Busy December

My daughter presented me with the wreck of a favourite skirt that fitted her perfectly and asked if I would make her a skirt for Christmas. She had bought the skirt about three or four years ago for the princely sum of £3 from a charity shop .
As a try out I pulled some material from my stash that I had hidden away for about 30 years , not her usual colours but one of the few pieces that would provide enough material for the flowing style of the old skirt.

Wearing well

. That seemed to work ok, so hunting through the stash I came across material costing £3 from a charity shop and thought she could probably do with another one so and what do you know another piece from the same place . and since she was always saying how cold her hands get scraping the frost of a car I designed a scramster so she could keep warm whilst she did the scraping. Post Christmas I came across a photo of my great nephew wearing his new army kit from Santa, but Santa had forgotten to provide pants to go with the gun and helmet and I just happened to have in mu stash a small piece of camo material..
That was a good month but my sewing room as looking a little worse for wear so my New Years resolution was to keep a tidy sewing room, cramped though it is – it’s my little bit of heaven.

Not done much sewing recently due to OOPARTs in my sewing room but finally got back in there . Daughter had a favourite skirt that had seen better days – the pattern-and I had a couple of yards of viyella fabric in my stash that had been there for close on 30 years- the material. Time to put them together.

Wearing well

Fancy Dress Iron Man II and a Ninja Turtle MK II

Been busy these last few weeks with a couple of fancy dress costumes for a boy who just loves dressing up. I made the Iron man II based on the Burda Spiderman pattern which is made in a stretchy material. I used poly cotton for the iron man and thought I had added enough extra to the pattern to cope with the non stretch of the poly cotton. I hadn’t added quite enough so a quick unpick and some black stripes added into the costume to give a bit of ease.

Iron man II

No sooner had I finished this one he asked hopefully for a Ninja Turtle. For this I used a pyjama pattern in camouflage material and added an underside and a shell. The shell was made from an old suede curtain and batting. The top of the shell was left unattached so that weapons, lunch and quite a bit of other stuff could be stashed there.

I also made a cross belt and belt in the same suede and a bandana in blue as requested, but the eager young actor took that home with him before I could photograph it.

Your never too young for education

A friend gave me a huge pile of black, linen like material that she no longer needed as backing on photo shoots. Not sure what I will use it for yet but here is something she asked me to make for her. She teaches in a nursery for pre schoolers and at the end of the year they have a little ceremony as the little ones go up to big school.
Could I make some graduation gowns for them.
OK –
I made a rough pattern based on the cardboard I pulled out from some packs of polo shirts for a 10 year old.

cardboard and selotape

The card was too stiff for inserting pins so I grabbed the selotape and stuck the pattern to the fabric. The material was fraying as I looked at it. The selotape had the addded advantage o keeping the fraying under control and cutting out with pinking shears added to the control.

Trial run

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Its a while since I have had a 4 year old around so I was a bit hazy on how big to make the gown. Just waiting now to try it out when I find a model.

Carrying on with my refurbishment

Blouse number 2 using a pattern from Simplicity.

I have a slight problem since having surgery for breast cancer, in that one boob is twice the size of the other, hence my somewhat lob sided appearance. I am therefore investigating several styles to find the best remedy for this. This blouse has proved to be a good fit and comfortable, may need to look at the princess seaming to improve the look  but the blouse doesn’t gape awkwardly as a lot of shop bought blouses do . Think I should have used a lighter weight interface in the collar too.

Refurbishing my wardrobe

Last year I threw out most of my clothes that had seen me through at least 20 years, but being a thrifty soul, they didn’t quite make it to the charity bag, they lay in a heap in the spare room wardrobe – just in case I put the weight I’d lost back on, or in case I could reuse them for making children’s dressing up clothes.
I managed to recycle some of the items into bags and various other items and actually managed to give a few items to the charity shop. I still have a bag full of skirts that I am sick of wearing and will probably reuse as backing for cushions – at some point.
So full of resolution I am starting to make myself some new clothes, although there is an \|Iron man costume on the go at the same time. I made myself 3 nighties to warm up in pastel shades of lilac,mint and lemon and very practical they are too.

Nightwear

. Each nightie cost about £6 using poly cotton.
The next project is to make about 5 tops of various styles. here is the first. It cost me £1,as the material was new material purchased in a charity shop. Not totally happy with the collar as a bit out of practice with clothes for me.

Blouse No. 1

Clearing up the rubbish

Run out of fancy dress requests for the moment so i am spending time trying to get organized. I was annoyed the other day trying to find the right lead for charging up my Kobo as it was somewhere in the drawer with all the other charger leads for mobile phones, camera leads etc, etc.  a birds nest tangle  of unidentified technological objects.  So  I made half a dozen little bags and some labels and hopefully I won’t have that problem again.

 

Using up my stash

Run out of fancy dress requests at the moment so I have spent a week making presents for my great nephews and nieces. They are all in the 2-10 range and cost just a few pence each to make depending on whether I used a zip or velcro to close them. Peppa pig and Scooby Doo are nightdress/pyjama cases or hot water bottle covers. The brown bags are made from an old curtain in a suede type fabric picked up in a charity shop. The sports holdall uses the top of a tabbed curtain and the tabs make the closures . My machine couldn’t cope with getting through the fabric to do button holes so I used velcro to fasten it. The pink furry bag is lined with chinese silk remnants from a kimono I made some time ago.

Peppa Pig

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Peppa Pig and Scooby Doo

Peppa Pig

I don’t get to see my many great nieces and nephews very often and wanted to make them a small present for them that kept me in their minds , so having found out what their favourite cartoon characters were, I made these. They can be used as either hot water bottle covers or nightdress cases or cushions.Peppa Pig has a zip to close it as I happened to have a pink one, Scooby Doo is closed with velcro. They are extremely simple to make , make a pattern of the rough shape , then add the character to one side having fun giving them a face with felt, sew in place then just join then up along the bottom with zip or velcro. Then sew around the outside but first REMEMBER TO OPEN THE ZIP before you sew them up. ( I forgot and struggled when it came to turning them to the right sides. Make sure the ears and tail(if any) are fully turned out. Job done.

Spiderman

A new venture for me using a Burda pattern from their magazine. Just a well I like doing jigsaws as picking out the correct line to follow isn’t the easiest job in the world and it wasn’t immediately clear that the seam and hem allowances were not included. Luckily i added a bit extra just in case

Bu

After selecting the smallest pattern of those on offer as its for a 5 year old, I found the instructions nice and straight forward so construction is going fine.
It did not say at what point to draw on the spider web patterns so I am chosing to do it before the final seams are done.
I tried with a fabric marker but the darned thing dried up very quickly and I couldn’t get it to work again so I changed to a dylon puff marker which stated allow to dry for 4 hours. This meant working on a small bit at a time and brought sewing to a halt for a while. Still after a bit of practice , the results are quite reasonable.
In the mean time I made a couple of presents for some Fb friends

Cottage t cosy

Spider man costume for a 5 year old