Permie Textile/Sewing Project Brag Thread

Have you recently finished a project that you are proud of?

Have you made something incredible through needlework or something else that you want to brag about? Have you made your first blanket? This is for both the novice and the expert.

Feel free to share your accomplishments in this thread, bonus apples for those who have pictures.

Hi Timothy, that's a very nice idea.
I upcycled a dumpster find a couple of weeks ago and didn't share it anywhere on permies yet.
I found a bunch of window shades, the stuff that rolls up on the inside.

Took them apart, sowed them together with the sewing machine and hung them up to give some more shade in summer on the terrace. The designer of the roof left a part without shading there so in winter there would be sun on the terrace. But it didn't give enough shade to sit out there for lunch in the summer. That problem is now fixed and the cloth gives a nice, cozy atmosphere I think.

Hope these earn bragging rights!

This was my first DIY mattress made from sewing 2 untreated cotton drop cloths into a grid filled with buckwheat hulls (sorry old photo!)



Then I made this one -





Next we switched to making our family's buckwheat hull mattresses using stretchier tubular fabric which offered the most contouring from the hulls and was a much easier, no sew project -



We have evolved even more since these old photos, sleeping on so many different DIY mattresses over the last 2 decades.

We moved into a new house last fall. It has lots of windows and so we needed curtains. While we had reviewed the fabric stash, and had made treatments for a couple of rooms, we still had lots to do by the end of the year.

In late December my mother found a local auction and it was the clearing out of some storage units from a mansion downsizing. ( we found out later the owners had gone from an 8k square foot house to around 4K and had stored stuff that didn't fit)
The curtains were all still in the bags and hangers from being dry cleaned and they looked good so my mother bought several lots.
We spent about $125, all in and we were able to do 4 rooms in total. I was able to identify a couple of the fabrics, mostly French designer chintz, some linen and some fine cotton sheers. After a rough calculations of prices and yardage we figure it was between $20k to $40k original cost of construction.

These pictures are the first room we finished with them. It's our guest room. For this fabric set, they had thrown in a couple of photos of the room it had come out of so we know it was a king bed. They included the fabric wrapped boards that made up the king bed curtain in their place so we were able to cut them down, remove and reset the Velcro on it and make a one that fits our double bed. It just hangs on a pair of heavy picture hooks in the wall so is easy to take down at any time.
The only damage was that the pink silk ruffles on a couple of the ballon shades had broken down from sun exposure in a couple of sections but we had enough extra panels that I was able to remove the bad and replace them with sections taken off the extras.
I also just cut up the middle of the large panel and closed each side of that cut up so it could read like a pair of swaggable panels for the one window.
Very little sewing was actually needed, we were able to use either stuff we had or what came with it to do all the mounts and I didn't even bother the alter the bedskirt but just folded it in the middle to get it to fit.
There is still lots of this fabric leftover so I am hoping to make a matching coverlet and possibly use it to recover the seat on the hope chest we've put in that room.
We're really happy with the look, even if it isn't necessarily what I would have done, starting from scratch. We've also noticed a big improvement in the insulation for that room by having them up. Not bad for something like $30!

My first time posting, but I've lurked all over the joint.  I've taken up needle felting and decided to try my hand at a new Christmas tree topper.  He's felted onto a  basic armature and I had no clue what i was doing other than stabbity stab with needles.  

Angela Fields wrote:My first time posting, but I've lurked all over the joint.  I've taken up needle felting and decided to try my hand at a new Christmas tree topper.  He's felted onto a  basic armature and I had no clue what i was doing other than stabbity stab with needles.  

Welcome, and I love the topper!

Wonderful work.

I bought my husband a knitting kit last christmas. He doesn't knit, but I was going to knit him a gansay like this for him:

Flamborough gansey

source

about ganseys

The trouble is that I am relatively new to cables, relatively new to knitting in the round on 5 needles, and have never knitted a jumper before....so I decided to make a hat to match the jumper based on the same pattern first since I have plenty of wool. I had to make up the pattern of course, since I hadn't bought that. It turned out just a bit tighter than I was intending, but my husband loves it and I have now started the big project - hoping to give him the jumper for this christmas!

sampler hat for gansey

I will keep this thread in mind.
I do all kinds of textile hand crafts, including sewing. Sometimes there are other threads to show what I made (sometimes even BBs). But if I like some more 'bragging' I'll post a photo here. Now I'll put an older photo here:

Medieval-ish 'kaproon' made out of wool felt (felted old sweaters). All stitched by hand.

I don't often take commissions because I do textile stuff mostly for myself but a good friend asked me to make some amigurumi kawaii style little plants for her team at work. I said, "Sure." Here are some.


That's an iris bulb, a fern, a rose and the blue one that is cut off is something I made up to look like a donkey tail sedum. I totally made up a flower that doesn't even look like the real one but she liked them and that's all that mattered.

Not finished yet, but I'm 2 rows away from splitting at the armpit on my husband's gansey, so I feel like a pat on the back is deserved! There are one or two (ahem!) features that prove the jumper is hand knitted, but on the whole I'm loving the knitting rhythm.

Gansey knitted jumper progress!

I'm still pretty slow stitching but trying to get faster. I'm trying to knit without a knitting sheath by sticking the needle I'm knitting onto under my arm (having read this awesome thread on fast knitting). It takes me a bit less than 20 minutes to do a row - which makes my speed about 20 stitches a minute. Not very impressive perhaps, but there is a lot of switching back and forth with knitting and purling to get the pattern. I think I am about half way through now.

Nancy Reading wrote:Not finished yet, but I'm 2 rows away from splitting at the armpit on my husband's gansey, so I feel like a pat on the back is deserved! There are one or two (ahem!) features that prove the jumper is hand knitted, but on the whole I'm loving the knitting rhythm.

Gansey knitted jumper progress!

I'm still pretty slow stitching but trying to get faster. I'm trying to knit without a knitting sheath by sticking the needle I'm knitting onto under my arm (having read this awesome thread on fast knitting). It takes me a bit less than 20 minutes to do a row - which makes my speed about 20 stitches a minute. Not very impressive perhaps, but there is a lot of switching back and forth with knitting and purling to get the pattern. I think I am about half way through now.

Beautiful gansey Nancy! This is a real labour of love.

In the past year, my aunt has finally been dealing with all the stuff from her parents house that she stored after their passing. (25  years ago)
It's been kept well but there is lots where no one wants it. Nana was a knitter, but she mostly used cheap wools and acrylics, so there are a couple of sweaters that no one would wear.

Also have a bunch of fabrics, antique laces, ribbons and buttons. I've taken the lot and have been working out some things to make with them.
Everyone is old enough that there isn't much interest in purely sentimental stuff but I figured that holiday stuff might get more traction.
I got the first Xmas stocking done from one of the sweaters and I'm pretty happy with it. They can be personalized so I laid out a couple of patches to show the options.  
I got a couple of takers and I have a few more style protypes to do.

Nancy Reading wrote:Not finished yet, but I'm 2 rows away from splitting at the armpit on my husband's gansey, so I feel like a pat on the back is deserved! There are one or two (ahem!) features that prove the jumper is hand knitted, but on the whole I'm loving the knitting rhythm.

Gansey knitted jumper progress!

I'm still pretty slow stitching but trying to get faster. I'm trying to knit without a knitting sheath by sticking the needle I'm knitting onto under my arm (having read this awesome thread on fast knitting). It takes me a bit less than 20 minutes to do a row - which makes my speed about 20 stitches a minute. Not very impressive perhaps, but there is a lot of switching back and forth with knitting and purling to get the pattern. I think I am about half way through now.

Hi Nancy. How's the knitting going?
I know such projects do not go on in the same speed all the time. So maybe there's a beautiful gansey now (to show here) ... or maybe it's still as it was 5 months ago.

Inge - I'm half a cuff away from finishing! I hope to get himself to model it for me and I'll share a picture soon!

Decided to try altering a thrifted shirt. The Alabama Chanin style fabric work has been intriguing me for a while so I had to give it a shot. Used fabric, fabric markers and thread from the stash. It's a design from the video game Skyrim.
We'll see how it holds up to washing.

Did another shirt using the reverse applique technique.  The thread is a metallic copper. It has great sparkle in person but doesn't show in the picture. Thread was from a big auction lot.
The design is from a different video game and I had cut the freezer paper stencils somewhere around 2012!

Lynne Cim wrote:Hope these earn bragging rights!

This was my first DIY mattress made from sewing 2 untreated cotton drop cloths into a grid filled with buckwheat hulls (sorry old photo!)

Then I made this one -

Next we switched to making our family's buckwheat hull mattresses using stretchier tubular fabric which offered the most contouring from the hulls and was a much easier, no sew project -

We have evolved even more since these old photos, sleeping on so many different DIY mattresses over the last 2 decades.

The tubular one looks totally tubular (imagine Bill and Ted saying it, just before playing a guitar chord, to show appreciation).  Which approach is most comfortable...and how the heck do you make the tubular one?

Just finished this wedding blanket for my daughter and son in law

Oh my Darby - that is certainly something to cherish! A future heirloom perhaps.

I've been working on remaking a headboard and it is finally finished.
I sewed the fabric section out of the leftovers from the curtains for that room, ( all fabrics pieces that were found secondhand so there wasn't enough left of any to fo the whole thing) as well as some other nice bits from my found supplies stash.
The top section was regilded in a variegated gold metal leaf and I added the putti and some other details to fill in some empty spots.
It is way over-the-top but fun and personal and cost under $10 in supplies.
I might add some drapery falls around it, but I'm not sure yet.

Wow!! I really love that, Dian!! Beautiful work!!