Boro Stitching

So I have a new obsession. It seems to be the "new" thing on my Pinterest feed. Come to find out, it is relaxing and forgiving. While I love perfection, it is nice to just go with the flow now and then.

I have (among other things) an extremely large basket of denim scraps.

Needing a small project to do at night while watching Dr Who (yep, one of my favorite shows) I decided on some little pouches done Boro Style.
Here are two more. Both are available in my Etsy store. Just click on the picture.

The appliques were from cut from various fabrics and a fusible interfacing was ironed to the back to hold everything down while I stitched. I used a heavy cotton embroidery thread for the stitching. 

These are great little projects that should only take a night to finish up. Think gift card holders, cell phone pouch, jewelry pouch. I'm thinking of doing some Ipad covers and some larger purses. 

To see more pictures of these pouches, just click on the picture and it will take you to my Etsy store. I post extra pictures there. 

Want to learn more? Here are a few books from Amazon to help you out. ( They do throw me some pennies if you purchase one. So thanks in advance if you do.)

As always, keep stitching and thanks for visiting!

Another Fine Mess I'm in....

 I have been so lazy bad lately. I haven't posted in waaay too long. Too much going on and then days where I just can't get myself to get anything done at all.
I would try to make it my new years resolution to post more often... but you know how that goes.

Anyway, I had so much fun making this skirt that I had to make another.


Skirt one....

I decided a wrap skirt would be perfect for different sized ladies.

A plain wrap skirt made with upcycled white t-shirt sections. The fabric was oh so soft. I thought it would be perfect for inside a messy and very scrappy skirt.

So now to find all the wonderful fabrics to make it shine.

Yep, piles of lovely lace and other wonderful fabrics.
So then it starts to look like this...

Piece by piece it get sewed on a long strip.

 Total from start to finish was three 5 hour days. So it is a bit of work. Not to mention dealing with booboo's  challenges.

Now to add a little more to hide any open spots. These laces are the expensive ones. You can thank two now gone over the rainbow bridge puppies for having these available. So much for my expensive vintage lace tablecloth.

Okay, so some of the special stuff is new. But check this out!!

Yeah baby. This is the good stuff. A table cloth made from this nowdays would be upwards of $1000. I use it sparingly in my creations. I'll be sad when it is all gone. Thank you Scooby and Zoey.

So here is the finished product. TaDa!!!

I paired it up with this colorful flannel shirt I got for Christmas. I thought this would make a perfect fun western wedding outfit. White lace leggings, boots and a white hat... to die for!!

Of course both are for sale in my etsy shop!
Skirt 1 link... http://etsy.me/1SqrCeo

and Skirt 2 link... http://etsy.me/207fmki
So that is all for this time. I will be working on some smaller fun things soon.

Enjoy!

Blue Jeans Upcycle...A work in progress

Being a child of the 60's patched blue jeans are nothing new to me. I use to sew all kinds of stuff on my jeans. Crochet flowers were my go to most of the time. Oh, I was soooo cool.

Fast forward many years.... I'm needing some new inspiration. I keep hearing from family and friends that I need to do patchwork jeans. Ok, I get the message!  After a bit on Pinterest for inspiration I came up with these. I LOVE the waistband.

I couldn't find a good source to credit for the picture. So all I can do is say, check out the thread on Pinterest and maybe you can find the original source. I could not. So sorry who ever you are... but your jeans are AWESOME.

So here is where I begin...

 Boxes and baskets filled with fabrics some with Wonder-under already ironed on, some not. I dump everything out and start looking for cool stuff.

I used my seam ripper to cut the outside leg seams. That way I can use my sewing machine to sew everything down and sew it back up again with no one knowing the difference!

I found this really awesome flower from a Kaffe Fassett fabric I had cut out long time ago. It was so big I just couldn't decide how to use it. These jeans begged me for it. Yes, the clothes do talk to me. They can be so bossy!

I ironed it on the front of one pant leg.

I'm still working on what other things to add. But this is my base inspiration.

So I also needed to deal with the waistband. That was my favorite part of the Pinterest jeans.

A bit of un-stitching was in order. I needed the belt-loops to get out of the way! So I used my seam ripper to cut the threads on the top part of the belt-loop only. I kept the bottom so I could just sew the top back up without having to try to figure out where it use to be.
Now for the fun part. I measured the waistband and cut pieces of fabric a little longer than needed. ( I'll cut it down later. They all had Wonder-under on them so I ironed them down the best I could.

Note: I used a Teflon ironing sheet to keep the sticky stuff from getting on my ironing board.

I will messy sew them down later..... To Be Continued.....

My favorite creation so far!

I created this dress a little while ago and I have to say. It came out really cute! I took it to a craft show last weekend and if it was a larger size, I could have sold it ten times over.

You can see more pictures of it on my Etsy Store. I made it from some men's shirtsleeves and leftovers from another dress.