I love working with leather and exploring ways to decorate it. Here I chose the ancient technique of batik using wax and dye to make a colourful leather wallet.
How To Make A Batik Leather Wallet – A step-by-step tutorial
Sneak Peek Into Sandal Making Book
Here is another sneak peek into my now really soon to be available e-book “How To Make Unique Leather Sandals”. I finished the book itself and am now working on creating a landing page. It’s all new to me, so it’s taken me some time to find out exactly what I needed to do to self-publish an e-book.
I’m getting there now, a bit late for the summer in the northern hemisphere, but think of all the summers still to come…
The above sandals are the first project of the book, they are easy to make as there are no straps to cut or buckles to attach, and they offer lots of space for decoration….
Here are sneak peeks 1 and 2 of the sandal making book.
Update
The e-book How to make unique leather sandals is available now. This link leads you to a post I wrote about it when I published the book.
Making A T-Shirt Out Of Fabric Scraps
I must confess I have a huge collection of fabric scraps. Every once in a while I get a bag out and think I have to make something out of them or why am I keeping them. Clothes for little ones are a great way to use up fabric scraps as you don’t need as much fabric.
The t-shirt is hand sewn, with the seems on the outside for extra interest. I used five different colours of organic cotton jerseys from Organic Textile Company.
Wood Block Printing – Make Your Own One-Of-A-Kind Clothes
I don’t want to make clothes that look like I bought them in a shop. I want my second skin look hand-made and unique. One way of achieving this is printing my own fabric. Wood block printing is probably the easiest and simplest printing method of all.
Fun Harem Pants For Kids – Super Cute And Easy To Make
I made these fun harem pants for my little boy, they are the cutest pants ever! I love fun clothes for boys, playful and colourful, have done with the grey and dark blue…
Embroidery On Clothes – Stitches Can Make Your Clothes Pop
Embroidery on clothes is a wonderful way to embellish plain clothes or fabrics. Once you know a few embroidery stitches, you can transform a boring piece of clothing into something awesome and very special.
Compared to other craft forms, embroidery doesn’t require much tools or materials. All you need is thread, a hoop, a needle, some scissors, a tailors pencil for drawing a design onto the fabric or some transfer material if you want to transfer images to fabric.
Design Your Own Unique T-shirts
Why not design your own unique t-shirts? Now that I have started I don’t want to do anything else this summer! A pity summer in the UK just doesn’t last long enough!
Of course, there are many ways to decorate a t-shirt. Here I used stencil printing to transfer a design onto fabric. It’s an easy and simple printing technique that can produce stunning results.
Make Your Own Summer Trousers
I remember the days when I went from shop to shop to find a pair of trousers that were beautiful and fitting, it could take me hours to finally end up exhausted with something quite expensive and nearly always a compromise. I’m so glad I don’t have to do that anymore.
I learned to make proper trousers (I mean the ones with zips, pockets and belt loops) with this book Sew U: The Built by Wendy Guide to Making Your Own Wardrobe, which has detailed instructions on all the steps involved in creating the trousers. I’ve used this pattern for years, only changing the width of the legs from the knees down, I like legs that flare at the ankles…
The fabric I used is from Dragonfly Fabrics, it’s a linen/rayon mix called Brussels Washer, I chose the colour ocean, there are many more colours available.
Airbrush Painted Tank Top
Here I played with my new toy, a mini airbrush spray gun kit. I’m only beginning to discover what I can do with it, but so far have really enjoyed using it. Again I’ve spent a whole afternoon spraying away….Of course there are better and more expensive airbrush guns to buy, but for the beginning I’m fine with this one. Read More
Sewing For Girls – Summer Tunica
My daughter called this tunica a fairy top, it’s the floaty sleeves that makes it other worldly. I used an organic cotton crêpe fabric from Fabric Treasury, which I dyed turquoise. I then embroidered it and stitched a crocheted edge to all the edges. Read More