pencil case

My goddaughter wants a pencil case for christmas. My first thought was brilliant there is fab new stationary store in town, now have an excuse to go in. Then my creative genie reminded me of some new fabric I haven't found a use for and that zip would just be perfect and it wouldn't take long.....

It didn't take long at all, 2 rectangles, a zip, some spotty material for the pockets and some bias tape is all there is to it.

I sewed the zip to the front and back with a double row of top stitching. I chose red thread deliberately to stand out and then did some of my most wobble stitching ever. The pocket is a double sided rectangle. As the stitching was going to show up on the outside I decided to go for red again and make a feature of it.

I finished the seam with bias tape to keep it neat.  I'll write about the hand made label separately, it's the first time I have used one and I think it looks great.

I may have to check out the new stationary store too, just in case there is something funky to put in it.

patterns

I actually got out of the house without Grace this week and went to a plabric workshop run by Transition Cambridge. Plabric is fabric made out of plastic. It gave me some ideas and if I get round to making something I'll write a post about it.

One of the participants had a bag full of old dress patterns that she was giving away. They are mostly Vogue and Simplicity from the 60's and 70's. The prices on them are 3 or 4 shillings, vintage Vogue patterns will set you back about £12 these days so I am very grateful to the lady who gave them to me.

I had a read through some of them, my how things have changed. Some have pattern pieces that are not printed, you have to interpret a type of braille with different size holes meaning darts or tailor tacks. And the meaning of a quick and simple pattern has definitely changed.

I knew sizes would have changed but I didn't realise by how much. A 60's size 14 was 34" 24" 36". Today it's 37" 31" 40" not only bigger overall but a lot less curvy. I know people have become a lot more sedentary which might explain the bigger bum size but reason for the tiny waste became apparent when I found these fitting instructions. Seriously - a girdle!

One particularly lovely Jackie O style black dress has a detachable dickie, collar and cuffs. A bit if research was needed to find out that a dickie is basically a false shirt front. They came into being because it was difficult to properly starch a dress shirt, it's the comedy bit that flaps up and catches an unsuspecting cartoon character in the chin! I was intrigued as to how you made the collar and cuffs detachable. Answer, hand baste them on, presumably you cut them off when didn't want them and basted them back when you did. I can't imagine todays Primark shoppers sitting down to do that every time they fancied a change of style.

I am really looking forward to having a go at making some of these. Some things have become easier, like iron interfacing but resizing will definitely need the help of the Oracle. Maybe one day in the far far distant future when I have time....

rosehip and apple jelly

I haven't made much jam this year, we didn't have much of a plum harvest and no apples and there didn't seam like much about to scrump. Then I noticed all the rosehips. I've always fancied making some rosehip jam but wasn't really sure what you do about all the itchy stuff inside. Luckily the internet had the answer, straining through muslin should do the trick.

Rosehips are full of vitamin C but low in pectin so I decided to combine them with apples as they tend to have lots of pectin especially if they are on the tart side. As it happened we had a few scrumped from next doors tree that were not great eaters as they were a bit sharp. Perfect for jam.

The local graveyard is great scrumping ground, elderflowers, elderberries, black berries, cherries and it turns out, rosehips (from the wild roses not anything planted on a grave).

We picked as many as we could be bothered, which was not a huge amount. I topped and tailed them, then boiled them with enough water to cover. They took about hour to get soft then I mashed them with a potato masher, topped up the water and boiled for another 15mins. I roughly chopped the apples core, skin and all and boiled them separately, they only took 20mins. I left both both fruits to strain separately over night.

I had a hoped that by not squeezing the fruit through the muslin it would make a clear pink jelly. But both fruit juices looked cloudy so I gave the apples a squeeze to make a bit more juice. I ended up with 2 cups of rosehip and 3 of apple. I boiled it with 4 cups of sugar and ended up with a really nice pinky orange, slightly cloudy jelly. But more importantly it tastes lovely.

blog overhaul

I have been meaning to change the look this blog for ages but I had made life difficult for my self with it's first incarnation. I wanted rounded corners on the photos and ended up doing it manually in the Gimp by adding rounded corners and filling with the background colour of the blog. This meant that any change would either mean keeping the dark green background, which I wanted to get rid of, or re-doing all of the photos - all together too much faff.

In the end I modified this template to give me a green boarder and Mark helped me to get the nice rounded corners with a very small tweak of the CSS. Rest of the colours are taken from the photo.

Now I have more space I can have nice large photos. The older posts are not laid out as well as I'd like because I uploaded small photos but don't have the time or willingness to sort that out! I like the new brighter look, it's just a shame the photo of the ribbon is not mine... I'll work on that for the next overhaul.

funky turn ups

I made these purple jersey trousers ages ago with plenty of room in the bum but Grace shot up and they were suddenly and inch too short. I've been thinking of how best to lengthen them. I've got lots of the jersey left but fudging and extra piece on the bottom was never going to look pretty. Then I had a sudden flash of inspiration and remembered the lovely purple material I bought on holiday.

I hate hemming jersey, it always ends up bulky and doesn't hang well, so when I originally made these I just stitched a ruffle round the bottom and didn't bother to hem them. The ruffle was falling off so it wasn't much trouble to remove and add the cute turn ups. I love the way makes them into bell bottoms! It was a nice quick fix that hopefully has given them a few months extra wear.

upcycled trousers

I try to have a one in one out wardrobe policy. When I found a nice new grey cardie it wasn't hard to choose which one went out. Most old clothes got to charity but this particular cardie was a bit gutless and even better than recycling is upcycling.

I snatched a few minuets during naps and once again I am amazed at how easy trousers are to make. I used a pair I knew fitted as a pattern and drew round them, making them a bit wider at the bottom. As it was a slim fitting cardie there was only just enough material, I had to fudge it a bit at the crotch and I wasn't sure there was going to be enough rise.

The great thing about this ribbed cardie was that I didn't need to hem which means they hang nicely. It is also super stretchy so plenty of room for big bum nappies.

Once I had made them up and trimmed the top I thought the rise might not be enough. I wanted to add some height with a thick waist band but I didn't have any thick elastic. Instead I cut the waist band from a sleeve, so the ribbing was going in the slightly less stretchy direction. I made the band smaller than the trousers and stretched it to fit as I sewed. As it happens I could have made it a bit smaller as there is a lot of stretch in the material.

For once I over estimated in most of the dimensions so they are slightly too long, plenty wide enough and come up under armpits! But they are supper cozy and she might be wearing them for a few months to come instead of growing out of them in a few weeks!

She had lots of fun playing with them but was a somewhat unwilling model!

pillowcase pants (and top)

Grace really does have an enormous bum in her big bum nappies and being the expert crawler that she is, trousers are much more practical than skirts. If you can get them big enough to go over the nappy!

I have had a hankering to make Rae's Big Butt Baby Pants pattern and then two fab pillowcases leapt out at me in the Salvation Army shop. Double sided contrasting materials, they were crying out to be made into trousers and a top.

Completely ignoring Rae's sound advice to make a test pair first, I launched into making the trousers with the turn ups. Luckily the pattern is easy to follow and I managed to get everything done, apart from the turn ups, in one of Grace's naps.

I made the 12-18moths size and the length is great, but are not quite as roomy as I'd hoped in the bum. Grace is a big un though.

For the top I roughly followed one of Graces current tops and even then only narrowly avoided making it too small. I wanted to try my hand at shirring and after consulting the Oracle and a few online tutorials I finally got it sorted. It's fab, great to baby clothes, I am all in favour of stretchy clothes that don't require me to make button holes or put in zips. I already have some ideas for more clothes with shirring!