Kimono scraps patchwork cushion :: for Mum

Last month my Mum had a birthday, a good enough excuse for me to travel back to my hometown of Melbourne for a family weekend.  It was great, I went alone and relaxed without the children.  I listened to my siblings and their partners talk around the dinner table about their pets. So refreshing, no talk of small people at all!

I tucked a handmade present under my arm when I flew down south.  I made my Mum a cushion - a patchwork of little scraps of kimono fabrics that I had been hoarding for years.  I know she loves pale shades of pink and purple so it just seemed like the perfect project to cut into those lovely fabrics.  I was so pleased at the way it turned out, and Mum loved it too.

Sewing with these fabrics was very much try it and see, there were lots of different fabric types and textures from a stiff kind of crepe to slippery silky ones.  I wasn't sure how they would combine together but it worked out just fine.  As you can see above the layout of the slightly rectangular pieces was four rows of six.  I top stitched down both sides of the long seams to add a bit of interest and to give the patchwork some strength.

The reverse side was three larger pieces using some of the same fabrics. I sewed these together and then just trimmed them with my rotary cutter to match the finished size of the patchwork side.  Again I top stitched along the seams.

I had also been waiting for an excuse to try out using pompom trim so when I saw this mauve trim in the store I knew it was the perfect finishing detail.  I pinned it into the side seams and then machine basted all the way around to keep everything in place before doing the final seam.  There was no way I was going to get a zipper closure into this cushion so I simply stuffed it with poly-fill and hand stitched the opening closed.

This corner was my favourite, a touch of gold on the flower and the dark blue leaves coming in from the edge.  So pretty. 

:: Happy Birthday Mum ::

1000 cranes Tsuru skirt

It's not often I see something on the internet and absolutely must make one for myself but...when I saw Rae's flying cranes skirt on the Made by Rae blog it immediately made it up to the top of my list of things to sew for myself.

The fabric I just fell in love with.  Swoon!  It's the gorgeous 1000 cranes design from the Tsuru range from Cloud9 Fabrics.  I jumped online to search a piece out and found it for sale locally from Funky Fabrix here in Brisbane.  Once that little delivery of one metre of fabric had arrived in my mailbox I picked up a few extra supplies from my local sewing store and set to work.

For my skirt I have gone for a fairly full style with a gathered elastic waist.  I used Anna Maria Horner's free pattern for the Flirting the Issue skirt (it's more instructions than a pattern per se).  I used the whole one metre of fabric from selvedge to selvedge and added a contrasting band of pale pink homespun cotton to the lower edge which added about 14cm to the length of my skirt so it sits around my knees (Rae's skirt is above the knee but I like a little more length personally).

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Here's a few details of the skirt construction:

The lining is a cotton lawn in royal blue. I was going to line it in navy but the cotton lawn didn't come in navy and in the end I realised that was lucky as it would have dulled the white print on the skirt too much.  I think maybe a pale pink lining would have been ideal but I kind of like the unexpected flash of bright blue underneath.  The lining is only as long as the dark blue cranes fabric so as not to affect the pink contrast band with blue show through.

I love a comfy elastic waistband. The waistband of this skirt is really wide (the wider the better for elastic waists in my opinion), but I have to admit that it's construction is fiddly.  You sew four casing channels around the top edge of the skirt and feed elastic into each of them - this is time consuming and hard on the fingers, the more fabric you have in the volume of the skirt the more difficult this task is.  I sewed the four channels and then gave up after pushing elastic through three of them.  I decided that was enough waist elastic for my needs anyway.  If I make a skirt this way again I am going to just put a single wide piece of elastic through the top like I did with my recent op-shop resize.

I attached the contrast band as the last step after constructing the rest of the skirt.  I made the band of pale pink by taking two strips of fabric about 20cms long and selvedge to selvedge wide (112cm).  I sewed these two strips together at the short sides (the selvedge edges) to create one big loop of fabric.  I finished one long edge with a zig-zag stitch to stop fraying and then ironed this edge over 1cm towards the wrong side.  I carefully pinned this folded edge of the pink fabric to the inside of the skirt so that it sat 1cm above the hemline stitching of the blue cranes fabric (the zig-zagged edge was facing the inside of the skirt).  I sewed the seam attaching the band to the lower skirt edge from the inside (see right hand side of the picture below).  Careful pinning here was the key to getting a nice straight finish on the outside.

Then I hemmed the pink fabric to my desired skirt length ( hem on the left hand side of the picture above).  On the outside of the skirt you see two hem lines on the blue which I think is a nice detail (see below) and the pink band looks like it comes down from behind the blue cranes and is not just tacked onto the lower edge of the skirt.

Such a good looking skirt and lovely to wear, it will be a favourite wardrobe piece this summer for sure.

Boy fabrics

I'm preparing for boy sewing in the coming weeks, so I went shopping for boy fabrics and came away with these lovelies.

Corduroy, drill, some blue fleece and grey ribbing.

The most prized fabric that I am yet to find is some navy blue pinwale corduroy - I've checked for it twice in the shop already with no success, but they say it's coming.

Off to throw these in the wash and prepare some after school snacks, those boys, they need feeding.

Scraps, strips and summer

Being the start of the new year and everything I have rolled up my sleeves and cleaned out my fabric cupboard.  I've given it a good tidying and sorted things into new and vintage, plains and patterns, dressmaking and quilting, fat quarters and large quantities.

And scraps.  My scrap bag is full to overflowing.

My last serious clean out of scraps was the year before last, a large bag going to the kindergarten for craft activities.  This time I'm keeping them for myself.  I've picked out the blues (got lots of them, I must like blue), greens, yellows, pinks, purples, and creams to work with, I've left the heavy weight fabrics, the denim cottons, anything too sheer like voile or lawn and anything red or black in the scrap bag (and even that takes up plenty of room in the bag). 

 I'm now attacking the scraps with my rotary cutter, slicing them into strips of all sorts of widths and lengths and sewing them into quilt blocks using the method I found here.

After trimming up the strips as I sew them together I am left with the teeniest tiny little squares and rectangles of fabric.  Should I now throw these away....?

I made eight blocks of about 20 x 20cm in a concentrated afternoon sewing effort.  I'm not sure how many blocks in total I will have at the end of this exercise but its certainly something fun and easy to work at over the warm summer days and evenings we are having.  We'll see where this project takes me over the coming weeks.

Hello, sewing machine

 My sewing machine has a new home at the moment - outside on the table on our back deck.

This is the only place that I can sit and squeeze in a bit of sewing erstwhile attending to drink and snack requests, lost toys, nappy changes, sibling argy-bargy, cleaning up of spills, wiping of tears and other general small child requirements.

What's got me sewing again?  I put my hand up for making some items for the craft stall at the up-coming school fete.  The fete is only a few weeks away now, and a promise is a promise after all.  I'm not exactly zipping through the work, more like a steady plod, but I am getting there.  

About a month ago I was given a plastic bag stuffed full of fabrics that were donated for the craft stall with a request to turn them into handmade goodies...but to be honest most of the fabrics were rather ugly, and to be super-duper honest a little bit stinky of somebody's storage cupboard. I gave them a good wash and an airing but I didn't have the time to make something from all of it.  The most useful fabric was a fairly large amount of mid-blue curtain fabric with a blockout backing.  

The curtain fabric made five nice tote bags with exterior pockets made from drill fabric I picked up from  Spotlight.  I also bought the header tape for the handles.  Sure, it cost me a bit of my own money to make these but I believe in doing the job properly.  Don't want to be giving craft a bad name now, do I?

With the rest of the fabric I trimmed up the pieces and tied them into little bundles with labels.

Who knows, there might be a fabric addict at the fete who finds these little bits of fabric to be just what they need!

This outdoor sewing thing, I could be onto something...

Mr. Hippopotamus, if you please

I did get my hippopotamus fabric in Friday's mail, but I haven't been able to bring myself to sew this weekend.  It rained. A lot.  Even these hippo's are wading up to their tummies.

The hippo's are actually a lot bigger on this fabric than I thought they would be.  Perhaps I should wait until the size of clothing I am making is a touch bigger to really get the full hippopotamus effect?  In any case, I think for sure I'll be hanging a slice of this on my little one's bedroom wall.  It's such happy fabric, how could I resist?

Game changer

Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference between navy and black.  When I bought this fabric I thought the elephants were marching across a black background. Then when I cut out the black fabric I was going to match it with I realised the elephants were on the darkest of navy blues.  Meh, I didn't like the combination.  What I was doing came to a screeching halt, my plans needed changing.

Well, the silver lining was that I conceded that the black broadcloth I had in the fabric stash was cheap, nasty and scratchy and no good at all for garments.  I'm bundled it up and stashed it in case I need some "spare" black fabric one day - something for a quick applique or for a spot of impromptu costume making, etc.

I swapped over to using some nice light denim cotton.  I'm making a pair of pants for Kids Clothes Week here - one of a few pairs I am planning to make this week.

First I've just got to get a few measurements from the dribbling, wriggling, semi-crawling eight month old scooting around on the floor...

Lisette sew along

I've finished my dress for the Lisette sew along hosted by CurlyPops and today the weather was perfect for some photography of the results.  Usually when I am trying to take photos of myself I am doing it during the week when I don't have neighbours, you know, they're all at work and not hanging out in the 'burbs like me - so they probably thought I was a complete idiot posing like this in my front yard on a weekend.  Believe me or don't, but a girl rode a horse right past my front fence while I was trying to do these photos.  Weekend traffic around here is a bitch!

I haven't actually used the pattern for the Lisette Continental dress, but used instead Dress A from the Japanese "Stylish Dress Book".  I did use a Lisette fabric though, a cotton lawn with a small pattern in a kind of peacock blue and green combo.

Dress A is very, very similar to the Continental dress, the only two differences I can see are that the neckline of my dress is higher and there are darts at the bust.  I also added a smidge of length to my dress, and made my own waist tie (a waist tie is not part of the original pattern).  Now that I have stepped back and looked at these photos I have to admit that I actually like the lower scooped neckline of the Continental pattern better, I think it would more suit my upper body shape.  If I get really motivated I might have a go at adjusting that some time.

Mmmm, and it really looks like my legs don't get to see the daylight very often, and I think I need to go shoe shopping for some snazzier shoes to do this dress justice!

But, oh happy days, I did dig out a long lost green cardi from the back of my wardrobe that does match rather perfectly with this fabric, don't you think?  And yes, I look a bit grumpy, but I'm really not.  It was hard enough posing and knowing where to look so whether to smile or not was really too much of a decision.  And that horse was majorly distracting, yes really, there was a horse.

So there you go - that's my story of Dress A (with added waist tie).   Pop on over to CurlyPops to see what  delightful creations other sewers are producing, or take a visit to the Flickr group.

Fluffing it

Ah, today I stuffed up.  It was partly my fault and partly the fault of strange sewing directions (that I didn't read in close enough detail).

In heading off to the Spotlight sale on Monday I grabbed my Japanese sewing book and checked how much fabric I would need for a dress, 1.9m it said, I bought 2m of very nice Lisette fabric for the Lisette Sew Along (I'm not actually making a dress from the Lisette Continental pattern, I'm doing the very similar Dress A from the Stylish Dress Book).

I added a little extra length to my pattern pieces and then went to pin the pattern to the fabric and realised that the layout instructions of the book had the pattern pieces laid out on the width of the fabric, not the length.  This means that the dress pattern pieces could only be as long as the fabric is wide (ie. 112cm - not long enough for my liking), and the layout was not taking into account that the printed pattern on the fabric was running across the width, not down the length, and the stretch of the fabric is in the width direction too....oh man, it was all kinds of wrong and I was short 10cm of fabric at the very minimum.

This mistake does have a silver lining though - it gives me plenty of "spare" fabric to cut out a generous waist tie for the dress, and plenty to make the bias binding for the neck and arm holes.  Unable to get this project to the sewing machine I made a start on cutting the bias binding, and burning my fingers near the iron doing all the little folds.  Mea culpa.  Next time I will be studying the diagrams in that book with a magnifying glass!

Apples!

This weeks sewing starts with this gorgeous apple fabric.  A little project for a friend that I have been very slow to start on.  My turn around time for friends and family is way slower than for complete strangers. Does that happen to you?  My brother just asked me to make him a new ironing board cover, he might get it when he comes visiting in May...

I'll reveal what this little number actually is in a few days, and I'm writing a tutorial for it so stay tuned.

Sheet find

 Come and share in my admiration for this vintage sheet find. 

So much beautiful fabric.

Projects galore will come out of this one.

Action shorts

Yes I did it!  I revisited my childhood and made my kid try on some clothing that was bristling with pins and command him to "stand still!"  and "turn around, I need to see the back" and "don't worry those pins are on the outside and are not going to hurt you" (wink, wink).  Aside from that slightly traumatising experience for the boy my foray into sewing for him has met with a resounding thumbs up.  He loves his new shorts and I am happy to report they got a good workout at the park this morning (I love that boys wear dark fabrics).

The pattern I used (Burda 9793) has a fancy false fly front (let's call that the FFFF for short) and I was somewhat unhappy with the way the front of the shorts sat when they were being worn, but taking the seam in a bit around the FFFF area fixed that right up.   I might not even repeat that detail next time because I don't think it really adds to the look of the shorts that much.  I also enclosed all the wasit line seam allowances inside the wasit band. I kind of sewed the waist band on like binding and then folded to the inside and top stitched to catch it on the reverse side - very neat!

I also love that these shorts have an elasticised waist - soooo much easier for getting on and off, you know, when nature calls, and usually kids are saving that up right to the last minute when getting pants down is the priority rather than undoing buttons and zips.  For this reason these are going to be great to wear to kindergarten too.

To my delight I found more boys drill fabric while shopping yesterday - the boy is looking forward to car shorts next.

My Creative Space: one for the boy

Its so easy to sew for girls, isn't it?  Those cute little dresses and skirts that take no time at all to whip up, all those beautiful fabrics to work with...  Pesonally I think that making clothes for boys is harder because (for me) there is a higher level of technical difficulty in making shirts and shorts and fabric choices are comparatively limited.  As the mother of a boy I always find myself retreating to the department stores to buy pants and tops, and I try to buy the plainest I can because I hate commercialised rubbish and dumb slogans.

In my creative space I am starting on sewing some summer clothes for my boy, and trying and make it look really good, not too "made by Mum".

I have a pants/shorts pattern and some printed cotton drill.

And some plain t-shirts, ready for an applique or two.

...plus I have to make a super-hero costume for next weekend - more on that next week.

For more creative space, head on over to Kootoyoo.

Crafty musings

Hold onto your hats, a strange thing happened to me yesterday.  I went to the fabric store and bought nothing.  I wandered around looking at this and that, even contemplated some new pillows for the bedroom, but couldn't decided on those either (too much choice, surely a Western consumerist affliction).  I left empty handed, it felt strange.

I was actually looking for a match for the fabric at the bottom of the above photo.  Its a difficult grey/blue/green colour and it looks good with navy blue, but coming into summer I wasn't sure I wanted to make navy blue anything.  Then there was navy blue, and navy blue.  I have a large piece of "navy blue" broadcloth at home (labeled as such when I bought it), but its the wrong navy, not dark enough and verging towards a dark royal blue.  But the "lighter" shade does go well with a bit of kimono fabric I have...a skirt panel instead perhaps?

So to move away from my issues with shades of blue I started to make a pink summer top.  I cut out the front panel from some pink fabric I picked up from the op shop, but when I ironed it I realised that it was a bit old and there were a few marks on the fabric. It was really suited to a skirt lining or a softie, not the front of a new shirt. 

I spent some time making these two-tone sleeves from fabric remnants in my stash.  I like the combination very much.  After rejecting the pink shirt option I pulled out a large piece of cream homespun from the cupboard.  Not a bad match with the pink sleeves, but it needed a pre-wash so I was really going nowhere fast with the shirt making...

I then decided I really wanted to put a band of the floral fabric around the bottom edge of the shirt-to-be, but I had used it all up.  I spent some time on the internet tracking down the shop where I bought the scrap of fabric a few weeks ago...I am still in communications with them as to what it might have been called.  Has anyone seen that fabric anywhere?  As you can tell I am not in a hurry for an answer considering the go-slow zone around here.

Big stitches

Mmm, instant satisfaction is sewing together fat quarters into a patchwork. The three pieces of vintage sheet I ordered arrived in the middle of a heavy shower of welcome but rare rain on Tuesday. Lucky they were wrapped up well in plastic inside the paper envelope.

I got two fat quaters out of the orange and yellow flowers...

two fat quarters out of the blue and purple flowers (middle right, below)...

and two out of the blue flowers (bottom right, above), with more left over for another project.

Fifteen pieces in all, three by five in a patchwork. Oops, there's my toes!

Just waiting now to have the time to put the backing sheet on. Its a surprisingly different pink, green, blue and white sheet, fairly contrasty to the front, but let's go wild!