Confession: I LOVE an up cycle. I also love charity shopping so I’ve always got my eye on giving old treasures a new lease on life. While out on a lady date with my friend Jo, I was inspired to make her a bag from a men’s tweed jacket. After a brief visit to a charity shop where we scored a lovely tweed suit jacket for £10. I made my own pattern which I cut in order to maximise the pockets and finishing of the jacket. In a stroke of genius Jo bought old seatbelts from eBay to use for the strap. The jacket had more than enough fabric needed to make the bag so armed with the seat belt straps, interfacing and closers, I was good to go.
I started by unpicking the bones of the jacket, keeping the pieces as large as possible. The seams and tailoring added a lovely bit of detail that I enjoy. I used the suit lining to line the bag, maximising the internal pockets. Because of the soft nature of the lining fabric and the tweed, I used a medium weight interfacing to provide a bit more integrity to the shape.
Unfortunately, I made this bag before the blog launched so I don’t have any photos of the bag being build. For the front flap I used the flattened fabric from the sleeve, which show cased the adorable sleeve buttons. Aside from being a delectable one-off piece, the tailoring of the jacket made this a fun creation; without having to faff around making pockets.
I hope you’ll agree that this is truly something marvellous out of something discarded and it inspires you to give something old and no longer loved a new lease on life.