Sunday, January 11, 2009

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!!!!!







22 comments:

Nellie's Needles said...

What a HOOT! I loooove it!

mmmmmm...I'm thinking those who received maxi-pad slippers from me may get these as gifts next Christmas ....mmmmmmm

Susan D said...

No you're not thick!!!! I didn't know you could use them either.

Vicki W said...

that is absolutely amazing - I would have never though you could make a nice looking bag from an old bra! I guess it works best with a larg cup though. LOL!

arlee said...

Hmm, me thinks i must make an ORANGE one :}

The brown is FABU!!!! i guess this makes it a "bra-wn" brabag :}especially if the cups are big enough---BRAWNY.



NARF!!!!

Doreen G said...

How cool is that-boobylicious I would say.

Rowan said...

That is SUCH a cool idea! I love how you already have a cool, quilted shape because of the nature of the bra. Will definitely have to file this away for some retired bras!!
Thanks for sharing!

Deborah OHare said...

There's that lovely mix of blue and brown again.
Love it

Purple Missus said...

Absolutely brilliant. It looks amazing. What a great idea - either we'll all be going bra-less now or the charity shops are going to be rifled through. How on earth do people think these things up - its wonderful.
And I must admit to not knowing about these dyes either.

Anonymous said...

What a cool idea ,and the amount you can cary in your bra bag depends on the size of your boozms LOL!!!
Love from sesga xx

Sandy said...

How clever. Yours certainly turned out lovely and who would know it started as a bra.

Pat said...

What a great combination of gorgeous and fun. Brilliant. I didn't know about the dyes so thank you.

Summerset said...

Way to reduce, reuse and recycle! Very clever.

Anonymous said...

Love It! What a good idea and your execution is stunning!

Jackie said...

What a bra -lliant idea. Don't know if I'd want to use it in public though..unless I was slim and it was small. Mine would make a suitcase!Or a bowling ball bag!

hippopip said...

Great bag Carol,I did know about the dyes but Anne Griffiths was one of my tutors at college!

Stitchety Grub said...

Hi Carol I love your version of a Bra Bag ... if you would like to visit my Blog ...funnily enough, I have, in the last few days finally put a pic of my Bra Bag which I did last September (the needlelace on it was from the Aus Lace Guild workshop)... this is my 2nd bra bag I have 2 more "naked Bra's" awaiting transformation ...it could become addictive haha!

Digitalgran said...

Wel am syniad da. Mae dy fag di wedi troi allan yn eithriadol o dda. Brestia bach iawn sy gen it LOL. Rhaid mynd i Oxfam.

Papoosue said...

nope, I didn't know that either :-) and that is one lovely bag!! xx

Anne said...

Hi, Carol! The crinkle poly taffeta on the inside is such a luxurious, scrumptious detail! Very nice! :-)

Lynda said...

Wow! fabulous! (Have you used it yet, though?)

Nancy said...

How excellent, Carol! I love everything about it!

Emmy said...

OOO I just found this and I love it must make one