After nearly 5 months of waiting, my buyer has now exchanged contracts on my old cottage and we complete the sale on Thursday. This is a huge relief to me, and has been partially responsible for my lack of creativity and posts on this blog.
Yesterday the sun was shining and I felt like a new woman, and my D Mike took me to buy my belated birthday present some fabulous Dubarry boots. A friend of mine also has these boots and she wore her's with some great looking fur-topped boot socks, and indeed when purchasing the boots I too saw these priced at £25.00 a pair.
Now I really do hate spending money that I don't need to, and I knew my twin had gifted me an old faux fur coat, which I always intend to cut up and refashion into something else, and in the back of my mind I instantly thought I could use the fur to trim an existing pair of boot socks that we purchased over the Christmas period for £3.50, and this is what I came up with.
I used the hemmed part of the coat which was also lined. Measured the circumference of the top of the existing boot sock and added a little extra for a back seam and the stretch in the existing sock to get the top to fold over the top of the boot. How did I know to do this - I cut the first one exactly to fit around the sock top (no stretch) and I couldn't turn it over the boot so out came my unpicking tool lol.
I serged the fur and lining raw edges together and then made a ring by serging the back seam - sadly I couldn't be bothered to change the thread on the serger (bad I know) but its not going to show so I wasn't too bothered.
With the right side of the fur strip facing upwards (lining to the inside) I attached the fur strip to the top of the boot sock. Another thing I found out is that my wellington boots are shorter than these Dubarry boots, and I effectively lengthened the sock by attaching this to the top of the sock allowing it to fold over comfortably, otherwise I may have lined this so it folded down exactly the same as the existing fold line.
Now a few years back Vogue magazine gave instructions on how to make an infinity scarf - if you google it you will find lots of instructions. My original thought was to make an infinity scarf, but when I measured an existing scarf to the fabric available on the coat, there wouldn't have been enough.
Undeterred, I decided to make a sort of neck cuff. I measured my head so I knew how much I would need to get the cuff over my head and cut a piece of fur fabric & lining (from the same coat) both around 6" wide. I sewed the lining to the fur right sides together along both of the long edges, keeping the shorter ends open. Turn right side out and then join the two short edges right sides together . You will not be able to sew all the way round because you will end up with a small piece that you will need to slip stitch together by hand and then it is finished - simple.
While I like to feel warm and cosy, I don't like to feel too constricted around my neck, and with the cool lining this does just the job for me - however you could always cut your fabric around 12" wide and thus create a complete fur cuff.
I still have quite a bit of the coat left to use for other projects, but I am really pleased with my version of these boot socks and am delighted with the boots too.
Before I leave you here is a picture of our wonderful resident barn owl, which we are both obsessed with and after I had snapped the photograph I realised that he/she was carrying something for lunch too.
Have a great weekend whatever you are doing.
Catch you later..................
Yesterday the sun was shining and I felt like a new woman, and my D Mike took me to buy my belated birthday present some fabulous Dubarry boots. A friend of mine also has these boots and she wore her's with some great looking fur-topped boot socks, and indeed when purchasing the boots I too saw these priced at £25.00 a pair.
Now I really do hate spending money that I don't need to, and I knew my twin had gifted me an old faux fur coat, which I always intend to cut up and refashion into something else, and in the back of my mind I instantly thought I could use the fur to trim an existing pair of boot socks that we purchased over the Christmas period for £3.50, and this is what I came up with.
I used the hemmed part of the coat which was also lined. Measured the circumference of the top of the existing boot sock and added a little extra for a back seam and the stretch in the existing sock to get the top to fold over the top of the boot. How did I know to do this - I cut the first one exactly to fit around the sock top (no stretch) and I couldn't turn it over the boot so out came my unpicking tool lol.
I serged the fur and lining raw edges together and then made a ring by serging the back seam - sadly I couldn't be bothered to change the thread on the serger (bad I know) but its not going to show so I wasn't too bothered.
With the right side of the fur strip facing upwards (lining to the inside) I attached the fur strip to the top of the boot sock. Another thing I found out is that my wellington boots are shorter than these Dubarry boots, and I effectively lengthened the sock by attaching this to the top of the sock allowing it to fold over comfortably, otherwise I may have lined this so it folded down exactly the same as the existing fold line.
Now a few years back Vogue magazine gave instructions on how to make an infinity scarf - if you google it you will find lots of instructions. My original thought was to make an infinity scarf, but when I measured an existing scarf to the fabric available on the coat, there wouldn't have been enough.
Undeterred, I decided to make a sort of neck cuff. I measured my head so I knew how much I would need to get the cuff over my head and cut a piece of fur fabric & lining (from the same coat) both around 6" wide. I sewed the lining to the fur right sides together along both of the long edges, keeping the shorter ends open. Turn right side out and then join the two short edges right sides together . You will not be able to sew all the way round because you will end up with a small piece that you will need to slip stitch together by hand and then it is finished - simple.
While I like to feel warm and cosy, I don't like to feel too constricted around my neck, and with the cool lining this does just the job for me - however you could always cut your fabric around 12" wide and thus create a complete fur cuff.
I still have quite a bit of the coat left to use for other projects, but I am really pleased with my version of these boot socks and am delighted with the boots too.
Before I leave you here is a picture of our wonderful resident barn owl, which we are both obsessed with and after I had snapped the photograph I realised that he/she was carrying something for lunch too.
Have a great weekend whatever you are doing.
Catch you later..................
