DIY patchwork quilts

I have been making patchworks for 4 years now maybe, I just did them in my spare time (in the summer holidays usually) and they are simple and fun to do. They also make really great personal presents for people. (People are proper made up when you give them it!!) It is something you would keep forever! What I never realized is how expensive they are if you where to buy one! Hundreds of pounds!! And they are impersonal, sure they look great but £200?? I don't think so!

So I thought I would go through how I go about making one. So I have my own special one, which goes on the end of my bed. It is made up of fabric which has been a part of my life (old curtains from baby room, bed sheets, old clothes) so instead of throwing them away, I made them into something that I could look at everyday, and hopefully pass onto my own children (a long way in the future!!).

So what I first do is cut out squares of the fabric, you can choose what size squares, but I always do 12cm x 12cm. But that doesn't really matter as long as they are squares. You can use a paper template if it makes it easier. I then cut out more squares, I usually aim for a quilt of 12x12 squares, so that is 144 squares (!!) this is the most time consuming bit, but you can do it watching the telly! 

Next I machine sew the squares into strips of 12 squares, I like to alternate the squares but you don't have to, it is entirely personal preference. 

I then sew the strips together to get one huge square. If you feel like the square is too small, or needs neatening up, I sew a large border around the patchwork area of one colour. I finishes off it nicely I think, and makes it look less busy. All that is left to do is but a lining on the other side. I usually use a padded lining (already has wadding attached). This gives the blanket a bit more weight, but again it's personal preference. You can just use ordinary lining.

So attach this lining, you put the two right sides of the fabric facing together (inside out) and sew all around the edge leaving a gap of about 15cm. You then pull the fabric through so now the right sides of the fabric are now facing away from each (the right way round) you can then hand stitch the hole closed. You then can either sew an edging around the fabric, or just machine stitch an inch all around the edge to finish it off, and again this is personal preference. 

And voila! You have your very own patchwork!! And for literally a few pounds (unless you have to buy all your fabric). Nothing like the price of one from a shop, and these look much nicer because you made it with your own fair hands!!

If you fancy giving this ago, and need tips, or even if you want me to make you your very own, feel free to message me, comment, or go on my twitter or Facebook  and get in touch with me there!!

Hope this has inspired you to get the scissors out!!

x x x 

DIY studded collars for an OOTD

Studs are everywhere now, studded shoes, bags, jackets, belts and collars. The may look good, but the price tag that comes along with them aren't. So of course I thought, I can do that for the fraction of the price and off I pop to eBay and get myself some studs. This is the seller I used and they were £2.50. 

I used a mint green blouse I had bought from New Look, I thought it would look good contrasted to the silver studs.

It was really easy to do, the spikes easily pushed through the fabric and I used a thimble to press over the spikes to secure them in place.

I added three rows of studs, as it prevents hair being caught in them! They look like collar tips almost. I added them to the pockets as well.

I think they look really good! and for £2.50 I can add them to anything, plus they are really easy to remove again.

I wore it recently with a skirt I had made from Liberty fabric and some vintage lace that was lying around my house. Looked perfectly summery.

This is one customization that anyone could do themselves, so I would deffo give it a go on a rainy day (plenty of those at the moment) or to give an old item of clothing an edgy new look. The result looks professional and expensive! No one would ever know that it only cost £2.50!!

x x x 

OOTD 9/8/2012 DIY ombre hair for summer

Recently I've been umming and arring over the ombre hair look, I think it is beautiful for the summer, but the thought of bleach on my hair and the expense was putting me off. Saying that most of my hair is extensions, so it is not my hair I'll be bleaching!! (well it is mine, I bought it!!). Next was the expense... so I must have watched a million YouTube videos and read a million blog posts of girls who did it themselves. From these videos and posts I decided that I could do that, looked simple enough, and the results looked good. So I took the plunge, it is only hair after all, it grows back, you can dye it back. Plus I've sort of got into the mentality recently of 'You only live once' so why not?

So I used Jerome Russell B blonde hair lightener. It was around £5 from Home and Bargain. It was one of the powder bleach ones. I bought two boxes as my hair is quite long, and my hair is almost black!!

So I followed all the tutorials I had seen, and after one attempt I washed my hair. It had lightened it, but it wasn't as light as I wanted so I did it on the very end of my hair two more times. This time I washed my hair and thought 'Oh my God it's ginger!!!' but thankfully it was just the light in my bathroom!! Again it was not the colour I wanted, but it had worked, just more subtle than I had hoped for. But ah well!! This is what it looks like.

So it looks ok I suppose but i don't think this hair will physically go any lighter!!

Anyway, so today is actually like proper summer, so you can actually wear summer clothes, so i thought I'd do a quick actual summer outfit of the day. So i'm just wearing a white vest from Dorothy Perkins (about £4), a grey jersey high low skirt from Topshop (£20), vintage gold, white gold and rose gold necklace from my nan, and Primark nude pumps with gold studs (£10), and Primark plaited belt (~£1). Excuse the pasty legs, they haven't seen sun in about a year!!

Hopefully I'll get a bit of tan on them today!! 

Much love x x

OOTD home made ombre shorts 5/8/2012

As I'm quite nifty with a sewing machine and feel I can turn my hand to most things, I decided to turn an old pair of ('boyfriend') ASOS jeans into some ombre denim shorts.

I chose boys jeans as they make better shorts as they usually have straight legs, making them easier to turn up (and then they don't dig into your leg) plus I like a looser fitting jean. So I cut them longer than I wanted them and turned them up twice and held them in place with a few stitches.

Next then ombre. So I took some ordinary household bleach (I think I bought mine in Home and Bargains for about 50p) and poured quite a lot into my washing up bowl and diluted it with a small amount of water. I then wet my shorts so that they were soaking wet. (I did this in the bath).   I then put my plastic gloves on (just the ones from hair dye kits) and dipped my shorts into the bleach/water solution. I dipped them as far as I wanted the lightest part of the shorts to be. I left the shorts dipped in the bleach for about an hour, (I would keep checking for the colour you want). As the jeans were wet already this allows the bleach to travel up the jeans, giving an ombre effect.

Once the desired colour has been achieved I then used my shower to rinse all the bleach from the jeans. These were then left to dry. It is then best to machine wash the jeans, just remove any excess bleach or dye to prevent it from transferring. 

I was rather pleased with the results and wore them in an outfit.

So I teamed my newly ombred shorts with a Topshop red checked shirt, Topshop silver and jade collar tips, Primark plaited brown belt, black tights and a pair of black creepers (not shown). 

This, believe it or not is a summer outfit!! (yes the weather is this rubbish in Liverpool) Let's pray for good weather so I can wear these bad boys without tights and a white vest!!

x x

Alterations By Emily

So.... recently I've started u my own company (ish) which is basically just alterations (taking up sleeves, trousers, taking in shorts etc) repairs and custom pieces. It's been going rather well recently, so many people hide things away in there wardrobes thinking one day they get it repaired or altered and forget about them, so in a way I am rescuing clothes everywhere from a life hidden at the back of the wardrobe or even the bin!!


I also do custom pieces, patchworks (i've done so many!!), embroidered cushions, fancy dress items and even a lampshade or two!! These are the best things that I do, you can proper let your creative side run wild.

So I will be doing individual posts on specific things I've done recently, but for now I'm just going to put a few pictures of some work I've done!! Hopefully give others inspiration to do the same thing!!

Most the things I do are really easy and cheap, but require a lot of time and patience to get them done perfect, which I don't mind! And i have quite a lot of spare time at the moment to do them!!

Much love x x x

Sew sew sew ootd 19/6/12

Sooo I've started up my own alteration, repair and customisation business!! And it's going pretty good so far! Made up! Needed a bit of money until I start my phd in October so I thought it would be a useful and creative way of doing it! I've just been doing repairs and alterations at the moment, but I've got a few more in the pipeline (costumes and patchwork quilts etc.)

So as part of this business I've been going through some of the things ie made over the years so that I can put them on my Facebook and twitter and I came across a skirt I made from liberty fabric years ago, and I thought it would go perfectly with my mint here blouse from new look and my gold jumper (miserable summer weather!) so that's what I teamed it with today! Shows how you can rewear things years later!!

X x

Homemade Sequin Collar Shirt

After having a bad experience with Missguided.co.uk with a no show order and then them sending me the wrong order I decided their sequin shirt wasn't that nice anyway and decided to make my own for a fraction of the price. It was really simple to do and I think it looks amazing.


So firstly I started with a plain black shirt (but you could use any shirt you wanted). I got mine from eBay for about £2. I then ordered a bag of gold sequins for 99p also from eBay. I thought gold would contrast the black shirt perfectly! I also chose sequins of all shapes and sizes but you could use all the same shape if you wanted!!

I then used the holes on the sequins and a gold thread to sew them onto the collar of the shirt, and this did take a few hours (but saved me a lot of money).

So all in all this cost me around £2.99 compared to missguided's £25.99 (I think) so I think that is such a good saving. This is such an easy way of personalizing anything, not just shirts. Plus I think it looks great.

So I worn it quite a few times but I'm wearing later for a house party to celebrate end of exams (yey!!) with a pair of jeans I cut off into shorts, a plaited leather belt and a pair of pumps.