The Piece & Jam Collection Launches!

Well, we are delighted to announce the launch of our brand new, hard fought, hard won, 'Piece and Jam' and 'Stratford' Collections!

Now then, when Amanda and I decided it was time our Kids' Collection got some company on the site, we wanted to get back to basics and sew something from our hearts.  We agreed to go off and pursue our own stitchy little agendas and come up with a collection each, that we would then market.  This allowed each of us to do her own thing, and remain faithful to it.  Teamwork is essential in business, but sometimes you also have to let your own creativity spark fully into a great big fire too!

Piece and Jam is my fire, and Amanda's burning desire is Stratford.


When I was a nipper, I and my several other nipper siblings used to play outside. Of course, then we'd get hungry and hassle that lady who lived in the kitchen.  That's right, Mum, her name was.  Or rather "Mu-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-ummm....." which is what all self-respecting children call their mother.  Even when they're grownups with children of their own and want their mother to take up a hem or design a whole product for their vintage and recycled fabric homewares company.  Ahem.


Wanyhoo.....so, she would lob at us what she called a 'piece'n'jam' to shut us up and keep us outside.  I believe it is a Scottish phrase, or at least, that's where she found it, her parents being Scots.  A piece'n'jam is just bread and jam.  No butter or anything fancypants like that, oh no.  Just a piece of bread.

With jam on.

Now, although our Piece and Jam Collection is sort of, essentially, my baby - in the end it was actually Amanda who has made the products.  Lazy aren't I?  So I was sitting here with my free-motion embroidery head on, sketching vintage sewing machines or radios or socks or pants or shoes (well, go and look!) and thinking up phrases, and fiddling with embroidery threads and having enormous fun 'writing' in thread on bits of vintage fabric, and then I'd turn up in the school playground, and shove my makes at Amanda.  Kind of drop them at her feet, like a cat with a dead frog.
And say things like - "Um, fancy putting that on a pegbag?" or "Hey, you know how good you are at making Tea Cosies?" or "Oh you're so pretty and clever at making great big laundry bags.....ooooh look at this, wouldn't that look nice on one?" and then I'd run, run like the wind....
Poor woman.

So, in the end - Amanda pieces together the fabrics, linings, straps and templates to make the actual product and I supply the 'Jam'! Of course, our lovely stitchers will make them once we have sent them the patterns and they're ready for the jammin', and so when you order, you must still have a look at your OriginalStitch Tag to see which of our stitchers made your product.

What's great about Piece and Jam is that you can choose your piece, and your can choose your jam.  Want wholemeal with raspberry?  No problem.  Rye and Stoneground with Gooseberry?  Ciabatta with Fruits of the Forest you say?  Done.
Oh, no, hang on - that's actual bread and jam, sorry....

Let's try again, yes?
Want an Apron with a Radio on?  We're on your wavelength.
Want a Shoe-Bag with a Sewing Machine on? We're sew with you on that.
A Tea-Cosy with Bunting on? Just flag it up when you order.
A Laundry-Bag with Shoes on?  We'll toe the line...

Am I having a little too much fun with this?  Well, why not.  This is a fun collection of iconic shapes and phrases turned into mini-artworks on everyday things.

Coz why should your laundry bag be boring?  Get jammin'!

Dabble in the Double

Double-sided fusible interfacing...

Don't you think that's the most terrifying string of words ever?  I found it very intimidating when I first read that in a sewing pattern somewhere.  I was all, what the devil is that, for heaven's sake?!  And where the blunkers do you get it from?!

Well, you can get the stuff in most haberdashers, to be honest.  It's quite hard to explain why this stuff is handy, because it's a bit like explaining the benefits of glue.
"Glue rocks.  Coz it's really sticky and sticks things together."
No kidding.

So, enough of that.  Here's a handy, or rather hearty, tutorial to get you off to a flying start with the wonders of Double-Sided Fusible Interfacing.  You don't need the stiff stuff, or even the light fabric stuff - you need the stuff that looks like paper. 



Right.  Gimme a list of stuff I need to forage for.
1m of lightweight Double-Sided Fusible Interfacing
Lots of pretty strips and scraps and scrippy scrappy bits of fabric, motifs from old clothes etc
Larger fabric triangles, approx 7" sided
Card Templates of hearts, or little birds, or whatever shape you'd like on your bunting
Pinking shears if you have them
Iron and Ironing Board
Sewing machine and threads, optional

1. Start by sorting through lots of lovely bits of fabric and iron them all.  Or even, don't bother ironing them.  My mum wouldn't.  She says she never irons anything before she sews it.  Shocking!
2. Cut a piece of dsfi, say 8"x14", although it doesn't really matter.  We wanted to make loooooooads of hearts for our bunting, but once you have a project in mind - you decide.

3. Now arrange and then iron the fabrics onto the dsfi with a cotton hot iron.  I'd advise laying some old bit of cloth on top, so that if any cheeky dsfi is exposed, your iron won't touch it and get goo on. 

4. Choose your template and draw round it on the reverse of your ironed fabric scraps.  Don't throw away any bits left over - keep every last bit; I'll show you what you can do with the tiny scraps later

5. Cut out, and carefully peel away the waxy paper.  This will be quite flimsy, so have your bunting triangles handy, ready to place your shape onto, the mesh-like sticky stuff facing down

6. Iron onto the bunting triangles
7. Now the fun part - find a really bright contrasting thread - or black, which looks amazingly effective with pastels and pretty cottons, and zigzag stitch along all the fabric joins, and round your shape.  Oh my word how great does that look?! But hey - if you don't have a sewing machine, look at the hearts above - they weren't stitched along the joins - you could just iron them onto your fabric triangles. 

8. Once you've done them all, stitch lots of torn scruffy strips of fabric about 1" wide together, and using zigzag stitch sew your bunting triangles to the wrong sides of the strip.

What I'm saying is, I suppose, be creative - it might be hearts on bunting, or these lovely birds, which I'm actually going to turn into little Bannister Birds - two stitched together with a ribbon out the top, and stuffed with old tiny scraps of fluff, and hung from my bannisters.
Or, and here's what you do with all those little leftover bits of ready-dfsi'd fabrics - make card art.  Give as cards, with a message inside telling the recipient to get a frame and stick it in!
Or even, do that yourself.
It's just that I was too lazy, so I made it into a birthday card for a dear friend, and told her she could find the bleedin' frame for herself.  Nice aren't I?
Ahem.
And on that note - I'm on holiday for a week!  We are going to sunny Devon, to frolic in waves and lick ice-creams and eat lashings of scones and cream and drink multiple cups of tea and then have fish and chips by the sea....
Save you some, I promise.

Eco Tip 1 - Party Bunting!

Oh boy have I been having fun with plastic bags! 

Ok, so that's not an auspicious start to any article, but hello there - what, more school holidays?  Yes, in the flash of an eye we seem to be upon another one.  So OriginalStitch has had to cast its creative net wider.  The Daughters just weren't up for uploading images of our up and coming Office Collection onto the website.  (They will have to soon.  'Bout time they started pulling their weight.)

But I can assure you we found a project that is good clean eco fun, with a healthy does of potential ironing injuries and possible asphyxiation via the means of toxic fumes.  Which I think we can all agree is an acceptable level of daily danger.  I mean, you think about it - what have you got in your workroom?  Pins....scissors....rotary cutters....one heck of selection of glues and adhesives and 14 tones of dangerously towering stashes of fabric.
So, all in all we're talking stabbings, prickings, amputations, toxic poisoning and squashings.
Never let it be said that craft is a gentle art.
Oi!  Health and Safety!  Got a live one here!  Well it IS half-term, so one needs to find child-appropriate activities, and they're just not fun unless they're a bit dangerous.  It was either this or climbing the apple tree, which is hugely fun, but we needed something to show for our efforts.  I like a result.

Um, anyhoo - so, inspired by this excellent tutorial here, which nearly made me hyperventilate with excitement (you can see from my comment on there how excited - it has made-up words in it and everything.  My level of excitement can almost always be measured by the number of neologisms contained therein) I decided to have a crack at making some party bunting, for a party we're having for me and The Husb's birthdays.  Sorry, The Husb's and my birthdays.  The Husb and mine birthdays.  Our birthdays.
Ok, I don't mean to criticise the language of Shakespeare but there are times when English just doesn't cut it.  How ARE you meant to phrase that??

As you can see we dug out a load of bits of spangly glittery loopiness, and we had an afternoon of fun making these.  The daughters got involved, and it was really quite an artistic endeavour.  You could get seriously arty farty with it because you layer up your plastics and then melt it all together and get some great results.  You could use different coloured plastic bags to make patterns or even pictures, including letters to make personalised bunting. What a great present that would be!  If I'd thought ahead could have done our names, but you know, hindsight and all that blah, so we'll go with whatever.

We used garden string for ours for a rustic look, and didn't need a needle because it's pretty prickly stuff anyway.  Worked perfectly.
When the girls were making theirs I gave them piles of ready-cut triangles and they combined them and stuck little bits of stuff in, ready to hand over the to their mother at the ironing board.  We hole-punched the finished flags and then I threaded them through, with a knot behind each hole so they can flip and flap in the wind, but basically not move around too much, or overlap.

This, for your information, is where the excellent Broadband will play - how fun is that?  They will sit 'neath spangly party bunting and play toons for us to dance to (yes, people, a barndance) and when I've had enough of the dancing, I shall take up me fiddle and get in there under the bunting and give the tunes a punt myself.

A perfect English summer garden party!  Bunting and fiddles. Whatever you use it for, I implore you - give this a go, it is SUCH fun.  Go, go - dig out those plastic bags!