Pattern swap fun

Over on the Sew Weekly sewing circle a while back, the lovely Tina organised a pattern swap. I heart swaps – they’re so much fun, choosing what to send your swap partner, and then the anticipation of what you’ll get as well. Making new friends all over the place, and the tangibility of receiving something from another sewasaurus-rex somewhere else in the world, another little strand that unites us all in our sewing love. What’s not to like about them?!?

I haven’t heard yet if the person I sent things to got their little parcel ok (fingers crossed it got there, and they liked it!), but check out what gorgeous things the lovely Paloma sent me, all the way from Texas!

A copy of Simplicity Project Runway 2403, which is a cute shirt dress, and will be great to make up for once the little creature arrives and I have to feed it lots (haha!). I’ve never tried using one of the Project Runway patterns before, so I’m pretty keen to give this one a go!

A card with a wonderful letter inside it that made me smile lots.

And this gorgeous little dark blue knitted aviator cap! Isn’t that the sweetest thing? It even has a sheep on one side.

Thanks Paloma – I love it all! And I’ll be posting a pic of the baby wearing the cap, once it arrives.

Me-Made-May 2012 – week 1

And here we have it folks – the first week of Me Made May 2012!

So that I don’t bombard all of your readers with outfit posts, I’m going to do weekly wrap-ups of them.

And just because I’m always a bit envious of all those amazing bloggers out there who come up with crazy poses and look like they’re having so much fun while doing so, I’m also going to push myself out of my standard “stay still and try to pretend there’s no camera there” zone and try a few different shots. So far, kinda awkward. I’m hoping they come more naturally with practice…..

Anyway, here it is – my first week of Me Made May outfits.

1 May

Me-made 70′s Lounge cardigan
Purple merino top from Glassons
Me-made Journey dress
Knee-high socks
Purple Minx wedge heels

2 May

Me-made Piratical cardigan
Pink merino top from Glassons
Black tshirt from NZGirl
Long black skirt by Wellington designer Humanity Creations
Over-the-knee black-with-polkadots socks from Columbine
Necklace from Misery
Converse sneakers

Today had the added challenge of being a Wednesday Wardrobe Challenge day. The theme was ‘velvet and lace’. Normally this would be easy for me, but none of my velvet or lace fit right now! Argh! I had to go hunting and this is what I came up with – a cameo with a velvet choker necklace, and a long black skirt with lace trim around the base and down one side. (It still counts, right?!)

3 May

Cardigan knitted by my mother from a 1940′s pattern
Pink merino top from Glassons
Me-made Braveheart dress
Thick black over-the-knee socks
Black Converse sneakers

4 May (International Star Wars day! Hah!)

Cardigan from Glassons
Me-made Autumn Skies dress
Green slip from a clothes swap
Merino/silk long-sleeve top (under dress) from Silkbody
Over-the-knee socks, can’t remember where from
Black Converse sneakers

5 May

Me-made black merino cardigan
Merino/silk long-sleeve top from Silkbody
Elastic-waist skirt from an op shop in Temuka
Knee-high socks from a little shop in Beijing
My fab new shoes! “Mona Lisa” style from Soles, that I bought yesterday

6 May

Made-by-my-mother hand knitted cardigan from a 1940′s pattern
Me-made Braveheart Dress
Black merino top from Glassons
Footless black maternity tights from Lyric
Black Converse sneakers

(Yep, second time I’ve worn pretty much this exact outfit this week. Thankfully, I’ve just finished making another maternity dress, so there’ll be another one to add to the mix for the next three weeks of May!)

The “Powder Room” Slippers

After all of the pajama party fun last week, I felt like carrying on with making comfy lounging wear. (That, and the weather suddenly turned rather cold and I didn’t have any slippers. Not a good combination, with wooden floors.) So, I made slippers!

The Facts
Fabric: scraps from my stash – cotton, polar fleece, and vinyl-type-stuff
Pattern: Simplicity 2778
Year: 1958
Notions: about 30cm of elastic for the back, bits of interfacing all over, and a length of bias binding
Time to make: 2.5 hours
First worn: as soon as I finished making them
Wear again?: yep
Total cost: maybe around $2 for the bias binding?

I used a pattern from 1958 – Simplicity 2778. They were pretty easy to put together, although I must admit they took me a bit longer than I expected. (For some reason, I always think small things will be fast to make? Heck knows why – it’s not like size has anything to do with complexity when it comes to sewing. *shrug*) I do have a small gripes with the pattern though, which is a bit unusual. Firstly, it completely forgot to instruct to cut out facings for the slipper uppers. It mentions the interfacing and the upper, and that’s it. It’s only when you get to the “with wrong sides together, based facing to upper slipper” part that I went “huh? What facing?” and had to go cut some out. Grrr. Oh well, they came together quite well in the end, and I’m wearing them now and loving them, so it was just a small annoyance.

I used the scraps from making my Powder Room PJs, because it’s cute fabric, and also I like the idea of having slippers that match my PJs. It makes me giggle a little with joy. I lined them with red polar fleece for some winter snuggliness, and used some black vinyl-like stuff from my stash for semi-waterproof soles. Next time, I’ll make the soles thicker though – with this style of slipper, they need to be quite stiff so they don’t flop around. (Although I’m not sure how well that will work at the points where you have to stitch bias binding over 8 layers of fabric…. Hmmm…..)

They’ll keep my feet warm and cozy from our wooden floors, and I figure they’ll be especially useful in a few months when I end up having to get up several times a night to feed the little creature once it arrives. Therefore, I’m considering these a part of the Sew Baby challenge – in the categories of ‘separates’ and ‘vintage’.

Pay it Forward

Have you seen this cute little button popping up all over the place?

There’s a pay-it-forward crafty plan underway, and lots of bloggers appear to be joining in!

I first spotted this yesterday over at Dow the Retro Rabbit Hole, and immediately had to throw my hat in the ring. After all, how much fun would this be, making random surprise gifts for other random crafty folk?!?

(Also, I’ve received a few lovely packages over the past few days from other lovely crafty people, both as part of swaps I’m taking part in, and a couple of lovely generous gifts-just-for-the-heck-of-it, and I’d quite like to pay that forward and share the love!)

So, here’s the deal with this pay-it-forward thing: I will send a surprise gift to the first three commenters on this post – the gift will be a handmade surprise by me and I will send it to you sometime in the next 365 days. All you need to do is the following:

• Leave me a comment telling me your favorite color (or the colors you absolutely loathe) to help me make you a gift you’ll hopefully love! Please don’t forget to include your email address (if you profile doesn’t link back) so I can get in touch.
• To complete signing up, you MUST play along too by blogging a similar post and pledging to make a surprise for the fist three (3) people who comment on it.

Want to play along? Comment below, and I’ll send a lovely gift (well, I hope you’ll like it, I’ll be trying to make it lovely for you!) to the first three people who sign on up. Let the fun commence!

The “Journey” Dress

The Facts

Fabric: about 3 metres of ‘travel icons’ print craft cotton, on sale from Spotlight last year, $4/metre
Pattern: Weigel’s 1703
Year: unknown, looks early 1950′s?
Notions: 4 vintage hooks from stash, 4 mismatched burgundy buttons from stash
Time to complete: 6.5 hours
First worn: hunting (unsuccessfully) for a new lounge suite
Wear again? yep
Bump: 20 weeks (halfway!)
Total cost: ~$12

Check out the fabric of this dress – isn’t that just so cute?!? (Well, I think it’s cute. Steve disagrees. But then, we have different taste in, well, pretty much everything. Hence the unsuccessful lounge suite hunt, over two full days. *sigh* Anyway….)

I picked this up in Spotlight down in Dunedin on Boxing Day – my mother and I inevitably go to Spotlight on Boxing Day, just coz we can. And they tend to have a pretty good sale down at the Dunedin store then. Also inevitably, I buy too much fabric and struggle to get it all in my suitcase to go home again. Oops! Luckily I managed to fit this in somehow, as when I found out the challenge for this week was ‘pink’, I knew immediately what I had to do – use this fabric!!! I’ve been hanging out to use it for a while. Different shades of pink, with little icons of planes and buses and taxis and suitcases all over it? Brilliant.

Weigel’s 1703 is a rather interesting pattern. It’s a bit different from the standard maternity patterns from the 1950′s, with their skirts with cut-out circles and their tent-like tops. (All of which are rather cute, I might add, and some of which are likely to end up in my wardrobe soon.) This dress does something rather nifty at the waist – the four pleats closest to the centre front are held together by hooks and thread loops, rather than stitched in place. See?

Then there are three more thread loops inside each pleat, so as your bump expands, you can expand the front of the dress. Meaning you don’t have to wear a tent until you need to – the tent grows with you! Pretty cool, huh?

And it buttons down the front, for once the baby arrives. (I’ve been informed I need things that button down the front for ‘easy access’ at that stage. I figure this dress fits the bill. Close those pleats to their tightest loops, add a belt, and it should be all good to go.)

Yes, that belt is worn above the waist at the moment. For some strange reason, it just doesn’t fit around my waist any more….. Go figure.

I indulged in a bit of blue to go with the pink (after all, I have no idea if this bump will be a boy or a girl, so probably best not to exclude either from a creation at the moment, haha!) and used some blue hemming lace on the hem of the skirt and also the armholes.

It’s a bit too cold to wear by itself around here these days, and I’m a wimp when it comes to the cold, so you’ll have to ‘scuse the merino top underneath. (It’s also a bit windy around here today, even though we were in a sheltered spot. Notice the vertical bit of hair on top of my head in some of these pics? There’s a reason I have long hair – so I can tie it back on windy days.)

My one issue with this dress is the fit in the bodice. Even though it’s for my bust size (in theory) it’s rather loose. Not sure what’s up with that – perhaps they just expected that everyone with a 34″ bust would swell up to a 38″ bust and not change pattern size? *shrug* If I make it again, I’ll take a bit of volume out of that front bodice somehow.

Actually, now that I remember, I had one other issue with this dress. The front skirt pattern piece was missing. Argh!!!! So I hacked it together by using the back skirt piece, drawing the pleat lines on to match the front bodice pleat lines, then measuring what was left and making it into a pleat on either side (as indicated on the pattern envelope) to make it fit the front bodice nicely. I think it worked out quite well. Gotta love those little hacks at times. I’ve worn this dress twice now, and I’m loving it quite a lot, so I think I will be making the pattern again. Next time I make it, I’ll take the time to properly draft a new front skirt piece so it’s there for whoever makes it up in the future.

And just because this is a maternity dress, here’s a photo of the bump. 20 weeks now, halfway there! Eek!!

(It also fits in nicely with the Sew, Baby! challenge, for both the vintage and the dresses categories. Yay!)

Mystery Make update

A while back, I held a little giveaway on here for some mystery make packages, as part of Moon Munkie’s Mystery Make Experiment. I ended up sending out three packages, just because I could. I’m pleased to say that they’ve all reached their new homes, with The Seek Speak, Pretty Grievances and Moon Munkie. Pretty Grievances has used one of the things in her parcel already, to hem a gorgeous dress she made. And I just noticed that the lovely Seeks has used the pattern I sent her to take part in Karen’s pajama party.

I also received a mystery make parcel from Seeks over at The Seek Speak a few weeks ago that I have been terribly slack in posting about. (I blame pregnancy exhaustion, haha.) It was so exciting to receive this parcel – so many awesome things in it, and I’ve got quite a few ideas already about what to make with them! (Thankfully my energy levels have started to rise a bit again this week so I’m feeling energised enough to sew for the first time in quite a while, so you may even see some progress on my mystery make crafts soon!) Check out what Seeks sent me…..

How awesome is that?!? I’m feeling rather spoilt! Fabric, a pattern, trim, pretty paper craft things, heavy elastic, craft canvas….. So much to play with, so many fun things to make with it all. I’m going to be starting work on the first thing using something from this parcel tonight. Thanks, Seeks!

Pajama Party – the Powder Room PJs

The Facts

Fabric: about 2m of craft cotton, gift from my mother last year to make pajama pants with
Notions: some 1″ wide elastic for the waist from my stash
Pattern: tracing around a pair I already own and love
Year: current
Time to complete: 45 minutes
First worn: For these photos
Wear again? Oh yes
Make again? Yep, this is the second time this year I’ve made some
Bump: 20 weeks (half way!)
Total cost: free! (Thanks, mum!)

Have you seen the pajama party that’s happening all around the sewing interwebs this weekend? Lots of crazy girls, home made PJ’s, and good book recommendations. What’s not to love?!

Late last year, my mother bought me this fabric to make some pajamas with. I must admit to being very tempted to turn it into something else instead – after all, it’s got lots of cute images of girls putting on make up and the like, and even bits of gold on the fabric! But when Karen invited us all to a pajama party, it seemed like the dithering about whether to use this fabric for it’s intended purpose or not was settled – pajama pants were needed, so pajama pants it would become.

Construction was nice and easy – I simply traced around a pair of PJ pants I already own that are nice and comfy, stitched ‘em up and overlocked ‘em. Turned over the waistband and stitched it down just over 1″ from the top, then ran some 1″ wide elastic (nice and wide so it’s more comfy to wear) around the waist. And done!

I made them so they sit quite low on my hips so they’re nice and comfy under that ever-growing bump.

And really, aren’t those little pics of lovely ladies adorable? I feel I should be painting my nails or have my hair in curlers while wearing these. Maybe next weekend…..

As for the question Karen asked about what book I’m reading at the moment? Well, she’s caught me at a bad time with that one. You see, I love books. Perhaps a bit too much. I go through stages where I find it nearly impossible to put them down, which results in sleepless nights and a grumpy me. When I get to that point, I need to just avoid books for a couple of weeks until my willpower returns. After reading the entire Hunger Games trilogy in 4 days (weekdays, I might add) the other week, I’m banned from books for a few more days. So I’m pouring over old House and Garden magazines instead, looking for inspiration for a kitchen renovation. (Which leads me to a question of my own – anyone got any good tips on things that make kitchens awesome? All input welcome!)

When I am allowing myself to read books again, top of the list is “the Book Thief”, which has been sitting there staring at me for a while now. Maybe later this week, if I feel I can control myself…..

In the meantime, wanna come join me for a hot blackcurrant drink?