Make your own Fabric Knitting Bag, Pencil Roll & Fabric Flowers with Bostik!

Time for my latest post as part of the Bostik Craft Bloggers Network. With this box of crafty goodies my kids and I made a knitting bag for my daughter, a pencil roll and gorgeous fabric flowers complete with their own vase. Bostik kindly sent me a box containing the items seen in the picture below:

DSC_0846

The key ingredient in this box was Bostik Sew Simple fabric glue. This amazing glue allows you to stick fabric together in an instant, completely bypassing the need for laborious sewing.

DSC_0860

Fabric Flowers with Vase!

DSC_0847

To make the vase for our flowers we used the Bostik Sew Simple fabric glue to attach fabric to a simple cardboard container. At the base the fabric is clipped into wide strips to allow them to be folded and glued into place.DSC_0850

The flowers are made by cutting a strip of fabric wider than a pipe cleaner. The fabric is glued along one edge to cover the pipe cleaner, keep a small piece of pipe cleaner sticking out of each end.DSC_0853

Another pipe cleaner is looped around the first on one end, this will create the stem of your flower.DSC_0855

The fabric is then bent and wrapped around the stem to create a flower shape. To finish wrap the end of the first pipe cleaner tightly around the stem to secure.DSC_0859

Make several more and display in your brand new fabric vase!

DSC_0860

Knitting Bag!

My daughter has only recently started to knit and as any knitter will know having a bag to keep your needles and wool in is essential to avoid complete confusion and tangled threads.DSC_0352

The bag is just a plain fabric bag. Using the Bostik Sew Simple fabric glue we stuck a large panel of cotton fabric to the front. My daughter then selected colourful foam letters which spell out ‘Knitting’ and glued them into place.DSC_0345

Inside the bag we attached a smaller piece of fabric, which was the perfect size to slip her knitting needles into. This was sewn into place to give a little extra strength.

 

DSC_0349Pencil Roll!

If your children are anything like mine then you’ll be used to finding stray pencils and crayons in all manner of places. Having a pencil roll keeps the best of them organised and is perfect for taking on a trip out and about.DSC_0348

To make the pencil roll I adapted a tutorial I found online at http://two-little-monkies.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/sewing-tutorial-w-pictures-crayon-caddy.html. It’s a great little tutorial and definitely worth a go.

 

 

Boden Place Mat Tutorial!

Family gatherings or dinner parties with friends aren’t just about the food, dressing the table plays a big part in proceedings and this tutorial teaches you how to sew your own placemats! I originally wrote this for the Boden Community which has now become the Boden Blog. You might still be able to find it if you look through the archives, but it’s much quicker to share it direct with my readers over here.

Boden Placemats

Boden Placemats

 

Home-made accessories give a wonderful feeling of accomplishment, plus they make fabulous presents if you’re going home-made this Christmas. Armed with a bundle of gorgeous Boden fabric I’ll show you just how I made mine. It’s a very quick method that will have you whipping up mats in no time at all.

placemat2

What You’ll Need (for one Mat)

23cm X 15cm piece of fabric (for the middle panel)

Two 23cm X 6cm pieces of fabric

Two 25cm X 6cm pieces of fabric

Matching Thread

Wadding

Backing Fabric

Step 1

Begin by pinning and sewing the two shorter (23cm X 6cm) pieces of fabric, one to each side of the longer edges of the middle panel. I used a small seam allowance, approximately ½cm.

placemat3

Step 2

Iron the seams open and then sew the two longer strips to the side edges (this now includes the middle panel and the two fabric strips from step 1). Iron the seams open.

placemat4

Step 3

Cut a piece of wadding and backing fabric the same size as your placemat piece is currently. Put the backing fabric down right side up. Add the placemat piece on top right side down (so the right sides of backing and placemat are facing). Then finally place the wadding on the back of the placemat piece. Sew all three pieces together leaving a 5cm gap in one side, this allows you to turn your mat the right way out. Once sewn, trim the wadding back close to the stitches and cut across the corners.

placemat5

Step 4

Turn the mat the right way out and iron. Iron and pin where you left the gap and then machine stitch close to the edge all the way around the mat. I also stitched around the middle panel to keep the three layers neatly in place.

placemat6

All you need to do now is repeat the steps above and make as many placemats as you like!

 

Boden Placemats

Boden Placemats

 

Inkodye Printing

I recently read an article in the Mollie Makes magazine about a really unique printing ink called Inkodye and I instantly wanted to have a go.  Unfortunately there is currently only one company in this country that stocks it www.firstcall-photographic.co.uk and the postage is quite high but I felt really impatient to try it out!

Inkodye comes out of the bottle colourless, you then apply it with a brush and then leave it to the sun to develop, almost like a fabric photograph. In theory it allows you to create beautiful prints using anything that casts a shadow. Of course I bought it in the winter when sunlight is sparse but I have still managed a few goes with it. At present it only comes in three colours: red, orange and blue, but you can mix them so it’s not too restrictive.

My first attempt was using the red, I placed some old keys onto a small bag which I put outside for about 45 minutes. There wasn’t really enough light so it turned out pink and I don’t think I painted enough dye onto the fabric either.

My next attempt was using the blue and the same old keys. This seemed to go a dark colour very quickly, so I panicked and washed the ink out too early and again it was rather pale.

Once your piece has developed the depth of colour you desire you have to wash it really well otherwise it continues to develop! I washed the blue bag by hand (really scrubbing it) and then put it through a machine wash. Despite this after leaving it on my table folded in half for a few days I noticed that it had still continued to develop and one half was darker and some of the keys had started to turn blue 🙁

My third attempt was more successful. I cut some shapes out of cereal box and put a sheet of glass over the top to weight it down. I left it outside for one and a half hours but again there was not much light. The mistake I made with this one was washing my brush in my white kitchen sink and finding later in the day that I now have an orange and white sink!!!

Dyed sink aside I’m very pleased with the third piece and how it turned out. I think Inkodye is going to take me a little while to completely perfect but it’s definitely worth a try if you’re interested in trying out a new form of printing. Just remember my top tip…. wash that ink out until you can wash no more! Otherwise be prepared to see further colour development 🙂