Fairy Bag

This little fairy flitted around my studio for several years. I intended to put her on a denim vest and never did. Every time she surfaced I tried to put her to use but nothing was ever quite right.

Then I remembered this skirt in my upcycle stash:

And ta da! She had a home. It took me a while and some (ok, lots of) reverse sewing before I landed on the right “moody” feel I wanted for the bag. I was happy to finally utilize some hand-dyed ribbon in my stash as well as the raggedy rose. Once I got rolling it was like she was telling me what she wanted.

The hardest thing was taking her to the consignment shop!

No Tree This Christmas!

And this, my friends, is why there will be no tree in our house this year. This, and watching cats vs. Christmas tree videos on YouTube. I figure if the dining room table is a launchpad to the china cabinet, the coffee and end tables would be open invitations to the tree. It’s interesting how having 3 house cats has changed our lives!

I Love to Upcycle!

I love cruising a thrift shop looking for previously loved garments made from fantastic fabrics that I can recycle/upcycle into something new and fun. I found this Bandolino jacket this past summer that had to go home with me:

I loved the fabric and all the details–the tulip sleeves,

the two front pockets with flaps,

the covered buttons and all the piping outlining everything. I love this jacket and wish I could wear it! Alas, it’s two sizes too small, so how can I turn this into a fun new bag?

I started ripping seams and realized the sleeve ends turned upside down would make great front and back pockets. Then everything fell into place. This became a very pocket-centric bag with a total of 8 pockets. I dug into my stash and found some home dec burgundy fabric with woven-in mini stripes and ended up with this:

The front and back pockets are the sleeve hems:

the side panel pockets are from the back of the jacket:

I was so happy to be able to keep the original piping intact! (I love piping…) So there are four pockets on the exterior.

I used the two flap pockets from the front of the jacket on the interior as slip pockets with the original pocket hidden under the flap:

These are the four more pockets to make the total eight.

Finally, I used scraps and a left over button to create the removable flower brooch for the front of the bag:

This went off to to the The Artistic Attic today to hopefully be adopted by someone who loves the look as much as I do!

Next up–an upcycled denim skirt.

Thanks for stopping by!

Lorraine Slavkovsky

by Lorraine

New Beginnings

With Labor Day, my birthday and the first day of school (back when I was in school!) usually all falling in the same week, this time of year feels like time to start fresh. It was a great summer, I won third place in the Hoffman Challenge accessories division and started selling my work in a local shop!

Meet Serendipity, my Hoffman Challenge entry. I loved this fabric the moment I saw it and knew I had to feature that little “magic carpet” on my bag. I had started in a completely different direction and wasn’t happy with it so when my friend suggested I look at ethnic bags on line for inspiration, I dumped the first concept in a heartbeat and everything fell into place almost effortlessly. I modified “Abigail” from Chris W Designs for size regulations of the challenge and was off having fun. A skirt from a thrift store provided the brass beads, sequins and dangles and I did a lot of surface embellishing. Here’s a few more shots of my “baby”:

A local consignment shop, The Artistic Attic, was looking for new artists so I took my purses and other accessories in and finally had some success selling! My Etsy store never took off so this is really exciting for me. I love digging around in thrift stores for fabric treasures to recycle/upcycle into new pieces. “Pebbles” is made from a “new” denim skirt (with tags still on it), “new” suede pants (tags still on them) and a child’s two-piece leopard print outfit. It’s so much fun bringing these garments together into a cohesive piece. I was happy with the results and it’s really exciting to have a total stranger buy my work!

Front Back

Detail

My “new beginnings” are off to a good start and my only resolution now is to keep the creativity going!

Happy Halloween!

Isn’t this a wonderful little quilt? My BFF quilting friend Janis Turocy made it for me and it surprised me arriving in the mail at work one day. I simply love it! I have a “thing” for black cats–three share our house and three more feral cats live in the yard (yes, that’s six black cats!)–so this just makes me smile. The cats and pumpkin are wool and are hand blanket stitched, the rest is cotton and the entire quilt is hand quilted. Over-all it’s 9 x 13.5 inches and is the perfect accent in my cubicle at work. It may NOT come down November 1st! Happy Halloween everyone!

Fabric and Fun in Philadelphia, Part 3

Thanks to technological challenges, I’ve been a little MIA, but I think things are cleared up. I hope so at least!

My phinal day in Philly was phull of phun and phabric. (Sorry. I’ve been wanting to do that since the beginning. It is now or never and is out of my system.) Philadelphia’s Fabric Row. (http://www.visitphilly.com/shopping/philadelphia/fabric-row/) What a fun place to visit! So much fabric and so little time. The shops are amazing–so much stuff crammed into small spaces–it’s impossible to absorb everything!

Something about these bins of fabric right on the sidewalk outside several of the shops really intrigued me. Do people steal them? What if it rains? Who totes them in and out every day? They are right there on the street!

There is every sort of fabric, trim and notion available at Fabric Row, though there wasn’t a huge selection of quilting cottons available. I was doing a lot of bridal work 20 years ago and was wishing I had had Fabric Row available–and convenient!–to me at the time. There is no resource like this available to Clevelanders. Sigh. Please note: there’s not just fabric to be had on Fabric Row–there are restaurants, tea shops, antique shops and I forget what else as well. So cool!

Apparently, this guy was picking stuff wherever he found it:

(Close Up):

If my husband had been along, he would’ve been whistling the theme song from “Sanford and Son”…

And just like that, my 4 day trip was over. Why do vacations fly by so fast?

Fabric and Fun in Philadelphia, Part 2

Back to the Pennsylvania National Quilt Exreavaganza (www.quiltfest.com) and the real reason for this trip aside from seeing my Hoffman Challenge (www.hoffmanchallenge.com) purse on display: viewing the quilts. Well, okay, after a fair amount of shopping, that is!

This was the first quilt that caught my eye. It’s so pretty, sort of a pastel Amish-style quilt.

But once I got up close, my jaw dropped. The quilting was amazing! The center medallion was based on a photograph of the quilter’s children playing on the beach.

The detail is stunning! She used a copy of the photo as the label on the back. The borders were quilted with various marine animals, and my favorite is the corner with the jellyfish.

I could have stared at this quilt all day. It’s one of those that the more you look at it, the more amazing elements you find.

I have always loved white-on-white whole cloth quilts and this one is spectacular:

Here is some of the detail

Here is a hand quilted beauty that I thought was amazing:

And the details!

Last, but not least is this hexagon quilt. My BFF who quilts is just head-over-heels in love with making English paper-pieced “hexies”. I see hexies in a whole new light, and am so much more aware of them now. I don’t know if this quilt was English paper pieced, but I do know I never, ever could have accomplished what this quilter did!

The green border with the black Celtic work was so amazing. Yards and yards of black bias so intricately and perfectly placed was phenomenal. To me, all those loops on the outside edges were the perfect finish.

I could go on and on about all rest of the amazing quilts we saw, but these were the highlights for us.

Next post: Philadelphia’s Fabric Row

Fabric and Fun in Philadelphia

Two weeks ago I left the “herd” in my husband’s care

and went to visit my sister in Pennsylvania. She lives near Allentown, but I was flying into Philadelphia so we could go straight to the Pennsylvania National Quilt Extravaganza (www.quiltfest.com) in the outskirts of Philly. I had a direct flight (imagine! not going to Chicago on the way to Philly from Cleveland!), was landing at 9 A.M. and we could be at the show by 10. Perfect. Until fog rolled into Philly and my flight was diverted to–you guessed it–Allentown. And sis was already in Philly. Thank heaven for cell phones! Many calls later, it was arranged for me to get off the plane in Allentown, my brother-in-law would pick me up and head to Philly. Sis would head back to A-town. Things were working out. The best thing about this glitch was I got to see this mural in the Allentown airport. Peeps just make me smile!

I felt very welcome indeed!

Selfishly, the first exhibit I wanted to see was the Hoffman Challenge (www.hoffmanchallenge.com) to “visit” my handbag, “Moonlit Jewels”, that is part of Hoffman’s 2013 Challenge traveling exhibits.

Moonlit Jewels

Next post: Several of our favorite quilts at the show

Inspiration Board, Part 2

Well, I’m obviously new to posting on my blog, and somehow I “published” instead of “previewed”! My sincere apologies and here’s the rest of my thoughts. I was trying to show how I (unsatisfactorily) used the bathroom door to photograph (with the hinge in plain view that did get cropped out of final pictures), as well as my kitchen cupboards…

…and a broken tree branch.

Then I thought of my old inspiration board. It’s big–36″ x 48″–so I’d be able to pin almost anything I make to it for a photo session! So out came some white fabric, pinned it on, and there I have a very satisfactory and mobile board for photographing!

The blue bag is my current upcycling project, and will be further discussed in my next post. Thanks for dropping by, and I’ll try not to hit wrong buttons in the future!

Inspitation Board

My old inspiration board was so old and faded, and not being used. When we moved to this house 14 years ago, I didn’t have wall space in my sewing room big enough to hang it, so it got shoved into the garage and forgotten. (And judging from the faded spots, I didn’t change my inspiration much anyhow!)

Inspiration Board

Recently I realized I want to be able to photograph my bags and accessories better than I have been. I’ve been relying on a hook on a bathroom door

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Textile Art …by Lorraine

Celebrating all things fiber and fabric related

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