Nautical week - beach hut bag

Morning and welcome to Nautical week, another themed week to get your
ribbon inspiration bursting.

On a stroll along the prom a while back, while taking photos of beach huts, I got thinking.
They come in such fab colours, ooooh they look a little bit like ribbon - the wooden slats I mean.
So I had a play..................

This NEW Nautical ribbon was just what I needed for my beach hut - yes the beach hut is made of ribbon.  It's a form of free style machine embroidery......BUT......I did not have the correct foot for my machine, so I did it "Ali" style!

I used a sewing machine, if you have the time you can also hand embroider this beach hut.

• Red stripe Nautical Ribbon
• Navy stripe Nautical Ribbon
• Nautical Boat ribbon
• White ric rac
• Double sided bondaweb
• Black machine thread
• Small red button
• Iron
• Pins
• Scissors
• A towel or something to sew the beach hut to.

1. Not tea towels today but two hand towels from Wilkinsons.
Perfect colour match to the ribbons.

2. Cut 5 lengths of red ribbon about 12-14cms long. Slighly wider than the beach hut.
Cut a piece of bondaweb also slightly bigger than the beach hut. There are two sides to bondaweb.
On side is rough and the other smooth like paper, the rough side becomes sticky when heated.

3. With the rough side facing upwards, iron on the first piece of ribbon. DO NOT allow the iron to touch the bond a web, it will make an aweful mess of your iron!
Slightly overlap the second piece of ribbon and iron in place.

4. Cover the sheet of bondaweb with ribbon.

5. Turn it over and give it a really good iron, this will make sure it sticks well.

6. Print or copy our beach hut template onto card and cut out.
You are welcome to pass this template on to others, but we ask you to link back to us.

7. Place the template onto the sheet of ribbon and draw round it.
Cut the beach hut out and carefully remove the paper backing.

8. Repeat steps 2-7 with 3 lengths of blue ribbon for the door.

9. Iron (place the iron onto the shape, lift and place down again, rather then moving the iron over the beach hut) the red beach hut shape onto your towel, and then iron the door in place.
Put a piece of cloth over the design and and give it a really good iron. - DO NOT steam

Cut two lengths of boat ribbon for the roof. Iron bondaweb to the back of both.
Iron both onto the top of the beach hut as a roof.

10. For machine embroidery you should drop the machines dog feed and use a special darning foot,
but as I did not have one, I used a normal foot, with dog teeth engaged and set the machine onto slow speed. Thread the machine and bobbin with black thread.

Machine all the way round the beach hut, you do not want the stitching to look too neat, so if needs be "wiggle" the stitching to create the effect of machine embroidery.

11. Machine around again so you have two lines of sewing, making sure they are not always on top of each other.

12. Once the outline has been machined, machine across the beach hut where the ribbons slighty overlap. This will create more definition to the beach hut planking.

I added three strips of white ric rac to the base of my design, a few waves by the beach hut!
Once again machine two lines.
Hand sew the button in place - I decided againest the porthole in the door.

13. To make the bag - fold down the top edge of the towel and machine.
This is the channel that your ribbon drawstring will pass through.

Repeat on the other side.

14. Fold the towel with the wrong sides facing and machine the sides.
(Seam is on the outside of the bag)

15. Thread the navy ribbon through the ribbon channels at the top of the bag, all the way round.

16. Thread the red ribbon through the channels, starting from the opposite side to the start of the navy.

17. Tie a knot in the ends of the ribbon and trim.

Ready for you to fill and enjoy!

Phew! That was a long tutorial, hope I did not lose you on the way, because we do have FREEBIES.

Would anyone like the Beach Hut Kit - ribbons, ric rac, button and bondaweb?
(Not the towels or thread etc)

Yes - then leave us a comment and we will pick THREE winners next Tuesday.

All the NEW Nautical ribbons will be going onto the website today, keep an eye on the home screen.