Monday 23 January 2012

Vintage printed purse

I am currently a bit obsessed by making this type of purse.  I think that my sisters are truly a bit cheesed off with having purses for every single birthday/Christmas and all events in between!! I have to get a few more out of my system then normal service will be resumed!  For a long time now (several years!!) I have been wanting to make bags or purses out of images of my grandparents (strange but true).  I have tried all the techniques that you can find on the internet about printing fabric through your own printer (well all except the one where you have to buy special fabric paper stuff - I am thrifty remember).  I thought that I would have one last go before I throw in the towel and....it worked!  This method is just buying iron-on interfacing (not that expensive sort!) and cut out a piece of fabric - all done!


This has an image of the envelope that you see in the previous posting - grubby marks and all!  I wanted to do a little embroidery in the corner because this is just the sort of thing that my mother would have done.  For the reverse of this purse I used a little scrap of some lovely fabric that my sister Gail had given to me - I love the colours.






So the photo below is of my paternal grandparents at their wedding at the start of the First World War - a poignant image for me.  I have some lovely 1930s French linen that I used for the remainder of the purse and edged with some very old ric rac (from the 1930s I think). 



The 'Make do and Mend' booklet was from my sister Sue for Christmas. As I have written before we set ourselves a financial threshold for Christmas presents - it is usually £1.  Sue did herself proud as this was free - it was mixed up with some magazines that she got from the WI - she wins the 2011 prize for the best bargain. This is an original copy and full of helpful tips and hints (some of which I already employ)! The old Woman's Own magazine was bought from Mr Langford's wonderful shop a year or so ago - I have a few dating from the 40s.  Thank you for reading - I hope/intend to post more here and perhaps less on flickr, in an attempt to cut down on those copying my pictures to pinterest....

Update - two lucky (some may disagree) readers will be receiving one of these purses in the post any day now.  This follows my:  "give away something even though I have no idea how you do that sort of thing" give away!! I do hope that they like them - please let me know if possible.  If not please return to sender...address unknown. Got to go now - I have treacle sponge pudding cooking and toad-in-the-hole in the oven! 
 Bryony - if you manage to find this - and read it - show of some technical skill and leave a message...

8 comments:

  1. These purses look so effective! Do you mean that you ironed interfacing to your fabric to make it stiff like card and then printed straight onto it? I'd like to have a go at this idea as I have some great black and white family photographs.

    Love your blog too!

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  2. That really looks great, well done you.

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  3. Those are absolutely lovely! Any chance you could share the technique in more detail? I have used some "Image Maker" stuff you paint on before but not this interfacing method. Also if people are pinching your pictures a watermark on the photos can work wonders. People seem oddly less interested in copying others work when they can't claim it is their own...

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  4. Hello Jenny, This is a lovely idea, which I've been wanting to try too. The image transfer fabric is a bit pricey so I'll be trying your method. Mary xx

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  5. Thank you for your kind words - yes indeed this was just ordinary iron-on interfacing, roughly cut to A4, plain white cotton cut the same. Iron the two together and then cut out a more accurate size - use as per normal paper. It does not have to be very stiff just enough for the roller in the printer to be able to get hold of it I think.
    Sorry about my outburst - I pay to upload my photos to my Flickr account and then I find that they are freely used elsewhere. Recently they have been posted to tumblr and pinterest within minutes of my uploading them on flickr. If I were a business I am sure I would be pleased but what gets my goat, more than anything else, is when people have not asked first. I like to share - I really do - pinterest is where people share other peoples things and, by and large, not their own. Humpf....

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  6. This is a brilliant idea, I want to give it a go. Alas, I need to learn to sew first too, my hubby is buying me a sewing machine as its the craft for me to get to grips with this year so I will definitely be making gorgeous bags etc!

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  7. wonderful blog .
    love all your vintage

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  8. Excellent idea I'm going to give it a go... just need a printer and some ink OOH and some iron on stuff... excitedly Cass

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