On a roll

I had a hankering to make some kid's clothes and boy, did I feed that urge! Of course, this was already cut up in pieces on the craft table. I had been procrastinating early in the week. It's an A-line linen smock for a little girl who lives here.


Her mummy and I are doing some side-swapping......to which I had to kick my proverbial arse in motion after I snuck a peek of the bub's cardi-to-be on her blog (I'm super excited about this swap!). Here's the back with the loop closure.


The geezer had a friday night out with the boys, which is the perfect opportunity for some inane teevee to go with lots of hand-sewing.

I love this vintage button! And I'm so happy its going to get a new lease on its life.


And of course, along with the red linen, some cute japanese red riding hood fabric with polka dots. I love this fabric, too. Good thing there's still half a metre left in the stash.


Thanks so much, bloggy peeps, for the owl zipper pouch love! I'll round off replying to the rest of the emails tonight. We're off to another kid's birthday party (whatever happened to cocktail parties?!) for the rest of the afternoon.

Cheerio!....and hope the rest of your weekend is great.

Succumbing to the owls

They're everywhere in the craft blogosphere! And before I knew it I was doodling and stitching this hooter.

Nope, not quite my usual colours........or my usual embroidery style for than matter. I've decided to branch out and play. Linen, quilting cotton and multi-colourpop checks on the front.


Big checks on the back in a lovely home dec cotton. I tend to grab whichever fabric is top of the pile, but for this project I actually dived into the box bottoms searching for old familiars.


I discovered another large-ish piece of this Amy Butler "seed" fabric swimming around in the piles. Kind of nice to know I had the foresight to hoard it.


Well, I got that out of my system now. What next? I'd show you a view of my craft table and the mountain of projects waiting in the wings, but its looking much too disastrous, its embarrassing. I think I'll attack another unfinished wip. I'm so itching to make some more children's clothes.

Until next time........cheerio!

Sewing tips - elastic hems

As promised, bloggy peeps! Finally some decent photos to go with my rambling. This month's tips are on elastics and elastic hems to be exact. By elastic hems, I'm referring to waists, cuffs and the necklines on the ubiquitous peasant-style tops.

First of all, you'll find various kinds of elastics in the haberdashery section of your local fabric shop. If your favourite fabric shop is also a garment fabric shop, then I can guarantee they'll have have an even bigger selection than what I've got on hand here.


Elastics come in different widths, with wider types I'd recommend for waists bands while the narrower kinds are more suited to sleeve cuffs, peasant-style neck lines and shoulder edges. The narrowest one I'm showing you (closest to the spool) I've heard referred to as hat elastic and can also be used in sleeve cuffs. The spool is shirring elastic. There's an excellent how-to on the use of shirring elastic at house on hill road via her summer dress tutorial.

But for this post, I'm going back to basics....how I make a casing and insert the elastic in the casing. From observation of various books, this seems to be one of the bits of sewing lore that a lot of books and patterns take as assumed knowledge. So, here we go.

If this was a pair of trousers, mark the elastic width on the fabric before sewing the side seam (either one, since there's two side seams in a pair of trousers). Make sure you leave enough room for the double folding of the casing.


Stitch your side seam, taking care to leave a gap where you've put the marks. This is the gap where you'll be inserting the elastic.


Open the seam and iron flat. Where I've got the chopstick into the stitched seam is the hole you'll be using to insert the elastic.


Fold the edge towards the wrong side twice and press. Make sure that the elastic insertion point is square in the middle of the fold.


Pin and stitch......and voila, you've got your casing.


Next attach a safety pin to one end of your elastic, like so. Make sure your safety pin is the kind that doesn't undo itself easily, otherwise you're stuffed!



Insert the pin into the casing via the stitch hole you've created and gripping the pin head, thread it through the entire casing.


Until you get to the other end. Be careful not to twist the elastic while threading.


Take off the safety pin and sew the overlapped the ends. I always use the "crossed box" pattern to ensure the stitches don't undo themselves whilst they're in wear. You can hand-sew or machine-sew this part.


Push the sewn ends back into the casing.


Turn over and admire your handiwork.


See! Easy peasy! Hope that was clear as mud to you all.....and if you have any questions, just shoot them in the comments. I'll post questions and answers as an edit to all "sewing tips" posts, so that everyone can share in the info.

Okeydokes! Back to more sewing for me.

Busy patch winter smock

Yeah, I know! This post was supposed to be about the first lot of sewing tips. Apologies, bloggy peeps. Real life got in the way of the blog this past few days, along with angst about the crap photos my pic-snapper was taking.....I had been setting, styling and taking the photos. But the pics I wanted weren't materialising.

So I consoled myself with some sewing. A little smock for the bub's winter wardrobe which I cobbled together over the last few days.


For this trick, I just followed my nose and a photo of a similar cut smock in a japanese kids fashion magazine. There's a lot of baby-wale corduroy (which Anna kindly sent me, thank you!) and the chocolate lollipop print that everyone's seen. I even added some light blue cotton voile as an underskirt, so that the kiddo's tights don't catch on the tiers of stitching underneath.


It looks really cute on her, but hanging on that hanger.......gah! A bit of a pattern explosion methinks. Ah well, might as well road test it first once it gets cooler. It's not a dud yet. Now, I'm on a mission to find a light blue or an apple green skivvy to match.


By the way, the sewing tips are still happening. As of yesterday, the nice geezer gifted me with a new camera to replace the old schonky one. I've been playing with it since and I think this one will do the trick. Just to demonstrate...


I couldn't have taken this photo of the kiddo with the old camera.

Okeydokes! It's back to the tedious house chores for me.

Tootles!

Red berry beret

Is it me? Or is blogger having a fit again? It took me several attempts and about two hours to load any photos today. Kinda like my newly finished project. Several starts, several kinds of yarn and I only got going after Jeannette at the crochet clinic showed me the error of my ways.


Here's what it looks like on me.....excuse the poor lighting. I had the geezer take a pic before 7am this morning in the brightest room in the place, which happened to be the kitchen. And yes, I'm sitting on the kitchen floor under the skylight. Its still too early for natural light.


I've used just under two balls of the baby cashmerino in the red, which I picked because it appeared to me that the pattern called for 5 ply yarn. Well, that's what I deduced. The pattern is from another japanese craft book, so its really pot luck with the yarn sizing. I might try it again using 8 ply wool to make it floppier next time.

As for the sewing tips posting, thanks so much for the lovely feedback. I'm collecting topics right now to start it off on this blog. I'll post tips once a month.

But first of all (a bit of disclaimer), you need to know that I don't have any formal training in dress making. Everything I've learned I picked up along the way from my mum, various sewing teachers and by endless unpicking of crap stitching on expensive fabric. You learn real quick when you're using good fabric. What I'm trying to say is, I'm no expert sewing guru. But I'm happy to share what I know. Hopefully, the little tricks are as useful to you as they are to me.

Now that we're clear on that, I can get on with my day. The next post will be the first sewing tip, because its time again for some more sewing.

Cheerio!

Starting the sewing blitz

It would seem to me that summer has by-passed Sydney town......or rather the hot sweltering summer that I know. Just a few days into autumn and I can already feel the cooler temps in the evenings.


Which then brings me to prepping up the kiddo's winter wardrobe with a few essentials that she was missing last year. Well, this is just the start 'cos there's a long list in my head and some colour coordinating to do on the fabric side. Part of the basics: two pairs of stretch knit 100% woollen leggings, embellished with a bit of crochet lace (we all know how much I love crochet lace!).


The fabric is lovely, soft and warm, just the exact kind I wanted. From here, of course. And the pattern is a modified version of the one in this craft book. The little model is napping, so no action shots today.

For those willing to start venturing into the realm of sewing knit fabrics, don't forget to use a jersey ball-point needle. Or suffer the grief having your machine eat up the fabric!

On a side note, would you bloggy folks be interested in clothes sewing tips and techniques? I'm thinking of starting a blog post series to share some of my sewing know-how. Not a blow-by-blow how-to on making a top. I'm crap at tutorials. More like how to finish a skirt hem or how to sew the invisible hemming stitch by hand or......you get the picture. We can even exchange stories on how we figured out this or that detail, like inserting invisible zips....arghhh! I've only done this once and I'm going to have to look up my trusty sewing book again to refresh. Anyhow, do let me know if you take a liking to this idea. I'm open to suggestions for specific topics.

Also, Teresa asked a question in the comments of this post on where to source the fabric stamp inks. Hi Teresa! The fabric stamp inkpads are made by Versacraft, and are branded either Versacraft or Fabrico. I got mine from a local craft show last year, however they should be easy to track down online.

Okeydokes! Must run. Tootles for now!

More crochet madness

What can I say?! I'm addicted to crochet projects now.


Just as well, I was bunged up again with a bug of sorts last week. I was so lethargic, I only had enough energy for repetitive wrist action.


This one's a scarf for the kiddo, made with one ball of Grignasco Bambi Merino Extrafine in an eye-popping shade of melon (although I think they've called it "salmon").


The pattern is just a simple sequence of chains and single crochet stitches from this craft book. Here's a better view.


Since I'm feeling much better today, I better go cuddle the sewing machine. It's feeling a tad neglected. And while we're at it, there's a pile of housie chores that I've been avoiding. Methinks I need to take the blinkers off.

Cheerio!