Sewing notions in Home Decor and Accessories: 5 Designs not to miss from Italy and Europe

This is becoming a monthly appointment: here are our latest finds in home decor and accessories, where sewing meets and inspires design. This proves how "fashionable" anything sewing related is! I have to start with this ceramic vase: it's made by the Italian Designer Vito Nesta. Nesta is a surname in Italy so you can imagine I often have problems explaining that it's my name and not my surname... Anyway, Vito Nesta has come up with this precious gold vase that resembles a thimble, inspired by childhood memories of his Grandmother's love for sewing:

For his Sartoria Collection, he has also designed other fabulous products:

BobiniQUE, for example, are ceramic candle holders, in six different colours:

More Home Decor, a Rag Rug with a special twist: the Italian firm Sobel produces this series of mats, made with strips of fabric. A part from t-shirt fabric you can also find silky and shiny fabrics woven into the rug, that add lovely texture:

Pip Studio's lovely porcelain collection called Royal reminds me of beautiful quilts combining florals and patterns:

As for accessories, have you seen how fold over elastic (FOE) has become a trendy way to tie your hair or, when not in use, a pretty bracelet to keep on your wrist! Popband has an incredible selection:

They are even spot on with the unicorn and hexie trends!

You can read about more of our finds in home decor and accessories here, here, here, here and here (it's becoming a fun series on our blog!).

Sewing notions in Fashion and Design: 5 Great Ideas not to miss

Have you noticed how sewing notions are inspiring so many designer products lately? Sewing notions transformed into charms and decorations. Take a look at our latest finds:

A thimble as a charm on bracelets and necklaces: KeepOut Bracelets & More, designed and made in Italy. KeepOut's charms are inspired by a Southern American tradition according to which thimbles can protect you (and not just your fingers!). Grandmothers gave their grandchildren a thimble as a symbol of protection.

Another favourite: the O bag by full spot has become very fashionable in Italy thanks to it's very clever design.

You buy the plastic “shell” of the bag, choosing from one of the many colours on sale, and then you can create your own version of the bag. 

You can pick different handles and details to make the bag suit your mood or the season. The plastic shell can be wiped clean and you can easily take out the lining to wash it:

There are so many possibilities, faux fur for the Winter, flowers for Spring! We are thinking of making our own lining bags with a zip using a favourite fabric (Cotton + Steel?) to make our bags unique.

Ikea not only sells good quality and cheap fabric that's perfect for quilt backing, they are also selling giant buttons as wall decorations. These buttons are bright and fun and would look great in a sewing room!

If you want to take your sewing notions around with you all day, why not wear some classy scissors earrings or a necklace with a scissors charm? This lovely jewellery is created by Mara at Secretly Stitching (you can contact her at grecomara at gmail dot com).

And have you seen these fantastic t-shirts by statelytype from the Maker moda collection. Thank you Mara for pointing them out to us: now we want (at least) one too!

We love finding fashion and designer ideas inspired by sewing notions, so why not take a look at our posts here, here, here and here for more fun finds!

An important note: none of the above are affiliate links. They are all just products we really like. The links are to give credit to the creators of the designs.

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)