can).  I'll add pics when I've got a bit further with it.

The kantha technique is also an obsession that I've extended to my fashion and textile students, and they have taken to it
really well, often emplying it in their own work.  It's great to see the young learners adopting these traditional world techniques, and hopefully keeping them alive.

Whilst I was away....

During my time away from the blog and after completing my MA, I continued to illustrate and print my own fabrics.  These are just some of the cute quirky products I made using those unique hand-illustrated fabrics. 

Doodle Jack Quilt

So I've been absent from my blog for a good long time due to getting locked out. So here's my final quilt from my uni quilt series that I made back in april 2011. It was based on a photoshop illustration I made inspired by the union jack, in advance of the queen's jubilee in 2012.