Simply Sewing issue 57

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FRESH IDEAS AS WITH WITH HF FABRIC

ISSUE 57

TEMPLATES INCLUDED

ISSUE FIFTY SEVEN

NEW PATTERN!

The Rosa 18 MAKES FOR SUMMER!

SUN DRESS IN SIZES 6-20

NEW SKILLS

Your step-by-step guide to sewing buttonholes

SEW TODAY!

✓ Wrap skirt ✓ Summer top ✓ Jersey dress

8 easy-sew laminate picnic accessories

Stylish new looks to sew for breezy summer wanderings HOW TO: Shirt refashion Bench cushion Sew with laminates Buttonholes

IDEAS

INSPIRATION

ACCESSORIES

WEBSITES

EVENTS

STUFF

BEACH PLEASE

What’s in our suitcase? We'll be packing dresses to keep us cool and swimwear we feel amazing in – all me-made, of course!

Megan Nielsen's simple Eucalypt dress (which can also be made as a lightweight top) is the perfect beach cover-up, and her athletic-inspired Cottesloe swimsuit has four variations to show off by the pool. See more at www.megannielsen.com

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Pinboard ALooking FINE ART at Fine Cell ▼

Work’s embellished cushions, purses and table linens, you’d probably never guess where they were made. Working in 32 British prisons, and with more than 500 prisoners each year, the charity teaches British prisoners fine needlework skills, and their quality creations can be bought from the online shop. Find everything from zip purses to samplers and cushions at www. finecellwork.co.uk

FLYING COLOURS

Sew a summer rainbow with the At The Beach fabric collection by Hamburger Liebe, with zingy prints on six different substrates, including stretchy fabrics for swimwear, cotton sateen for dresses, and towelling for robes and towels. That’s our holiday sewing sorted! For stockists visit www.hantex.co.uk

WASTE NOT, WANT NOT

With every project comes a dilemma: what to do with the offcuts? But just imagine if there weren’t any! Not a single scrap of fabric goes unused with Schnittchen’s two clever zerowaste sewing patterns, designed for this year’s Fashion Revolution Week (www.fashionrevolution.org). The best bit? The patterns are free to download.

Find them at www.schnittchen.com

RAIN CHECK Rain, rain, don’t go away – we want to wear our handmade raincoat! Usually we wouldn’t be so happy for rain to interrupt our summer fun, but we’ll make an exception for these adorable shower-proof fabrics by Modelo.

Puffins, umbrellas, polka dots and flower-shaped sunnies feature in three fun retro prints; and, with a modern colour palette of sage green, peachy pink and monochrome, they’ll make a super-stylish mac for festivals and camping trips. If sun is on the cards, they're just the thing for easy-clean swim bags for the family, too. Also in the range are plains in coordinating shades, ideal for adding contrasting patch pockets and details. Find your nearest stockists at www.hantex.co.uk

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Don't let rain stop play with these retro showerproof laminate prints.

summer picnic

park life

Host the brightest picnic in the park with vibrant accessories made from kid-friendly laminates.

Designers: JESSICA ENTWISTLE Styling: LISA JONES Photography: PHILIP SOWELS

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FOLD-UP PENCIL CASE

Give the kids a reason to rest from playing and take a break in the shade with this handy fold-out colouring pack. Keep it in your picnic bag for a guaranteed moment of calm on those long summer afternoons. Sew with a handy tibbon tie so you can roll it up and not have to worry about losing your pencils!

GIANT PINWHEELS

The kids will definitely be able to find you when it's lunchtime thanks to these fun pinwheels, doubling up as 'base flags'. Stick them in plant pots at parties or take them with you to the park to mark your spot. Made using Bondaweb, these double-sided beauts can be sized up and down too. We're thinking: supersize!

THE shirt DRESS PSSTo:r fabric and

leaf f ion, and be r e v o Turn spirat r finished n i g n styli share you tagged o s sure t ess with u ag r m Rosa D plysewing #sim

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COVER STAR

THE ROSA DRESS

Sew a swishy frock for all summer occasions with The Rosa Dress, a vintage-inspired style with an easy fit and ruffle hem detail.

NO PATTERN XXXXXXXX NEEDED!

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forget-me-knot

Got a ditsy floral print in your stash? Bows and blooms make a perfect match with Debbie Maxwell's tie-detail wrap skirt.

MY SEWING WORLD

By Lana Red

Lana Red shares creative ways you can upcycle, transform and restyle existing pieces in your home and wardrobe.

M

any roads led to my discovery and eventual love of upcycling. Being an art student and living on a tight budget, for instance. Or having a body shape that doesn’t match most of the regular store measurements, not to mention having the constant need to re-design, re-invent and bejewel everything I come across. I've been doing it since I was little! But the ultimate reason for my need to give objects and materials a second life is originality.

We usually shop for an item that someone or a group of people has designed, produced and offered for sale on a large scale (there are a few exceptions, of course).

Yet imagine using your creativity to add a touch of your own personal style to your wardrobe. Even better – forget adding just a 'touch' and instead consider completely transforming each item that you own into a brand-new piece that just screams ‘YOU’.

Thanks to my blog, I went on what you might call a ‘creative journey’. I gathered new knowledge and techniques wherever I could with one goal in mind: to enthuse and inspire others to create their own designs and projects. Upcycling is so much more than painting an old cabinet. It’s inventing and designing, gathering skills and creating less waste. And most of all, it's having fun with different materials and techniques.

There are so many ways we can update and upgrade existing garments and furniture, from stitching a simple embroidered motif, to finding clever ways to give your well-worn T-shirts a new life. Here are a few ideas to get you started on your next transformation project.

For more se w visit my blo ing and upcycling ideas g at .www.la naredstudio , .com

"The easiest way to upcycle is to embellish an existing piece."

DECORATE The easiest, go-to way to try upcycling is to decorate and/or embellish an existing piece of clothing or homeware. You probably did this when you were younger without calling it 'upcycling' – think embroidering your initials on a piece of clothing or doodling on your leather pencil case at school. Nowadays, it’s almost mandatory in the crafting community to embroider, stencil or paint a plain piece of clothing or fabric. I love it!

RESTYLE Ever heard of an Ikea hack? To me, that is the definition of restyling: take a basic item and combine it with other materials you love to make it something that is completely personal. My biggest restyling project

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fa with custom so a ed rm o sf an tr I fabric design. n w o y m in s er cov

y ling is about p yc "Upc inventing and designing, and gathering skills."

Transform your old T-shirts into on-trend scrunchies (below), or even a braided plant pot cover – or use cotton offcuts to create a patchwork panel (right).

(coincidentally, also an Ikea hack!) has been transforming a sofa by tracing the cushion cover patterns, designing my own fabric print and then reupholstering it with custom fabric covers. Something as simple as that changes the entire look of the object without changing its basic structure.

COMBINE TECHNIQUES Inventing and upcycling go hand in hand: do you have a plain notebook and some embroidery thread? Make them work together, resulting in a custom embroidered book cover. Or perhaps an old T-shirt and a plastic planter? Braid the fabric and cover the planter with the help of a glue gun. Not only is this the perfect solution for upcycling multiple things, it gives you the freedom to rediscover materials and out-of-the-box techniques.

REUSE MATERIALS One of the biggest misconceptions about upcycling is that it means you have to keep the original item intact and add new things to it. But what if you have a dress that has a giant stain on it, or a shirt that shrunk to an unwearable size? No need to throw them out, because there are still so many ways to reuse the leftover fabrics. My absolute favourite way to use small pieces of cut-up clothing is to turn them into scrunchies. Yes, I am talking about the hair pieces that were cool in the 1980s, and guess what? They are totally back in style.

Keeping me inspired...

Update the coll ar with cute patch of a plain shirt es or embroider y.

Reading about projects that are made by my fellow crafty bloggers and makers is always incredibly inspirational. But to me, nothing beats an old-school thrift store for discovering new styles, patterns and ideas.

You know the kind, where everything is piled up? You can feel the stories that go with each item, just waiting to be reused. I love spending time rummaging through the packed rails and shelves looking for vintage gems!

When I'm not crafting and upcycling, you'll find me browsing thrift stores.

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NO PATTERN xxxxxxxxxx NEEDED!

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travel light

Simple folding, cutting and stitching is all that's needed to make Art Gallery Fabrics' floaty cover-up for your summer holiday.

toy alpaca

emily elephant Meet Emily, a little elephant with a big heart (and even bigger ears!).

Add her to your child's collection with Lucy Ward's tutorial.

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my favourite thing

scrap savvy Alexandra and Caroline of Selkie Patterns used fabric offcuts to make cotton rounds for eco-friendly cleansing.

"Our favourite thing at Selkie Patterns HQ has got to be our reusable cotton rounds! We were inspired to sew cotton rounds when we found that we ended up with awkwardly sized fabric scraps when making our own clothes, which can’t be used for many things. More than 300,000 tonnes of used clothing goes to landfill in the UK every year and we don’t want to add to that, even with our small scraps of fabric from dressmaking.

These are so quick to sew and perfect for busting your fabric scraps. Not only are they satisfying to make but we also love how they look in our bathrooms. There is something lovely about cleansing your face after a long day with a fab pink Liberty print. Caroline even had the genius idea of making a larger

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set from a tired-looking towel for her hot cloth cleansing routine.

What’s great is that you don’t need to throw them away; simply place them in a net bag and throw them in with your washing load!

There'll be no need to purchase disposable ones again, making our cotton rounds costeffective, sustainable, and one less thing from our daily lives that is single-use.

We enjoy making our cotton rounds so much that we created a free downloadable sewing pattern. This is a great project for beginners and for those wishing to create a more sustainable lifestyle. You can visit our website now to get your free pattern and start sewing your own beauty routine!"

Visit www.selkiepatterns.co.uk

S Tie-shoulder top Rainbow cushion Toy dinosaur plushie Scarf refashion dress Kid's duvet cover set Easy-sew kaftan Retro needlecase Patchwork quilt and more...

THE UL WRAP DTIMATE SIZES 6RESS, -20

+ ✓ ultimate wrap dress ✓ must-sew vest top ✓ Kid's romper set

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EXCLUSIVE

PATTERNS WORTH

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* CONTENTS AND A GIFTS GIFT MAY M VARY. PAPER AND FABRIC GIFTS NOT AVAILABLE WITH DIGITAL EDITIONS.