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...

This is a tutorial of sorts... although you may need to use your brain box to fill in any bits I've skipped over - sorry! I accept no responsibility for any drama that may arise from making your ex-boyfriend's t-shirt into a Shangri-Las t-shirt! What you need: Ex's shirt (or one of your own) Fabric paint / pens / acrylic paint might work Sponge / paintbrushes Sewing machine (optional) Transparent sticky back plastic Craft knife and cutting mat Computer w/ printer Iron and board Old newspaper Alright, it's time to recycle that old unused t-shirt into something rad! The beauty of this project is that if it goes completely wrong and looks like the worst thing ever then it wasn't your loss! It's resourceful y'all! First you gotta take the shirt and put newspaper inside it between the front and back (this is very important!!!). Then draw a big ol' broked heart all over the front of it! Use paint or marker pens or anything y...