A Denim Bag from a long time ago

I recently came across this embellished denim bag and thought I would share the story. In my late teens and early 20’s I went backpacking. While traveling I always carried some embroidery floss and a basic sewing kit. I had two pairs of jeans one I was wearing and one spare. There always seems to be a lot of waiting about when travelling on the cheap. Waiting for trains, busses, meeting up with people, sitting in hostels and the like and I would pull out the jeans I was not wearing and embroider them. Both pairs ended up totally covered in stitching right to the ankles. This bag is what remains.

A couple of years after this roaming about phase, I settled a bit on a commune – yep my ex-hippy status is showing through, but it was at this stage I chopped off the legs. These lengths from the legs became other items and the top section of the jeans became the top band of a layered skirt. I am sure some readers remember how people would take an old pair of jeans and add three gathered flounces of fabric to make it a long skirt. Well the top part of these jeans had three flounces were added.

Then later again I chopped off the flounces and turned the top section into a denim bag. I used this bag as an art student and somewhere along the way the denim bag has lost its strap. I don’t know what happened to the other pair of jeans. The legs became part of a waistcoat at one stage, and I think bits ended up as cushions too. I have moved about a lot in the years between. I moved from one side of the country to another 5 times and moved from Australia to live in the UK for while then back to Australia I think in one of the moves I shed the other items along the way but somehow this bag survived.

As you can see its covered in embroidery – I don’t know why I did not embroider the pockets. I think I felt everyone was embroidering pockets and I wanted to be different. I am really not sure. Anyway the whole garment – when it was still a pair of jeans ended up more or less covered right down the legs. The bits of fabric were from ties and somewhere along the line I came across some velvet that is over the back section. There are also sections of beading in between chain stitch swirls and even a patch of French and Bullion knots. The cottons I used were standard embroidery floss split into three strands. Floss was easy to obtain when I was traveling. This denim bag is a thing of its time in a many ways but I must admit that apart from its story one of the reasons I keep it now is that I am amazed at the waistline!

Thread Twisties!

Experimenting with different threads can be expensive. You would normally have to buy a whole skein of each type of thread. My thread twisties are a combination of different threads to use in creative hand embroidery. These enable you to try out stitching with something other than stranded cotton. For the price of just a few skeins, you can experiment with a bundle of threads of luscious colours and many different textures.

These are creative embroiderers’ threads. With them, I hope to encourage you to experiment. Each Twistie is a thread bundle containing silk, cotton, rayon, and wool. Threads range from extra fine (the same thickness as 1 strand of embroidery floss) to chunky couchable textured yarns. All threads have a soft and manageable drape. Twisting them around a needle makes experimental hand embroidery an interesting journey rather than a battle.  Many are hand-dyed by me. All are threads I use. You may find a similar thread twist, but no two are identical.

You will find my thread twisties in the Pintangle shop here.