hello! I’m back with a few further “things I have made” ….
1) Finished only yesterday is this new patchwork pinafore…. Mum bought a little bundle of Irish tweed cut-offs during a visit to the UK years ago.
I admit to being quite intimidated by this lovely stuff for a long time! but as my policy for the past few years is to sew my stash completely, the time came to step up, get brave and cut into it. I used a pattern partly based upon the Pauline Alice Turia dungarees pattern, but as I’ve unfortunately thrown out my copy I made a new pattern by laying down my pink pinafore and tracing around it.
I cut the tweed into equal sized squares, dimensions based upon the narrowest of the lengths, overlocked all edges, arranged and joined them so as to fit the pattern pieces.
I made welt pockets just like the ones I did on my pink pinafore because they work so well for me.
The straps are also patchwork, which created a few problems when I had to thread them through the buckles because of the sheer bulk of the fabric; but I managed to force them through eventually! Initially I decided to line the pinafore with some lovely chocolate brown cotton that I’ve had for many years.
Yes, it looks pretty nice but unfortunately made it quite difficult to wear. I realised very quickly I had to replace it with something a bit more slippery. So I cut most away and attached a new one made of polyacetate lining fabric. Sadly, it doesn’t look nearly as pretty now to my eyes, but it does make it SO much easier and more pleasant to wear!
The only way to attach this securely was to press down the seam allowance around the top edge all around and basically topstitch it in place to what remained of the previous cotton lining. However, the topstitching looked quite ugly to my eyes and I wanted it to look a little cleaner, even on the inside where no one can even see it. SoI made a bias strip from the chocolate brown cotton, and hand stitched this over the join all around on the inside to hide it. So much better!
Everything here was from my stash, and I’m so happy to have finally made something I love from this beautiful fabric!
2) Back in summer I made a new little dress using leftover cotton fabrics and the Esme pattern from the book “Everyday Style” by Lotte Jansdotter. I love how it looks like a French flag!
The seams look like straight lines, but in reality none of them are because of the weird shapes of the fabric scraps I was using! All the horizontal seams are curved to differing degrees. It was a little tricky to get a good neat result but I was actually very pleased with myself how cohesive it all looks in the end! Of course this is a fun and cool, airy little dress to wear and I am extremely happy with it. I’m looking forward to summer so I can get back into it again!
Again, everything from stash.
3) Also during last summer I also made this little lace dress using the Fibremood Lennox pattern and a pale “greige” lace originally from Fabulous Fabrics from many years ago. I underlined all pieces completely with a cream coloured muslin, also bought many years ago, I think from a Morrison remnant sale. The buttons are actually some leftovers from the covered buttons that I made for Kelly’s wedding dress, back here! This is also all from stash, and although I’ve worn this a tonne since I made it I took only one picture of myself wearing it… this rather terrible one, sorry. I’m trying to get back to photographing and documenting things better.
4) and 5) and oodie!! along with some new winter pyjamas. Not particularly glamorous or exciting, and I did have to buy all new fabric but we all have to do that sometimes since we need pyjamas, yes? I’d bought the fluffy pink blanket from Spotlight with a view to making a new dressing gown like my previous one… but the blanket was unfortunately way too small for my pattern. So I drew up a plan that used as much of the blanket as I could, while making a functional winter coverup. I absolutely love the result! It’s super comfy and warm and I’m in it every single evening, even during the day at home sometimes!
I chose the pyjama fabric simply because the pink of the teddies’ tummies perfectly matches the colour of the blanket so well. The patterns I used for these are my usual; the Closet Core Carolyn pyjama bottoms, and heavily modified Burda 10/2009; 121 for the top.
Finally I just want to add; thank you so much for the lovely welcome back comments on my previous post! I do still have quite a few more things to share once I get around to taking some photos, so please stay tuned!
hello! Recently my lovely niece J married her long-time man and so of course I had to make a new dress for myself for the occasion… I was vaguely toying with the idea of shopping for fabric before I remembered two things: 1. as everyone in our family knows, J’s favourite colour is famously yellow, and 2. I have a piece of very yellow, and happily wedding worthy fabric in my stash already!
I cut the pockets and neckline facings from a natural cotton linen that I’ve had in the stash for years, saved specifically for this same sort of purpose.
I’m including a picture of the happy couple because, although I did not make the dress, I did alter it to fit her and also did some minor repairs. This took three separate fittings and I took precisely zero photos of the process or anything. My only excuse is that I was also working on my own dress and stressing a little bit that I wasn’t going to get it all done on time.
hello! I’ve made a new/old blouse for myself… I’ve always enjoyed the challenge of using old textiles PLUS I’ve also always loved patchwork and mixed-prints in clothing so obviously this new blouse is certain to become a favourite! why? because the fabric is salvaged from three well-loved old shirts of my husband’s… I really liked each of these shirts when he was wearing them, so when he decided they were too worn to be worn any more (hehe) I packed them away to be refashioned one day.
I’m wearing my new shirt in the above pictures with 
hello! I’ve made some new things recently… firstly, some new winter pyjamas. 🙂
Hello! For the Easter just gone by I wanted to give something to my three little grandsons… chocolate has been ruled out by the parents and so I had to think of something else. I decided upon this! As a teen, my eldest Tim used to have a pink T-shirt with a “cool bunny” printed on it which he absolutely loved. It was actually a very different print from this one, but with this in mind I googled “cool bunny” and something like this was one of the millions that came up. I thought it was really cute!
I hand-drew the design on tracing paper in lead pencil, then transferred the designs to equally sized pieces of wrapping paper.
First print done!
Second print!
and this one did not. If you can’t see it straight away, just look at the red, inside-the-ears bit, and you can see how skewiff it is compared the the others. I’ve still got this fabric, and may use it for something else in the future.
Heat set the prints, and then I sewed up the T-shirts.
hello!
Unfortunately there wasn’t enough to do every single seam and edge like I have done in previous examples of this method but I just did as many of the more prominent bodice seams before I ran out of it.
I know I’ve used this pattern quite frequently but it really is such a beautiful dress design that I don’t see myself every tiring of it any time soon. Of course I really should branch out more and I’m resolving to try more new patterns this year and not fall back so often on the old favourites. In the meantime though, some of my recent as yet unblogged projects have failed this resolution already whoops.
I wore this along with my 
rhetorical question, don’t mind me. I actually love stripes, even though when I do sew with them I feel inextricably compelled to pin each and every stripe. It’s ok. A small amount of suffering is acceptable when it leads to nice things.
hurrah! I’ve just finished my knitted project for December, aka the last monthly knit for the year! and possibly the last made thing for the year, depends whether I can get my already cut-out thing done in the next day or so. 🙂
I have to admit I was quite excited about this one, but it was definitely the most time consuming of the knitted projects for the year, just because it’s the biggest that I started from scratch… I had quite a diverse collection of random whites/creams and blacks/charcoal and decided to attempt the classic black and white stripes. There was quite a lot more of the whites than black so the white stripes are a shade wider than the black ones. Also the sleeve and bottom hem sections are in the white colour way too. There is just a very tiny amount of leftovers, nothing to speak of really, which makes me pretty happy.
As previously I made the design up myself, it’s a topdown, knitted-in-one piece, just like 
Speaking of the rib finish, I tried something new I’d seen on instagram, and I’m truly sorry I cannot for the life of me remember who it was who posted it so I can’t give credit for the idea. Basically, they said that rib is often uneven in appearance and that’s due to the difference in the way the wool goes around the needle in knit and purl stitches. They suggested the following; for knit stitches, knit through the back of the loop… and for purl stitches, wrap the wool clockwise around the needle – which is the opposite from normal. Apparently it uses a little less wool, anyway I gave it a go and I think the rib does look a little bit neater than my usual efforts.
I’m really happy with this one! the classic white/black stripes will be so easy to wear and I’m looking forward to giving it lots of outings in winter. I was a little worried about the bobbly cream coloured wool – are the bobbles going to be too hideous?! scary! but in the end they’re not twee to an unbearable extent and I’m ok to just let them be.
