Tagged with 'fabric'

Are You Choosing the Right Fabric?

Creating something at home can be a real challenge, but for a lot of people, making your own clothing and upholstery can be a real source of enjoyment and relaxation. Getting your knitting needles out and making a loved one a new winter scarf, or designing your own curtains, there are so many different things you can do. But are you using the right fabric in your creations, and are you getting the right amount? After all, you don’t want to go through all that effort only to find that you’ve used the wrong material or that you’re half a foot short.

Just like when you bake a cake, you want to ensure you have all the ingredients before you start, otherwise you get halfway through and realise you’re missing a key part – disaster. At Abakhan we specialise in providing everything you need to make whatever it is you’ve set your heart on creating, then it’s down to you to get the right amount and the correct materials. Choosing the right, or wrong fabric can make or break your creation, so taking your time over your choice and doing your research will really pay dividends.

Taking curtains as an example, it makes sense to measure the area where you plan to hang them, both horizontally and vertically, to make sure that you know exactly how far down the wall they’re likely to hang, and whether or not the amount you choose is going to cover the whole window.

Once you’ve established how much you need to make your new curtains, you need to decide on the material you’re going to use. With so many options out there, from linen to velvet and cotton to satin, sometimes you just never know what to use until you’ve got it wrong once or twice. However, when you get it right, the final result can be fantastic, and creating your own can save you huge sums of money that you would have spent in a store.

Finding a way of coordinating the colour of your new curtains with the room you’re putting them up in will give the room a vibrant and stylish feel, leading visitors thinking you’ve had a professional interior designer round!

To get the fabric you need for your next creation, look no further than Abakhan. With various sizes, colours and materials in stock, you’re sure to find everything you need either in one of our stores or online. To find out more, click here to find the contact details for your nearest store.

Give the Perfect Gift with Fabric from Abakhan

Christmas is a time for giving, and also for wandering around the seasonal markets, taking in the smells of German sausages and roasted chestnuts. If you go to one of these Christmas markets, you’re likely to see a number of stalls selling homemade fleeces, jumpers, hats, gloves, the lot. You name it, they probably sell it.

What makes these stalls so popular and successful is the homemade factor. Getting hold of the right fabric and making something for a friend or loved one will certainly put a smile on their face when they open their present on Christmas morning.

The trends at the moment seem to be around the wooly hats with the animal faces and the dangly parts over the ears. Unfortunately, such is their popularity that the major stores have started producing their own and the prices have consequently gone up. So what’s the alternative? Paying over the odds for it? That’s just silly. Order the fabric and make it yourself and give the recipient something you know they will love.

You know the person better than the retailer, who might not stock their favourite animal hat, so by making it yourself you have the opportunity to personalise it for your loved one. At Abakhan we stock everything you would need to make it, so the rest is down to you.

The person you give the gift to is not only guaranteed to love what you’ve made for them, but they’ll really appreciate the effort you’ve gone to. After all, it really is the thought that counts.

To find out more information on our range of fabric and other essential accessories for all your home requirements, such as curtains and knitting equipment, get in touch with Abakhan by clicking here to find the details for your local branch.

Choose a Fabric and Create your Fancy Dress Costume

The Christmas and New Year period is a time of celebration, with friends and families getting together to exchange presents or to go out and watch the New Year arrive in style with a beverage or two. At these times, many choose to hit the town for the party atmosphere, while others throw house parties with only their nearest and dearest invited round to share the festivities, with many of these parties having a fancy dress theme.

But for many this poses a big problem. How do you come up with a unique costume for the party that (a) nobody else is going to be wearing, and (b) doesn’t cost the earth? You make your own of course!

At fancy dress parties, you can spend upwards of £50 each time on a costume, either renting one from a store, or buying one online that you’ll quite possibly never wear again seems a bit of a waste of money, particularly when you’re a dab hand with a needle and thread. With plenty of fabric available either online or in shops, you have the creative freedom to create a costume that will definitely be unique, and provide a real talking point at the party.

Part of the whole fancy dress party experience is to get people talking with your costume, so you’ve got nothing to lose. If you’ve gone to the expense of splashing out on a spaceman or princess costume in the past, only to see someone there wearing the exact same one, you’ll appreciate how infuriating that can be.

Creating your own costume out of fabric and with a needle and thread or sewing machine can also be the ideal last-minute fix. Going down to a fancy dress shop or trying to order online around Christmas and New Year is bound to end with you buying a costume you don’t really want because all the others are sold out. Making one yourself allows you to make the necessary alterations before you leave the house for your night of fun.

At Abakhan, our fabric range is extensive and covers all kinds, from lace to imitation leather, and jersey knits to 100% cotton. To find out more information about any of our products or to find out what we have in stock, contact us today by calling your nearest branch, which you can find by clicking here.

Do You Know Where Fabric Comes From? This Will Get Your Spider Senses Tingling

One of the most in-demand materials on planet earth, fabric has been used for a number of different purposes over years. Obviously, clothing and drapes are two popular uses, as are curtains and sofas, but many people are unaware as to where it actually comes from. Well, courtesy of an exhibit in London, they’re about to get a bit of a shock!

A cape created from golden silk spun by more than a million spiders is going on display in the Victoria and Albert Museum in the capital. The hand-woven garment and its partner, a four-metre long piece of brocaded fabric, took more than four years to create and involved around 1.2 million female Madagascan Golden Orb spiders.

Madagascar-based Simon Peers and Nicholas Godley made the cape, and they are the only large textiles to have been made from spider silk. The last known spider silk textile was made for a Parisian exhibit in 1900, but no examples are in existence today.

The spiders, which are not harmed in the creation of the pieces, are collected in the mornings and their silk harvested by trained handlers, before the eight-legged creatures are returned to the wild at the end of the day.

Peers said that he created the pieces, as he was “keen to show the spider silk textiles at the Victoria and Albert Museum, being the most appropriate place to premiere this work in Europe. The unique and historic costume and textile collections have been a constant source of inspiration over the years, and as we know, the museum has never before shown anything made from spider silk, despite its diverse collection of art.”

Many people love arts and crafts as a hobby, with people loving the opportunity to be innovative and unique. Everyone has a creative spark in them, whether it’s creating their own clothes, or stitching a breathtaking design into cushions. Either way, you can personalise your whole home with a bit of thought. To get your hands on some fine quality – but not spider-spun – fabrics, visit the Abakhan website. Should you have any questions about our range, or other products available such as beds, contact your local store.

How To Make A Picnic Blanket

It’s official, Spring has sprung! At Abakhan we love to the feel the suns rays on our skin, but that doesn’t mean we start neglecting sewing and all things craft as soon as we get some nice weather. In fact, we see it as an excuse for the perfect project: creating your own picnic blanket. So, let’s get started.

What you will need:

Fabric Wadding Thread Buttons Scissors, Pins, Tape Measure, & Sewing machine/needles

How-to:

• Think about how big you want your picnic blanket to be. (Ours is 130cm x 160cm with a 1cm border.) • Cut 2 pieces of fabric and your wadding to exactly the same size. • Place the 2 pieces of fabric on top of each other. (If the fabric you are using is patterned ensure you place the pattern sides face to face). • Place the wadding on top and pin the 3 pieces of material together. • Sew all of your sides together 1cm from the edge of the material leaving a gap on one side large enough to turn the blanket inside out. This will leave the wadding inside, sandwiched between your 2 pieces of fabric. • Fold the edges of the open side in on itself and iron down as well as ironing all the other sides. • Pin the open edge shut and sew together to seal all 4 sides.

This is your blanket – sewing a border around the outside roughly 1cm from the edge of the material works well for reinforcement as well as aesthetics.

Hopefully, your arms will be laden with picnic goodies, so we think it’s a great idea to make a handle for your new picnic blanket. The first part of your handle acts as a wrap to hold the blanket together when it’s safely rolled up:

• Cut 2 pieces of fabric long enough to wrap all the way around the middle of your blanket when it is rolled. (Ours is 64cm x 20cm.) • Follow the instructions above. • Create two small rectangular templates for button holes at the end of this piece of material. Cut through these templates to feed the buttons through later. • Sew your buttons in place at the other end of the wrapping material, directly below your button holes.

You will then need to create a smaller handle to fix to the top of this fabric:

• To make the handle for your blanket follow exact instructions without the wadding. (Ours measures 4cm x 20cm) • Fold 0.5cm of each end of the material and sew this onto the larger part of the handle.

So, there you have it, roll your blanket up and off you go to enjoy the sunshine!