Posts from — April 2008

Here are my plans for the next few projects. I can assure you they look much better in my imagination than they do on this scrap of paper! Here is my progress so far on the first pair of pants…

Better get off the computer and start cutting them out!

After a few mishaps with the sewing machine, I am very proud to show off the first dress I have ever made I bought a yard off Oilily fabric off ebay before Christmas at an outrageous price, and have been umming and ahhing ever since, trying to decide what to do with it. Finally I got the courage to cut into it, and I’m pretty damn pleased with the result! Obviously it’s still a work in progress, but I’m hoping to have it finished by the end of the week so that Miss Zoe can parade around in it. We’re off to a button shop tomorrow to choose some pink buttons (and shhh – don’t tell anyone, but we’re then going to mum’s house so that she can sew the button holes!). I will update with a photo of Miss Zoe in her dress as soon as it’s finished!

And what a string I mistakes I managed to make trying to sew Miss Zoe a nightie! Let’s see….1) I cut the fabric with the stretch going up and down the body of the nightie instead of across it, 2) I didn’t realise until I had cut the material that it had a right and wrong side, 3) in an attempt to make both sleeves with the fabric facing the right way I flipped one of them meaning when I started to sew I had 2 left arms, 4) I sewed the side seams of the arms and body first and then tried to put in the sleeves, and 5) I got the seem facing out when I sewed in the first sleeve. Oh, did I mention that 6) I tried to sew stretch fabric on my Auntie’s old sewing machine that is apparently allergic to stretch fabric? I didn’t expect stretch sewing to be easy, but I could hardly get the machine to sew two pieces of fabric together (and yes I did have a ball point needle!). On the plus side, I’m relatively happy with the pattern I made, and Zoe doesn’t seem to care one bit that her nightie could fall off her at any minute! I’m putting all stretch fabric aside until I have a sewing machine that can handle it. Then I’ll try the nightie again, and some matching pants out of this fabric.

Once I had been bitten by the creative bug, I decided that I simply must make children’s aprons. I rushed down to buy some fabric and whipped one up that afternoon, only to find that the cute quilters cotton I had bought was much too thin to make an effective apron. Not to be deterred, I rushed back to the shops and bought some bright red cotton to line the aprons. The first was such a success I whipped up three more before I found a fatal floor in my design. The cheap red fabric I had used as a backing runs like anything, and at breakfast Zoe’s Wheat Bix seeped through the apron and left red dye all over her clothes [oops!!]. Of course the obvious answer that everybody asks when I tell this story is ‘did you wash the fabric before you sewed with it?’, and of course the obvious answer is ‘no’! I’m not completely put off -I have bought better quality red fabric and will unpick the aprons I have done and sew them up again (after WASHING the fabric first and testing if it runs -of course!). Unfortunately for now the aprons are now in the ‘to do’ pile, which is a pity, because I could really use them right now!

When I was pregnant with Hamish I went crazy sewing him cloth nappies, and I have had a heap of fabric leftovers sitting in my cupboard ever since. After 6 1/2 years the sewing machine has finally re-emerged from the cupboard, and here is a headband I made out of one of the prettier leftover fabrics (yes I think it’s fine for boys to wee in floral nappies!). I had great plans to make one out of every piece of fabric I own, but still haven’t quite got the knack of the elastic bit at the back and besides the headbands have had to take a back seat whilst my imagination runs riot with much more ambitious creative ideas

I went to Spotlight with Zoe to find fabric to make her an apron, and came home with this pink stretchy, slithery, sparkly stuff to whip up a wizard’s cloak. As soon as he saw it Hamish said that he wanted one too, so the next day we went back and he chose the swirly purple fabric for his cloak(I did manage to talk him out of rainbow satin for the lining!). As I was grappling with trying to sew this difficult fabric my mum’s words kept ringing in my ears ‘try something easy to start off with’, and ‘do a practice run before using your good fabric’. My mum is a wise woman (even if she could never get me to take her advice lol!). There’s hardly a straight seem in the two cloaks combined, but as you can see the kids don’t care. Now I just need to make the matching hat….