Madame Ballon

Meet Madame Ballon - a papier mache project from an age ago. She was created around an inflated balloon, and has graced my dining room ever since.

I haven't posted anything here for a while - busy with other things, I guess. However, the end of term has spurred me into making gifts for 2 amazing colleagues:

Hope they like them!
Fabric  and buttons recycled from a shirt, beads from a broken necklace.

Lampshade makeover

I did this a while ago. The lampshade was plain and ordinary, so I photocopied some examples of  calligraphy and stained the paper with tea for an older look. Then I ripped up the paper and stuck pieces randomly over the lampshade to cover it. I had some 'poor man's gold leaf' which I rubbed on the paper wherever the fancy took me. It feels a bit dated now, but I still quite like it...... I've never seen another one!

An almost free quilt

I made this quilt for my son when he went off to university. All it cost was the price of the wadding, and a tin of indigo dye.


I tie-dyed some white cotton I had in my stash with the indigo dye, and it was great trying out different patterns, using pegs, rubber bands and marbles. I made the quilt top by alternating the tie-dyed squares with soft denim cut from an old very full skirt I had, then layered the top with wadding, backed with a cotton sheet. I used a wide binding of some navy fabric I had left over from another project. It was machine quilted very simply, with diagonal lines of stitching through each square.


The quilt has had loads of use and is still a favourite, I'm told :-)

Made these at the weekend with some scrap ticking fabric, using ribbons I cut out of clothes - you know, the ones that hold the dress or whatever on the hanger!

They are stuffed with polyester stuffing from a pillow we don't use, and the buttons were from discarded garments - cost to make - zilch!

Old favourite

Bit of nostalgia here - my old Singer sewing machine was identical to this one.

I loved it! I used it for curtains and cushions, most of my own clothes plus 4 bridesmaid's dresses and my sister's wedding dress.

Here are some cushions I made from some vintage fabric I have had for years. My Mum bought the fabric as a pair of curtains in a hotel sale in the 1960s, and they hung in the dining room of my childhood home for ages. Then, when I left home and moved into a cottage in the Cotswolds, she gave them to me, and they adorned my dining room until we moved house, and they didn't fit any of my windows. 

Languishing at the bottom of an old trunk, I had forgotten all about them, until I happened upon them recently whilst searching for something else! I made the cushion covers envelope style, fastened by 2 mother of pearl buttons. I love the faded, almost tea-stained appearance of the fabric, and the fact that it has a long history, much of it as part of my childhood and onwards.



(The picture on the right is sideways - nothing I do will put it the right way up - grrrrr)

First post

I have always made stuff, especially with thrifted and vintage fabrics or bits and pieces I have around. It seemed a good idea to share some of these, especially as it will, I hope, keep me inspired to do more.


I made these square pillow cases from some vintage French metis fabric pieces I found in a "vide grenier" in Brittany some time ago. The fabric was the top part of an old sheet - the bit that shows when the sheet is turned over at the top of the bed. I suppose that the rest of the sheet had worn out...


So, with some careful positioning to make best use of the embroidery, and some mother of pearl buttons - here they are.

There wasn't enough fabric for the backs of the covers, so they were made from some white cotton I had in my collection.