Discontinued Fabric Books

[LemonDifficult]

I've found myself in possession of a lot of discontinued fabric books, including some beautiful ones like Colefax & Fowler, Designers Guild and so on.

Apart from just looking through them, what should I do with them?

Make fabric shopping bags out of them.

You lucky thing.How did you get hold of them ?

Cushion covers,patchwork,bags,place mats,napkins,oven cloves,tablecloths.What couldn't you do with them......

I know, can hardly believe my luck. An upholstery department is revamping and getting rid of the out of date books.

Some are just stunning - a lovely Zoffany one with acorns 12"x12"- and others are mostly small samples of different coloured cotton but on the whole they aren't anywhere big enough for standard cushion covers and aren't repeating shades so I thought patchwork might look a bit odd.

Hadn't thought about bags though. That would work.

I ended up with loads ages ago, some of the bigger books turned into bags, some into bunting, so patchwork. have fun with them.

If it comes to it, you could always sell them on fleebay as they seem to go quite well there.

Bunting, lavender bags, microwaveable neck cosies, draught excluders, stuffed toys - Zoffany cat would be very posh, shoe bags, mixed napkins in a funky house, doll clothes for the lighter ones, coasters / placemats for the heavier ones, jewellery rolls, tissue box covers, wrapping 'paper' for seriously posh presents, covers for storage boxes or box files, ornate brooches, peg dolls......ohhh, that's just the start , you lucky lemon

...or if you a really stuck, donate to your MN friend moosemummy :)

Now I'm feeling fired up! Thank you!

I love the idea of stuffed animals. And I'd forgotten about bunting. I think napkins could work - I'll look at them again with that in mind.

Has anyone tried those Kirsty Allsop decoupaged orangina bottles (or similar) that she does with fabric?

I'm not that experienced with a sewing machine but I'm OK with gluing.

Hooray. I would love to see what you make, so that I can be inspired too. I have an unfortunate fabric collecting problem, to the extent that i could probably wrap the entire house in fabric and still have enough left over to clothe the entire village!
I made 100 re ally simple peg dolls for DD's wall, as a sort of display/ picture. Put velcro on the back of each one so she could play with them if she liked, but they were gorgeous all in a bunch too.

Moosemummy - do you have a blog? You sound pretty up on all this.

100 peg dolls would be gorgeous!

no blog, because although I am good with a needle, I struggle a bit with a mouse. perhaps I need to talk to me DS (aged 14 and born with a mouse in his hand...ooh that was painful :))