What to do with fabric trims!

My swag!

My sister and fellow blogger Tea with Digestives  recently showed off some fabulous trims that she claimed to have bought from £1 a metre in Walthamstow. Intrigued, I went down to the East End market yesterday and discovered a complete treasure trove of sequins, sparkles, rainbow colours, and shelf upon shelf of Indian trims. 

Where to start?

Disguised as a mobile phone repair shop called 'Wool Shop' (although it only sells basic Double Knit yarns), the store on the market is a long corridor of bling! There is soooooooooooooooooooooo much to choose from, you could be there for quite a while!

There are also rows of sequins, crystals, zips, threads and crystallised motifs. 

But what makes this shop so, so amazing, concept aside, is  the price! This sign is totally true! The trims range from 30p per metre to £4.50 for the most spectacular ones, a FRACTION of the price of places like Barnett Lawson Trimming (who as much as I love them, annoying  don't put the price on a lot of their trims and you get a shock at the till) and the overly extortionate VV Rouleaux who for moral reasons (they hike the price up soooooooo much) I will never buy anything from them ever!

As well as sequin encrusted, there are also some gorgeous mirror and machine embroidered choices.

I also bought a selection of jewelled motifs that were £1.50 each.




So now I have all the trims, what to do with them?


Here's my top 10 ways to use fabric trim:


1. Update clothes by sewing trim along the bottom of skirts and trousers, collars and cuffs. 
2. Wrap and glue trims around a wide plastic or wooden bangle to create a fabric covered piece of  jewellery.
3. Decorate the four raised sides of a notice board by gluing trim around it. 
4. Cover a blank canvas in strips of trim to make a piece of modern art. Either use different trims for each strip or create a pattern.
5. Cut off the thin sleeves on a vest top and replace with trim, make them the same length as the original sleeve and sew in place on each side so you can wear your top as before. 
6. Replace a ribbon with a trim on a straw hat. 
7. Tie up presents. 
8. Join strips of trim together with a simple straight stitch on a sewing machine to create a larger square or rectangular piece of fabric and use as one side of a cushion. 
9. Chop up lots of short strips of trim and sew on to the edge of a bag to give it a fringe, especially brings dull cotton shopper to life!
10. Buy a copy of my book 'Bollywood Crafts' it's contains instructions for 20 simple craft projects, most  which all use Indian trims!