Bags for rags and laundry

I have a slightly bigger project going on...it's a smallish house project and this is going to be part of it. I made some gifts for house before we moved. This is sort of continuation of that. I have a bag for our "kitchen laundry"; dishcloths and napkins. I have used a tote bag for the purpose, but now I wanted to have one, which would go with the others.

I use rags in the kitchen and I wanted to have a bag for them too. I found a really cool tea towel on a boot sale and didn't want to use it as such, as it is one of those lovely vintage linen ones, which are not made any more. It was made to commemorate the coronation of the Queen.

I wanted to embroider "rags" on it, as I know that otherwise the rags and the contents of the laundry bag will get mixed up. When I had done that, I could not stop, but had to add "to riches". The text on the tea towel makes it to "RAGS TO CORONATION RICHES". Not that I think that ER II was exactly poor before her coronation!

The back of the bag mentions the year.

Have you re-purposed vintage textiles you love to something else?

Cushion Cover Remake

 
We have couple of BIG cushions on our bed. They are handy, when we want to read in a more upright position. One of them is covered with red polka-dot fabric and another has had this very wild turquoise number on it. It was never intended on our bed with those colours. I had a plan to use a lovely old, square, white tablecloth. This I planned to use to make the front with. When I dug it out from my stash, I noticed that it was bigger than this cushion. The embroidery and all the work on it was far too nice to sacrifice by cutting, so I reverted to plan B.

Plan B was to use an embroidered tablecloth I had bought from a charity shop for a while ago for this type of use. It has been covering our printers. The cloth was actually big enough to make a cushion cover and printer cover, so now I have unintentionally matched textiles in our bedroom.

I chose to leave an opening and fasten it with ribbons. Quite often I use a zip (which I did not have, while the mood to make this took me) and  sewing it shut was to make too much of rod for my own back for later as a white cushion cover will need frequent washing.

It sits nicely on our colourful bed with all the polka-dots, gingham and the mad bird cushion.

Have you been up-cycling or re-purposing old textiles? I would love to see! Leave a comment and a link, if you have.

Pretty Everyday Items or Gifts for the Nest

I made some "house warming" presents for ourselves when we were in the process of buying this house. I needed to have these items anyway, as the old plastic bag tube was worn out and the arrangement for my clothes pegs wasn't suitable for this house.

I love old textiles and linen tea towels are no exception. This was a tea towel, which already had a hole in it, but there was enough good fabric to make a bag for my pegs. I made the strap and the channel for closing strings of a fabric from my stash, in this case shirting from Elf Husband's old shirt.

 

I left the original embroidered initials on the bag, of course.

 

The plastic bag tube was made from IKEA fabric left over from another project. I gave our kitchen door key a "ticking" string to match the other items. I like my everyday objects being pretty and homemade, bringing me joy while doing my mundane housekeeping chores.
 Have you given yourself gifts lately?

Twin Bags

 

I made these bags a bit over a week ago for our favourite twin nieces, R and L. They had birthday and had wished for tote bags. The bags were well received and I hope they get some use!

The orange one has the thin material outside and is lined with the thicker one for durability. R likes orange and this was the only big enough piece of material I had in that colour. It was actually up-cycled from a thrift shop bought skirt.

 

The little buttons were a detail in the skirt and I left them as a decoration. I added a pocket on the outside, also lined.

On the inside I sewed another pocket, this time from a quilting cotton, which went with the colours.

L likes darker colours, so she got a psychedelic black and white bag.

I added a black and white buttons on the straps on the both sides and a pocket, this time no lining.

 The material of the white and black bag was thick, so lining was just sheeting cotton in black. The pocket was made of the same material as the outer shell, contrasting nicely with the lining.

I 

Now I quite fancy having one of these myself. Which colour should I choose....?

Re-purposing three sets of draws

 I love to see other people's houses, how they live, have decorated and generally organised their space to reflect the life they lead or not. I especially enjoy seeing other people's workspaces. I thought it fair to show some of my workspace. 

When I was putting my workroom together, I tried to do it with smallest amount of money and one of the strategies I employed was to look what I already had and possibilities of changing things. I have had these set of small draws from IKEA for yonks. They have been used a lot and then stored for a good while, when there was no need for them. They were originally untreated birch veneer. Under first round of service they were stained brown and for this project I painted them white with eggshell wood paint.

The draw fronts I decorated with some of my favourite fabrics, which I fastened with PVA glue. I could have given the fronts maybe another layer of glue to make them more varnished. I love the patterns and the colours and had an awful time deciding whether I should use these blue hues or go for red ones. I am still occasionally tempted to change the colours.

The green and turquoise knobs came from IKEA and were very cheap. I drilled holes on the draw fronts and used scissors to make a hole into the fabric. HINT: do not try to drill through the fabric as the threads will go round the drill bit and it will end in tears.

I also added castors to make the draws easy to move around. I think that I used glue, possibly "No more nails" for fastening the three "sets" onto each other.

Now it is easy for me to reach for my colourful thread and doll hair yarn

neutral thread, bits and bobs and vintage lace,

my needles, bobbins and measuring tapes.

And best of all, it  is all neatly out of sight when not in use.

Have you re-purposed anything lately?

Keeper of memories

Keeping things, de-cluttering, mementoes...That is all very topical for many of us, judging by the blog posts I have read recently. I think of myself as quite a good at de-cluttering. But that does not mean that there is not room for improvement.

I think that even for a hardened de-clutter some things are more difficult to let go than others. That is gifts or things from people who mean a lot to us. I think if the person who gave the thing or owned it first is also dead, it becomes even harder.

I read a very moving posting about a blogger (in Danish) who realised that she had been hanging to a bowl which she had got from one of her grandmothers. This was the only thing she had from the lady, who had passed away. The bowl never really fitted into her house and was difficult to store due to its size. Recently she realised that her memories of the wonderful grandma were not dependent on the bowl; she had them and nobody could take them away. Neither was there a little bit of grandma magically hiding in the bowl, so she decided to let it go.

I have had similar experiences and have been able slowly to let go of things I would never use. Now...I am going to up the game a bit for all the crafters: What do you do when you have a piece of beautiful handiwork, which does not get used? For me it is far, far harder to let go of something if it was made by my grandma than if it was merely bought and used by her. So I have a bit of a textile treasure problem: What to do when you are not going to use it?

This is what I have done lately. I have tried to think of an alternative use for the material. Here is a cushion I made out of a dishcloth. Ok, it might not be the height of refinement, but the linen it is made of is quality you will have hard time to find today. (Hence I cannot bring myself to use it to its original purpose!).  I had one of those days when I really yearned to make something in hand, so both the patchwork and embroidery is entirely hand sewn.

The original monogram is intact and beautiful

The back got tied in a primitive style echoing the loop the teatowel used to have.

These cushions have been made by my relatives and are now mine. They were cushions and I like them as that. The black one used to be on my greatgrandmother's bed. It is either made by her or my grandmother, I do not know for sure. It is actually made of old suiting, the back shows it clearly, having been put together from either leg or arm of a suit, probably to get the last use of expensive fabric. I use it even if the embroidery has started unravelling as you see in the first picture of this post. I rather use and enjoy it than "archive" it in a cupboard.

 I had also a sateen apron with beautiful embroidery of my grandma's. I knew I would never use it, but could not make myself to throw it away either. So now it is a sofa cushion.

As the apron had a little pocket, I attached that on the black cotton back of the cushion to remind me of the apron.

Have you re-purposed treasured things lately?