Abakhan Challenge - What can you make for £20??

The very lovely people at Abakhan Fabrics recently set some of us sewing bloggers a challenge. In the current economic climate every penny counts so they wanted to see what kind of things could be made from a small budget. I love challenges like these as they really make me try new things so I signed up to have a go. It took me a good couple of weeks to finally decide what to order as there was just so much choice on the Abakhan website. I finally decided I would make something nice for both Izzy and Sam and then see what I could do with the leftovers focusing on things I could make for the children.

I ended up choosing some red and blue polycotton, a very pretty floral fabric, some elastic, some ribbon, some bias binding and some clear vinyl fabric. This all came to under £20 and would actually be cheaper at the moment as Abakhan are having a sale with 15% of everything!!

I decided that I wanted to make Izzy a dress. I have made lots for the 'Dress a Girl' charity and thought Izzy deserved one of her own. When I told her she insisted that I make one to send to a girl in Africa instead so its one more for the charity. So sweet! It turned out really well and looks really pretty. I love the delicate flower pattern.

I even found some little ribbon roses which matched the binding perfectly. I also added beads to the end of the ties.

For Sam I decided to try my hand at a superhero cape. When I asked Sam what he wanted, he told me he wanted a Superman Cape on one side and a Prince's Cape on the other. No pressure then! After a big gulp I decided to give it a go and it was actually surprisingly easy.

I have to admit to using bondaweb to help fix the superman logo in place before I stitched around the edge  but if you were going for a slightly simpler design or just an initial it would be easy to do it without. If I hadn't been making it for the challenge and trying to only use the things I had been sent I would have probably used felt instead for this bit as it doesn't fray.

On the other side I just made a crown design and stitched it on using some silver thread that I had.

and I finally used one of the many fancy stitches on my machine!

I used velcro at the neck as I am always slightly worried about using ties around children's necks but you could use a button (if unlike me you know how to do button holes on your machine!) or poppers. The coolest bit which you cant really see is when I top stitched around the cape I put blue in the bobbin and red on the machine which meant that it stitched blue on the red side and red on the blue side. I can't tell you how happy this made me!! Why have I only just realised you can do that??

A superhero cape isn't complete without a superhero mask so I made one of those from the leftover fabric and elastic. Again pretty quick and easy although it probably took me longer than the cape!
.

I actually had quite a lot of fabric left over from the dress and cape so thought I would challenge myself to see how many extra little things I could make. These little flowers were a great way of using up small scraps of fabric. I attached mine to a clip that I had but they could be sewn onto a little hairbobble just as easily. They could also be made into brooches or sewn to a hairband.

 This hair band was also made from leftover fabric and elastic and took minutes to make.

as did the matching hair scrunchie.

Another really quick and easy thing to make which also makes a great gift is this pen roll. Izzy has several of these and absolutely loves them. We take them everywhere.

You just need fabric, bias binding and ribbon. You can then fill them with crayons, coloured pencils, felt tips whatever you choose. These gel pens were only £1 for 8 and the other pens cost 25p each.

The reason I choose the clear vinyl was that I have been dying to give these little bags a try since seeing them on Pinterest.

Source: zaaberry.blogspot.com via SewScrumptious on Pinterest

I had run out of bias binding by the time I got round to these and didn't want to cheat by buying more so decided to make my own out of left over fabric. I have a confession to make - I didn't even cut it on the bias!! Just straight lines. They turned out really well. They were a bit fiddly but easy to sew as the vinyl which can be slippery was enclosed in the binding. 

I got a bit carried away

I also decided to give a luggage tag a go. This was a bit trickier as my machine didn't like the vinyl. It couldn't grip it very well. I think I probably need a Teflon foot as I have the same problems with oilcloth. It turned out ok though. I just put some thin cardboard in mine to give it a bit of stiffness. You could use iron on interfacing as well. The vinyl is not sewn down on the right hand side to allow you to put a business card or address in the tag.

and finally I made some little juggling balls. These were so quick and easy. I used rice to fill them up. They are really good for practicing throwing and catching. One of mine ended up being thrown into a bath full of water so I had to make another one as the rice went soggy!

Phew! Thats 12 things made from £20 worth of haberdashery goodies from Abakhan and I still had a little bit of fabric left over but just ran out of time. Thank you Abakhan. It was lots of fun. I think the cape is my favourite thing. I'm due to do another tutorial soon so does anyone want me to do a cape tutorial?