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Favorite Purl Bee DIY projects – Holiday Edition!

DIY supplies

Are you making any of your holiday gifts by hand? I tend to make at least a few gifts each year, although I never seem to have enough time, and end up buying the rest of my gifts on Etsy or at local craft fairs and holiday markets (like Renegade!) When I do have some free time to work on DIY projects, I love to turn to The Purl Bee, one of my favorite DIY project resources, for inspiration.

If you’re like me, and are starting the holiday season with the best intentions to make your gifts by hand, maybe these DIY projects from The Purl Bee will get you started!

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Recently at Cotton & Flax HQ

Cotton & Flax HQI’ve been blogging a bit less frequently lately, as I’ve been working hard to build up my inventory for upcoming summer sales and in person shows here in California. I’ll be selling my work at Renegade Craft Fair in LA and San Francisco the last two weekends in July, so I’m spending every free moment printing, sewing, and designing new products for later this year.

If you want more frequent updates, you can follow Cotton & Flax on Instagram, I post lots of behind the scenes photos from Cotton & Flax Headquarters, plus the occasional photo of Frida, my adorable cat (and Cotton & Flax’s CFO… hah!)

Thread holds it all together.

ThreadThread might seem like such a little thing (an afterthought, even), but using quality materials makes all the difference. If you’ve sewn larger projects before, you probably know what I’m talking about – it’s incredible how such a simple material can make such a difference. For Cotton & Flax projects, I use Gutermann’s natural cotton thread because it never seems to break or tangle while I’m sewing, and the colors are just phenomenal. This first photo shows a portion of my thread stash, built up over many years. It would be amazing to see all the empty spools I’ve used up over the years, part of me wishes I’d saved them all.

sewn basketI’ve experimented with lots of different types of thread, and I’ve built up a pretty little stash of it over the years. It’s nice having it around when I want to work on side projects, like this sewn rope bowl I made a couple weeks ago, inspired by Doug Johnston.

If you sew – do you have a favorite brand of thread? Any other materials or tools that you just can’t live without?

Feeling inspired – Louise Bourgeois

Louise BourgeoisHave you seen the fabric works of Louise Bourgeois? I have seen a few of her sculptural works in museums, as well as some of her prints and drawings, but never her fabric works. I would love to see these pieces in person, especially the textile book (which you see disassembled and displayed along a gallery wall in the final photo).

Louise BourgeoisLouise BourgeoisLoise BourgeoisFeeling very inspired by these pieces lately, especially as I ponder how to use up small scraps from Cotton & Flax projects.

Side Projects

Cotton & Flax patchwork pillow

Every so often, I find some time to experiment and make projects that I know won’t be for sale in the Cotton & Flax shop (at least, not for quite a while). A few weeks ago, I spent that experimental time making a pair of botanical ink drawings. Last weekend, I spent some time experimenting with indigo and learning about traditional Shibori techniques with Niki Livingston.

Cotton & Flax fabric bin

This week, I spent some time digging through scraps of unused Cotton & Flax fabric to look for pieces large enough to make a new pillow (first photo above). I’m not perfect – I sometimes create misprints or pieces that are too irregular to be made into pillows for the shop, but I save all the scraps – I hate throwing fabric away. After sorting through the scraps on Saturday, I found a few pieces that were large enough to create a patchwork lumbar pillow, which now lives on my sofa! I love the look of all the different patterns together, don’t you? I also created a small storage bin from a scrap of fabric left over from some printing experiments I did back in 2011. The bin is the perfect size to hold the printed tags I use for Cotton & Flax tea towels.

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