Hey, I made something I can wear!!

I always have good intentions of making clothes.  I have several lengths of fabric stashed away, a stack of patterns, lots of links to inspirational podcasts and bloggers who sew beautiful things for themselves. I just never get to it!  I'd so much rather sew in two dimensions.  I think the other reason is that I just don't know enough about garment sewing and I don't get a great fit the first time so then I give up.

But scarves!  They are kinda three dimensional but mostly sewn in two dimensions.  I can handle that.  And they feel good, are an easy way to add an individual touch to an outfit and they always fit perfectly.

I whipped one up (really, truly, including hand sewing the tiny bit at the end it took me about 20 minutes) the other day out of a soft Stoff knit fabric.  The fabric is very slightly pink and it's got birds on it.  How could it not come home with me?

Do you know what I love most about this photo?  Not that I don't look like a total goober, not that it captures both my wedding present mirror and my first ceramic purchase that I bought 'just because', but also because it shows me next to my kids height marks that we've been marking on the doorway since we moved on board the boat.  My 12 year old son is only about 10 cm shorter than me!

I didn't use a pattern or tutorial because I've sewed a couple now and have it down pat.

To sew an infinity scarf, you get a long narrow length of fabric, fold it wrong sides together lengthwise and sew those long edges together to get a narrow tube.  Then you turn it rights sides out, slip one end back over the tube (right sides facing), until you reach the other end.  Sew the two ends together, leaving a small gap for turning.  Turn it inside out and then slip stitch the opening together.

When you are slipping one end back down over the tube, you can choose to put a twist in it, which is what I did on this scarf.

Confused?

Here are some tutorials that seem to have good diagrams:

https://www.craftstylish.com/item/71903/how-to-make-an-infinity-scarf/page/all (great diagrams, shows the twist off well)

http://artgalleryfabrics.typepad.com/weblog/2012/12/fat-quarter-gang-patricia-infinity-cowl-by-luvinthemommyhood.html (a downloadable PDF but without the twist and made of fat quarters)

http://mellysews.com/2015/02/make-infinity-scarf-just-3-steps.html (very simple, without the twist)

Sometimes you need simple...

I just read a quote on Deborah Boschert's blog today:

He who works with his hands is a laborer. He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman. He who works with his hands and his head and his heart is an artist.—St. Francis

Deborah was talking about her workbook for developing your creative voice, called "Head, Heart and Hands".  I bought a digital downloadable copy for myself with the intention of starting work on it after my 100 days project is finished, I'll let you know how I find it.

Anyway.  The quote made me think about the sewing I did yesterday.  Sometimes you just need something to sew, something uncomplicated, something that just uses your hands, and maybe a bit of your head.  Something that will give satisfaction without any frustration.

At the recent Auckland Festival of Quilts, I bought a couple of half-metre cuts of Echino linen prints. I love Echino fabrics - a delightful mix of prints and colours.  I simply cut this piece in half, squared the pieces up and sewed them together into a tote bag.

For slightly more complexity and an increase in user-friendliness, I sewed it using enclosed seams.  Then I boxed out the bottom corners, added a simple outside pocket and lightly padded handles in a solid cotton fabric from my stash.  Done.  

Above is a snap of the bottom on the bag, inside out, so you can see the enclosed seams and the boxed corners.  

To sew enclosed seams, put the two pieces of fabric WRONG sides together and sew a 1/4 inch seam round the three sides, clip the corners, turn inside out (RIGHT sides together) and press.  

Then sew another seam around the three sides, slightly larger than 1/4 inch and this will enclose your first seams.  

Now you can box your corners as in the photo above, add a double fold hem around the top edge, add your pocket and your handles.  

I enjoyed it so much, and loved the final product that I might just use the other piece of Echino in the same way.

Tuesday Tip - using up bobbins

What's wrong with this picture?  

I needed a bobbin in a particular colour for my quilting, and I have none spare to wind.  Ug.  I don't like winding a different colour over the top of a half-full bobbin because inevitably I'll need the colour underneath, and that's just a straight path to frustration-ville. 

So what I usually try to do is keep plenty of empty bobbins.  But how do I do that without wasting thread?  Well, I use my bobbins as thread spools when I'm piecing or sewing something that doesn't need a particular colour. 

You just pop your bobbin onto your thread spool holder and use as usual.  Easy!  

I try and kind of match my colours to my piecing, like darks for darks and lights for lights, because you will see bright yellow piecing thread if you use it for midnight blue fabric.  But I seem to use an awful lot of beige, grey, taupe and cream threads in my bobbins.  And sage green, lavender and medium blue are pretty neutral too.

And have you ever made 'frankenbatting'?  That's a term coined by (I'm pretty sure, correct me if I'm wrong) Pam from Hip to be a Square.  It's where you piece together lots of random batting leftovers to make one bigger bit.  And ain't nobody going to know if you did that with leftover lavender thread from your bobbin!

I don't use my bobbins when I'm quilting, because a) I'm going to run out of thread too quick and b) I don't know if having unwound from a spool and re-wound onto a bobbin would mess with my tension.  But I've never had any problems using it for piecing, so give it a try.

And while we are on the topic of bobbins.  I wanted to tell you about the best bobbin cases I've found.  One of mine is a Sew Mate Bobbin Box, the other is exactly the same but unbranded.  The inner is closed cell foam and the bobbins kind of squash in.  They never fall out, they never unravel, the lid has a good catch and the hinge has never broken on me.  The plastic is the same as plastic food storage containers, which means it doesn't smash if you drop it (ask me how I know).  

Whenever I see them, which is infrequently in New Zealand for some reason, I buy them because people always want them when they see mine!

Entertaining Lots of Kidlets (and a few adults)

Our quilting guild have a deal going with the local primary school whereby we give free fibre art classes to their pupils and in return we get free use of their school hall for our annual exhibition.

I organised and ran them last year and am doing so again this year.  Last year was fabric paint - fun but messy and with lots of prep and clean up.  This year it's fabric collage.  I chose it in part to help tame the scrap heap, but people keep donating scraps to me to use so the pile is growing not shrinking!

The kids (who were six years old for the most part) drew the outline of their first initial then glued scraps of fabric to fill it in.  Then with chenille or tapestry needles (nice and big with a good eye), they big stitched around the outline.  Simple, effective and lots of fun.  I've zigzagged them into a banner that they can hang on their wall and then we can hang it in our exhibition in January.  Now I've only three more classes to go with the same age kids and we're all done for another year.

Another Finish.

I'm on a nightie roll.  This is my second one from the Sew Mama Sew! tutorial.  Another op-shop sheet and the purple fabric used to be a pair of pyjama pants that, er, split in an unfortunate manner.  I was even able to use the drawstring tie as the shoulder straps.  I think I'm almost ready to tackle a garment that gets worn in public.

A Finish!

I've been working up to making some clothes for myself.  I'm not a sempstress.  I didn't take Home Ec. at school.  I took what I thought at the time were loftier subjects like art and graphics and design.  And here I am, neither an architect nor an artist, wishing that I'd had the foresight to learn some true sewing skills.

I've made a few garments before, but so few I can list them:
A dress for my daughter,
A pair of trousers for me,
A dress for me.

And all done long ago.

But I'm sick of buying clothes that I don't really like but can't afford the ones I do, or garments that don't fit or flatter, or tee-shirts that I know were probably made by some poor bugger in a sweatshop somewhere.

Then I read this post by Chunkychooky and it motivated me so much that.....

I made me a nightie!  I am very impressed with myself.  I followed this tutorial from Sew Mama Sew!, used an op-shopped sheet and shirt, and I wore it to bed the same day I started it.

I was so chuffed with myself that it almost made up for the bad bad bikkies.

And thank you all for your suggestions about the disastrous biscuits.  I'm going to do a marathon bake tomorrow and freeze a whole lot of my good recipes so I have bikkies at a moments notice.  Then I'm going to dry out the yucky ones, crumble them and use them as muesli (granola), cheesecake base, and a slice base and maybe try a crumble topping too.

Catchup

Gosh, the weekend is almost here and I haven't even written about last weekend!  Labour weekend was a full-on one for us.  Being a long weekend, my brother and his wife took the opportunity to visit us and they brought their gorgeous son with them.  I could wax lyrical all day about how perfectly delicious he is!  Four months old and just starting to get interesting.  My little Miss with smitten!

Then we had a lovely day relaxing on the beachside whilst hubby took the kids fishing.  We caught up with my hubby's cousin and all her family too.  A real family picnic.  Sunday was another family picnic with different cousins and aunties and uncles and the kids got to swim in the creek where we'll be camping at Christmas time.  But the highlight of their day was horse riding with their Great Uncle M!  Now both of them want a horse for Christmas.  Hmmm, we'll think about that.  And of course I forgot my camera so I don't have a picture of their delighted faces when they were jumping a wee ditch!  (Let's not mention that I was made to get on that horse too....did you know how unstable those things are?!)



This is a pic from last Christmas - high tide in the creek.

 

Tuesday was a busy day at the Quilting Guild and then Wednesday - yesterday- was the first day I had to sit down and just be.  So I whipped up a couple of grocery bags from upholstery fabric swatches.  I say 'whipped up' because that was how it felt.  Really!  I just sat down and sewed while my girl was napping.  I listened to an audio book and before you know it, I had two bags.  I love it when projects just 'work' - so often they don't so I'm bragging while I can!

So today I'm just pottering.  What are you up to?

Belonephobia.

It's my local quilting guild meeting tomorrow.  I'm on the committee (don't ask me how that happened) and I've organised a pincushion swap between members.  I suddenly realised I hadn't made one - not a good look if the organiser of a swap doesn't make an item to be swapped!

So this is my Belonephobia box (to save you a Google - it's fear of pins and needles!).  It's about four inches by 2 1/2 inches, quite large, but then you won't lose it.  It has rice in the bottom to give it weight and craft stuffing on top of that.  And it used up lots of scraps.

And then, of course, my little darlings saw it and both wanted one of their own.  I must tell them about 'thou shalt not covet'!

So here are two for them, just waiting to be stuffed and sewn closed.  I made them a little bigger and I don't think I'll put rice in theirs.  I have a suspicion they'll end up being thrown at each other so the less weight the better!

Blog Giveaway

I am doing my very first blog giveaway. It's motivated by purely selfish reasons - I want to see this go to a good home, and currently I don't know any little girls that would fit this.



I made this little dress for my daughter a little while ago because I wanted to make something for her, I wanted to make an item of clothing, and I wanted to use the fabrics. Unfortunately, she has a dress dislike and so has worn it about three times :(





It's pure cotton and has a lined bodice. You can wear it with either the pink or blue skirt forward, it slips over the head easily. And as for sizing, well I have to guesstimate. It is just getting a little small for Olivia now and she is two and a bit and she is average to small.



So this is open to anyone, anywhere. If you want to pass this post on to someone who you think might like it, go ahead.



Just leave me a comment and I'll get said daughter to pull a number out of a hat on January the 25th then I'll contact you via your blog (or leave me an email address) to post it to you.



Good luck!

Edit: Thanks Cathie (aka M.E)! It works and now my post is in the right place.

This little piggy went to market, this little piggy stayed at home

I showed William how to point and shoot with my digital camera. I now have about 45 random shots pretty much like the one above! You can also see my daughter's birthday bounty in the background. Second hand toys rock!

My lounge floor was covered today in little hills of clothes. My sister-in-law has three daughters and we get all their hand me downs. Olivia found the bags and had great fun strewing the contents around, which was a pain, but at least it made me sort them out. Second hand clothes rock too, they're just a little more work!

Other things we've been up to. Baking apple pie with apples sent from the same S-I-L. This was REALLY good. I made the pastry from a recipe in Alison Holst's old Dollars and Sense Cookbook, a fantastic find in an Op Shop.

And making bags. This took me one kid-free morning to whip up from a linen skirt. It's been sent off to one of my sister's for her birthday. (Let's hope it's already reached her or she's just had advanced notice!)

I've worked three morning shifts in a row and it was incredibly busy. Postnatal rooms almost full and births happening left, right and centre. September and October are always busy months but this was crazy. I'm working a 12 hour day shift tomorrow, so finger's crossed it has quietened down a little.

Piggy!

This is Piggy. Named by my two year old daughter. I started sewing him a few months ago from a soft toy book I picked up for a few dollars at one of the local Op Shops. The book was from at least the 70's and he was made in pink fake fur, but I think he looks kinda cute in blue.

This is the first soft toy I've sewn for a long time, probably the first one ever, but I won't claim that in case one of my sister's sets me straight! And I learnt a few things along the way: trotters are tricky; when they say stuff firmly they mean it; and if you intend to give the toy away, don't let your small children see you doing the final stitching.

This was going to be for my sister's birthday next month - she's tricky to give to. But now she'll have to have something else because dear daughter has claimed Piggy on no uncertain terms. And who would be so cruel as to wrest a soft toy from a little girl's arms?

Sorry, Bec, I'll think of something else! And Cat, I've made something scrummy for you and I'm resisting posting a pic of it with all my might - Happy Birthday for today!xxx

My baby turns two!

On Monday she be all growed up!

This is her not long after being born. Getting checked over by one of my fabulous midwives (and very good friend). She was born at home in a birthing pool which is why she is nice and clean!

This is about six months old. I love the look on her face. A kind of,"Yeah, so I've got rolls, and your point is.....?"And here is my little raggamuffin now, helping me cook brownies for her birthday afternoon tea this Sunday.

And here is one of her birthday pressies. I love this pattern from Jodie at Ric-Rac. This is the second one I've made and it gets easier and easier - by the time I've made my fifth one, I should even be able to remember to sew my lining right sides together (yes, I was having a bad day).

That's a little horse applique I put on the front. Hopefully it will satisfy my horse-mad girl. "Horshies, horshies!" she squeals when she spots some. But beware, don't get too close or, "Horshie get me, Mummy!" A pony addiction that needs to be satisfied from afar. I hope this continues long into the future and I'll never be posting a picture of the real 'horshie' she got for her 12th birthday.