magikquilter October 6th, 2008
Beautiful Pagodas floating amidst flowers and scenery on my newest tote bag. The Pagoda fabric, a stunning polished cotton, was a remnant found in a scrap bag in a charity shop. As I only had a small piece I designed this bag around that piece of fabric.
The Laura Ashley green and white fabric on the sides of the bag is from a set of curtains I found many years ago. The bag is lined with a lime green cotton and the last thing I did was add lovely self covered buttons which I really enjoyed making with a kit found in a thrift shop. Measures 50cm x 50 cm and is hand washable. Check out my etsy regularly for similar bags and please feel free to contact me if you would like a custom one made….you know I have lots of fabric….am sure I can come up with something stunning!
As I do not want to waste any of this gorgeous fabric I shall make some more buttons and use them as feature buttons on blouses etc…..it is well worth the effort for something so elegant.
Tags: custom tote bag for you, handmade shopping bag, Pagodas
magikquilter September 30th, 2008
My mother in law is doing well I believe, thank you to all who sent emails and good wishes and prayed. I said she was a strong willed woman and hope that keeps her around for a very long time as she loves life and travelling. I would hate to see her go before she is ready…..she has lots to do yet….good grief 80 is the new 60…not sure if I have that around the right way but you get my point I guess!
We had a lovely anniversary dinner and the next day some gorgeous flowers arrived from David’s family in England…which was lovely of them considering all that was going on. I told my parents by email just in case anything happened to Sue and mentioned in the email that it was our Silver Wedding Anniversary and we received a card two days later so am wondering if they would have remembered if I had not prompted them.
I have fabulous news regarding friendship, my friend from high school with whom I went to see Led Zeppelin contacted me today after reading that post…she must have Googled herself or someone was checking on her…amazing. Am so happy as have long wondered about her and her girls. She is in Korea of all places…looks like we are not the only ones who have travelled and left people behind.
I am on the second strip of my afghan and have gathered together quite a bit of wool in the subtle heather like shades of this colourway and have found I have nowhere near enough in the brights colourway so the hunt is on in thrift shops and sales for those.
Tags: broken hip mending, Kaffe fassett inspired knitting, knitting, knitting blankets, knitting with hundreds of different colours, Silver wedding incidents, who forgot the silver wedding?
magikquilter September 21st, 2008
A little more knitting on my Kaffe homage afghan. About two thirds of the way up this strip.
Tags: Kaffe Fassett inspired, knitting blankets and afghans
magikquilter September 19th, 2008
Fabulous thrift find …inspiration for future upcycled skirts made from various sources. This is from New Zealand designer Annah Stretton who has a business turnover at present of ten million dollars per year! Her clothes are now sold worldwide and in some select boutiques in Australia. Have I got an eye for fashion or what, although I really surprised myself this time as this was mixed in with the average skirts ….not a designer item in sight. These little beauties [her skirts] retail for between $260 and $360 New Zealand new and I paid $7.50 for it. This deserves an entry to itself under the category of Spectacular Thrift Find.
Next post will show the amazing unused vintage sheets and tablecloths I found at the same store over two days….don’t go too far away from a computer.
Tags: Annah Stretton skirt, designer upcycling fashion, patchwork upcycled skirt
magikquilter September 14th, 2008
When I was shopping with my husband for our son’s birthday gifts I saw two sets of Marie Clare tea towels which I thought would be ideal for my Tea Towel Totes range. They had two colourways…pink with soft turquoise and fawn or beige with soft green. I sewed them last night and was quite pleased with the result. I lined the tote with soft cotton in soft turquoise and now I have only to find some pretty buttons to sew onto the area where the straps join the bag.
Songbird is from a set of tea towels I found some weeks ago at K Mart…they are strong traditional linen type tea towels and have come up even better than anticipated. This is really a case of something looking 100% better in real life. Both of these totes are fun and look good and extremely useful but are not going to be financially viable as a sourse of income for me as they take the same amount of time to make as one of my more luscious upholstery style bags, but I am committed to making them as they are good for the environment and we all need pretty shopping bags. I shall probably stick to making totes out of the fabric I already have though as that actually works out less expensive in some cases as a lot of that is recycled.
Tags: KMart tea towels, Marie Clare tea towels, sewing with tea towels, tea towel totes
magikquilter September 6th, 2008
This handbag and teh co-ordinating tote shopping bag were made using some wonderful Boussac of France home decor weight polished cotton. The blooms on this fabric are up to 20 cm in size! I was so thrilled that I was able to save this fabric…yes it was another one of those fabric scrap bags that the charity workers were going to throw out! I paid a certain amount for the bag of scraps and although there were a lot of unwanted bits and pieces this was a huge find….about 1.5 metres of it if my memory is correct.
The contrasting strips and flap are from the Waverley Jacquard sample book which Kara gave me earlier this year while the bamboo handles are from a second hand bag which was in poor condition although the handles are like new. I decided to make a giant tote so that it is easier when shopping in the city to throw everything into the tote bag, keeping the handbag for wallets lipsticks and all the magical things we women have in our bags….camera in my case. These bags are entirely my own design, devised around the recycled fabric that was available to me at the time.
Nestling amongst the blooms is my mother of pearl butterfly necklace and the stunning pink and green medallion style necklace, both of which were thrifted locally at St Vincent de Paul stores for less than twenty dollars. Now I just can’t wait for summer to use these bags but winter has set in again with a vengeance…it was 12 degrees celcius today which is really cold for here. In Australia most of our energies are spent keeping cool in summer and as a nation we may have to really consider how to better insulate our homes against not only the heat but the increasingly colder winters. But that is way in the future…in the short term I just want to use my new bags!
Tags: Boussac of France floral artisan made tote bag, handmade shopping bag and handbag set, reclaimed fabric, upcycled handbag
- Accessory Addiction , Bags , Creations , Design , Fabric , Jewellery , Patchwork , Reclaimed recycled reused , Sustainable Creations , Thrifting , Vintage Shopping
