Sewing in Fashion and Design: 5 fun sewing inspired ideas seen in Italy

It's time for a post with some fun stuff to show how much sewing is influencing fashion and design...

Have you seen these flip flops? Don't they remind you of a thread plait, like the ones you find in emergency sewing kits? I can assure you they are super comfortable and resistant. If they can stand how I use them, they can resist anyone!

Reef Mallory Scrunch Flip Flops (that's a mouth full... Not an affiliate link, by the way. None of the links in this post are affiliate links, just stuff I like!)

Second up: I have fallen in love with this fabric tape. The patchwork effect and the colours are perfect. It doesn't fray and looks so pretty when closing all those swap and bee envelopes you're posting off! Rayher Fabric Tape:

There are lots of tutorials for making your own fabric tape. The last one I found is by The Red Thread Blog:

I tried making some myself BEFORE thinking of looking for a tutorial! The good news is you can use any fabric you like (I used Carolyn Friedlander's Architextures), the bad news is that the fabric tape tends to fray. The threads sticking out can add an extra texture to the handmade fabric tape though, so who cares!

Is it just me or have you seen hexies cropping up everywhere? I even found one as a kitchen accessory:

I couldn't resist buying myself this hexie hot pad. It's made up of lots of tiny hexies, isn't that cool?! It cost less than 2 euro (about $2.5), is very flexy, resists heat (of course it does, it's a hot pad!) and is in one of my favourite colours, so how was I supposed to resist?

If you like reading about fun design ideas then check out this post and this one too on our blog, featuring: 

(photo from Il Centimetro)

(photo from Seletti)