Sewing Project: Dress up a hand or tea towel.

Well today I got out my sewing machine, laced it up with some pink thread and got myself going on a new project. This one is for my mums birthday. I bought an apron for her cake deco class and I couldn't find a nice tea towel to match so I went out and bought another apron and decided to cut it up and decorate a hand towel with that! So here is my hand towel and my fabric from the apron under it.


I wanted to create a little strip of fabric on either end of the towel, a bit bigger than the little patterned bit. First I cut two pieces from the fabric that was bigger than what I wanted the finished piece. My pieces were around 36cm long and 15cm wide.


Next give the pieces a good iron to get the creases out if there are any. Then I folded each end in around 2cm each and pinned to hold in place. Put this on your towel just to double check the size and if you need to make any changes. Then iron the ends to make nice and neat.

Fold the top and bottom bits to create the desired width of your fabric strip. I had to fold mine down approx 4.5cm on each side so that I was left with a 6cm strip. Pin and iron to hold in place.


Once this is done I then placed my strip on the towel and pinned this is place to help when sewing. I started sewing at the green circle and finished at the yellow circle. It was done in all one go but you can do each side seperately if you prefer to do it that way. Make sure to reinforce all of the start and finishing stitches. I did this on most corners anyway just to make it a bit stronger.


My seam that I used was about 1/4inch (i think). I used the little guide on my foot to make sure I kept it as even as I could.


When doing the side where you have all the towel to contend with I just rolled it up so that my arm sat against it when I sewed and I could slowly feed it through with my arm. It was a bit tricky but the best I could come up with.


Here is one side all finished! Looks pretty good, hey?! Well I am impressed and it's going to match the apron perfectly. I was considering adding some lace to the edge under the fabric but I gave that idea a miss. Don't want to make it too difficult for myself.

I think I might be making some more of these for christmas presents!


Here is a pic of the finished product. Front pic, close up and then pic of the back. Didn't turn out too bad apart from some uneven stitching here and there.

Doily dying fun! Part 2

Welcome to Part 2 of dying a doily with food colouring. Unfortunately I can't say I have good news exactly. It seems using food dye doesn't stay put when thrown in the washing machine. Anywho I will explain more later....

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Dying a doily - Part 2

1. Once the doily has dried I rinsed it with cold running water. I let it soak up the water and then rung it out a couple of times. I didn't notice too much food colouring coming out but I did do it in the kitchen sink and it's hard to see.

Place it on some paper towel or tissues to soak up some of the water and dry a little bit.

You can see that mine is starting to look slightly lighter in colour.

2. After the doily had dried I threw it in the washing machine just on a rinse cycle without any detergent or anything. This is how it came out. I don't think it liked the washing machine too much.


I did put it through once more and it has come out slightly lighter again but I'm not sure if the dye will completely come out now or not. I haven't tried it with any suds so I'm concerned that it could wash the dye out completely.

So experiment outcome = fail. I loved the colour it originally came out but looks like I'll have to go get some fabric dye and use them instead!

Doily dying fun! Part 1

Playing with doilies is something I have taken a liking too lately and I thought that I would give using food colouring to dye a doily a go! I haven't found any tuts on the web exactly aimed at this so I hope that what I've extracted from here and there will work. This is only part 1 of my experiment/tutorial so you'll have to bare with me!

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Dying a doily - Part 1

1. Start off with a lovely crochet doily of your choosing. I found this pretty and delicate one in my doily stash and thought it would suit being pink! Although it might look white it is actually an off white/light cream colour and I couldn't be bothered with washing it. I buy my doilies from a charity store and I am presuming that they wash everything before selling it.


2. I put the doily in a measuring cup of water (or any other microwave safe bowl/cup/thing) and put it in the microwave for around 1-2min. Apparently warm water helps with dying stuff. So once I had done this I sat it aside while I got the next step set up.


3. This step involves water, white vinegar and food colouring (Rose Pink). I got a saucepan and filled it with water until it was around 2inch in depth. I then added around 4 tablespoons of white vinegar, you can use distilled vinegar as well apparently. Why add vinegar? I thought the same thing and was worried my doily would be all smelly but apparently the vinegar helps the material to take on the dye and the more vinegar you add the more vibrant the colour. Yet another fact found with my awesome research skills. I then turned the gas on "High" to get the heat going.

Adding the food colouring. I thought on my first attempt I should stick with something easy so went for the Rose Pink food colouring by Queens. To be honest I don't know any difference between food colourings, just get it from Woolies or Coles...or any other reputable supermarket. I used a straw to add my food colouring (you know the old dip, hold the top, release trick) and I would say I added around 20-30 drops-ish. Mix it in so it's evenly distributed.


4. By now you should be getting some bubbles going. Turn the temp down to "Low" so that you get just a nice simmer and pop in your doily! If you keep it on High and bring it to the boil your doily won't sit in the water properly and could get dyed unevenly (trust me).

I used two big spoons to hold the doily under the water but remember metal does get HOT after a while.

I kept the water simmering for around 20-30minutes. I'm not sure if this did anything more than usual but it didn't hurt. I then turned off the gas and let it cool.


5. Once the steam had gone and the water cooled down a little I took a sneak peek at the doily to make sure all my hard work had paid off. So far so good, right!?!

In total I would say the doily was in the water for around 2hours, possibly a little bit under. Me being impatient I probably should have left it in there another hour or two just for good measure.


6. Once the water had cooled ( i.e me not being able to wait any longer) I lifted the doily out onto a couple of sheets of paper towel. I will be leaving it here to dry overnight and then onto part 2!

To be continued........

Lace Bunting: Mini Tut and Personal Project

I do have a little bit of a secret fetish...bunting! I think it is just way too cute and very versatile. There is a lot more bunting going around in the handmade markets these days and they are being used for all sorts of things; bedrooms, engagement parties, weddings, birthdays and business signs!

A while ago I saw some really nice bunting made out of material doilies and I LOVED it! When I was out one day I was looking at the material doilies but it did seem like a lot of work and would take a bit of time...time I don't really have. So next to them I saw these paper doilies and that's when this idea was born! I will take you through a very brief mini tutorial on how I made my paper lace bunting!

What I used:
- Packet of paper doilies ( $1.50 for 20)
- Embroidery thread in colour of your choice
- Glue (I used my good old UHU glue sick)
- Old paper or place mat to glue on

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I separated around 10 doilies and then folded them all in half. The pattern didn't match up directly when I folded them but it doesn't really matter that much. Next I took my thread and measured approximately 30cm in and tied a tiny knot.

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I think took one of my folded doilies, put it on my place mat and lined one end of the fold with the tiny knot. I put glue on half making sure to have it all around the edges so that it will stay stuck together. Then I pushed the two sides together nice and firmly, trying to get rid of any creases or bubbles. Because the doilies are made of paper it goes a little bit wavey due to the glue but I think this looks fine.

I measured approximately 7cm from where the doilie ends and made another little knot. This is so I know where to start the next piece without too much hassel and the knots are barely even noticeable in the final product. Keep doing the above steps until you have the desired length or number of doilies you want! I used 7 doilies all up even though I was planning on using 10. Below are some pics I took of my lace bunting in use!

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I think that this is a very simple, effective and best of all CHEAP project! It would have taken me an hour at the most to complete it and it is easy enough to possibly keep kids entertained for a little longer.

Hope you liked it and I'd love to see any pics if you decide to make one too!

TTFN xoxo

Personal Project - Embellished top Part 1

Well I have decided to do something a little different for this post. That is why you don't see the little group of piccies to the left!

I have been wanting to embellish a top with some yoyo's for ages but I could never find 'the' fabric that I wanted to make it with. That was until I stumbled across a gem in one of my op shops near work last week. I'm really not sure what the fabric is but it's soft yet solid, quite sheer and a white/off white colour.

So above you can find the shirt 'before' it's transformation. I went with a basic black stretch 3/4 sleeve top. It's Autumn (or fall) here in Aussieland so it's just starting to get cool enough to wear longer sleeved tops during the day. It was just a normal everyday shirt from BigW for a bargain price of $8.49 or something like that.

Here you will find the three main ingredients for making my yoyos! My two yoyo makers, I think they come out at about 1inch and 2inch sizes. My sheer material, which I think must have been used as some type of curtain or something? Then the all important needle and thread! Normally whatever colour thread I use doesn't really matter as you can't see it once the yoyo is finished but since this material was sheer I thought it may be better to go with a matching colour.

(insert) Having lunch and watching TV while making yoyo's all afternoon (/insert)

Then voila! I have a group of lovely soft pretty yoyos! I made 4 larger ones and 6 smaller ones. I did have a little bit of trouble with some yoyos because the fabric is so thin the knot on the thread would pull through. But I didn't let that stop me!

Then comes the tricky bit of laying them out on the top and deciding where I want to put them! I do have to factor in that when I put the top on they will stretch out a teeny weeny bit.

So these are the patterns that I have come up with so far! I am probably leaning towards the first picture at the moment. I feel that they look better spread out but I may need to add one more small one in that space on the bottom right. Hmmm what do you think???.....

Once I know what pattern I like I just need to find my little beads and sequins to sparkle up the yoyos!

To be continued....