baby bean

Baby bean is my all time favourite toy. She has been with me since I was born and she has been very well loved. Once upon a time she had a yellow towelling body and a cute blond curl. The curl went many years ago (I had a hair cut, so it stood to reason that Bean should get a hair cut).

Bean came with me when we went on holiday and over the years it became tradition. She went to university with me and a few years later she came travelling with me. Her much hugged and cuddled body got pretty thread bare and she gradually became more darning than towelling. I've made her several set of new clothes, the first was hand stitched out of an old t-shirt one afternoon in a beach hut on Kho Tao.

Bean has always been in Graces room but I knew she wouldn't stand up to the tough love of a toddler. Somehow I thought she would sit on a shelf and look nice but very quickly Grace decided Bean was for cuddling and there was no going back to sitting on a shelf.

When I dared to take Beans clothes off she had several new holes and I knew it was time for drastic action. So in keeping with my decision not to buy any more fabric I used some pink towel scraps to make her a new body. It needed to be something that took the strain in a way that clothes were not doing but I didn't want to completely take her apart. Instead I made her a tight fitting new suit and hand sewed it to her neck, wrists and feet. The only way I could get her in was to make a slash neck and hand stitch it up tight around her neck.

Making the suit its self only took about 15mins, all the hand stitching took about an hour and a half. I added a bit of lace around her wrists and neck partly to cover up the rather grey original lace trim (I didn't want to lose any more of her original self) and partly because I couldn't resist.
Grace saw her half way through the transformation and demanded that she go back in her purple suit so for now I haven't made her a matching pink hood, but it is one the cards.

ruffle butt trousers

I have been itching to make Rae's big but baby pants with ruffles on the bum. But I have decided that I am not allowed to buy any more fabric, despite being in love with Dunelm Mill's maritime fabric (I am sure there is a dress for Grace just waiting to be made from it). I have huge amounts of fabric and lace so all of my next projects will be made out of what I have in an attempt to reduce my stash.

They have turned out a bit Austin Powers but luckily Grace doesn't care!

shirt peasant dress

I've had an old shirt of Marks lurking in my stash for a while now. It is a lovely soft Rayon with a brilliantly bold pattern but the button holes had all pulled through and Mark didn't want to wear it any more.

I found this great peasant dress tutorial by Sew Much Ado and thought it would be great with the fabric. Her pattern was for 0-3months and of course Grace was napping and time was short, so rather than do anything sensible like print out her pattern and scale it up, I guessed. I didn't even bother with making a paper pattern. This was not a great idea and as a result it's a bit wonky and rather long.

The first thing I did, after taking the pocket off, was sew up the button placket. As the button holes were all frayed I wasn't going to be able to use them anyway.
Then I cut out the dress pieces, I drew straight on to the fabric with washable marker and had several attempts at the shape. I lined up the centre front on the buttons and used the original hem as the hem of the dress.

I wanted to use the sleeves of the shirt for the sleeves of the dress but once I had opened them out I realized I was a bit short of material. As the hem of the sleeves was quite deep I used it as a ready made casing for the arm elastic. I tidied up the rough top edge once I'd sewn the arms in.

I ran a line of stitching up the middle of the hem to stop my thin elastic from twisting. That also gave the sleeves a nice little frill. But it meant I had to thread the elastic in the arms before stitching the side seams, not a huge problem I just tacked the ends of the elastic in place first to hold it.

Other than that I pretty much followed Sew Much Ado's tutorial.

another baby book

Another baby in the family means another book, this time for my great nephew Jasper. Despite having a good 7 months warning I still didn't have it finished in time for his birth. And with Grace about I only managed to get it done at all because Mark took her out most mornings on his week off. I hate to think of the hours these books take to make, they are a real labour of love, and I am particularly proud of this one.

Jasper's book has a day and night theme and I used some crazy quilting on the pages as well as the cover. Finishing the edges has always been tricky so I this time I used Made-by-Rae's cheater quilt bind off tutorial over at Prudent Baby. It is a bit lumpy but I really like the way it brings the cover inside.

black on black

I have lovely black fleece jacket but it has logo on the back that I don't much like. So today I finally got round to doing something about it. If it was a jacket for Grace I have a 101 cute ideas for applique patches but I wanted something a bit more grown up, in fact didn't really want it to show up at all.

I couldn't think of anything which meant I defaulted to my usual applique flowers, so it wasn't too obvious I chose some black fleece. So that is black on black with black thread. If any one else is thinking about doing that, don't! Seriously, don't. Even in good light I had no clue, I did it mostly by feel.

In the end it turned out ok, I'd take photo but that is impossible too!

skirt - from part of a t-shirt and a sock!

I kept my self awake the other night thinking about how to make a dress for Grace out of one of Marks old shirts. Anyway, in the dark that night I went round half a dozen ideas until I was thoroughly awake.

This morning I am still no closer to what I want to make, so to remedy the sewing block I made Grace a skirt out of the bottom part of a t-shirt, that I'd been wearing as a belly band when I was pregnant and a sock! It took all of half an hour.

 I wanted to make a nice thick waist band, as it had worked so well on the knit trousers and I thought a contrasting colour would be nice. I have saved lots of old vest tops but the fabric is thin, then I spied my socks. I have far too many and most are past their best. One knee sock with the ribbing and foot cut off was perfect.

I cut the sock in half lengthways.

Stitched the short ends together to make a loop. Folded the whole lot in half and ironed it.

I slipped the waistband over the top of the skirt piece lining up all the raw edges. I pinned the side seams and the mid points between the seams then stretched and pinned the waist band to fit the skirt. I wasn't very accurate.

I have several stretch stitches on my machine but I used a small zigzag to sew all the layers together, stretching the waist band as I went. The inside is a bit rough looking but nothing will fray so I am not too bothered. The sock stretched more than I thought it would so the waist looks a bit big, I think it'll shrink back when I wash it.

I am rather chuffed with my super quick upcyled skirt and I have a spare sock to make a sock monkey, or bear or socktopus....

bib

It suddenly dawned on me the other day as I was using an emergency disposable bib, that I could make one in the PVC fabric. The little toweling bibs are not big enough and the hard plastic ones don't pack up small enough.

I used the disposable bib as a template. I like it because you turn the bottom part back on its self and it makes a scoop. Great for catching dropped food. The only problem is because it gets flipped back you end up with the wrong side of the material at the front.

I didn't like the look of that so I made an extra turn up, that I hemmed and top stitched to keep it in place.

Once that was done I stitched the scoop, wrong sides together to the bib. The last thing I did was stitch a press stud to the neck. I am not sure how durable it will be. The seams look like they will get a lot of stress where it gets flipped back on its self. Normally I'd back stitch a few times, but this will just make an extra row of holes in the PVC. I did think about sewing some bias tape over the seams but it will end up in the scoop of the bib where it is going to get mucky with food. I'm not sure how strong the stitching for the press stud is going to be either. I figure we'll use it a few times and see how it works... it might be the prototype.