I recently flipped through a sewing book written more than ten years ago by Céline Dupuy, Simple Sewing with a French Twist and I wanted to make note to some of the ideas in this sewing book I really liked. Céline Dupuy is an artist and a designer and you can also find her on her Instagram or her website, where you can find this book and another one focused on reconstructing denim, as well as sewing patterns and other of her newer creations, like this repurposed denim bottle:
The whole book is filled with simple and beautiful ideas for making lounge garments and homeware like duvet covers and embroidered pillowcases, aprons, tote bags and drawstring pouches. It’s the perfect companion for slow fashion October (#slowfashionoctober) and the idea of slow craft in general.
The construction of the items is very simple, but each item is given a lot of thought and care to make, like the shoe tote (p.44), which is made from a beautifully printed silk and adorned with a silk tassel or the velvet flip-flops (p.102), which are made by sandwiching cotton batting in between soles made of beautiful fabric remnants and hand-stitched (I suppose you could also use felt instead of cotton batting if you wanted to make them a bit sturdier, but these are delicate pieces).
Many of these ideas could be implemented with reclaimed or repurposed items, like the chair decorated with buttons (p.73). A found chair could be repainted, then decorated with lots of buttons. The buttons are first sewn to a piece of fabric, and the fabric is then affixed to the back of the chair with spray adhesive. Instead of buttons, other small pieces could be used, like seashells, fragments of broken CDs, pieces of leather or wool felt, and the list can go on.
I really liked all the handmade bedding, the duvets and the pillowcases. They could also be made by repurposing fabric from garments that are no longer worn, like old kimonos, dresses, even fabric scarfs. Old cotton sheets or tablecloths could be made into new pillowcases by embroidering simple designs on them.
Bonus! Mitered corners!
I’ve tried making mitered corners textile napkins before, but they were never perfect. I think the illustration is this books makes it very easy to remember what to do. She suggests, for example, to press first, then cut the excess fabric from the corner, then press again into a mitered corner shape and finally, sew.
I might give mitered corners another go, after all!