Preparing Burlap for Sewing and Crafting

When I got my first delivery of Burlap coffee sacks, I was so excited to get sewing straight away, that I thought I must prewash and press my fabric, as I do for every other fabric, and get sewing. So I enthusiastically threw all the sacks in the washing machine and pressed 'start'. An hour later I went to retrieve my new fabrics and found a spun web of burlap fibres and the twisted remnants of my prior sacks. For weeks I was still retrieving fibres from the washing machine with each wash. So learn from my experience and never put your burlap sacks in the washing machine.

A "Clever" Burlap applique shirt for Under 8's Day

Here's a Burlap sewing project for all you Mums out there. Last week was the annual 'Under 8's Day' at my son's school. The request came home from school that children wear a shirt decorated with one of the following words: Sporty, Dream, Happy, Fun, Clever, Special or a similar word of their choice.

After much deliberation my son choose clever, despite my trying to convince him that dream would be nice - with a nice cloud (a la easy for mummy to sew). But alas 'Clever' it was. So we discussed what makes someone 'Clever' and my 6 old thought that he is clever because he knows that 10 + 20 = 30. Can't argue with that!

So we found a plain black shirt in the wardrobe and set about designing the shirt. Always keen to incorporate Burlap into a project I suggested the following design and it was agreed. He went off to bed and Mummy was left with the challenge of bringing his creation to life by morning.

So here's what I did, in case you too need a shirt for a 'Clever' child!