Upcycling Coffee, Coffee Packaging & Coffee Pods

Hippystitch Coffee Themed Notebooks

 

Over the summer (July, August & September) I led a series of Stitch Clubs at York Embroiderers and Stitchers (YES). YES are a are a friendly group of stitch and textile enthusiasts of all levels of ability and experience and I am a member.

The Stitch Clubs were initially inspired by some work I did in the YES Travelling Book. The Travelling Book is a book that members of the group add to every month with samples of whatever work they choose. It may be examples of stitched work but it could be mixed media work or something else. For my pages, I decided I would go with the theme of "using the unusual" and to narrow that down a bit I chose coffee as a linking factor. I used colourful coffee packaging, used coffee pods, and leftover coffee as paint. You can read about it here. This inspired me to run a stitch club on a similar theme.  

We started off using coffee painting, coffee packaging and stitch to create some notebooks...

Coffee Painting

It was great to watch everyone's progress and different designs...

Stitch Club Participants' Work
(Top from left - Jane, Jill.  Middle - Tina, Eileen, Maggie. Bottom - Pauline, Liz B, Elaine)

And to see some of the ingenious completed outcomes...

Judith's Notebook Complete with Pocket

More Completed Notebooks (Liz(L),(C - clockwise from top left) Marina, Andrea, Jill, Michele, Elaine(R))

After we'd finished making notebooks we moved on to a stitch coffee pod flower collage...

Hippystitch Coffee Pod Flower Collages

which involved a bit of practising cutting, hammering and squishing to get coffee pods into the desired shapes...

Diane, Jill and Andrea's Stitched Coffee Pod Collages

and resulted in some fab collages and some new ideas for flowers and embellishments. All in all - great fun!

Using the Unusual - My Pages in the Travelling Book

 

You may wonder what this is all about. Well - it's my turn to complete some pages in the York Embroiderers and Stitchers' Travelling Book. York Embroiderers and Stitchers (YES) are a friendly group of stitch and textile enthusiasts of all levels of ability and experience and the Travelling Book is a book that members of the group add to every month with samples of whatever work they choose. It may be examples of stitched work but it could be mixed media work or something else.

I decided I would go with the theme of "using the unusual" and to narrow that down a bit I chose coffee as a linking factor. I used colourful coffee packaging, used coffee pods, and leftover coffee to paint some papers for the background...

Colourful Coffee Packaging

Used Coffee Pods

Paper Painted & Marked With Coffee

I experimented with the coffee packaging by cutting out shapes and ironing them onto paper.  This worked well but when I tried sewing into it, I had to add a layer of calico behind to stop the paper ripping.  This was because I had used basic printer paper and I didn't like how the paper looked...

Initial Sample

I then tried ironing the coffee packaging directly onto fabric but it didn't stick so I decided to try using Khadi paper.  This is a comparatively heavy cotton rag paper which I thought would be suitable to stitch into and has a nice colour and texture. Firstly, I made a coffee packaging collage and then embellished it with some simple stitches - backstitch, crossstitch and French knots.  Most of the packaging had stuck well after ironing but a few areas were lifting a little so I added a few coats of acrylic wax to the whole piece, which I hoped would seal it down. It worked...

Coffee Packaging and Stitch on Khadi Paper

My next challenge was to create something with the coffee pods. I had seen various people on Instagram making things (mostly jewellery) with upcycled coffee pods and I thought I could use the same techniques to make some flowers.  (See @renatamarilon.up, @coffeepodcreations, @sustained_wrapture)

I made a variety of different coffee pod flowers.  Then, having decided where the flowers were going to go on my background fabric, which was made up of two layers of calico, I machine stitched the stems and leaves before appliqueing the flowers in place.  The paper leaves were cut from an old magazine.  I used buttons and/or stitch to secure the coffee pod flowers in place.  Finally, I added some hand stitching to finish the piece...

Coffee Pod Flowers With Hand and Machine Stitch

Coffee Pod Flowers (detail)

Coffee Pod Flowers (detail)

Once all my pieces were finished, I attached them either directly to the book or to my coffee painted papers.  I then added some explanation of what I'd done, and my pages were complete...

Finished Pages Before Folding Out

Fold Up Collage for Explanation

Fold Out Coffee Painting to Reveal Coffee Pod Flowers and Explanation

Finished Pages Showing Fold Outs

I even managed to make a little book with my initial sample and some left over paper painted with coffee ...

Mini notebook made from my initial sample of coffee packaging & stitch and leftover coffee painted paper

Now what shall I do with that?