THE DRAPERY BLOG

For the second year, we're bringing you a bunch of ideas for handmade Christmas gifts and also, lovely gifts for the makers in your life. (Or, gifts for you to hint loudly at with your loved ones!) On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me... uninterrupted sewing time for myself! (Hey, we can all dream, right?) In any case, 'tis the season to wear something a bit special and make every occasion more festive. Here's a couple of things for inspiration: Liberty of London Tana Lawn, 'Daniel DJ' print , made into the Deer and Doe Aubepine dress (pattern available instore or by phone or email). Nothing beats the feeling of Liberty Tana Lawn on a summer's day, especially in a dress with a bit of 'swish' factor. Hemp/Silk blend Charmeuse in a vintage jacket pattern, just awaiting the perfect vintage button. We are delighted to report that this Hemp/Silk washed beautifully (warm delicate machine cycle, liquid wool wash), line dri...

For the second year, we're bringing you a bunch of ideas for handmade Christmas gifts and also, lovely gifts for the makers in your life. (Or, gifts for you to hint loudly at with your loved ones!) This isn't the prettiest of projects but it's a highly practical one, and something you might consider making for yourself, if not for gifts. These soft, lightweight drawstring bags are intended to replace the throwaway produce bags you find at the supermarket. You know, the ones you put your individual types of fruit and veg in, and things from the bulk bins? Usually they're plastic bags on a big roll but our marvellous local Foodland also has brown paper bags for the organic produce. Whilst paper is preferable to plastic, it still seems a bit wasteful to be using and tossing (or recycling) quite a few of these bags each week. To make a useful replacement, we thought a bag needed to be: - lightweight (won't add weight to what you're paying for, and also ...

 Once more this year, we are bringing you twelve days of Christmas ideas - both handmade gifts and gifts for makers. Today we present the simple but beautiful Japanese fabric gift wrapping technique, Furoshiki . Using basic shapes of fabric, you can simply dress a gift. Plus, the gift wrap is reusable, either as gift wrap again or as a tea-towel or napkins or any other fabric-y plan you may devise. So it's environmentally friendly, too - score! For this project, we have cut a half metre of this 110cm wide Japanese linen/cotton gingham . We then cut one piece to 70x50cm, leaving the remainder piece measuring 40 x 50cm) and sewed a double fold hem around all edges. Here they are with bonus Lego man for scale, courtesy of my lovely 6 year old assistant. Since there's plenty of wine changing hands at this time of year, we thought the wine bottle wrap would be a good one to start with.  Take the larger piece of fabric. Turn it to landscape, then fold the bottom t...

For the second year, we're bringing you a bunch of ideas for handmade Christmas gifts and also, lovely gifts for the makers in your life. (Or, gifts for you to hint loudly at with your loved ones!) Today, we're celebrating fine pins, and no, not a good set of legs. We're talking dressmaking pins, those fiddly little things you probably use all the time but don't give a lot of thought to. Then perhaps the pleasure of using Good Pins awaits you! Good pins like these: (All available in store or online in the Tools & Notions section .) Frankly, for far too long we'd both been using pins, at home and at The Drapery, that were more like this:  Little did we know what we were missing! Now, we are converted to the fine quality pins from Merchant and Mills. In particular, for garment sewing, we have enjoyed the Toilet Pins and Entomology Pins. The adorable Wooden Map Pins are newly arrived (they're red! they're wooden!) and the Spanish Lace Pins, we...

For the second year, we're bringing you a bunch of ideas for handmade Christmas gifts and also, lovely gifts for the makers in your life. Except today we're veering off-course a bit. We hope you don't mind. Because, you know, cake . Christmas and baking just seem to go together, even in our sun-baked summer. This recipe isn't specifically a Christmas cake, but its dense fruitiness and spices make it suitably festive. Served warm, it could even do a pretty good job as Christmas pudding. Chunky Fig, Apricot and Prune Cake (Adapted a little from this River Cottage recipe , published in River Cottage Every Day . Feel free to follow the original, it's delicious. This one bumps up the spice a bit, substitutes a couple of things I had at hand, and has tips from my cooking experience.) 200g soft, dark brown sugar 200g butter, room temperature 4 eggs, room temperature 225g wholemeal spelt flour 1tsp baking powder 2 heaped tsp mixed spice 150g prunes 150...

Once more this year, we are bringing you twelve days of Christmas ideas - both handmade gifts and gifts for makers. If you have any little people on your Christmas list this year, why not make them a toy? Handmade toys make relatively quick projects, and are such a special, lasting gift. We've got lots of great toy making resources at The Drapery - from wool flannel s and wool felt, to natural linens, wool and recycled PET stuffing, plus loads of fun books & patterns. Our Christmas Penguin above, is Arnold. The pattern for Arnold, along with 19 other toys, is in the book Hop Skip Jump , which we have in store. (If you were following our Twelve Days of Christmas last year, you might remember our tutorial for a penguin ornament too.) We've also got a few single paper patterns, including this one: Poppy Doll. As well as the actual doll, this pattern has instructions to make Poppy a veritable smorgasbord of clothes including trousers and a couple of ...

For the second year, we're bringing you a bunch of ideas for handmade Christmas gifts and also, lovely gifts for the makers in your life. (Or, gifts for you to hint loudly at with your loved ones!) Today's handmade gift idea is a pillowcase - one of the simplest things to sew - but gussied up just a little with the addition of contrast flat piping on the front.  Here's our sample one looking a bit over-stuffed at the shop, with two 50 x 50cm cushion inserts masquerading as a pillow inside! Materials: 1 metre of 110cm wide fabric to make one standard pillowcase narrow strip of complementary fabric (3cm wide x at least 52cm long) for the flat piping. We think our range of Art Gallery cottons are perfect, featuring some really lovely designs on a cotton basecloth that is particularly smooth to the touch. Our sample is made from a Leah Duncan design for Art Gallery Fabrics, and a narrow contrast strip of Oakshott shot cotton in 'Zug'. I took all sort...

For the second year, we're bringing you a bunch of ideas for handmade Christmas gifts and also, lovely gifts for the makers in your life. (Or, gifts for you to hint loudly at with your loved ones!) Today we're sharing a gift idea for the young makers. These cute little 'Felties' are very appealing to young ones. The instructions are very clear and from about age six or seven, kids should be able to help trace, cut, sew and stuff the little characters. By about age ten kids can probably achieve these all by themselves! Pair the Felties book ($19.95) with one of our Rainbow Bundles of 100% pure new wool felt ($22.75) for a great gift. We also have an assortment of wool felt colours at $6.50 per 25 x 45cm piece. Add a bag of stuffing - we have pure Australian wool tops for $12.50 a 250g bag or wonderfully springy recycled P.E.T. (from plastic drink bottles) at $4 a 200g bag.   For the stitching, we have a range of coloured embroidery threads at 70c a ske...