Modern Vintage Gifts: Over 20 Pretty & Nostalgic Projects to Sew & Give

By Helen Philipps

Over twenty simple yet desirable craft projects to make and gift—or keep for yourself.

Designer Helen Phillips returns with this collection of over twenty highly giftable sewing and patchwork projects for home accessories, toys, and gifts.

Simple enough for beginners yet desirable enough for more experienced sewers, the projects explore a wide range of techniques including patchwork, quilting, paper piercing, appliqué, color play, embroidery, and embellishment.

Projects include small quilts, dolls, bags, pillows, hearts, flowers, stars, angels, birds, and more—all in a gorgeous coordinating color palette.

Praise for Modern Vintage Gifts

“As quilters we understand the investment of time that goes into any handmade gift, so it's a really positive thing that many of these projects can be made in an afternoon or so.” —McCall's Quilting

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Aug 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9781446372586

Helen Philipps

Helen Philipps studied printed textiles and embroidery at Manchester Metropolitan University and then taught drawing and design before becoming a freelance designer. After working in the greeting card industry, Helen's love of needlecraft led her to create original designs for stitching magazines and books. Her work features regularly in many stitch and craft magazines and she also writes a popular craft blog, helenphilipps.blogspot.co.uk. This is Helen's eighth book for David and Charles, following Simple Sewn Gifts published in 2010.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

Modern Vintage Gifts is a varied collection of handmade fabric projects inspired by traditional patchwork and sewing crafts but brought up to date with contemporary fabrics and fresh ideas.

I love to play with fabrics and colours and the effect of one fabric with another is what first appealed to me about patchwork. I learnt to do patchwork when I was still a schoolgirl and the first shapes I sewed were hexagons, which I still enjoy using. I love the old, traditional patchwork blocks and templates and finding new and modern ways to use them. Here I have stitched diamonds together to make stars, combined hexagons with appliqué and fabric flowers, sewn Big Dipper blocks for a small quilt and stitched bold tumbler shapes for stylish red and white festive pillows.

There are plenty of small projects for quick makes too (perfect for when you are short of time but still want to make a special gift), including floral and striped appliqué hearts, a bright and colourful garland of birds, fluttering butterfly gift tags, easy-sew holly coasters and a sweet, scrappy star pincushion.

I have always been fascinated by vintage fabric toys, the kind you see in museums and the nurseries of historic houses open to the public or, if you are lucky, passed down through the family. Little fabric dolls, bears and rabbits tucked into antique toy beds and prams have always charmed me, so for this book I have made a small bear, a mouse and two dolls, as well as some tiny patchwork doll quilts.

Flowers and fruits are always a crafty favourite of mine, and they appear in this book as a summery strawberry wreath, a strawberry pincushion set, a pair of autumn pillows embellished with a bright appliqué pumpkin, a red and white spotted toadstool, a big flower appliqué pillow, a set of stuffed fabric pumpkins and a fresh and pretty cherry pot holder to brighten up the kitchen.

I hope this book will inspire you to make your own projects, using the instructions and templates to make them just as they appear here, or taking the ideas and using them as a starting point for your own creativity. If you are new to sewing and crafting just jump in and have a go at any project that appeals to you. It doesn’t have to be perfect and by following the simple instructions here you can soon learn how to make things and add your own special touches, too.

Happy making!

STRAWBERRY WREATH

Making and decorating a fabric wreath is a great way to use up scraps and left-over binding from patchwork projects. This wreath is a really lovely summer decoration with its sweet strawberries, flowers and leaves, and it’s easy to make, too. You can add as many strawberries and flowers as you wish, and they are so pretty you may even want to make a few spare ones to add to other projects.

You will need

Polystyrene ring wreath form 8in (20cm) diameter

Striped cotton fabric 5in (12.5cm) wide x 4yd (3.75m)

Red spotted fabric for strawberries about 6in x 8in (15cm x 20cm)

White fabric scraps for flowers about 8in x 12in (20cm x 30.5cm)

Scraps of white felt

Scraps of light green and mid-green felt for leaves

Thin card for templates

Three small yellow buttons

Sewing threads to suit fabrics

Glue gun or strong fabric glue

Polyester toy filling

FINISHED SIZE

8in (20cm) diameter approx.

Use ¹⁄4in (5mm) seams unless otherwise stated

COVERING THE WREATH

1. Fold the long strip of striped cotton fabric in half, wrong sides together, and press. Roll it up into a ball. Pin the end of the fabric roll to the wrong side of the wreath with straight pins (Fig 1). Now wind the fabric round and round the wreath until it is covered evenly (Fig 2). Secure the end by pushing pins into the wreath at the back.

Fig 1

Fig 2

tip

To create your own unique wreath you could use any fabric for binding the wreath. You can make the flowers any colour you wish, too. If it’s a gift for a friend, use their favourite colours.

MAKING THE FLOWERS

2. To make a flower, cut five 2in (5cm) squares from white fabric. Fold each square in half (wrong sides together if using a white print fabric), and press with an iron (Fig 3). Take one triangle and, using white sewing thread, gather the bottom of the triangle to form a petal and secure with small stitches (Fig 4).

Fig 3

Fig 4

3. Make four more petals in the same way. Join the petals together into a circle (Fig 5). Glue a small circle of white felt onto the back of the flower, and then attach a yellow button to the centre of the flower, either by sewing or gluing it in place. Make two more flowers in the same way.

Fig 5

MAKING THE STRAWBERRIES

4. Use the templates to trace the shapes for the strawberries, strawberry tops and leaves onto thin card and cut out carefully.

5. To make a strawberry, draw round the strawberry template on a piece of red spotty fabric and cut out the shape (Fig 6). Fold the piece in half, right sides together, and sew the straight seam either by hand or machine (Fig 7). Turn right side out, gather the top of the strawberry with a needle and sewing thread and stuff with polyester toy filling (Fig 8). Pull the top of the strawberry tight and fasten off.

Fig 6

Fig 7

Fig 8

6. Use the template to cut out the strawberry top from light green felt (Fig 9). Glue or sew in place. Make two more strawberries in the same way.

Fig 9

7. Using the leaf template, draw round it onto green felt and cut out five leaves from mid-green felt and four leaves from light green felt. Arrange the leaves, flowers and strawberries as shown in the main photograph, and use a glue gun or strong fabric glue to secure each decorative element in place. To