Happy Bow-thday postcard

If you made one (or more) of these bow brooches to give as gifts, here's a fun way to package them up.  Keep a heap handy as pressies for the female rellies, friends, day-care ladies, teachers, etcetera.  In fact, you don't even have to use a picture of your child; it could be a picture of yourself, a cute puppy, or even Darth Vader (providing you aren't breaking any copyright laws.  This is an exercise in making a nice gift while saving money, not being sued by George Lucas and losing your home).

Firstly find a picture you want to use.  This one will do.

You might want to use a favourite photograph you already have, or take one especially for this project.  If you decide to do the latter, leave a bit of headspace above your subject's head so the bow fits on the card.  (Oops, I'm sounding a bit gender-bias and assuming your subject is a girl - sorry!  If you have a boy-child, then leave enough room under his chin so you can position the brooch like a bow-tie).   Then, if you have photoshop (like me), and know how to use it (unlike me), then you have all sorts of options on your hands.  If not, see what you can do with Paint. 

Print out your pictures.  If you like, do a draft copy first to make sure your happy with how it looks (the actual printed picture can sometimes look a lot different to how it appears on screen).  I print mine postcard size, 6 inches by 4 inches, two to a page.  Make sure you check the 'fit picture to frame' box.

When you are happy with how it looks, print your cards on to 200gsm paper. (Don't hold me to it, but I'm guessing any sort of paper you print photographs onto would do the trick.)

Work out where you want to position the bow brooch on your card.  Place the pin of your brooch in position against the card and mark in pencil where you will make two holes, about 1 cm apart. 

Poke a dressmaking pin through the marks you made and using these pin-holes as a guide, reinforce this area on the rear of the card with sello-tape.   You can also reinforce the front of the card with sellotape too, if you like.  Which is probably a good idea, to prevent tears.  Yeah, do that then.   Again, poke your pin through the (now taped up) pin-holes again, and then find your self a larger needle, like a bodkin, and carefully pass this through the pin-holes to make a larger hole.  Ouch.

Measure a nice even border around your photographs, and then cut, using straight- or fancy-edge scissors.  

 

Erase any pencil lines you made when ruling the border (carefully if you used fancy scissors because those edges can be reeeally delicate).

 

And then carefully pin your brooch on (roll the card slightly to help you pin it on, don't fold it!)  Awww, sweet!

 

Even if the recipient of the card is not a bow or brooch kind of person, they can leave the pin intact and keep the card as a 3D type of picture.  But, if they want to use the brooch, they still have a lovely photo/card as a keepsake.   In addition, the bows are inexpensive to make, the card is personalised and cheap to whip up, and they hardly cost anything to post, which makes them a great gift idea for interstate friends.  And overseas relatives that live far, far, FAR away.  Geez, I wish I had some of those.

How to knit a silly hat....

...for a crazy kid.  Lord knows what's going on inside that head.

Although I tried, I couldn't convince Cameron that a conventional beanie with a single pompom on top was better than looking like Blinky Bill.  But he's only six, so I will excuse his lack of savoir faire with regard to his headwear.  His friends probably won't.

I have been knitting for years, but don't extend myself too far beyond casting on, knit stitch, purl stitch, and binding off.  If you throw a cable or a bobble into the mix, I become thoroughly confused and afraid.  Besides which, it's a hat for a child, and will thus be lost or ruined within a fortnight anyway.  

Materials:
16 inch 5mm circular needle
Pair of regular 5mm needles
3 x 50g balls 8ply yarn (I used Moda Vera pure wool)
Stitch marker
Yarn needle to weave in ends and sew pompoms on.

(Note: at rest, this hat measures about 44 - 46 centimetres.)

Cast on 88 stitches.  Place a stitch marker onto your right needle to mark the beginning of the round, (and be careful not to twist your stitches!)  Work in single rib (K1,P1,K1,P1 etc.) for 24 rows.  Then work 33 rows in knit stitch only (your hat should measure 23 centimetres from beginning row).  Transfer stitches to regular needles (44 on each needle) and bind off using the three needle bind off method (use this excellent tutorial at good ol' Knitty.).  Now, I use my circular needle as the third needle when using this method.  You may not like the feeling of your circular needle bouncing about, so you can use a similarly sized double point or regular needle.   Make two pompoms with a 6.5cm outer diameter and 2.5cm inner circle (go here if you are pompom illiterate) and attach to the corners of your hat.  Weave in the ends, fold the  brim up and stick it on your child's head.  Point and laugh.

I know you are probably feeling ripped off and thinking to yourself, "That's a knitting pattern??!"   Apologies, but it is in my world.  Admittedly, it looks really very slack when you write it down and include other sites' links for all the tricky bits.  Those bloggers and instructors are a whole lot smarter than me.  Kudos to them!  Yes, when it comes to complex knitting, I have to confess that I am no Russell Crowe.

(source)

See?  Now, that looks like serious stuff.

How to remake an adult t-shirt for a child.

I've been trying to get around to resizing a heap of t-shirts that I've been collecting from charity shops, so that they fit Cameron.  And I have about a thousand.  Well, maybe not quite that many but certainly A-LOT.  Concert and festival shirts, Harley Davidson shirts, band shirts, shirts that you can't read because they are from other countries, retro Star Wars and Coca Cola shirts, sporting team shirts; you name it, I probably have it.  I love customising shirts for Cameron, firstly because I know no-one else will have one, and secondly, because it's dead easy.  You only need basic sewing skills to make what looks like a store-bought t-shirt.

This isn't one of those t-shirt resize methods where you stitch a seam here and a dart there, and have something at the end that sort of resembles a t-shirt.  I totally remake mine, almost from scratch, using a pattern and materials from the original garment.  I like a t-shirt to look like a t-shirt, not a botched up mess.  It may sound time consuming, but trust me, it's not.  And its easy.  You should know by now that I don't do hard! 

I have a favourite pattern that I usually use, which came from a back issue of Burda magazine, but you can use any classic t-shirt pattern.  Any of the big name companies should have at least one suitable pattern you can use (this one from Kwik Sew looks pretty good).  Now, I like to trace all of my patterns onto sew-in Vilene or tracing paper, so that I can make any fitting adjustments without having to stab into the pattern.  It's probably a good idea in this case, because you need to cut in a shoulder yoke.

Why, you ask?  A problem I have found is that when you place the front of a child's t-shirt pattern on an adult tee, sometimes you have to move the pattern piece down in order to get the shoulders of the child's pattern out of the way of the t-shirt's neckline.  This makes the shirt's graphics sit up way too high.  Like this:

See what I mean?  If I cut it like this, it would certainly look a bit crap, to my mind, anyway.  Oh, I am a pedantic thing.  Such is the joy of being me.  We need to manipulate the pattern to get it to work to our advantage.  So this is what we do.

Take the front piece of  your (traced) child's shirt pattern and measure about 4cm from the shoulder and mark at the neck edge.  Then measure about half way down the armhole and mark with chalk.  Now, draw a line connecting the marks.

Cut along the line.

 Now, you are left with the main piece of the shirt, and a shoulder yoke.  You now need to re-draw these adding a seam allowance to the edges you just cut (check your pattern instructions, but generally 1.5cm is the standard).

If your t-shirt has a graphic on the back as well, the same thing can be done to the back pattern piece, if you need it.  And, yep.  That's it.  Now, your pattern piece will sit more squarely over the t-shirt graphic.

Next, to the shirt you have chosen to chop up. Place your pattern on the shirt to make sure it's big enough.  Do a test run on a shirt you won't mind botching up, just to be sure.  I totally brutalised a genuine Foo Fighters 2005 European tour tee by not road testing my pattern first (all is not lost, Sophie May will be sporting a teeny version soon, so watch this space).   Please don't wreck a t-shirt you absolutely love, trying this the first time around. Firstly, try it out on some op-shop finds you couldn't care less about.  I must say, I shed a little tear when I stuffed up my Foos' shirt *sniff*.

First of all, unpick the t-shirt's ribbed neckline.  This is by far the most tedious bit, because they are overlocked on.  You will be using this ribbing for your new shirt so try not to shred it.  But it is boring and fiddly.   I usually do my unpicking while watching the daily re-runs of Roseanne, because I've seen them a hundred times before.  But despite that, she still makes me laugh hard.  Probably not a good thing to be doing when you have  a stitch ripper in your hand, but I haven't injured myself yet *crosses fingers*.

Cut the seam on the ribbing to give yourself one long piece.  Leave it folded lengthwise until your ready to attach it back onto your shirt.

Next, cut along all the seams of your t-shirt.  Up the side seams, around where the sleeves attach to the body, and the shoulder seams.  Once you've separated the sleeves, cut along their seams.  Cool.  Now you have four flat pieces:  a back, a front and two sleeves.

Pin your back and front pattern pieces to the corresponding t-shirt pieces and cut.  If your shirt is big enough, you can cut the shoulder yokes from the bottom of the shirt.  I managed to fit my yoke pieces on the shoulders of the original shirt.  If there's not enough fabric, you may have to check your stash to see if you have some matching jersey fabric.  It's probably a good idea to buy 30 or 40 centimetres of jersey to keep just in case you need it.  Or, use a contrasting colour (this is a great idea if your re-inventing a masculine design for a girl: you can use pink or some other girly colour or print).  If you're really desperate, your partner or friend or child probably has a t-shirt scrunched in the back of a drawer that he or she won't miss.   Be sneaky. 

I incorporate the t-shirt's original sleeve hem into my new shirt, because it's something less I have to do.  Check your pattern instructions to find out what the hem allowance is.  If it's, say, three centimetres, fold up three centimetres on your pattern's sleeve opening and fold.  Place the fold you just made on the fabric sleeves edge and hey!  Instant hem.  Cut away!

Using a stretch stitch (the pattern instructions will tell you), attach your fabric shoulder yokes to your fabric front, and then treat as one piece.  Again, my finicky and sophistic nature means I like to topstitch mine on the right side with a straight stitch.  I like the finish it gives, but it's totally optional.

Then, make up the shirt as per your instruction sheet.  The order of this is generally shoulder seams, attach sleeves, then fold and sew each of the undersleeve and side seams in one fell swoop.

Now attach the ribbing back onto the neck.  Again, use your pattern's instructions to guide you.  I have long since lost my instructions, but have the absolute best method is outlined in this tutorial.  Try it, it's easy and looks reeeeeeeal professional!  (But make sure you trim away the seam allowance on the neckline before proceeding, otherwise, besides your t-shirt looking all weird, it will most likely turn your face blue.)

 

And again with the top-stitching OCD.  

All that's left is to hem your shirt as your instructions state, and  Ta-daaaa!  You now have a miniature version of the t-shirt you started with.   Once you get the hang of this, you will be hitting the local charity stores looking for cool t-shirts to re-do for your littlies.

 And to celebrate the end of this tutorial, it's time to channel the late, great Michael Hutchence.

 Or perhaps not.  Happy making!

Super quick mini marshmallow cone cakes

Cooking cake in ice-cream cones is a fantastic idea (and not mine, unfortunately) for kids, because they are easy for little hands to handle, and they're cute and novel. On the down side though, they are HUGE.  Two bites is enough for most littlies.     Plus, you can't make them ahead of time and freeze them, or else the cones go all soggy and gross on the thaw.  (Yes, I tried.  Stupid me.)  These little cakes are teeny sized, easy to eat, and you can make the little cakes, chuck them in the freezer and put everything together whenever you're ready, in about a half hour.  Bonus.

Make your little cakes.  A favourite recipe perhaps, or a cake mix.  Bake them in the mini-sized patty pans, instead of the regular size ones for about 8-10 minutes. 

Get some kiddy cones (these are about 3 inches longs).

For a bit of added pizazz, I bought some of those new Pascall Swirl marshmallows from Woolworths (try them, they are YUM).  Of course this is optional, or you may think of some other yummy surprise to put in the cone (I think fairy floss would be a rather splendid alternative, especially for a fairy themed birthday party.  That idea makes this marshmallow look a bit boring now.  Too late).  I shoved a marshmallow upside down in the cone...

...then peeled the liner from the cake and pushed the cake on top (really ram it on there, so it doesn't come off.)

Get yourself some cardboard, a cereal box or something similar, and cut holes in it large enough to slot your cones into.

Pop it over an empty lunchbox, drop your cones into it and swirl butter cream on top (I made up half the recipe I used here).  Shake your sprinkles on top, and that's it!

You can fancy them up however you please.  A sweet little gift box, or if you are really clever you could fashion a little bouquet out of them with tissue paper and ribbon.  I took mine to my friend Honi's house for morning tea and wrapped a round takeaway container in wrapping paper and used that as a presentation box.  Yeah, I know, look at me.  No expense spared for my friends!