Coats From My £2 Stash

I have now made 4 coats/jackets from the fabric in my £2 stash.  The first one was just a simple two fronts, back and sleeves with a couple of pockets on the front and a band around the neck/fronts.  I used a cardigan as a pattern for it.  I think I should have made the  band a bit wider at the top for the collar but it looks ok on so will leave it as it is for this one.

The next two were from a frock coat pattern that I bought.  I am quite pleased with them but not sure whether the stretchy fabric suits the jackets as much as a non stretchy one would.  The fabric also makes them a bit heavy but my other half said they look alright.

For this one I used some of the lovely Chinese brocade my other half brought me back from China for the collar and lapels.

The line in the back of this one is the back seam as I haven't lined it.

This is by far my favourite one.  I had an old leather jacket that had scratches on it that I was going to throw out but it fitted ok so I decided to cut it up and use the pieces as a pattern for this coat.   I only cut up half the coat, I made the first cut straight up the centre back and then left one half as it was so I could check how it went back together again.  Then the other pieces I cut as close to the seams as I could and then added a seam allowance to the new pieces.  The coat is lined using some thin, stretchy, shiny fabric I had left over from doing the sofa.

I have also made three pairs of trousers.  One pair is plain black and just straight trousers.  For the other two pairs I used an old pair of jeans as the pattern.  Again I only cut up half the jeans, so cut down the back seam and up to the zip and cut so I had half the zip on each side when finished.  That way I could tell how they went back together again.  For the front I didn't cut the pockets off separate, they were quite easy to cut out from the new fabric as the.y were.  On assembling the new jeans I made the back's up first (there was a sort of yoke at the top of the back) and then added the patch pockets then sewed the back seam.  For the fronts I made the pockets first so they looked the same as the original jean pockets then put the zip in again following how it looked on the original ones, then finished the front seam.  Then I just had to sew the side seams and inner leg seams, put the waistband on and do the hems.

New Fabric Stash

I bought some fabric off a seller on Ebay the other week  My brother-in-law picked them up from the seller for me and we went up to pick them up from my sister's house on Friday.  I was expecting there to be 4 black rubbish sized bags full but found that the bags were more like people sized and there was an extra bag they had given him for free.  We had to jiggle it all about to fit it in the car to get home and I couldn't wait to have a look and see what was in there.


The fabric is all knitted jersey and mainly dark colours.  The pieces are all quite large in size.  I am hoping to make myself some clothes out of it like jackets and trousers.


Here is a photo of some of it piled up on my table.  There is another big pile on the bed which I couldn't fit in the photo as I thought the table legs might give way with the weight of it all, plus there is another bag full under the table which is small cut off pieces.

I have already cut out a long frock coat and a pair of trousers out of one of the pieces and another jacket out of another.  I will publish a photo when I have finished it.  Seeing as I got all this for the princely sum of £2 I am well pleased.

Three More Tops

I had some more of the fabric that my Sister In Law gave me so today I gave myself a big push and made three more tops.  I made them the same style as the brown one I made last week with the elastic around the neck and sleeves.

Little Purses

I made some little zipped purses yesterday.  I am not entirely happy with the zips but they will do.  I am going to take them round to my Ex Mother-in-law to see if she can sell them to her friends.  I made one for her the other week and she uses it all the time to keep her bingo money in.

New Top

I made this top yesterday out of some fabric that my lovely Sinter-In-law gave me.  The fabric is a knitted thin jersey of some kind, like a thin crepe.  It drapes nicely and was really easy to sew.

I had a top already that I liked so I used this as a pattern to cut out the pieces.  There were four pieces altogether, the front, back, and two shoulder/sleeve pieces.  The shoulder/sleeve pieces are practically rectangular in shape and they are sewn onto the sloping edges of the front and back like raglan sleeves. 

When I had sewn up the shoulder seams and the side seams I finished off the edges of the neck, sleeves and bottom by making sure they were all even and then I sewed around the edge with a zigzag stitch in a dark brown colour, sewing half on and half off the fabric.  Where the fabric was slightly stretchy the finished result doesn't really look like zigzag, it just looks like a neat edging. 

After that I stitched some thin flat elastic around the inside of the neck and sleeves using a stitch on my machine which I think was a double overlock stitch.  It was like a zigzag with a straight stitch down each side and it tried to make it wide enough so it encased the elastic rather than actually stitching through it.

The top took me about 2 hours to make from start to finish and cost me nothing but effort.

Super Hero Cushions

I wanted to make a cushion for my daughter's boyfriend for his birthday.  He loves Marvel Comics so I searched on Ebay and found a seller selling some lovely colourful Marvel fabric.  I also bought some plain black cotton to go with it.

When the fabric came I had a look at it and found that there were three nice bits I could cut out as panels to make fronts so decided I would make up three cushions, one for the boyfriend and two extra for my shop. 

I cut out three 12 inch pieces out of the fabric and then cut some 3 inch strips from the black fabric and stitched them around the outside as a border.  This made the front of the cushion.  The back of the cushion has a 12 inch square of black cotton with a star appliqued on it, then a thin border of the comic fabric and then 3 inch strips sewn around to make it the same size as the front.  I put a zipper in the bottom to close it.

More Mother's Day Cushions

I finally braved the cold today, put on numerous layers of clothing and went up to do some sewing.  It was driving me mad not being able to get on with it.  I am glad I did as I finished off three cushions for my shop.

They are all similar using the gorgeous fabrics I got in the sale the other day.  Each one has one of my embroidered pansies on one side and "The Best Mum In All The World" embroidered on the back.

Cushion 1

Cushion 2

Cushion 3