Bonny Baby Bloomers

Pink frilly knickers! What more is there to say?

So you have dressed your baby girl in the cutest of little dresses but as you carry her around all you can see is that nappy, not ideal. The answer - baby nappy covers of course.

These cute little makes were a great project for some of the smaller scraps of fabric in the 'just in case I ever have a baby girl' box of fabric. A perfect way of using up some fabric scraps and really quick to make.

The first pair are some old polycotton I had left over from making some of our wedding decorations, what a lovely way to use up some of that fabric on the celebration of the extension to our family. 

There is a joining seam up the front of these bloomers so I used that seam to add this cute little lace detail to add a bit of contrast and interest to the bloomers. The pattern tells you to sew some rick rack into these seams, but it is so easily customised to any kind of trim. You could go crazy with all the possibilities of this pattern.

The pattern is from the Summer 2015 edition of Ottobre Magazine, a magazine I have blogged about a few times. I have a few pants patterns from these magazines but these ones came up in the smallest size which is why I choose this particular version. I have made them in newborn size but they look massive! I'm pretty sure they would fit on Master Fox who is over 2! We will see, maybe after a quick wash to shrink the elastic they might look better, and worst case scenario they are a bit big but she will grow into them eventually.

Even without the magazine, if you fancy giving something like this a go there are LOADS of free patterns from other bloggers out there to use. I definitely recommend, such a great use of leftover fabric, and it means baby can wear just a tshirt in the warmer weathers. There is a lovely pattern here

The second pair is made from this adorable cupcake fabric and then some light pink polka cotton lawn. I'm not overly excited by the front, they look a bit like Y fronts in my opinion. That being said a) I didn't have enough fabric to cut out both pieces in the cake and b) the front is cut on the bias so the cakes would have been wonky making it look odd anyway. I do however think from the back with those cupcakes on the bottom are just adorable! Imagine that little cakey bum sticking up in the air!

As this pair are a little bit more patterned I didn't bother with a trim as I thought it might be a bit too fussy, and I think that's fine.

I can't wait to try these on her and see how cute they look <3

Seriously though, this baby better not come out a boy! Mr Fox is already having dreams about this!

Leather and Lace!

 Leather Bow Wrist Cuff

So, we are nearly at the final of the 3rd season of the great British sewing bee. I have loved this season so far and I can't wait to see what they need to make in the final episode. I was a bit sad though to see Deborah leave, she made some great fabric choices in her makes. I am going to have to make sure I keep an eye on what she gets up too after the bee (you can find her blog here: http://dfabricate.blogspot.co.uk/)

Colette Zinnia skirt in lace and silk crepe

I loved the theme of this week! Leather and lace have to be my favourite of all wardrobe fabrics ;) it's just a shame they aren't easier to sew with. I have done a couple of small leather accessories but never a whole outfit (can you imagine the cost!!). It did however make me have a little look back at some of the lace projects I have made which I am still super proud of, especially the zinnia skirt, I can't wait to fit into this again! 

Take a look at a couple of the other leather and lace projects I've managed over the last year: 

 Lace and cotton sateen prom dress from the first GBSB book

DIY leather bow elasticated belt tutorial

Jersey and lace Lady Skater

The good news is I have actually nearly finished my dress, so hopefully I can take advantage of this weeks lovely weather and get the pictures taken ready to show off for you next week. 

I'm also hoping to make a couple of book purchases, and hopefully issue 2 of the new simply sewing mag will land on my doorstep next week so there will be plenty to keep me inspired and entertained. 

Whatever you are up to this week I hope you enjoy it. 

New Mollie Makes Subscription and This Months Shoe Clips

  

You know we all need more shoe clips right? Of course we do! and here are some more DIY clips brought to you as the DIY project on the front of the latest issue of Mollie Makes magazine.

Aren't they so cute! pretty pastel pink tulle and some added sparkle make these a perfect way to jazz up a pair of old pumps. 

Its ok to wear leopard print tights and leopard print shoes at the same time isn't it?   

 

The issue (41) is out now and choc full of retro makes. I personally really fancy trying out the floral crown and the record label place mats (which would make an excellent gift for my daddy). I love this magazine. I always check it out and buy more copies than I think I do so decided that I might as well just say 'sod it' and I purchased a 6 month subscription. It will be so nice to have a bit of craft inspiration through my door each month, especially as I get more and more involved in the blog with you guys. 

The flowers are made in a very similar fashion to some of the ones we made during our away day, however instead of one long piece of fabric is it three smaller pieces overlapped slightly. You then do a quick running stitch across the bottom, pull it tight and secure. Then add the pretty sparkley gem to the front and the show clip to the back. Really simple but wonderfully effective. I made these up in one of my lunch hours it was that simple!

So what did we get up to this weekend? Well Me and Mr Fox had a lovely chilled out one. Finished off our new front garden (pics on my Twitter if you are that interested), saw family, went for a dinner at friends it has been great. Now just one more week of work and we jet off for some sun, sea, sand and relaxation! Bring it on!

I hope you all had a lovely weekend. Do you have any magazine subscriptions? I would love to hear about them.

Lacy Lady Skater

 

Alright, I realise you are probably getting a little bit bored of the lady skater posts now but just one more for now I promise! I spoke about this version a few post back, it is a black lace version of the dress (idea stollen from this fab version by Kollabora (I still think her version is better than mine, I think my lace had waaaay to much stretch in it!!

 

About the Pattern:
Pattern: Lady Skater by Kitschy Koo
Fabric: Black stretch jersey for lining from local market, Black stretch lace from FabricLand
Size: 3
Alterations: Because I wanted the lace skirt to be separate from the the lining (see below) but attached to the lining on the bodice I attached it in a slightly different order. I seamed the side seams of the top and bottom pieces separately and then joined them at the waist rather than joining the two pieces down the side seams.

This pattern is just so amazing, I wanted a new dress for a Saturday night out with friends and although this pieces had been pre cut the whole thing took me less than an hour and a half!! I am not 100% happy with the bottom, I think its a bit wonky, and in hindsight my stretch lace is VERY stretchy and it gets misshapen very easily. I might have been better off attaching the lace to the lining in the skirt as well as the bodice to give it better structure. I am really happy with the clear lace sleeves though.

 

On a completely unrelated note, do you like Mr Fox's new fence? He was very happy with his work so I thought I would use it as a change of scenery so I could show you all. Have you noticed as well that I have decided I want everything in my life to be coral now? I have coral sandals on today, my coral belt yesterday its becoming a major theme in my life. 

We also have a date for the new kitchen, they start on the 23rd June! Eeeek very exciting! I can't wait to see all the shinies, and actually have an oven again! Maybe I need to start looking for some kitchen related crafts/sewing for the blog? Anyone got any ideas? Tea towels just seam a bit obvious! 

Well I hope you all have a lovely weekend, we are set for a scorcher in the UK so I am going to try out the new BBQ (which reminds me I MUST sew the garden chair covers... sigh) but we don't have a lot planned, just enjoying the sunshine and our freedom. Have a lovely one, whatever you are up too. 

 

My Coral Silk and Lace Zinnia

OK so I will start with a huge apology for how many pictures there are in this post, but I am so massively proud of how this turned out so I am going to ram it in your face as much as possible!

I hadn't planned on making this skirt, but I had decided I wanted a project which was not a dress. I also wanted to try using some more complicated fabrics to challenge myself a bit. When I saw a post from Colette patterns about The Stitchery hosting a sew along for this skirt I thought this would be an excellent opportunity to have a go at both those things.

Project details:

Pattern: Zinnia by Colette patterns

Fabric lining: Real silk crepe de chine in peach, a fabric remnant from eBay

Overlay fabric: Stretch lace in coral from Tia knight on eBay

There are three versions of this skirt, 1: a gathered waist with button placket and pocket details. 2: A pleated waist in a solid fabric. 3: a pleated waistband in a sheer fabric which includes full lining. I went for version 3 to give myself a bit more of a challenge, also because I love the drape and flow of how this version looks on the pattern website.

Before I go into the construction of this skirt I want to start by saying that I LOVE IT LOVE IT LOVE IT!. I wasn't sure if the colours would go but they work really well together, the fit is spot on, the drape is perfect, there is nothing that I don't like about the finished item, Woo Hoo!

This pattern is labelled as 'beginner' which I do agree with, but take this with a pinch of salt if you are doing version 3 and handling difficult fabrics. The fit is very simple, you only need to fit in the waist band, lovely and easy, I like that. I wanted to time how long it took me to make this skirt but decided to stop caring after 10 hours! 10 hours to sew a skirt that only requires fitting in the waist!. This did include all the patter cutting, the fabric cutting, markings etc etc but still, yeowch.

The main issue I had with this skirt was sewing the two fabrics together. I was using a delicate silk crepe and trying to sew it together with a stretch lycra lace, not easy, those little buggers just kept slipping and stretching and puckering all over the place. However, after my first attempt at the waistband I calmly decided to try attaching my walking foot to my sewing machine to see if that made a difference. Did it? hell yes, that made things so much simpler, the fabrics really wanted to just flow together through the machine with those extra little feed dogs helping them along. Phew. 

I really wanted to get a good finish on this make and so tried very hard to make this skirt as perfect as possible. Because of the sheer fabrics I did my first ever French seams on this make on both layers of the fabric. I am so happy with these, I keep showing them to people whilst I have the skirt on (stop flashing at strangers Helen!) much to my surprise they sewed up pretty easy and they make the whole finish look so much neater and more professional. 

The pattern instruction for version 3 is a little vague on the back seam/hemming instructions. When inserting the zipper you are told to sew both layers together joining them in the back seam. However, later on you need to hem the underskirt separately and shorter than top layer. How are you supposed to do that when you have attached them both together? I eventually gave the pattern to Mr Fox to see if he could get his engineer brain around it and he suggested sewing the back zipper seam short of the bottom to allow me enough room to turn both layers under. This did seem to work a treat but it did baffle my brain for a while. The only other thing worth mentioning is that marking the pleats is a painstaking task, but make sure you do it. I used some contrasting tread but by the time I got there half of them had come out and it made life very difficult.

So the end result... big beemy face from me, and I will finish off with a compilation windier pics to show you just how lovely and swooshy it is.

A Jade Prom Dress

 

Happy Easter Monday. I hope you still have some chocolate left over and haven't pigged it all just yet! Its been great having these days off., me and the Mr haven't done a great deal this weekend, just caught up with some stuff, seen the family etc. Its been nice just to have some time to chill out. One of the fruits of me having this time was that I managed to finish off some sewing. YeHa!

So I bring you my jade lace prom dress which I have been making ready to wear to a wedding in the summer. Now I promise you this was a pure coincidence, but when I was pinning this together I realised the wedding is actually the wedding of our friend Jade, and my dress is Jade! How perfect is that! I swear I couldn't have planned that if I was doing it on purpose!

About the Dress:
Pattern: Prom Dress from the first Great British Sewing Bee Book
Fabric: Jade Cotton Sateen and Black Stretch Lace both from Fabricland
Size: 12
Adjustments: Shortened the straps by about 1.5 inches and removed 2 inches from the bottom

I love this dress pattern, its a really good pattern for a beginner and the fit is great for me with minimal adjustment. There are few pieces and they fit together well and in a logical order. I seriously recommend that anyone who owns this book should make up a version of this dress. I love the way it hangs in the front. I do think that I could have done with it being taken in a little bit under the arms but its not at all noticeable with a shrug on. Having made up a toile in a more sturdy fabric I do think the dress lends itself better to a stiffer fabric that I have used here  so it would be a perfect dress to make using a cotton poplin or cotton lawn for summer, or some drill/twill/brocade for winter.

This version of the dress is made using two layers of fabric, the jade cotton sateen with a layer of black stretch lace over the top. In order to make sure that the pieces didn't slip whilst sewing I decided to (painstakingly) overlock the two layers together around all the pattern pieces before I started to construct the dress. This was a big faff, and it took a while, but I do think it was worth it because I had very little difficulty sewing it up, there was very little movement between the two layers which helped a lot. I really liked working with the cotton sateen, its the first time I have ever used it and its got some great stretch to it. This would have been perfect for a version of the georgia dress.

All in all I am really pleased with this one. I have my concerns that its actually quiet thick and so it might not be perfect for a summer wedding, but if all else fails I have another wedding to attend in October so it will be perfect for that one if its too warm in July.

I will leave you with one final image of me prancing around... did you notice I don't have my hands on my hips once in this post!!

Zinnia Inspiration

The sun has been shining and the flowers are starting to bloom, what better time to be bringing you Zinnia's!




I was hoping to be able to show off my second Georgia to you today, but alas I came across some fitting issues so that will have to wait for another day. Instead I thought I would share with you my inspiration for my next project which is: The Zinnia Skirt by Colette.

I think I am in danger of only sewing dresses if I am not careful, and so wanted to expand my sewing horizons a bit. Thankfully, just as the Georgia sew along finished, The Stitchery in Scotland decided to host a Zinnia sew a long. Now this wasn't on my list of things to make, but lets face it, they were all dresses, so I don't mind this little deviation. This however is not the only reason for my slight deviation, this sew a long comes with a fabulous competition to win a brand new sewing machine, and or some vouchers for The Stitchery, or their local fabric shop. I love my sewing machine, it has been a trooper and I am always using it so I am not in the slightest complaining here. However, the opportunity to perhaps get a machine with a one stage button hole function is just too much to pass up on, and who doesn't love new tools? Even if you don't need them!

So you will see from the above I decided to take my inspiration from actual Zinnia's, I thought this was quiet fitting. I really love the pinky peachy tones of these flowers. I knew I wanted to make version 3 of the skirt with the sheer overlay and lining, and wanted to use a lace for the overlay. I mostly picked this version because I want to challenge myself at attempting to sew with a silk and I was lucky enough to win an ebay bid for two meters of this gorgeous real silk crepe de chine in a peachy colour.

I then started looking at the lace to cover and decided that although peach is a lovely colour, if I wanted to wear this in the summer without tights it would make my legs look really pale. Instead I decided that a more coral coloured lace might be just what I wanted. I have realised that the lace is quiet see through in places and so I am not quiet sure how the contrast in colour will work in the final version but I am ready to give it a go. You can see above just how much of the peach is visible with the lace over it.

I'm really looking forward to following the rest of this sew a long and will of course let you know when I have it completed. Are you following any sew alongs right now? Where do you get your inspiration for colour schemes/fabrics from?

Fabric Flower Workshop

Check it out... I managed to teach some lovely people how to make lovely pretty things!

We had our work team away day this week and our boss decided it would be quiet nice for us to do something fun for the last part of the day. She shares my slight obsession with craft so we decided it might be nice to all be able to make something on the day. We decided that some sort of fabric flower would be an excellent choice because not only are they pretty, but they are also simple enough to be able to teach in a short time without needing any specialist equipment. So I was tasked with researching different types of flowers which I could teach to a small group. I am really pleased with how well everyone's flowers came out, they all did an amazing job.

In the end I picked three different techniques to teach. Firstly, I of course went for the same felt flower which I used to make my wedding bouquets. I love making these flowers, they are so simple to do and yet so effective. We had a great discussion about how lovely it would be to make a bunch of these on floristry wire to give as a gift on Mothers day.

Next up we did some lace and button flowers. I got the idea for this one from a brooch which I bought at a craft fair years ago. I love that brooch, but on looking at its construction it is really very simple. The idea is to get a length of lace trim (about 50cm maybe) and just do a simple running stitch across the bottom edge of the trim. You then pull and gather the trim until it is tight and join  the two ends with the remaining thread. You will have a little gap in the middle but this is covered up by sewing or glueing on a cute button or bead to make the centre of the flower.

The last flower we did was a lovely pom pom fabric flower. I have bought so many of these as accessories in my life I can't believe I haven't tried this sooner. Rather than me explain there is an excellent tutorial right here

Aren't they all excellent. I am really pleased with how it all well and I would love to do this kind of thing again, I am thinking maybe a clasp purse workshop? I really want to do a knicker making workshop but that would require patterns and sewing machines and a lot of materials so this one is probably a little way off yet. If anyone wants a better description of any of these flowers let me know. There are however a million (slight exaggeration) tutorials out there already for these types of flowers (where do you think I found them) so I didn't see the point in duplicating them here.

Fabric Flower Samples

As part of our away afternoon at work at the end of the month my boss has enlisted me into showing our team a couple of ways to make up some fabric flowers:

There are two methods I used here, one which was cutting circles and then folding them up and stitching them on to a small felt circle. The other was to take a long piece of lace and do a long running stitch to gather it in to a circle, which I then popped a button in the middle to cover the hole.

Both methods worked really well, so I think I will go for both, along with the felt flowers which I used in my bouquets.

The possibilities for these little things are endless: brooches, hair clips, shoe clips, bouquets, bookmarks, all sorts! I am looking forward to seeing what fabrics people choose to put together and how they all turn out. I will make sure to take some pictures for you all. There are hundreds of tutorials for these out on the internet if you fancy having a go yourself.

Knitted Fingerless Gloves for Mummy

My mum put on her Christmas list that she would like a pair of knitted gloves for Christmas so I really want to knit them myself because it was the perfect stash buster idea, and so meant think could be an inexpensive 'extra' gift for her to open on Christmas morning.

I started off using my favourite go-to fingerless glove pattern: Cherry Red Handwarmers by Creative Yarn

I love this pattern, it can be made up in almost any wool and because they are open lacework (which is a really simple repeat) they are flattering, an easy fit, and very quick to make. However on this occasion I tried them on a friend with normal sized hands and she thought they were a little bit on the small side.

So I searched for another pattern using 3.25 double pointed needles (the only set I have) and Aran weight yarn to stash bust some Kid classic that I have. I found this pattern: Optimistic Mitt Pattern by For Makers Sake. They are a little longer than I wanted to so made a few alterations to the pattern. I knitted just 10 repeats of the bottom rib, and 6 for the top. I also added the stripe pattern and omitted the cuff button. I am really pleased with how these came out, and were my first attempt at a thumb hole and so I am very proud of myself. They do feel a little big on my hands, but not too uncomfortably, and I do have children's midget hands so hopefully they will have a good fit on a normal person.

I really hope she likes them! I am off to wrap them up ready for tomorrow, and the bonus, I get to keep the grey pair!

I am now going to chill out with Mr Fox, so I wish you all a wonderfully Merry Christmas.