A Handmade Childhood: Hipster Wall Art

I know I said I was taking a break from the sewing projects while we painted the nursery, but I did want to share this project that I originally did ages ago and for some reason can't find as a blog post.

Since we live in Asheville I felt it was more than appropriate to add some hipster art to the baby's nursery. The plan is to eventually have a wall devoted to appliqued, embroidered etc. art in embroidery hoops of different sizes. I think it will look fun and hopefully will be visually stimulating for the little sprout.

This applique project is made easy by the fusible bonding that keeps the shape in place. If you are not much of an artist, then look for some silhouette clip art that you can print and trace. These would also make very cool patchwork blocks. Look for retro background fabric for a true vintage loving hipster effect.

I chose to make this tutorial as a video as an experiment on a snow day earlier this year.
You Will Need:
 - Embroidery hoops
- Fusible bonding
- Plain cotton
- Patterned background fabric
- Thread in either plain color of cotton or color of background (see photos for the different effect)
-Iron
-Needles or sewing machine
Get everything you need here

Repurposed Flour Sack Laundry Bags

This project is so easy and requires so little skill, I am not even sure I can call it a craft project. Yet it is the simplest ideas that are often the best. These laundry bags are the perfect size for baby clothes and because they hang up save you much needed space.

I have a love of vintage flour sacks, the designs are usually fun and random, I mean look at the ones below. I bought these at a local vintage store for $7 each, but you can get them cheaper (and more expensive!) from EBay or Etsy. I personally would never pay more than $10 for one and even then it would have to be a pretty special flour sack!

You also need an embroidery hoop. I used an 8 inch because I happened to have one lying around. You could easily stretch to a 9 or 10 inch.  These sacks were  inches in width.
Ok here's the hard part :)

- get you embroidery hoop and separate the two pieces 

- put the hoop over the sack at the top

- open up the sack and fold a couple inches of the opening over the loop

- play around with how it gathers so that you can see the picture most clearly

- put the outside piece of the embroidery hoop over the opening with the screw at the back

- tighten the loop

I found that the screw sat perfectly on my door hook but you might need to add a loop depending on where you hang the bag.

You may wonder once it's full whether the bag might slide out of the hoop. I checked, it doesn't. The friction of the cotton and wood from the hoop create a nice grip and you just have to make sure you fold enough of the opening over. See below.

I plan to make a second one so that I can divide light and dark laundry. I will post more ridiculously easy flour sack projects soon!

Treasury Tuesday: My Orange Valentine

'My Orange Valentine' by L1zW

Orange is a warm colour and a sexy smell. Awaken your senses with colours, tastes and fragrances that will ignite passion. Yum!

As you can my re-ignited love affair with Etsy has resulted in a romantic, steamy treasury list for Valentine's Day. Husband take note.

Storeyshop $6.00	VintageRethrea... $16.00	EmilyBalivet $15.00	dancinggrassho... $6.00
roufe $35.00	SimplyTempted $6.00	FusionSweets $8.99	BiscottiQueen $6.00
sandynejedly $12.00	Souperspices $4.50	lollidreams $27.00	themuddymoose $4.50
thedirtyhousew... $4.50	TheMoongladeGa... $1.49	FusionSweets $6.50	ADKaromatherap... $4.00

Generated using Treasury HTML code generator by Whale Shark Websites.

Save the world, buy a ktichy bag

This is my new listing on Etsy, a vintage style shopper made from oganic cotton that's fairtrade. I love these bags and have lots of them myself. They fold up nice and small so you can carry them around and look so much nicer than plastic bags.

I also use mine to carry packed lunches to work.

Crazy for Silk

Below is a picture of the first example from my crazy patchwork quilt. I am using vintage kimono silks. I love these silks, the patterns are stunning. I decided on crazy patchwork because silk is fiddly and I didn't feel ready to try and make them into accurate blocks, though I might try that next with fusible interfacing.

Next step is to embroider the patch.