Upcycled Doily Dreamcatcher | Tutorial

The Native Americans believed that dreams we have while we sleep are sent by sacred spirits as messages. The center of a dream catcher has a hole to let good dreams flow through while the web that surrounds it traps all the bad dreams and at dawn with first light, they disappear. (The Wolfs Den Creations)

Doilies are essentially webs. They are woven circular repeating patterns and they kind of look like dream catchers dontcha think? I do, apparently so do others. I saw this, a while back, a Tutorial for a Doily Dream Catcher at Etsy.com and it is a good one. The doily chosen for the projects main display photo is a lacy looking doily adorning a macrame hoop. I don't have any macrame hoops though so I had to use something else because I totally wanted to make this.

An embroidery hoop does the trick! There's a handful of tutorials for this. They are all awesome. It's pretty neat to see an old doily transform like that.

You want to take your doily place it in the center of the inner hoop and just work the yarn or rope or string whatever you're using and pick holes in the doily that will pull the doily equally on all sides. Then you place the other hoop and screw it in place. Now adorn by hanging feathers with beads. I had to split some beads to make them go over the doily since you can't string them through an already made doily. I would have much liked all white feathers but I only had two and I work with what I have.

I have many embroidery hoops and I think in order to make the dream catcher look more "authentic" it's good to chose a bigger hoop than your doily so you can weave it into place. I wanted to weave the yarn all the way around the hoop but I didn't have enough.

You can decorate your dream catcher with whatever you like! These beads glow in the dark.

Upcycled Doily Bunting / Garland | TUTORIAL

What's the difference between bunting and garland? I asked. Silly me, I didn't know. Here I was thinking they were the exact same thing but then why have different names? Yes, so turns out they're not really the same...

Definition-wise, bunting is usually reminiscent of hanging flags – hence typifies the repetitive triangular or rectangular cotton fabric shapes hung upon a piece of string or fabric...Garlands on the other hand, by definition, were usually a wreath of flowers or leaves worn on the head (think Titania from Midsummer Night’s Dream) by someone to be honoured, quite often competition winner’s in races, for example. (Rapunzel's Retreat)

Even with that cleared up I still don't know whether to call this bunting or a garland. I suppose though, the doilies do resemble flags so this should be called bunting but garlands nowadays can also be stringed anything not just flowers. Call it whatever you please, I'll call it both.


You Will Need:

• Vintage Doilies
  
• A roll of Ribbon or Bias Tape (I used Offray single face, 1.5" wide, satin ribbon)
  
• Scissors
  

You Will Also Need:

• Sewing Pins
  
• Sewing Machine
  
• Thread
  

Let's Begin...

1. Take your doilies and cut them in halves.

I've actually accumulated several "sets" of doilies. I call them sets because they'll be more than one and all matching. I know sets consist of two but still. Most of them were given to me by my mom, others by my grandma and some I've found at thrift stores and fleamarkets. These particular ones were my moms given to her by her sister who handmade them, decades ago. They used to adorn our living room couches and end tables when I was a kid.

2. Take your ribbon and leave as long of a tail as you want to hang. Remember to leave room to tie. I left 13" of ribbon. Once it's tied it leaves about 10" hanging. I cut the edge of the ribbon as you can see because I didn't want to leave it a plain straight edge.

3. Take pins and stick the doily halves to the ribbon only up about half way so that you will be able to fold down the other half of the ribbon to cover the cut raw edges of the doilies.

4. Tack (baste stitch) all the doilies down. Then sew (tight straight stitch) the upper half of the ribbon down covering over the doily raw edges. For this you could have also used bias tape instead (make your own or buy it) or even lace. Anything that already has sealed edges to it works perfectly for this.

5. That's it! Tie knots to the ends and hang up the cuteness.