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Thursday 3 April 2014

Jenna Jade Designs

I am so excited to share a photo of my new cashmere sweater!

My "Jenna Sweater"
This soft and cozy sweater is made from other cashmere sweaters, that Jenna stitched together on her serger. She has made about a hundred of these gorgeous garments, and all of them are unique and equally beautiful. Some are more like dresses, some are for men, some have lots of machine embroidery and applique. Often they are evocative of forest-dwelling faeries or elves, with peaked hoods and bell sleeves. They are perfect for the west coast.


Mine is a little big on me but I seriously have barely taken it off since I got it, it is so comfy! I love it - especially the appliqued wool stars along the hip line.

Check out some more of Jenna's beautiful work at her site:

Up-cycling at its finest.
Jenna works primarily with wool and a couple summers ago she made this fantastic dress and gauntlets out of the green wool pool-table lining from the pub. Such creativity! She has also serged together wool blankets to create patchwork quilts and has a coveted pair of wool pants that were made in the same style.

Jenna sent me a little poncho when my baby was born. I convinced David to model it for me tonight because I can't find a picture of him wearing it as a baby.


It has a little pointed hood with a heart stitched on the underside. Such a sweet handmade baby gift.

Meanwhile in my world...
The fabric pile of shame.
We won't even talk about where my sewing pile is at right now. Boxes of scraps and fabric and clothes and bags are begging for my attention. Cringe.


But I have been furiously free motion quilting instead. It is actually kind of a work-out, or maybe that is because I am really out of shape. But seriously I feel like I've just been wrestling and wrangling this thing through the machine. Only a little ways left to go.

Pins are our friends.
One day I will organize all my sewing junk, and make a fancy pincushion, and have a neat pile of only brand new designer fabric! Well, at least I'll probably do the first two. I am passionate about recycling, and truly the original purpose of quilting was to reuse fabric and make the most of what is available. I'm glad to incorporate re-purposed fabrics into my projects, even if it means that my stash sometimes looks like a crazy heap.

Cheers to the beauty of upcycling.

3 comments:

  1. That sweater is AWESOME!!

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    1. And it is made of cashmere so it is sooooo soft. I have a collection of wool sweaters that I've saved for making something like this, and my serger is in the shop. I'm hoping that Jenna will do a workshop on how to make a sweater dress out of old sweaters!

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  2. Love the sweater repurposing, especially that poncho, what a gorgeous gift. Recycled wools are probably my favourite thing to make a quilt with, it's so lovely to cut and sew with apart from anything else, but I know where you're coming from with your fabric pile because of it! It's not like going out and buying a beautiful neat bundle of FQs for a specific quilt, if I see a gorgeous wool blanket or skirt sitting unloved in a Thrift Shop then they have to come home with me because they're a one off find that I can't guarantee being able to find again at the point I want to use them - so my fabric 'pile' is very messy, much too big and disorganised! But so much more interesting and with so much more history than that neat pile of new FQs!

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