Category Archives: Our Crafts

Fabric of The Week 19 – Upcycled Shirts

. Fabric of The Week, Givie Sews

Fabric of The Week

This is one of our favourite projects and something we love doing as we love an upcycling project! This turns unloved shirts into useful and fun Pongoes!

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The designing of the Pongoes was great fun – we sketched designs (basically just taking our pencils for a walk) and then used that pattern to make them up.

The making was also fairly simple – cut out two identical shapes and stich a mouth (using the machine and a range of stitches!) and sew round, leaving a hole for stuffing. The inside of the Pongoes is carbon and it is designed to soak up any smells at the bottom of your shoe!

The eyes are different buttons and I love the vintage gold and navy buttons best!

As ever these are avaliable for sale on our Folksy shop!

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Fabric of The Week – Stork

. Fabric of The Week, Givie Sews, Uncategorized

Fabric of The Week

This weeks fabric of the week has a very sentimental attachment. Not only is it upcycled from one of Lane’s favourite dresses ever (had to be upcycled cos it got ripped) it was also the first fabric we used when we decided to set up Givielane and used it as part of a diary cover.

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Our lovely Stork is meant as a gift for a new arrival, to be hung in the nursery. Givie has made a lot of these as a unique gift personalising them with the baby’s name. The name is embrodiered on using a Brother sewing machine.

We particularly love the dangly legs with the big felt feet and that dotty beak. ALthough the patter and colours may not be what we traditionally associate with a nursery there is something clean and fresh about the flowers and the colours are bold and appealing

We thought this was a particularly relevant make for this week’s royal news! Who knows maybe Pippa may pop onto to our Folksy shop to buy one for baby number 3!

A range of storks are avaliable on our Folksy site.

Fabric off the Week 14 – Scissor Fabric

. Fabric of The Week, Givie Sews . , ,

Fabric of The Week

This black and white fabric featuring scissors just had to be used for a sewing accessory of some kind. Picked this up as a remnant in Mandors in Glasgow.

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Thought we should look at making something that ironed out the wee annoying things about sewing -like what to do with pins you remove from fabric while stitching and those threads you cut off – not to mention the problem of losing your scissors as soon as you put them down. So this week it is three for the price of one. After the tea and discussions this is what we came up with…

  1. Scissor holder for all three pairs of scissors. This seemed quite obvious really make a pattern where the fabric folds back on itself to make each pocket. We used iron on fleece to make it more durable and one of our previous fabric of the week pieces that lovely yellow polka dot from Cotton print in Glasgow. Phots below show how it was made -Easy peasy lemon squeezy.
  3. Our scissor holster for the small scissors used frequently for thread cutting. Same fabrics – same style – but just for one pocket and this time we added a clip you can attach to the edge of your clothing and just like a real holster you can close  over the top of the case when you are not using the scissors. See photos below.
  5. Most proud of this solution our combined thread catcher and pin cushion to attach to your machine. This was the one that took a bit of trial and error and problem solving. The pin cushion was a bit fiddly to make but we wanted the shape just right. Hope you agree it is the ideal gift for an ardent sewer. Already have one on the machine it works a treat.

All these items are available on our folksy shop.

Fabric of The Week 13 – NSFW!

. Fabric of The Week, Givie Sews . , ,

Fabric of The Week

This week’s fabric is this amazingly colourful tartan fabric – we have used it for lots of projects and knew this was a definite when we came up with this project.

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This is what is know as a gallus fabric and so we knew that we had to do something equally gallus! 2018-02-23 13.56.37

We decided to follow the trend that is EVERYWHERE in embroidery-land (just next to Crochet Island!) and do a swear-y post. However we didn’t want to do normal swear words we wanted to celebrate the sheer joy and exuberance of Scottish swear words.

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The make was an easy and fun one to do. The embroidered words were on white fabric (sold as black-out fabric for blinds, but it so lovely and soft to sew on!) We printed out the words – having great fun picking out what word exactly to use! – and then stitched them using cotton a broder thread. The thick thread makes it a quick stitch but also makes the lettering really pop. It was then attached to the tartan fabric using a thick black buttonhole stitch to mimic the lines of a speech bubble.

We then gathered the fabric at the back and then covered it with white fabric, with a small hook so that you can hang it up for the world to see!

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We already planning the next set of sweary words!

Fabric of The Week 12 – Liberty Print Fabrics

. Fabric of The Week, Givie Sews . , , ,

Fabric of The Week

This week’s project was inspired by the fabric (Rather than having a pattern or idea that was looking for the right fabric!) This is gorgeous vintage Liberty fabric.

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The colours are so vibrant and colourful and really sing. Givie is a MASSIVE fan of scarfs and has always wanted to create infinity scarfs and so that is what we did.

This was a quick make – scarves cut to size -long enough to go round the neck twice and wide enough to make a statement and comfortable to wear. The fabric was placed right sides together folding it so that the long edge could be stitched together. It was then turned outside in and the seam ironed flat. One short end had a hem turned down and pressed, the other short end was placed inside to complete a circle. The two were then stitched together to make the “infinity scarf”

 

Scarfs are avaliable to buy on our Folksy site

Fabric of The Week 11 – Shake, Rattle and Roll

. Fabric of The Week, Givie Sews . , , , ,

Fabric of The Week

With a fabric as pastely and cute as this – what else could you make but a baby product!

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We were inspired by a make from this blog: http://www.makeit-loveit.com

The rattle inside was purchased from Amazon and we combined a few different patterns to add our unique take on this rattle idea. The head of the rabbit came from a toy rabbit pattern and helped created the rabbit nose and ears on our rattle.

The white is a simple cotton and compliments the letter fabric beautifully. The face of the rabbit was hand stitched and helps add detail to this project. It was fun combining different patterns and our favourite part of the project is definelty the long floppy ears!

If, like us, you have fallen in love with these rabbit rattles then you can purchase them from our Folksy shop!

Fabric of The Week 9 – New York, Baby!

. Fabric of The Week, Givie Sews . , ,

Fabric of The Week

I have always loved New York and the imagery and romance of the city streets. There is something so appealing about the busy city streets, tall building and the pop of yellow of a New York Taxi cab that sings to me. So this fabric of the week really was a no brainer.

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A fabric so richly detailed needs a simple design and so we made a simple cushion with this one!

By featuring the yellow taxi in the front of the cushion it really makes your eye be drawn to the cusion and design. The muted greys means that this cushion could be a real feature in any room.

 

As much as I would love to keep this it is for sale in our Folksy shop!

Fabric of The Week 7 – Reading Pillow

. Fabric of The Week, Givie Sews . , ,

Fabric of The Week

This fabric of the week was a bit back to front – we found the pattern and then found the perfect material for it!

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This gorgeous fabric is actually dishcloths – the good thing with this is that we bought them in a pack of three so you know that the colours will match!

The project we foound was a Reading Cushion. We both love reading and you will often find books at the side of the bed and we loved the idea of having a specific place to store your books! Here is a link to the original project: https://www.polkadotchair.com/2016/10/how-to-sew-a-reading-pillow.html/?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=thepolkadotchair

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The front pocket is inspired and is the perfect size to put your book or Kindle and the machine embroidered “Read” just gives you every excuse to read as much as you like!

I also think that this pillow would be good for your sewing/knitting projects as you could store your pattern and materials in the front pocket.

 

As ever this is avaliable to buy on our Folksy store!

Fabric of The Week 5 – Mwah Mwah Lips Fabric

. Fabric of The Week, Givie Sews . ,

Fabric of The Week

This week’s fabric of the week is fabulous, dah-ling! We’ve had this in our fabric stash for years when we found it in the remnants bin in Ikea. We have always just been looking for a project for it.

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We considers several ideas but the beauty of this fabric lies in the lips so we focused on them and made these fabulous cushions.

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They were a quick and easy but effective make. We added a gusset around the lips to help define them and make them look better standing on the couch/bed/wherever!

Here are some more details:

These are also avaliable on our Folksy store to buy.

Happy Birthday Michael Bond!

. Happy Birthday!, Our Crafts . , , ,

Today is the birthday of Michael Bond and to celebrate we would like to share this Paddington Bear shopping bag!

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I have always loved Paddington Bear – there is something so appealing about his character. We would also wave to a Paddington Bear, every time we got the bus into Glasgow and so this was a very nostalgic lovely make.

I decided to use chain stitch for the umberlla and I loved the effect  it helps to give the umbrella texture and also emphasise the shape of each section.

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The tag was upcycled from a pair of chinos and we were lucky because the stud on the trousers became the hole of the luggage tag. Serenpidity is an great thing!

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If you would like to look after this shopping bag feel free to purchase it from our Folksy store! http://www.folksy.com/givielane

Any other suggestions for author bags please let us know!

Lx