Bra bag

Well I am very positive today!!!! I am so glad to be able to be in this first proper post for the new year. I went to my usual monthly workshop with Fibrepaperarts, our local workshop group and has a blast with Anne Griffiths a tutor from GlosCAT a college in the south of England. Her workshop was on turning and old bra into a bag and it started out with a revelation. As most bra's are synthetic they are hard to colour, or so I thought. Anne made it EASY!!!! I can't believe I didn't know you can use the transfer dye powders to actually dye synthetics. If you mix it with water, to the desired strength, and then heat it above 80 degrees c, or to a rolling boil, it will dye. All you have to do is rinse and dry then as the high temp fixes the colour, no need to iron. I can not believe that I did not know that!!!!! If you didn't either leave me a comment so I don't feel as thick!!!!

Anyway, I was going to have a great gaudy bright one, but was seduced by a neutral brown, nude one, Now Arlee I know but I am weening myself of the brown!!!!! I just couldn't do it, I was like a junky, didn't take too much convincing I would love to do the brown and turquoise thing! So guided by the fact that this nude bra had the most stunning daisy straps I did. I decided that the bra had grid and lowers I would go with a trellis kind of theme. I brought out some of the gird with stitch and then cabled from the back the flowers. I found some fab turquoise trim and fringe and sequins from my box of lucks. When I got home I added a chocolate brown metallic thread to edge the flowers as they did not stand out enough. I added sequins to the flowers on the strap too. Here it is.....
Nothing is wasted in this idea, the cut off sides are used to gather the opening of the bag, but I confess to taking mine out as I didn't like the way it was laying, Grace my friend grassed me up to Anne!!!!!! The hooks and eye fasteners from the back become the fastener which I love as it is such a clever thing to do.I added the bow from the centre of the bra to the fastener. See nothing wasted.

Chris the organiser had these lovely chocolate dangly beads, and I added these tying in with the outlining of the flowers. The cup edges are lashed together with strong thread, mine didn't matter as I had the fringe to cover it!

Finally I lined the whole with a crinkle polyester taffeta.

It is such a lovely idea, I have already been booked to make a pink and frilly one for Ellie!!!!!