In June 2012 my inspiring mother (who taught me to love anything individually crafted) and I, attended HANDMADE in Wellington and did a class with Angela Young of Craft Me Up making fabric baskets. We both finished our baskets and gifted them to family members.
As I was cleaning up last week I found Angela's original instructions and the NZ Your Home and Garden magazine (unfortunately I forgot to record which magazine but I think it was August 2012) that also gave the instructions.
So what better thing to do... (when you are supposed to be clearing out the garage).
Cloth Bag One: Allowed me to re-purpose two beautifully embroidered vintage hand towels. Both were perfectly usable as a hand towel but I couldn't bring myself to allow my family to wipe their (once washed but still) grubby mitts on such beautiful handwork.
Each side features the embroidery from a different towel.
The pretty blue crochet edging I carefully unpicked off one of the towels and hand stitched onto the bag. This edging is so fine I am in awe of the unknown woman who made it.
The lining is more of the silky soft cotton shirting my lovely friend found for me in Singapore.
Cloth Bag Two: Uses some of the newly released Elizabeth Owen Grey Abbey fabric, English Garden in Pearl. I love both the colours and the graphic design of this fabric, so I picked out a few elements with hand embroidery, buttons and beading. Again lined with Singapore men's shirting fabric remnants.
Selfishly I am keeping both these two for myself, to personalise the one bedroom apartment I'll be occupying in Perth until my family can join me.
But I have since made another two, one for my sister in law and the other for a friend in Christchurch, only sadly I forgot to photograph them!
Have you repurposed vintage hand towels or doilies?
Neat. No I haven't repurposed any. I used some scraps for my baskets instead :-)
ReplyDeleteGorgeous Anna.
ReplyDelete