visible mending

Do you mend your clothes? I must admit, I used to see clothes mending as something only poor people had to do because they couldn't afford new clothes. I know, pretty bad attitude for sure, especially since this kind of thinking adds to all the unnecessary waste we produce.

Thankfully though over the last few months I started seeing mending as something not just useful and good for the environment, but also a way to make one's wardrobe more fun and unique. Have you heard of visible mending? I found it super, super inspiring and decided to try it out on a pair of older jeans I was ready to retire :)

I love the way my newly mended jeans look and have been wearing them a lot. I even got some comments from my daughter's friends on how cool my jeans are :)

In case you wonder how I did my mending, here's a quick description. I cut a piece of thin denim and turned the raw edges in to form a patch. I pinned the patch through one layer of jeans and went ahead to attach it using sashiko thread and a simple running stitch. No marking or any serious measuring was needed,  I just eyeballed it all and kept stitching until the whole patch was secured.

Pretty simple, right? I can't wait to start on my next pair of jeans soon.

So tell me. Do you mend your clothes? Any techniques you'd recommend? or articles? I'd love to know.

Hope you have a happy and creative day friends. Svetlana

my craftsy class, yay !!!

Hello lovelies,

remember when I talked about the amazing opportunity I had a few weeks back when I flew to Denver and recorded a sewing class with Craftsy? Yeah, the class is now live and it all is super surreal, and exciting, and intimidating all at the same time, eeeeek !!!

My class Giftable Projects: Zippered Bags and Purse Organizer is a six lesson class with detailed instructions and lots of tips on how to make three different zipper pouches. Would you like to see the pouches I designed for the class? Here we go.

 Easy Coin Pouch with removable wrist strap is the first (and easiest project). I love this sweet little pouch and have made quite a few of them for my daughters and their friends already. 

The second pouch I teach is Double Zip pouch which makes a perfect pencil pouch or make up bag. I'm also thinking it would make a great hand sewing supplies pouch. Oh, the possibilities :)

Last, but definitely not least, is this Keep it Neat Purse Organizer. This is one of my all time favorite pouches with tons of pockets (zipper pockets as well as slip pockets). *you can also purchase this pattern from my etsy shop if you like

 I absolutely loved the opportunity to talk more about materials and supplies I use as well as being able to show how to work with metal zippers and add many different pockets to pouches.

What do you say? Would you like to learn how to make pouches with me? If so you can purchase my class (which includes instructions + all three patterns) by clicking here. And, to make things even sweeter, you can get my class at a 50% discount for just $19.99 for a limited time.

Wishing you all a happy and creative day. Svetlana

enamel pin banner

It had to be done! I finally caved in and made myself an enamel pin banner.

I love how this was not in any way a very time consuming or advanced skill requiring project. It came together super quickly, especially since I had all the supplies on hand.

I used heavy weight canvas for the front and quilting cotton for the back of the banner. I loosely followed this fab tutorial by Jeni, I just made my banner slightly less pointy and I added an embroidery thread tassel to the bottom.

I love having a dedicated "home" for my pins. They are such a happy addition to my studio :)

Wishing you all a fabulous Monday.

Svetlana

un-paper towels (a quick tutorial)

Hello friends, I hope 2018 is off to a good start for you all!

I'm not a fan of new year's resolutions as I tend to break them almost as soon as I think them up :),  but I did decide to focus more on producing less waste this year. My whole family is on board (which makes even small changes a lot more doable) and our first task is to work on reducing the amount of paper and plastic products we use in our kitchen.

To start things off, I decided to replace our paper towels with a bunch of fabric un-paper towels. I came across quite a few suggestions on how to make these - some were just plain fabric, others had little snaps or grommets attached. In the end I went with a simple combination of cotton fabric and terry cloth, not adding any hardware as I worried that it might scratch my dishes or counters.

I used some pretty fabric that's been sitting in my stash for far too long to make these. I even had some terry cloth on hand so the whole process was super quick and very, very satisfying.

We've been using these towels for about two weeks now and so far so good. I still keep a roll of paper towels in case we experience some super messy spills, but right now they are placed inside the cabinet instead of sitting on top as usual to help us remember to reach for fabric towels first. 
 

♥  ♥  ♥  ♥  ♥

In case you'd like to make some un-paper towels of your own here's how I made mine:

I used 1 - 10'' square of fabric and 1 - 10'' square of terry cloth for each towel, placed them right sides together and pinned around the perimeter. I then used 1/2'' seam allowance to stitch all the way around the edges leaving a 4'' opening in one side for turning. I pressed open the seam with an opening, and turned the towel right side out through the hole. I then pushed the corners out to make them nicely pointy and pinned the opening closed. I used 1/8'' seam allowance to stitch all the way around the edges of each un-paper towel stitching the opening in the side closed at the same time. I gave them all one last good press and that was it. Easy peasy.




I'm definitely planning on making a lot more of these un-paper towels in the next few days. And, I think I'll be using darker fabrics to help hide some stains this time :)


Thanks for reading friends. Svetlana