Girl's camisole from recycled linens.

 

I haven't visited a thrift store for a lo-oo-ng time.  Not to shop, anyway.  I've dropped off stuff in the donation bin, but have resisted the temptation to step inside one for nearly a whole year.  I know that if I do, I will more than likely come out with five times as many things that I dropped off in the first place.

My sewing room is overloaded to the point that I can't move three steps in any direction without encountering a tripping hazard.  Between my op-shop-bargains which I have housed in secret for many years (shhhhhh), AND my addiction to fabric (AND now, also yarn), I have pondered that I quite possibly have a serious hoarding problem, and  I am making it my mission (as I have for many years before this one, and without much success), to de-clutter once and for all. 

But I can't bring myself to bin any of it.  Not one bit.  And, so thus begins a sewing binge.

I made this camisole for Sophie out of an embroidered pillowcase and an unused and still packaged up bed sheet. The front and back panels were cut from the pillow case, with the rest of the pieces being sliced from the sheet. 

There is a bit of a colour mismatch going on between the pillow case bits and the sheet bits, but nothing a soak in a bucket of Napisan won't fix.  Sophie wanted it to be dress length, but it looked to much like sleepwear, so it got the chop.

I used the pinafore pattern from this wildly popular Japanese sewing book - it is also  a wildly popular pattern  amongst the sewing-for-kids crowd, and for very good reason.  It's easy and versatile and can be thrown together in an hour once everything is cut.  And it just looks so good.  On it's own in the summer, and over t-shirts and tights when the weather gets cooler, it is a winner.  I have made a dozen of these in the past few years, and will no doubt make a dozen more.  And if you're looking for a pattern as someone who is beginning to sew, it's an absolutely perfect project.



 If you were thinking about getting this book, bite the bullet and just buy it!  All the patterns in it are sized from 90cm - 130cm (approximately aged 2 - 8), so it's great value. It's floating about Etsy and eBay at the moment (as you can see at the link I provided above).  I am never giving this one up, it really is one of the best books.  EVER. 

Rompers from deadstock shirts

I'm mucking about at the moment with a new romper design, which I hope to list in the shop in the near future.  It's actually looking a little over-run with rompers and bonnets at the moment, but I can't help it!  Rompers and bonnets are just too cute.

Once the pattern's all sorted, I plan to make them up in *proper* fabric, but in the meantime, I've been carving up some old dead-stock shirts that I have had lying about for months (possibly years).

These are a lovely, soft chambray and I've sliced and re-stitched several up already, into pinafore and bloomers for Sophie, and pulled one or two out of the pile myself for wearing about the place.

I've just about shredded and de-buttoned every single one, now.  And the romper is coming together beautifully.

Mothers' Day is not too far away, and although I'm absolutely positive your Mum is worth more than a recycled cardboard container and a few bits of string, this might still be a fun project for the little ones to help with.  They can paint a picture or glue sparkles all over the pot and help decorate it with all sorts of treasures.  These look cute with a tiny bouquet of flowers or leaves hand picked from the garden (if your kids are anything like mine, they love picking me flowers, twigs and weeds from the yard).  Make a whole bunch - Nanna will love them!

The containers I use are strong cardboard ones with plastic lids, the type that generally hold baking powder or gelatine.  Ones like this -

They have a sort of tin bottom and a push on plastic lid.  Although they are strong and seem to be water resistant on the inside, I would not feel confident about filling it with water or damp soil.  You would have to put a small jar, or perhaps cut the bottom of a small plastic bottle and pop it inside if you were using it for flowers or plants.  Anyway....


What you need

-Strong cylindrical cardboard container.  The type shown are ideal.
-2.7 m cord, ribbon, thick cotton yarn, baker's twine etc.
-White paper or cardstock (enough to fit around the pot)
-Poster paint, washi tape, sticky dots, fancy paper or whatever you'd like to use to decorate the pot.
-Clear acrylic gloss or clear varnish (optional)
-Small metal ring (the type used on keyrings)
-Craft glue
-Sellotape (optional)
-Needles or skewers of graduating thicknesses (to pierce wholes in the pot for the string to go
  through)
-Stuff to decorate - I used big jingle bells on the bottom of mine, and hung pompoms on the side, but  beads, ribbon tassels, sequins, etc.  Go wild.


Clean your container out with a damp cloth and dry.  Cut the white paper or cardstock, to fit around container.  Tape or glue in place.

Decorate the pot using paints with whatever design you like (wtih the one shown here, I've sort of dabbed on white poster paint roughly and then used the end of an old pencil to stamp on black spots).  Or use washi tape to create horizontal or vertical stripes on the cardboard, or sticky dots for a polkadot effect.  Whatever you like.

Measure around the top of your container and mark in thirds.  Create holes to insert the hanging cords through.  Do this by first piercing with a thin needle or pin, then re-piercing that point with something thicker like a skewer, then maybe a knitting needle.  The hole needs to be wide enough to thread a double thickness of your chosen cord through.

At this point, you can spray or brush with acrylic spray or varnish to create a glossy finish, if you so desire and you have some handy.  If not, it doens't matter.

Cut three lengths of cord, each 90 centimetres long. Line them up all together and fold in half, as shown.

Loop and knot the centre of the cords through the metal ring, using a girth hitch (I googled that).

You'll have three pairs of cord to thread through the holes in your pot.  Pull each pair through on hole to the inside of the pot (you can do this with a yarn needle, or perhaps form a hook from a paperclip or pipecleaner and use that to pull them through).  Now getting the lengths of the cords even so that the pot hangs straight can be a bit tricky, so loosely knot and adjust until each pair of cords is pretty much even.  If there is too much slack in one cord, you will be able to tell when you hold it up.  It will sort of hang funny.  Keep adjusting until it hangs pretty well even, and tighten the knots (Wow! -  this is a hard step to explain - trust me, when you are doing it, it will become clear what I mean.  I hope).

 You are basically done.

Just for fun and a bit of added interest, I used the lid  of the container as a base, and threaded a jingle bell on it.  I heated a large needle over a flame and used it to melt a couple of holes either side of the centre of the lid.

Then the big jingle bell was sewn to to the bottom using thick cotton thread and then the lid was glued to the base and left to dry.

Instead of a bell, you could use a string of beads or a tassel or hang some pompoms from the bottom.  But of course, you don't have to do this and can leave the pot exactly as it is.

You can further decorate it with anything else you fancy.  I hung some pompoms on the edge of my spotty one, because it still looked a bit boring.  The beads on the one with the triangles were threaded onto the cord before pulling the ends through and knotting them inside the pot.  Added sparkles are always welcome.

Don't forget, these aren't waterproof!  Slide in a small jar or cut the bottom of a small plastic bottle to serve as a barrier.  Pop in a bunch of flowers (or, as in our case, leaves, as it's autumn here, and all my flowers are gone, or nearly gone).

  

I know it's early, but best wishes to all Mums everywhere!  You rock!

Because weeding is boring.

I'm supposed to be sorting out my garden this afternoon, but I got really bored.  So I brought a whole bunch of stuff inside and made pictures instead.  Weeds will wait.

I'm beginning to think I have a sort of attention deficit disorder, as these days everything I undertake becomes an art project or a photo opportunity.  I am also starting to realise what a pain in the ass neck I am to live with, because nothing ever gets finished around here. 

Oh, deer.

The world's ugliest quilt.

When people ask me what craft I least enjoy, I tell them patchwork and quilting.  Without hesitation.  I just don't have the patience for it, and all of my past efforts have been epic and utter fails.  I absolutely boggle at some of the quilts I've seen - amazing, beautiful, intricate ones that look like they'd take a lifetime to complete.  Obviously made by very serious quilters with superhero-like quilting abilities, abilities that I am sadly lacking.

My effort above (if you could even call it *that*) was more an exercise in using up some gorgeous cotton fabrics my friend Sarah handed over to me, before she moved house, and other bits and pieces about the place.  Amongst other things, Sarah gave me some lovely florals which I was hoping to make into pretty bloomers for Sophie, but Sophie has gained a dress size since I last made her some duds, and I couldn't quite squeeze a size three pattern onto some of the pieces I was given.

Knowing my dark history with patchwork and quilting, I was determined not buy a single thing in order to make this up.  I was ninety percent sure it would end up in the bin. 

Besides the fabrics Sarah gave me, I also had some fabric scraps of my own that have been cramping my style for some time.  Spots and stripes in reds and blacks-and-whites that I've just gotten sick of looking at.  All of the pieces were cut into five inch squares, sewn into rows, and then the rows sewn into a big rectangle.

I didn't use batting, instead I used an old cot blanket of Sophie's.  It's not a very nice one, actually - it's not soft and scrumfy at all.  It's more like one of those horrid hard things that are used in hospitals which feels like it's been through an industrial washer ten thousand times, which is probably why I never used it when she was a baby.  For the backing, I again raided Sophie's old cot linens and just used an old, clean sheet.

When it came to quilting it, I googled up on machine-quilting.  I was no way going to spend hours hand-quilting my inevitably funny-looking quilt, so machine quilting was definitely the way to go.  The general consensus was that I would need to use a walking foot.  Errr, a what?  What the heck is one of those?!  Whatever it is, it was going to cost me thirty to eighty bucks.  Nup, no thanks.  I just ran it through the Janome the way I sew everything, using generic foot 'A' (although I did use a quilting guide tool that came with my machine, to help keep the seams straight.  Mostly.)

Then I bound around the edges with some more fabric from my Sarah, before throwing it into the washer and line-drying it to make it all puckered and wrinkly.

As you can see, the colour and print combination suck, and will serve as a constant reminder as to why my favourite colour is any and all shades of grey.
 

Ugh.

And because of that awful blanket I used instead of batting, it's not turned out to be one of those nice, squishy quilts you lie under, but rather one you sit on.  Good for picnics, or living room tea-parties with the friendlies, or just general swanning about on without any real purpose at all.

It's not quite worthy of the trash, but comes close. (And just to clarify, I'm still talking about the quilt).

I had some pages left from an old Fern Hollow book I used for this project.  I couldn't bear to throw them away without butchering them one last time, so I made some magnets for my fridge.

I rough-cut the pictures I wanted and glued them to thick, heavy cardboard.  Once dry, the images were cut out carefully with strong scissors.

The wrong side of the images were then glued to some other book pages so that the back of the magnet wasn't just plain cardboard. This was unnecessary, but I was in a pernicketty state the day I made these.

 Again, once dry, trim the backing carefully, and you're left with something like this -

 

Coat them with one or two layers of polyurethane varnish, or any other sort of non toxic lacquer you can find in your partner's messy sty of a shed.    Trim some magnetic strip to size and stick it on the back of the image with strong glue.  (I don't buy magnetic strip but use one of the many million promotional magnets we get with our mail from local businesses and real estate agents - thanks, guys!)

And, wooooo, the gang's all here -



I have a few other old and charming children's books which are not fit to give away (thanks to Sophie May), so I'm going to make a few more of these.  A fridge covered in fairies, foxes and hoot-owls - ooooh, I can't wait!   In the meantime, I hope you...

How to make bunting out of old greeting cards

I spend ages at the newsagent card-stand, trying to find the right card for whatever occasion.  Lord knows why, because if the recipient is anything like me, it'll only end up in the back of a drawer along with a bunch of others, only to be cursed at when storage space is at a minimum and I'm clutching at my hair, moaning "Why must I keep these cards?!!"  I just can't bring myself to chuck them out.  They are all so jolly and sweet.

I've been on a bit of a cleaning rampage (yes! That's where I've been!) and have come across piles and PILES of greeting cards.  They were all at first doomed to the recycling bin (with the exception of special ones from the kids, my mother and anything handwritten by my late father), but as Cameron and I were going to make bunting for Sophie's bedroom, I thought why not use these?  The fact that they cost NOTHING was a huge selling point for me, so that's what we did!

The string we have made here is made of cards Sophie May received at birth and some of her first birthday cards.  As card designs for little girls mainly consist of all shades pink and purple, we didn't have to worry too much about colour co-ordination (which was great for me, because colour co-ordination is not my strong point.  Hmmf.)

Firstly work out the size of the triangle shape you will be using.  We made fairly small ones with a 4 centimetre base, so we could cut lots of shapes from our cards.  You can of course make them bigger if  you want.  then, make a template of your shape on some card.

 

You'll notice on my template that I've marked the shorter side of my triangle as the base, so my pea brain won't forget which side to place against the fold when tracing around my template.  I am soooo easily distracted.

Take one of the greeting cards you are using to make your shapes...

 

... and fold it inside out so that the front design and the back are facing each other on the inside.  Then place your template on the fold of the inside out card, and trace around it, doing so as many times as you can to get the maximum amount of shapes.

 

Find a small boy (or girl) to cut the shapes out carefully with kid-friendly scissors, making sure they cut through both layer of card.  Because you've cut the centre of the card, you will be left with a scrap of card perhaps large enough to fold lengthwise and trace and cut more shapes.   We were able to get about eight or nine shapes from each of our cards.

If  your child slave has nipped your shapes correctly, you should have a pile of diamonds with creases running through the centre like this - 

 

 Fold them so that the design is on the outside.

Tie a loop in the end of a long piece of twine, string or yarn (I've used some pink cotton yarn) about ten centimetres longer than you'd like you finished bunting to be, leaving a short tail of a bout 1.5 to 2 centimetres.

 

 Take your greeting card diamonds and using a glue stick, cover their insides all over with glue. Then fold them over your string, making sure the string is right on the crease of the diamond.  Before clamping that first one shut, tuck that little tail of string in, too, so that it wont be seen.   

Keeping glueing your shapes over the string, until it is as long as you want it to be.

If the greeting card has been printed on heavier stock, or just refuses to remain stuck for whatever reason, clamp it shut with a paperclip or clothes peg until it dries.  That'll fix that pesky shape!

 

Place the last shape over the yarn, but before gluing it, make another hanging loop in the yarn that will abut against the flag.  Leave a small tail of yarn again as you did with the first loop.  Then glue and stick the last shape over the yarn, tucking that little tail out of sight as you did before.

If you like, take two lengths of ribbon and tie them through the ends, trimming them evenly.

Ta-daaa!  Easy, effective, and costs next to nothing.

 

Cameron's birthday cards from the last seven years are next in line for a snipping, and we'll have to make some from all of our old Christmas cards for the festive season when the time comes.   So they've been saved from the recycling bin a little bit longer.  Lucky!