A carry bag using off-cuts and fabric inspired by nature

When I purchase pants, I usually need to shorten the leg and find it hard to throw out the off-cut. Over the years these off-cuts have been re-purposed into cleaning clothes, fabric buckets, pin cushions, zippered purses or cut up and stitched into a quilt... How do you utilise offcuts? With this off-cut, I particularly liked the stitch detail and wanted to keep it intact. The pant leg was reinforced with fusible wadding and became the flap on a message style bag. The lining is leftover shirting fabric, and the body of the bag is using one of my nature inspired fabrics called 'bottle tops round 2'. 

The BottleTop Trees located at Lake Annand Park in Bright Street, Toowoomba inspired this fabric. We had a brief stop at Lake Annand Park while out day tripping, the shape and size of this unique tree caught my eye; I've since learnt the tree in this park is thought to be over 50 years old and is listed on the Natural Trust Registry.   

When you select a textile design, you have over twenty varieties of fabric that the design can be printed onto, making it really easy to get the right weight and type of material for your chosen project. For this project, I have used organic cotton and interfaced it. The linen canvas is my favourite fabric for bags and really lovely to sew.

Sustainability is at the heart of the Spoonflower process, and less than a thimble full of water is used to print 5 yards of fabric. Being able to combine offcuts with something new that has used sustainable manufacturing methods is quite satisfying.


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photos & re-purposed magazine

As the creative overlap of studio and kitchen increases so too does my collection of foodie magazines. With this comes new imagery along with new inspirations and new recipes to make, to eat, to share, to sketch, to photograph.

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- Theodore Dreiser-

cut, paste & easy foam stamps

Like so many of us, I enjoy magazines. I enjoy the first read, then re-read and then eventually giving them away, keeping them or ripping them up and re-purposing the content into a collage, notebook covers etc. I used a handful of these collected pages into a couple of cards I made earlier this week. As well as the re-purposed pages, I also incorporated stamped patterns. 

The stamps were made using "Foamstastic" a self-adhesive craft foam that is easily cut with scissors. It can also be cut with an e-xacto knife for more delicate work. The craft foam is very easy to work with. Once the shapes are cut, peel the paper off at the back and stick shapes onto a piece of cardboard (I used scraps of matting board). Once you have your stamp assembled, use an ink pad to apply colour to your stamp and stamp away. Remember to re-apply ink between each stamping.

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it's a wrap

desserts are made, milk and cookies are out for Santa and I've almost finished the wrapping

firstly made the wrapping paper by re-purposing several magazine pages 

 stitching butchers paper then decorating with nylon rope & a piece of ribbon

 stitch was used in place of glue and also used as decoration

Merry Christmas

pencil tin challenge

   one discarded pencil tin was cut, drilled and trimmed

a collection of signatures prepared

these were joined together using Coptic Stitch

to make a little note book

We Broadstroke girls had another little challenge - create something with the discarded pencil tin. We each had a tin and we each created something quite different. I was particularly drawn to the colors of the pencil image and used this as my inspiration when gathering together materials and ideas. 

On Saturday 31st August 2013 a collection of our challenges and works will be on display as part of 

the Inner City Circles biennial show - Quilt & Textile Temptations at

Milton State School, Bayswater Street, Milton 10am-3pm

creative playtime & card making

 A few of our family and friends Birthdays are celebrated throughout the month of July, so I've been enjoying some card making. Packing tape, old / discarded magazines, scissors, glue stick, a spoon and card stock (card used 190gsm)

is what I've used to create these cards

 spread the tape over the magazine page, use the back of the spoon to burnish the tape down and rip away

 If it all works perfectly you lift the top layer of the paper away and end up with strips similar to the above

Cut these strips into lengths the same size as the card front your using. Mix n match the pieces until you have a combination you like. Use the glue stick to adhere the pieces in place. I also put a layer of packing tape over the top and folded the excess tape to the back which helped to seal everything including the edges. Before adding the final layer of tape you could also finger rub metallic paint over the lumps and bumps that often occurs when working with packing tape.

I've used this packing tape technique to create the decorative covers on the
Ginger & Mandarin Marmalade

re-purposed doily + potholder

I have acquired a few doilies over the years some as gifts, a couple thrift ed etc. A few of them are ripped or stained in sections and I had worn out my potholder. So I decided to re-purpose one of the doilies, combine it with a couple scraps of check fabric and make a new potholder. 

Using block 'Double Square' from the book Around the Block by Judy Hopkins as my inspiration
added a small border to the block

layered and quilted everything with a couple layers of wool wadding in the center and finally

added a binding which incorporated a loop

taking notes

When I'm surfing the net, preparing a blog post or just enjoying browsing through my photo folders, I'm always looking for scrap paper or something to jot notes onto. I'd sorted through some paperwork earlier in the week and had a pile of scrap paper. Today I turned the scrap paper into a couple of little booklets, modified a box to hold the booklets in, covered the box with a couple of magazine pages and now I have something to keep nice n handy next to the computer.