Transcripts
1. Hello!: Hello. My name is Ruth. Welcome to my class. I love textiles, and I also love collecting and
repurposing old fabrics, vintage fabrics and old clothes. I repurpose these fabrics
into bags and pouches, which I sell in my
fox's shop in the UK. I embellish these
bags with lace, old buttons, beads, and
a lot of slow stitching. This is a glimpse into my stash, fabrics I have collected
from charity shops and flea markets or I have
been given by friends. It's amazing the amount of fabric there is in
a shirt sleeve. This is a whole bag of scraps. I never throw anything out. These are examples of some beautiful lace I have
picked up mainly in France, but sometimes in charity
shops and flea markets. This is the pouch I'm going
to show you how to make. It's made entirely
with vintage fabrics, leftover fabric scraps
from other projects, some old lace and
buttons and beads. Let's have a closer
look at your project.
2. Project : Your project is to collect
old fabrics, lace, buttons, and beads, and make a trifle
pouch using this method. You can ask family and friends
to start with and have a look around the house
to see what you can find. Try and buy as
little as possible. Decide what you want the
pouch for as this will help you with the measurements and therefore how much
material you will need. Mine is designed for my glasses, but it is a little
large for them. Think also of
colors and threads. Do you want contrasting colors? Do you want to keep to a
particular color palette? Threads are important as different weights will create different textures and interest. Have a browse in the local hari too shops and see
what they have.
3. Materials: This project is all about using up scraps and old
pieces of fabric and buttons and beads
and threads that you can pick up from charity
shops and flea markets. You can even ask
your friends and family if they have anything
they don't use anymore. I never throw out anything, as you can see from the
first picture here, which is a box of scraps, leftover projects, and old
pieces of clothing that I've kept and use when I want something for a
particular project. Old cotton shirts
and pillowcases are great for larger
pieces of fabric. Also think about old
clothes and curtains, duv covers, anything that
still has some value. I have used cotton wadding
here to pad my pouch. Only because I had it leftover
from another project. If you're using the
pouch for something like glasses or a mobile
phone or tablet, then it's really
essential to pad it. Perhaps you could use an old towel or a quilted
jacket or blanket. It's always something
that you could use. I will add a list of the equipment I've used
in the description.
4. Measuring, Cutting, Placing, Pinning: I'm measuring the piece of
material on my cutting mat. I want to make a
pouch for my glasses, and it needs to be
big enough to cover, fold over the glasses,
and create seams. This piece of green fabric will be the lining to my pouch. I'm cutting the wadding
to the same size. As you can see, I play
around with the pieces. It's called auditioning until I'm happy with the placements. I was very particular with this little piece
of fabric because I wanted this shade of green to show as it carries
through the design, and I felt it was
really important. This last little space posed a problem
because I didn't want to use any more of the fabric
that I had already used. I had to look in my stash
to see what I could find. I found a lovely piece
of red and gold brocade, which was left over
from a handbag I had made and a piece of cotton
printed with fruit, which had great colors on it. I think this demonstrates
that it's good to be flexible and not to be too fixed on
a certain goal or idea. Make sure you pin
each piece into the wading and try and catch
the corners and edges. This is where the fabric
is likely to move. When you're happy
with everything, then you can begin stitching.
5. Practise Stitches: [No Speech]
6. Kantha Stitching: Here you can see me stitching all my little pieces of
fabric using a cantha stitch. I'm using ordinary
machine cotton, and I've chosen colors which blend in with the
background pieces. You could use any
color you want, white or a more neutral color or even brightly colored
contrasting colors. It really depends on the
effect that you want to have. It's entirely up to you. You can also decide if you want your stitches to go in
the same direction. In this close up, you can
see that I've changed directions several times and I've also used three
different colors, orange, red, and a soft green. This adds interest and
texture to your piece. Make sure your needle is
sharp enough to go through several layers of fabric because some of your cotton
pieces will overlap, and then you also have
your wading underneath. Also try and catch wherever
possible the edges of your small pieces of fabric as this will
help them to lie flat. This might seem a long
process at first, but really it's very
relaxing and meditative, and you will get into your flow and you will enjoy it immensely. Just take your time. Don't worry if your stitches are
all wibbly wobbly. You'll see that mine are not straight,
they're not perfect. The whole idea is to
enjoy the process and you will end up with
a beautiful piece of fabric that you can then
make into something special.
7. Stitching : All the stitches I'm using are included in the practice
stitching lesson. I have mainly chosen to use whip stitch because
it's quick and easy and you can
change the size and direction of the thread to
create a different effect. There are one or
two other stitches, herringbone stitch
and cross stitch, lazy daisy stitch,
and a running stitch. I've also added a
button and some beads. Again, these are included in the practice stitching lesson. If you want to use more
decorative stitches to attach your pieces of fabric, that's entirely up
to you. Go for it. A If you want to practice some more stitches, I have a skill
share class called contemporary slow
Stitch sampler, which is especially
for beginners. Have a look at that.
There's a lot more stitches included in that class. All my stitching is
done intuitively. I don't have a plan, except perhaps some
fabrics and some colors. I think because we're
not following a pattern, it gives us freedom, which means we don't have the same fear of
making a mistake. I hope you will
enjoy my process. And please now follow the video and see how
I put things together. Oh. Oh. Oh.
8. Embellishments : This for me is the fun
part when we get to add all those lovely
pieces of lace and fabric and buttons and beads to create a lovely
textured final piece. You will notice that I'm
constantly trying things out, moving pieces about,
trying them in different directions or
in different places. I'm looking at the overall
effect with the pouch open, but it's also really
important to fold a pouch in its final position
because then you will see how each part of
the pouch will look, you will notice in this video
where I actually change the places of two
pieces because I don't like where they are
when the pouch is closed. For the embellishments, I've
looked through my stash and found pieces of old lace
and some fabric pieces, some buttons and beads, and I've used some of
the fabric that was originally used in the
making of the pouch. The lace pieces I pick up in charity shops and flea markets, and they've often been used as old tray cloths or trims
for lampshades or clothes, and they're all really useful
for this sort of project. If you're just
starting out and don't want to spend a lot
of money on threads, you will easily find skeins
of embroidery floss or crochet cotton or even fine wool in charity shops and
in market stalls. A lot of the threads
that I use have come from here and only
cost me a few pennies. You will probably also notice I'm constantly
smoothing the fabric, patting the pieces down to make sure everything
is lying flat. There's nothing
worse than having it bufled and you've just
spent hours stitching it. So make sure it's
flat as you go along. Oh. Here, I'm cutting out a motif from a printed piece of cotton
I picked up somewhere. I like the color, and I like the contrast with
the background. Don't be frightened to
cut up whole pieces of cotton or even old
does or tray cloths. They're not doing anything else. They're sitting in a drawer, and if you can use them to add to your piece,
then that's fantastic.
9. Assembling : To assemble your pouch, place the lining against the wadding so that
right sides of the front of your pouch and the right side of the
lining are facing outwards. Make sure all the
edges are matching. And if there's any
excess cotton or wading, trim it away at this point. We will join the layers together
using a blanket stitch, and I have chosen to use pearly cotton size eight because it's quite
thick and sturdy. Carefully stitch
along the edges, making sure you catch both
sides in the blanket stitch. This stitch should
be strong enough for most purposes of this pouch. But in the next lesson, I will show you an alternative which you could use if you wish. Fold your pouch into position and clip it or pin it in place.
10. Alternative Binding: You might prefer to bind your pouch with
pieces of fabric, as I'm demonstrating here. You don't, of course, need to blanket stitch the edges first. Cut pieces of fabric
about an inch wide as it needs to go over the edge comfortably so you
can stitch them down. You can use any pieces of fabric you like
and in any length. I've chosen to use some that I've already used in my pouch. Pin or clip each piece
as you go along, making sure it's as
even as possible and also making sure
you cover join. You don't have to worry
too much about raw edges, though I did fold
over the edge at the corners for extra strength
and to keep it neater. It might have been a good
idea to do this part first. It would have been a lot easier. It's now just a
matter of stitching. I've chosen to use a whip stitch as it's quick and simple, but you could use
a more decorative stitch if you wanted to. I think you'll agree this gives a nice effect to
finishing your pouch. Oh. If you didn't finish
off your edges with a blanket stitch before
adding your scraps of fabric, then you need to strengthen your seam with a running
stitch as I am doing here. Oh Oh
11. Wrap Around: I wanted to show you some ideas for a wrap
around fastening. We will stitch the
ribbon or cord onto the pouch and then wrap around it and secure
it with a knot. So I've got some ideas here. This is the edging from a
shirt, where the buttons are. So it's nice and
strong and firm. I've used this a lot in my bags. This is cord that I've taken off an old bag, a
drawstring bag. This is some cord and I have
no idea where I got it, but it's nice and flexible and it's got a nice sheen to
it, and it's a good color. I can go with most things. This one and this one,
a leftover ribbon from Christmastime
that were on a card, and so I always keep everything. And this one is some that I ordered for a
particular project, and I had some leftover. It's very narrow, but
it's very pretty as well. I changes color. The other thing I'm
going to show you is how to use a piece
of fabric like this. If you've got a sleeve from a shirt or part
of a pillowcase, something like that,
you can make a strap, and I'm going to video it and show you in
the next lesson. As you can see, I've chosen the red tape as my
wraparound binding. I've attached it using teeny
tiny whip stitches around the rectangle and place the tape in the middle of the
front of the pouch. I thought this old button
would add a nice decoration.
12. Hand Made Strap : Start by folding
your piece of fabric into use a hot iron
and press it firmly. Then open it out
and fold each end into the middle and
press each side again. And then you're going to fold it over again into the middle. So your 4 " of fabric
now becomes 1 " wide. You can, of course, make your strap whatever
width you prefer. Just remember the
original piece of fabric must be four
times the final width. Press it all firmly again. Next, you will stitch it
together using a running stitch. This is similar to the canvas stitch that you've used already. If you want, you
can stitch along the other side to give a
more professional finish. This is a very handy
way to make a strap, especially for handbag
and you can reinforce it with interfacing if you
want a stronger strap.
13. Thank You: I do hope you have
enjoyed this class, and it's given you
something to think about. It's amazing what you can
make from old clothes, old fabrics, buttons, beads,
soups, clips, fastenings. The list is endless. Thank you so much
for joining me, and I hope to see
some of your work, your projects posted to the
class in the near future.
Ruth Shanley, Creative, teacher, explorer
