Some more skirts....

It's been so long since I have posted anything here, I have been too busy with work, house building and family life. But, I have had some time here and there to sew. I have had a lot of fun recently making all sorts of things from dresses, skirts to a baby sleeping bag and hot-water-bottle covers (posts to follow).  

Here are the skirts I made. I used a really good free patten from StraightGrain.  It's super simple, easy and really nice.  The first one I made was for  my Big girl and she couldn't decide which fabric to have for the outside and the lining so I made it  reversible. She loves being able to wear it on both sides. 
The fabric in the photo above is organic fabric from Cloud9 fabrics,  This was meant to be the main outside fabric, but then I bought 25cm of the star fabric below and she was torn between the two.  

 The reversible skirt idea worked really well, I just made the lining the same length as the outside, and now she has a new skirt every day. 

 The second skirt I made was for a friends little girl who is one and a half years old but I wanted it to be a bit bigger.  My little girl is modelling it here, it's a bit too small for her.  She really liked it and asked if she could have one too but she already has so many skirts.....

 for this one I used a nice girly fabric and a green lining and edging.  

 The third skirt I made was for the girls cousin's 11th birthday.  I  used a heavy weight fabric with blue elephants and blue edging and lining. Unfortunately I didn't have enough time to get any other photos of it.  It was very happily received and she loved the fabric.  
This is a really great patten and so easy, it takes less then two hours to make a skirt and they are just great.  

Summer shorts

  

 Oh Dear, it has really been too long this time! We have been so busy building our house that I haven't had time for anything else.  Last week I had a few spear moments and as promised, I made my big girl some shorts for her birthday. When I say big girl I really mean BIG, she has just turned 9. I can't believe how fast they grow sometimes.

I used the Oliver+S patten: class picnic blouse + shorts. It's a really good patten, easy to follow and understand and everything fit together perfectly at the end.  There were some moments where I did wonder how on earth it would all fit together and look like the picture,  but in the end it did.  I am now a big fan of these pattens and I will definitely get some more (when I have time). 

My big girl is so happy with them she hasn't taken them off since I sawed the last stitch.



I bought some light weight denim for the main part and I used some leftover liberty print fabric for the edging.  I made a size 10 which is a little big, but the back has an adjustable elastic that pulls then together nicely. 
I hope she doesn't grow too fast so that these shorts will fit her for a while. 

The Kitten just had to be in the photo as well!

A New Dress

I got the sewing bug again.  A while back I started following a blog about sewing called Straight Grain and it has really inspired me to dust off my sewing machine and get busy making a dress for little girl.  This dress had a few firsts for me; first pattern I bought, first time I bought fabric on the internet, first invisible zip and first time I have ever made something without having to unpick at some point.  The pattern I used was the Hanami top and dress from Straight Grain.  It is such a great pattern and I can't recommend it enough. It comes with a few different options; with or without the collar, two different sleeve types and an option for a zip back or a cross back with buttons.  I asked little girl how she wanted it and she choose to have the zip back with a collar and flutter sleeves. 





















I bought the fabric from a lovely online shop selling beautiful organic fabrics called Georgette.   I bought two different fabrics, the one for the main part of the dress, it was blue with 'passing clouds' and one for the lining which is called 'up in the air', it has little swallows with light blue dots.  When the fabric arrived in the post I realised that the one I chose for the main part of the dress really was not suitable and didn't really go with the bird fabric. I loved the birds and really wanted to use it for the lining, so the challenge was to find something to go with it. I decided not to get something from the internet as it is so hard matching colour from photos, so I paid a visit to a little shop in town that also sells organic fabrics.  It wasn't too difficult to find something and I ended up buying some lovely vintage looking flower fabric that looks lovely with the birds.  They are both from a company called Cloud 9, they have some really gorgeous pattens and prints. 

The pockets weren't in the pattern, I added them on at the end and I wanted to turn them the other way around with the bird fabric on the outside but little girl was not too pleased with my idea and so the birds became the lining again. 

We have had some really lovely weather in the past few weeks and this is just the perfect spring/summer dress.  

Fabric and Pillows

 Just before Christmas I went to a big fabric fair, I knew it was going to be big but when I walked in to the hall I was overwhelmed by the size, noise and the amount of people. I didn't know where to begin, so I just walked around a few times looking at all the different colours and textures. In the end I found a stand that sold  nice retro kids fabric and tried to take a look.  I say tried because there was so many people standing around I couldn't ever get close enough to touch or feel anything. When I  walked around again in the hope of find something else, I came across a little stand that was selling lovely, good quality fabric and other sewing accessories.  It was also busy but I managed to get close and have a good look around.  They had so many nice things I found it hard to resist buying everything. The lady working there told me they had a web-shop, (click here)  so I was happy to know I didn't need to buy so much there and then.  
I bought two pieces of fabric, one has retro telephones and flowers and the other has everything from hearts, birds, flowers  to windmills and hot air balloons. But I really fell in love with this fabric because it has a little horse on it that looks just like a Scandinavian wooden toy horse the girls have.   

This fabric I used to make a lavender pillow for a friends baby, (yes a lot of my friends are having babies). I cut out a small square, sewed it up and stuffed it with wool and dried lavender.  

  I then sewed on some nice red edging I found in my sewing box, it worked perfectly and gave it a nice neat finish.  

  With the telephone fabric I decided to make a cushion for my sister for her Christmas present.  I made the inner cushion just with white fabric and stuffed it with wool, then I made the cover with an opening at the back so it can be taken off for washing, if need be. 

 I used some green edging for around the opening and then sewed on little button to keep it closed. 

I am very happy with how the telephone coushin turned out and I will definitely be making more of them for us.  

Bears need clothes too!

 These little teddy bears belong to my girls, (big bear belongs to big girl and little bear to little girl).   The girls asked me a while ago if I could buy some clothes for the bears,  but I decided instead to make them a little outfit for Christmas. I used the left over fabric from the skirts I made in the summer, so big bear got the purple floral liberty fabric and little bear got the pink and red roses.    

I measured the bears up and made a little pattern, then cut out the fabric, sewed up the side and legs. After that I sewed around the waist with a lose stitch so that I could pull it together to make pleating.  

 I cut out a bit of purple fabric to make straps and edging, I made the edging piece longer then the waist so it can be tied in bow at the back.

The last thing I did was sew some pipers onto the straps and it was done.  
I made the same for little bear, only smaller and I bought some edging as I didn't have any red fabric.  Little girl can't tie bows yet so her bear got a button instead.  




I made them both a matching head band by sewing up a long peace of fabric to tie in a bow around the head.   

Happy smiley bears….. 

and happy smily girls in their matching skirts.  

Girls and Skirts

My girls love skirts and I was inspired to make them both a new one.  I thought it would be good to follow a pattern  and try something new. There are so many different patterns for different shapes and styles, I found it hard to choose. Finally I found a good one and ask my little girl if she liked it, and it was a winner.  After starting, I realised that it is not easy to follow a pattern in Dutch.  I asked for help with translating it, but it was just too difficult to understand what to do. So I abandoned the pattern and tried to work it out on my own.  
I got there in the end but it was not what I really wanted.  The waistband was too big and the skirt kept falling down.  I decided to take it apart and started again.  This time I used  big red elastic for the waistband and just sewed on the fabric.  It was very easy and it looks really nice.   

My big girl wanted to have the same but I couldn't find the right colour elastic. Instead, I copied a skirt she already has. It has an elastic in the waistband and it also has a petticoat with a bit of lace sawn on.  She loves it so much and they are both very happy to have a nice new summer skirt for this lovely hot weather.

   

Pencil pots

A week ago I was having what I call a 'bad mama day' This is another way of saying I was grumpy and fed up.  Normally when I am feeling like this, the girls become very demanding and they  wind each other up. With my man away there is no one else to defuse the situation. When this happens I need a focus and I told the girls that they had to stay in their room and play with every puzzle they own and just make a mess, I tried not to think about the consequence of that until later. 
My focus was to channel my frustration into something creative.    So, I got my sewing machine out and got busy.  I decided to make some pencil pots to put all the loose pencils and pens in.  This is how I made them.  

First I cut out a circle from the felt and then a strip as long as the circumference of the circle. I then pined the two bits together and sewed them up.  














I did the same with some cotton fabric and placed the felt pot into the cotton one. I then folded down the top, sewed around the edge and the pot was finished. 

They can be all different shapes and sizes in order to fit different pens and pencils.  

After the first one I got very excited and wanted to make more.   


These little pots make it much easier for the girls to see all their different coloured pencils and crayons.  

A new tunic top

 My Big girl just turned 7 and for her birthday I wanted to make her something spacial.  I was given this very lovely, soft fabric from liberty which I used to make her a tunic.  I wanted to keep it as a surprise, this meant I could not measure her without her getting suspicious.  So instead I used one of her tops to get the measurements and made it a little bigger, just to be sure. Luckily it fitted and she is very happy with it.  

A Peg Bag

The other day I finely had a bit of creative inspiration, so I  dusted off the sowing machine and got busy.  The last few weeks have been warm and sunny, the perfect weather for drying the washing outside. But after the winter I found that most of my pegs were lost or broken because I always leave them on the washing line.  So I have bought myself some nice new pegs and I made made myself and nice new peg bag. 

I bought some oil cloth fabric so that if I leave it out in the rain (which I am sure I will) it will still keep its shape and hopefully the pegs dry. 
I used a child's size coat hanger and cut around it to get the shape of the bag.  



I then cut a whole and hemmed the edge of it.  Then I sewed the bag together turned it the right way around and put my coat hanger in. And then most importantly, I hung the washing out.  ;-)