Generation Gap

It’s official, I am now an Old Fogey who doesn’t understand modern fashion. Namely, the trend of wearing leggings as outerwear. The Girl now prefers to wear leggings and t shirts to the dresses with leggings that she lived in for so long. Cue lots of arguments between me and The Girl about the need for her to cover her bum before she goes out.

She does have a couple of long t shirts that I let her get away with, so I made her another one. This is an Adv Tee, age 11, with 4 1/2″ added length.

 

I just extended the sides straight, so I put 4″ slits at the bottom for ease of movement.

I changed the front neckline from a v neck to a round neck, just cutting it by eye. The neckband came out rather narrow, but I like it. And to show which is the front, I sewed on 3 of these handmade Stuttgart buttons that I got for Christmas from a lovely friend who lives in Germany.

And look, decency is preserved. (Well kind of, it runs up a bit cos it’s quite a fitting t shirt).

Speaking of bum coverage, I made a little something for myself out of the remnants.

Birthday Hoodie Tradition

Way back in September, I continued the tradition, and made him a hoodie for his birthday.

This one is from Ottobre 04/2017, no 30 – Salty Wind. (Nope,I’ve  no idea what is going on with the naming, maybe it makes more sense in Finnish.)

Getting the pockets in the right place with the obvious lines of this fabric was a bit of a headache.

Hey, getting the pockets in at all was a bit of a headscratch, as usual everything you needed to know was in the instructions and not a word more (and definitely no diagrams).  Water soluble marker pen was used a plenty!

I found some waxed cotton for the drawstring and added some adjusters from the box of reclaimed bag bits and some cool beads – I love how most of the faces are triangles but some are rhombuses, just like the fabric. The cotton and the beads are from Bunyip, a local craft shop.  Oh and I neatened the neckline finish on the inside with twill tape (which I think I originally got from this tutorial) and added a hanging loop.

The fabric all came from Kitschy Coo and I only just had enough – in fact I couldn’t quite cut out one sleeve, so I had to add a little patch at the edge, but shh, don’t tell, I don’t think anyone has ever noticed, especially as I “cover stitched” (on my normal sewing machine) it into place in white, unlike the charcoal I used elsewhere.

I altered the cuffs using Kelly’s excellent tutorial for thumbhole cuffs.  I’m glad I did cos not only was it a fun thing to learn, it made them longer, and I think the arms would be getting a little short now if I hadn’t (darn that boy for growing again).

That’s a lot of explanation and photo’s, because there was a lot of detail on this one, and I don’t even have a photo of the (slightly ridiculous) side zips. I’m really pleased with how it came out and the high quality finish I acheived.

Luckily the Boy loves it too, including the zips which he says he can zip up for ease of movement and zip down for keeping warm.  Here he is modelling it with the hat I also made for his birthday too (cos that’s how he rolls). He also likes pulling the drawstring so tight there’s just a small hole to look out of (cos then he can pretend to be a cyclops, natch).  Surprisingly with so much white in it it hasn’t acquired any stains yet, which is what I was most worried about!  And entirely unintentionally it goes very well with the triangle jogging bottoms I made him (I guess there are only so many variations on “non girly” prints).

The only problem is, how am I going to follow this next year?

 

Pockets ftw

How can you improve the Nivalis dress pattern?  By adding pockets of course! (Which I took from the Domi sweatpants.)

Client feedback, the pockets could do with being placed a bit higher (serves me right for cutting this out when she was in bed). And the skirt is too long (I sized up for width and didn’t shorten it, my bad).

Starry pj’s

I spent most of December being ill. Bleugh. Not to be recommended. Just before I got ill I had a little flurry of sewing. These are the pj’s I made for the girl that provided the remnants for the first babygown. My local fabric shop has really upped their jersey game recently. Which is nice. And dangerous.

The idea is that they have cuffs on the trousers and the t shirt can be unfolded to provide growing room…

but I kind of screwed up on the trousers, they’re a bit tight and the pockets don’t stay inside yet the yoga band is on the loose side. Ho hum. She doesn’t seem to have noticed.

Anyway, they solved the “mum I haven’t got any winter pj’s” crisis, along with the judicious mending of two of her other pairs of (me made) pj’s. Phew.  Next time stick to the Adv tee pattern for the top (and work on my v neck application) but try something new for the bottoms (I hacked a legging pattern I think).

 

Bumps, Babygowns and Blogging

I have definitely been sewing less this year. Which is part of the reason I have been blogging less. But also I lost my camera for a while and I’ve been having laptop issues and generally lost my oomph for blogging. I kept meaning to cancel my subscription to wordpress, but never got around to it.

Then back in November I decided to make a babygown for my friends bump….

…. and my blog was really useful because I could refresh my memory of how to do the envelope cuffs with the tutorial I’d translated last time around.

It came out pretty good I think (I used jersey bias binding for the neckline on this one and a smidge of satin ribbon to mark the back).

My friend gushed over her present.  She has one child already, whose nearly 6, and first time around she’d been given a gown 2nd hand. It’s now long gone, and she’d been searching fruitlessly for one to buy. There’s nothing like being appreciated to inspire the sewjo! So I whipped up a 2nd one out of scraps…

… it’s great to be able to use the little bits of precious fabric like these origami birds that are too small for most anything else. And best of all was the wording in the selvage that I used to mark the back!

So for now I’m going to try blogging more regularly, if only for me, enabled by the replacement laptop battery that LSH thoughtfully got me for Christmas.

Cats in Space…..

Disembodied cat heads floating in space fabric. Once seen, it haunted my dreams. So I decided to pick on my artsy quirky niece again to get it out of my system. And I utilised some left over heat insulated wadding and an old towel and made….

… oven gloves. To a soundtrack Joy Division Oven Gloves  playing in a continuous loop in my head natch. Cos that’s how my mind works.

I hand quilted the cat heads, which seemed like a good idea to start with, less so as the project wore on. And I manage to use some of the cute ink test in the selvage for a hanging loop. And some left over flannel to be all cosy inside (bonus points if you know what it’s from).

Whilst  in my mid quilting motivational slump, I cheered myself up by making the leftovers into a tote bag, a hanging carrier back holder and a small zipped container.

Not bad for 1m of fabric.

Happy Catmas Christmas everyone.