I’m rather partial to making padded coat-hangers, when I was a poor impoverished student nurse I often made them as Christmas presents. My rule for saving scraps from dress-making has always been if it was big enough for a coathanger, save it! I used to make ball gowns for my friends for our hospital balls, eventually moving on to bridesmaid and wedding dresses, I still have some very nice scraps from those days! I made some coat-hangers this time last year too

I need to make two coat hangers for our local show, my first one is a totally OTT frothy lacy one, probably more suited for a wedding dress but who cares, it’s pretty! My starting point was a couple of lengths of lace left over from my first wedding dress (however you phrase it, that never sounds good, but that’s life!)

I use polyester wadding to cover the coat-hangers as it’s nice and springy. The metal hook is covered with a rouleaux loop and then the main fabric is stitched over the wadding. I used a piece of ivory silk dupion from my scrap box. Then the fun started, decorating it!

The lace was in two widths, I stitched the narrower one to the seam line along the top of the hanger and then stitched the wider one underneath so it formed a nice deep frill, as I was stitching it on I added tiny pearls to the lace, along the zig-zag edge. I stitched some drop pearls along the lower edge too.

During my sewing room move I unearthed some silk flower patterns already cut out of ivory silk, I made these years ago to go on wedding dresses. They are very simple to make, they’re cut on the bias, folded in half lengthways, I then hand-stitch a gathering thread along the fabric, gather it up fairly tightly and then roll it up, stitching as you go. I made three silk roses and then decided to try some lace ones too, I put some beads in the middle of those..

It took me a while to arrange the flowers, in the end I tied a large ivory bow first, stitched the roses around it and then added some ribbon bows in a narrower ribbon. The pearls were the finishing touch.

I’m linking up with Kathy’s Quilts for Slow-Stitching Sunday and Super Mom No Cape for  Vintage Embroidery Monday, why not have a look what everyone else has been stitching.