Once a Tie - Now a Kanzashi Pin!

A Friend gave me some wonderful vintage goodies to be creative with.  Amongst the stash was her husband's wedding tie.  So I decided to give it back to her - just in a different form!

I unpicked the stitching down the back of the tie and opened it out.  I pressed it flat and cut 6 squares from the fabric [My squares were 7,5cm or 3in square. If you are making one yourself you will have to make sure that you can fit 6 squares out of the tie, so you may have to make the squares a little smaller if the tie is narrower!]

I decided to use the 'wrong' side of the fabric.  I thought it would make a prettier brooch or pin.  I folded each square in half.  At this point I ironed the squares to get a nice crisp fold. Then I folded the points down towards the central point.

I turned the square over and folded the 2 side ends in at the back., thus starting to form the petal. I turned the petal right side facing again and...

...secured it with a pin.I trimmed off the extra pieces sticking out at the bottom of the petal and then threaded all the petals together with a needle and thread.

I then joined the circle and stitched to secure the petals on the top and then underneath too. I attached a brooch pin underneath and sewed a button on top to cover all the raw ends and the stitching.

The woven tie fabric was ideal to make a Kanzashi flower pin! Click on the pics to see a much larger view.  Thanks Elaine!

Inspiration!

Not some of my own work today - but some food for inspiration!

I've been itching to paint some furniture again.

Belgian photographer Diane Hendrikx pics have made me even itchy-er!

Freshly Found Applique

I LOVE surprises - and on Sunday I was completely surprised with this delightful gift from my friend Sue Lichter.  She made this hand towel in commemoration of the recent launch of the Freshly Found Online Boutique!

 

Sue is truly one of the most talented and prolific creative crafters I have ever met.  At the moment she is doing a lot of machine embroidery work and has been doing some amazing work on paper!

Visit her blog here to get a hint of some of her creativity.  Her work is also for sale at Marcella Mia!  ...Thanks so much Sue!

An Apartment Thank You!

Thanks to Apartment Therapy for featuring my knit patchwork blanket!

It's mostly folded up now that it's summer - but  I must say it still ranks as one of my favourite possessions!

An Italian Scarf in a Japanese Way!

This week there are going to be a few thank yous on Freshly Found!  The first one goes to Linda - of Marcella Mia in Hillcrest and of the blog of Prim on a Whim!  It's because of her I was able to make this lovely Furoshiki Bag from a gorgeous vintage scarf.

 The scarf belonged to her mother who used to own Marcella - a landmark gift and decor shop in our area! Linda has recently re-opened her late mom's shop and combined it with her own creative interests.  I decided to go in and introduce myself to Linda the other day.  What a delightful meeting - and because she had read my blog and knows what I love to do - I walked away with a packet full of her mom's old vintage scarves!

I decided to tie this one into a decorative Furoshiki storage bag for some of my wool.  - Practical Storage and it shows the scarf off too!

Thank you so much Linda - I look forward to popping in one bright day soon to take some pics of your shop!

Fabric Flower Pins

I have been working on some fabric flowers - using the Japanese Kanzashi method as base.

These ones are being made into fabric pins to adorn some bags I have made from Vintage Embroidery pieces.
In the top flower, I used a button in the centre, and in the bottom flower I used a rosette of frayed fabric.  I am so enjoying making these and am hoping to make many more!

Hopefully I will show you the completed bags next week!

Do, re, mi, fa, so, la.....Tee

I love the story behind the Musical T shirts in my shop.They were designed and printed by a Septuagenarian [is that a word meaning 70-year old?] lady living near my home.

 Jennifer Stone managed to get the musical screen printing of the fabric done here in Durban [alongside orders for a well-known chain store!]  She is passionate about music and making things! I admire her spunk.
The fun bit for me was creating the packaging - Slipcovers made from vintage LPs!

Each T-shirt order will come wrapped in a custom made vintage sleeve - maybe an Afrikaans 'Traan van Vaarwel' or Lenny Dee's 'Dee-lirious' or even a Gogo Girl! It will raise a smile and could even bring back some memories!

The black and white Unisex Musical T's available in s,m or l!

Celebration of Bull Dogs!

I love Bull Dogs!  I am not talking about the canine variety. [I prefer German Shepherds.] 

I mean the shiny, silver stationery clip variety.

I just bought myself another fresh new batch - I use them extensively in my kitchen to seal opened packets of muesli, bayleaves, raisins, cranberries, etc. etc!

I use bulldog clips all over my home - they keep the notices on my notice board, the crochet work on my screen, my pile of  patterns together,.................!

A New Cushion Cover!

This is a simple pillow cover I've just made from a thrifted cotton knit jersey! 

I hand appliqued a vintage crocheted cotton doily on the front and backed the cover with matching stone coloured hopsack linen.

It has a lovely squishy feather inner and fastens at the base with a zip! A quick and satisfying project!

Floral Introduction!

I love the white and coloured handcrafted flower on the right of this table scape.  It is another 1 of the products in the Freshly Found Online Boutique.  

The bloom is a unique combination of Sandile Sithole's design and my own love of white highlighted with colour!

 An ethnic craft with a fresh look!

Thanks to Siblingmine and South of Sahara for plugs for Freshly Found Boutique! See more pics on Flickr

Weekend Wrap up

I started my weekend on Friday morning at 4am. A group of us went to Summerveld to take some early morning pics and have some breakfast.

When we arrived the mist was SO thick that we had to abandon our plans to capture the sunrise and captured the horses-in-the-mist instead!

The thick fog on Friday gave way to bright sunshine on Saturday. We visited the I Heart Market in Durban.  At least 2 3 4 5 7 9  10 other Creative KZN bloggers did too! Dinkum Design,  Cupcake Couture, Coelho Culture, Pippa Lynch, Miss Molly, Ask Ashe, M is fir Moxie,  Luckyou,  Siblingmine and Glossary were all there!

Sunday took me out of my comfort zone into the bright sun and large crowd at the Goldfish Concert in the Botanical Gardens in Durban!

Lots of inspiration - now back to a good week of work!

Holes!

Yesterday I popped into my local thrift store and could not resist buying these well rusted vintage graters.  How fortunate for me they are filled with holes!  They came at just the right time!

Because -Linda Sue of All I Ever Wanted invited me to take part in a Week Word Contest today and the word is today is "Hole"!

Holes + light = Pattern. Very nice!
NB Do not pick the grater up by the handle after the flame is lit!!! It gets very hot very quickly! I know!

Festive Garden!

The Christmas decorations from the Freshly Found Online Boutique looked stunning in my gently overcast garden today.

This set of 6 ornaments are available in the shop here and a slightly larger set of 6 stars here. Find out more about their creator Sandile Sithole here. 

If you order these ethnic decorations now they should arrive in plenty of time for Christmas!

Early WIP

I have an attraction to old how-to books [especially crochet ones]
I love recycling!
So...

 I am using a pattern from this vintage crochet book as a guide to make a hat.  The skeins of yarn that I am crocheting with are video tape! I unwound the reel, then rewound the tape into skeins, which I twisted to make them crinkly.  This makes the tape much easier to work with.

Now I am looking for some Milliner's wire.  I'll let you know how it turns out!

Book Lamps

Other very clever people out there are folding books too!

The Creative Consultancy of MN*LS have a range of handfolded antique book lamps! 

via Designsponge