The Summer is over and the NIght comes earlier - Bring in the Light!

Oh wow that was a nice Summer , good holidays, family time and days out !

BUT … have you noticed … yes it's getting darker earlier and Autumn is knocking at the door . 

Maybe it's  time to spruce up the lighting in your home  … well I can help with that with a funky lampshade!

Check out my shops,  : 
WittyDawnUK on Etsy  ( many to choose from) 
WittyDawn on Folksy ( 100s of fabric options listed ) 

I can post out easily - don't worry I pack my lampshades well -  over a 100 posted out now to happy customers , I've even posted a few overseas ( USA, Russia,Australia ) by special request. 

Need a lamp to go with your WittyDawn Lampshade ? check out  Scandiwegians  on Etsy they have LOTS of cool things !   Here is their Lamp Section

As you can tell I LOVE my 50s, 60s, 70s textiles but I have plenty of more traditional and children's fabrics too! 

By the way … these guys are available too (as well as bunting, cushions etc)  - popular little critters! lots of colours available

WittyDawn Vintage Fabric Lampshades

I started making Lampshades earlier this summer and they have been rather in demand … should have done this YEARS ago ! it's a lovely way to showcase vintage fabrics.

Here's a few that I have made in the last few weeks, but as I have over 300 vintage fabrics this is just a selection of what I can make for you from genuine 50s bark cloth, to funky 60s and 70s prints, plus some classic ' modern country ' / shabby chic / classic Sanderson fabrics.

But don't worry …. I still make a range of other items including my mice! Check out my Etsy Shop and my Folksy Shop 

 

When I say I have a lot of vintage fabric..... ( studio video )

I really do mean I have A LOT of vintage fabric....


I thought it was time  I showed you. Here's a quick look around my studio

So if you should want a custom made lampshade chances are I will have SOMETHING that'll ' float your boat' just ask me !

Obsessed with RAG DOLLS

Oh dear can't seem to stop making these....

BUT what a lovely way to make use of and also display some of my lovely vintage fabrics.

It was inevitable really that I would end up making these I suppose and it was a case of the design being right almost straightway . As usually I started with drawing our a design on paper an made a prototype. This was the first one and really all  I had to do was make a few changes to the arms and legs and very minor tweaks to head and body. Each one  take 4 to 5 hours to make and each one is UNIQUE.

There's a bit animal theme - so far I have BearCubs, KittyKats and RabbitRascals although I expect I'll do a few more variation ! Each one  take 4 to 5 hours to make and each one is UNIQUE.

There's a heck of a lot of pretty pale skinned Rag Doll girls out there so I though I ought to introduce a bit more variety too :)

Anyway you can find them in both my Folksy and Etsy shops . I hope you love them as much as I enjoy making them

( as I am a twin - I have a brother - I have made a few sets of twins too )

I've been making clothes from curtains again ....

So I've been hoarding this curtain fabric for a while now ... lush isn't it !

FINALLY I decided to get on an make something for an event at which I had a stall. It usually takes something like this with a deadline to make me get on with a project! I must say I was pretty pleased with how it turn out and I got lots of lovely comments.

The dress was adapted from a combination of a couple of pattern and the cape pattern was from Sew Vera Venus  found on a great resource called The Vintage Pattern Files 

( Edit: Since making this cape I've had lots of requests to make more - however the pattern is not one I created so I asked the lovely Jeanne of Sew Vera Venus  if I could use it to make some to sell on and she has very kindly given me permission. A very charming and talented lady - I do urge you to check out her site. Contact me if you would like a cape in one of my vintage fabric! )


NOT SHOWN: With it I had a vintage leather handbag and green suede 40s style shoes - the latter came from Hotter shoes who surprisingly do some lovely comfortable styles that work really well with a vintage look!

The outfit was finished with a red hat I commisioned from the talented Sophie at Imogen's Imagination 


( photos courtesy of my lovely friend Sheila of Sheuniquevintage )

The builders are in..... and working hard on my Sewing Room!

Exciting times ahead - no longer will my poor family have to put up with piles of vintage fabric EVERYWHERE...

The builders have started! and I will soon have a dedicated hobby/craft room with a HUGE cutting table and all my vintage fabric will be in one place. When I make a dress I will no longer have to do the 'house sewing circuit' - YOU know the one... cut it out downstairs on dining room table, sew it in tiny box room, try it on my bedroom and repeat.. and repeat....

In the meantime I am acquiring 'projects' to furnish my space DAILY and each fabric I pick up is THE one on which to base my colour scheme , until the next one comes along that is ...

Now whilst you might think 'lucky girl' ... well ... yes indeed!... but.... this is the result of a savings plan that dates back  25 YEARS !!! .... so I have waited a while ;)

My objective is to furnish it as much as possible from recycled items and thrifted finds but even so the pennies only stretch so far - and realising just what an INSANE amount of fabric I have I have been selling some on via ebay - if you like vintage fabric you might like to check it out ?


This is what I have listed on Ebay this week !


At the moment I am on the lookout for a Architects Plan/ Map chest - to store my patterns and my artwork . The latter is 'stored' under an armchair at the moment - NOT ideal.

I'm also after either an Ercol or a Lloyd Loom chair as well. Then - in theory - I am sorted ( ish... famous last words .... )

Watch this space ....

Sometimes you gotta LET IT GO....

So the thing is I've been lucky with my vintage thrifting/hunting recently....

I found this lovely set of Poole Twin Tone in the colour that I collect in a local charity shop
 ... and - as usual... I've been TOTALLY unable to pass by some fabulous fabrics...

but my cupboards can only hold so much so I've gotta LET SOME GO...

If you check out my ebay page I got some great items I'm 'releasing' back into the world!

I've listed lots of Vintage fabric DIY cushion pieces - which are being snapped up - and some great bundles/job lots like these....

I've also got some vintage clothes for sale, some of my WittyDawn items and I'm FORCING myself to rationalise my china collection, so these items are up for grabs too !

Why not check my EBAY listings out ;)!

AMAZING VINTAGE BARKCLOTH COLLECTION - for sale

Ok I'm having a little clearout


Do YOU like vintage barkcloth fabric ?
Do you like a bargain ?
Would you like to add to your vintage stash WITHOUT slogging  through charity shops/car boots/ebay listings ? ?

CHECK THIS OUT !

Head over to my WittyDawn Facebook Page for details of how to make a bid for this lot -

There's enough fabric in this lot to make the fronts of a LEAST 17 40cm cushions....

A little revamp DIY project - Footstool Makeover!

A very satisfying and quite quick revamp / renewal of this little footstool
From this rather sad looking thing ... to this smart little stool with a super vintage Sanderson fabric :)

I really should have taken more pictures of the stages involved BUT if you are interested this is what I did ....

1. Remove feet and strip bank to wood - the old foam etc was rather yucky and NOT for reusing! I didn't bother removing all the tacks on the edges of the wood base as I had a cunnng plan to cover them up and in any case was going to use a staple gun to tack fabric on underneath the stool .
2. I used the wood base  to create a circle tamplate - I used this to cut foam, the polyester wadding circle/strip, and the lining fabric circle and strip and another circle of fabric to sew on underneath to cover up base at the end . I made sure that the side strips of wadding and lining fabric had a generous overlap of fabric to allow them to be stapled to underside of stool base - about 5cm deeper than foam.
3. I handstitched the circle of wadding and side strip of wadding over the foam - now you COULD just use foam by itself BUT the wadding gives a smoother finish - also any roughness in foam edges is masked AND those tacks that I couldn't be bothered to prise off are also covered up :)
4. I machined sewed together the circle and strip of lining fabric - I always prefer to line upholstery projects like this but you could just put your top fabric straight on. You could just use one piece of lining fabric and staple it on BUT if you fit the lining fabric it minimises the pleating/fabric gathers when you come to staple it on-  I think it results in a smoother final finish.
5. Making sure I had a reasonably tight fit I put foam on base , put lining cover on and stapled it on with an upholstery staple gun ( such a useful bit of kit!). Staple underneath at one point first , then pulling fabric fairly tauntly/firmly directly opposite staple again. Do the same but at right angled to you first pair of fixings - so basically you have staple at each quarter of the circle ( sorry this is a bit of a rubbish explanation! you then can work between each set of staples aimimg for lots of small gathers/pleats, rather that one or two larger ones, to get a smooth a finish as you can. What you DON'T do is start stapling at one point and work your way round! you will end up with a huge wad of excess fabric at the end - trust me on this....
6. Then I stapled on my top fabric in same way ( a great vintage Sandersons one - was actually an apron when it came to me!) and trimmed off excess fabric underneath . You will see that I didn't make a fitted cover as I wanted  a single piece of fabric to show off the design. You do have to do a bit more gathering and pleating but it's not difficult if you remember to do lots of small ones :)
7. Finishing time ! I hand sewed a hemmed circle of lining fabric underneath covering up raw edges of wadding/lining/fabric /staples. I then had this very pretty embriodered/scalloped edged floral bias binding which I hand sewed on the bottom edge - it didn't NEED this to cover up anything but it is a good finishing touch. I screwed legs back on through the lining fabric underneath - ALL DONE

When I read it back this looks like a lot of work - it really isn't ! although if you aren't keen on handsewing ( I like it) you might want to skip some of the finishing BUT in my opinion it is those bits that make for a neatly finished project.

January SALE ! - 30% off in my Etsy and Folksy shops!

Better check it out folks!

EVERYTHING is 30% off when you use code 30OFFWITTYDAWN in either my :

ETSY WittyDawnUK shop

OR

Folksy WittyDawn shop

For example - Mice will be reduced from £9 to only £6.30








 Owls will be reduced from £19 to only £13. 30




My popular BOHO bags would drop in price to around £17.50 !

And it would be a great time to get some new cushions for your home in time for Spring!

Remember I make everything from Vintage and thus eco friendly , recycled fabric - good for the planet and great for a unique look too.

I'm doing a few giveaways....!

On the run up to Christmas I am doing a few giveaways . This is one that I started this week so head on over to my Facebook page and join in!

My WittyDawn facebook page

( https://www.facebook.com/WittyDawn/photos/a.805537452795639.1073741830.790290904320294/976973905651992/?type=1&theater )

This is a pretty good one I think - you'd either win 3 pressies to give at Chrismas OR you have a great Christmas stocking with 2 stocking fillers to get you started . ENJOY ;)!

EDIT: the winner was Di Keeble, Due to a family emergency I had to close this giveaway earlier and will not be able to do anymore before Christmas now. 

A bit addicted to making things with this 60s pattern

With it being a lovely hot summer and with holidays coming up I've been making some things for myself with some vintage fabrics from my stash.

This pattern has been perfect ! suits me and pretty easy too - also great when trying to 'stretch' a small amount of fabric to get a complete garment as the panels in it make mixing fabrics very easy.

SO far I've made myself 4 dresses and 3 tops ( only one shown) with this reissued Simplicity pattern so it has proved to be great value for money :)

If you want to venture into making your own vintage style clothes I'd recommend this one. You will need to know how to insert a zip but there are lots of great online tutorials showing a variety of techniques.

I have adapted it slightly to use bias binding ( in some cases bought but often bias binding I have made) as I like the contrast.

You might be interested to know that the green/white one is made from charity shop/gifted table clothes - total cost with zip was less that ten  pounds!

Unique ? YES, Rare Vintage Fabric ? YES, HOURS of work ? Yes ... cheap ? erm...NOOOO

So if you put hours of work into finding, matching, cutting, sewing something however much joy you get from that process ( and I do love doing all that ) how expensive should it be ?

Pricing is always a dilemma I think! however... these beautiful vintage fabric quilts have to be priced to reflect the work and care that I put into them so ,no , they will not be cheap I am afraid.

If it's made of hexies like this... then each one has been hand cut and then hand sewn together ! it takes HOURS ! My more expensive quilts also tend to feature hand quilting and finishing too.

Even without fabric sourcing overheads ( you cannot just pop into a shop an order them, and once you DO find a fabulous vintage fabric it then requires laundering, ironing and so on) each of these a particular quilts takes 30 to 40 hours to put together. Factor in the rarity value of some of my fabric - some of the Heals and Boras vintage fabrics used are in themselves expensive - and you get to a not inconsiderable price !


The ones below are £225 to £275

However the results are lovely ...and they are genuine heirlooms I feel :)



I will have some slightly cheaper ones - basically where they require less handsewing/finishing. However they are all still made made of vintage fabrics . This blue/red/orange/olive one is in production at the moment and will probably be circa £150 to £200 depending on the final finish regarding wadding - at the moment it is a generous single bed size but it could be extended to a double size at additional cost. I must admit though I'm going to be VERY tempted to keep this one ...!

( it rather suits my family/dining room !)
 

PS SEE look how nice it looks on my dining room table !

A bit more dress making from Vintage Fabric

I got this GORGEOUS red fabric from a very nice chap at Lou Lou's vintage fair in Cheltenham recently and there was JUST enough to make a skirt

As you can see I sadly had to run the pattern across the drop waistband because that was the only way I could cut it but it's OK I think.

I will point out a bit that I learnt from the Great British Sewing Bee - can you see where I can understitched the lining VERY close to the seam?  Yes it IS worth doing and it makes the top edge of the skirt waistband line beautfully flat. I've picking up useful tips every week form that show!

This skirt had it's first outing on Friday when I went out to dinner with friends :) 

Well I think there's nothing wrong with a homemade pressie !

So a dear friend had one of those 'milestone' birthdays coming up and had also admired a bold green and white dress I had made and worn on New Years Eve.

Aha! I thought ... now there's an idea... and then I found the perfect vintage fabric... SO her colours.

A few hours sewing  and this was the result! it was a good job she was considerably slimmer than me otherwise I'm not so sure she would even have received it.

A couple of friends - armed with a sample of the fabric - also bought the most devine and perfectly matched jewellery from 'Made' in Cirencester, so we were able to give her a fully co-ordinated outfit

Now this gift didn't cost many £££'s but there's not many ( any ?) out there like it :)