Refashioned denim shorts to funky printed skirt

I got these pieces from a friend's stall at the Christmas Craft Fair, the fabulous Liz Martin.  Not the use it was intended for (napkins), but as soon as I saw them I wanted them on a skirt! I often look at people's craft and want to wear it rather than use it for what it was intended.

 There are two different designs but they match very nicely.

 I had half a pair of denim shorts leftover from another project that were the inspiration for this skirt.

 So I chopped that extra bit of leg off so that it was less uneven.

 And was even left with a pocket on the back!

I used pinking shears on the edges because they were going to be too hard to overlock to seal the edges. Given that I'll be sewing over the edges, they should be ok.

 I started randomly pinning the napkins on. They're a good length, about at the knee.

 Some gaps emerging, but that can be dealt with.

Another test will be how see-through they are... but they passed! 

I needed something to patch the gaps so  I went into my stash. This is what I came out with.

I like how they look together.

Once I had the concept and general design finalised, I un-pinned it all so that I could overlock the edges of the material sections.

After that it was a matter of pinning it all in place again. I did it in a way that I could do long, overlapping seams, rather than lots of small seams. By pinning it all straight up it made sure that I covered all of the gaps. I noted that some of the napkins overlapped: it is was significant then I would have trimmed them so that I could save the scraps for something else It wasn't too bad in the end, so I left it.

The big piece of the echidna fabric was perfect for layering, because it was an offcut with damaged print.

 Accidentally sewed some of the pocket down, so I had to unpick that part and hand sew it instead.

 Finished skirt on.

 It was a little bit loose (the pants were several years old) so I took it in a little.

  Very happy with this project!

Indigo Dyeing a Scarf

At the end of 2016 I did an indigo dyeing workshop at Woodford Folk Festival. It was lots of fun, and produced a scarf that I was very happy with. 

Indigo is an organic compound that produces a strong blue colour. It is used in traditional textiles in Japan, with stunning results. Essentially you clamp, fold or stitch your fabric, like you do with tie dye, so that the dye can't reach certain areas. This is what creates the pattern.

Being a modern workshop, we took our cotton scarf and used what came to hand. This was mine: I used beads to create round shapes, and a line of  strong bulldog clips to hopefully make a repeating line pattern down the full length of the scarf.

 This was my friend's scarf: there are tiles onto the folds, clamped in place to make shapes as well.

 And this was my mum's: she wound it around a tin can to create a different effect again.

You don't dip indigo for very long. It is a process where you dip it multiple times to make the colour stronger. One dip resulted in very pale blue; four dips in a stronger blue. I dipped mine as many times as I could: the pots we were using gradually ran out of dye as the group of 10 in the workshop dipped.

My final product: 

You can see the striations from the bulldog clips, which was exactly what I wanted! And the little bubbles from the beads on either end of the scarf were cute. This picture was when it was still wet. When it had been washed a couple of times and dried, it actually looked like this:

A lovely baby shower present for a friend :)