Sarah Appleton - Textile Artist Blog

Well in all my excitement at blogging about Nothing New yesterday I forgot that I do, in fact, have Something New to blog about! How silly! It's actually technically not new either since it's a refurbished second hand garment; unfortunately I forgot to take a 'before' picture but here's the 'after': Suits you sir Now you will have to use your brainbox to imagine this shirt with no collar at all; just a plain round neck. Retro-a-go-go, but not terribly flattering. My mum made this shirt many moons ago (I don't ever remember seeing her wearing it); she'd even hand sewn all of the hems; and earlier this month I found it shoved in a 'to go' pile! Whuuuut! Obviously I was not going to cut this bad boy up, so a collar was the only option. I confused myself totally with the button / placket situation, so I made the collar finish short of that area and then created a bow tie effect to fill in the weird-looking space. I am really pumped with h...

After the successful success of my previous tie bag (available in my etsy store) I decided to make another one all for me! I had this skirt which I bought at a jumble sale because I loved the kalidescopic/Op Art fabric: Because of the shape and the limited amount of fabric I decided that the best way to use it might be as a bag. Then I had some fun, bright flowery 60's fabric from Fabric Land so I decided that the juxtaposition of bright and monochrome would be good; and I ended up with this: Hey Mr. Lizard! Hey Mr. Cat! I've had the retro / Cadillac car tie for a while and have been desperate to use it, I quite liked the semi-mismatched patterns so I decided this was the project for the tie! The bag is reversible, so that I can be either colourful or a bit less colourful. The other not-so-exciting project I finished recently was 2 t-shirt resizes: Dark Side of the Coop From Large to AppletiniTiny! Terrible pictures but you get the idea. If you'd l...

Aloha babiezzz! I know what you are asking! You are asking 'after you finished the Spring Flower Show Project in the Westbourne Craft Collective , whatever did you do next?!!' Well ask no more, for here is what we did! A truly fearsome bunch of lads We made sock monsters ! My favourite is the green, purple and stripey guy in the middle, made by The Other Sarah (no relation), keen eyes will spot old favourite Bert hanging out in back. Mine is the pink sparkly guy in the front although he wasn't finished in time for the picture... Glambot ...but here he is now, all finished! He is the David BowBot, he is a very glamourous robot indeed. I am told that he needs hair but that seems like it might be An Unecessary Faff. Ground control to Major Tom, take your protein pills and put your sparkles on. Holding handy pandys Here he is hanging out with his best friend Bert, letting all the children boogie. After we made sock monsters, we made collaged confessional po...

  Continuing my pop art kinda theme from earlier, this is my super special amazing spectacular whatever-else-I-said bag I made for myself! I am kind of in love with it! It was inspired by the cover of the Purple Knif Show , and also this dress . Maybe my bag needs more slime and other flair, I'm not sure if it's the kind of project that could ever have 'too much going on', but I have to admit that the slime was kind of a pain to make, and therefore more detail would have probably led to me throwing my sewing machine out the living room window. I left the slime free to dangle because I am super into Interactive Art that you can slap people with at psychedelic discos. With the CD cover that inspired it! Fwends! I used the Cramps logo stencil from Stencil Punks and it turned out really cool after a few painstaking hours cutting all the wobbly lines out. Worth it! Aaaand I made a pocket out of contrasting pink zebra fabric - the first pocket I've ever made so...

Spectacularly Swirly Disco Pyjama Leg Psychedelic Neon Glow This is my newest creation - named Sally after my lovely penpal/International Twin/emotional crutch! I seem to be on this huge Pop Art kick at the moment, well always really, but more so than ever right now. So this is Pop Art, meets Flintstones, meets Sally (pink and green is her favourite colour combination). Hence the Sally bag. Pop Rock Even though I love looking at it in sheer amazement and admiration I think I will sell it, especially as I have made myself a super amazing special spectacular limited edition version to keep (more about this mysteriousness later)!