Ruffle Cold Shoulder Top

When one is a tween, it becomes more important to have a wardrobe of “fashion” choices in one’s clothing. When one is the youngest, and therefore has more clothing than anyone, of a shorter lifespan than everyone, one’s mother is not taking her to the mall for new clothes.

Instead, the poor child gets offered an upcycled ruffle top from an old sheet. Thankfully, she loves it!

The fabric is an oldie but a goodie. Honestly, this sheet has been upcycled more times than the Von Trapp family’s curtains. I used it for my first Sorbetto - which then became the lining for a Sorbetto Dress - and this particular piece was previously a ghost costume, which will not be reprised. It is a cotton sateen in a high thread count with a lovely light blue-ish colour. I call it Eau De Nil.

For the pattern, I Googled a ruffle top tutorial and came up with this one from We All Sew. Sometimes, my linked tutorials and calculations get lost over time, as websites are upgraded or overhauled, so I'm going to re-write the good ones again on this blog. They are linked too, so I've given credit.

The ruffle is 2 x the circumference of the shoulders and the bodice is supposed to be the bust circumference. I don't really get how this would fit over the shoulders, even on a very busty woman, but especially for a child. After I had cut the bodice, I had to piece another panel through the middle back to make it fit over her head. I also didn't get the armholes large enough, especially to allow her to wear the ruffle on her shoulders, so I had to unpick the bias binding from these and re-do them much, much larger. That was a pain.

My order of construction was:
Cut out two pieces of fabric, one for the ruffle and one for the bodice.
Piece another section into the back of the bodice
Slit two armholes and cut away a small width of fabric. Mine ended up being 20cm long, from the top.
Finish armholes with bias binding.
Finish hem of bodice and ruffle.
Attach ruffle to bodice, using overlocker to finish edges.
Fold over to make elastic casing.
Thread elastic and sew up final hole.

Costs:
 Fabric: £0
 Thread: £0
 Pattern: £0
 Elastic: £0
Total: £0

Donut Bites

This baking came out pretty well. Unlike the rest of the world, we haven’t done much lockdown baking. I’ve not really done much of anything, actually, except let the kids watch tons of YouTube. Unsupervised. The new fave channel of the Little Sis is Emma’s Goodies. We tried her 5 Ingredient Chocolate Cake, but I broke it on the way out of the tin, so it didn’t make the blog, but these Mini Donuts looked pretty good - and only TWO ingredients this time!

OK, so all the cooking oil, and the cooking oil smell, makes this a little more difficult than two ingredients would suggest, but they actually came out really well, and were pretty fun to make too.

Oh, and of course they were fun to eat...

Snakes!

Cathy makes snakes!

Uh oh, lockdown makes everyone a bit stir crazy, and I'm no exception.

This is actually a school assignment, and in the best school project tradition, most (all) of the work is done by the parents (mothers) for the children to pass off as their own. We know the teachers know this, but still they assign us this work.

This time, it is because it is possibly needed for the end of year play, which is supposed to be happening in July. I sincerely hope that they are able to go ahead with it, so I am supporting the art teacher as she assigns this to the kids for their remote school lessons, creating a multitude of jungle themed props.

Some of them are painted efforts, but since these snakes are made of fabric, that's where I come in.

I didn't take any in-progress photos, they are just scraps of fabric, different top and bottom and stuffed with toy stuffing. Finding the scraps, and piecing this one, took the most time. Actually, turning it right side out and stuffing it took longer, but unpicking the tongue and sewing it in the correct way out took no time at all.

The idea came from the art teacher, who found a Spanish blogger who created these. I can't read the the name of the blog so I'm not able to link it here, but I did copy the spiral pattern and created a cardboard template of my own. The seam allowances are just the spiral cut around, there are no spaces down the body.  My snake is a bit uneven. Maybe he swallowed a mouse.

The kids adore him, they have christened him Bondzi Simba Snooki and they fight over who gets to wear him around their neck, like a scarf.

The second snake, named Beyonce, was much quicker. I had just a scrap of this gorgeous blue/green jacquard so I cut a rectangle into a wiggly shape and cut the belly out of the school uniform fabric. I even clipped and notched the curves on this one. So fancy!

Round Pink Cushion

I know that two cushion cover posts, and nothing else, in the last year does not make for exciting blogging. It is not exciting sewing either. We moved house a year ago and even though I have a space that I could turn into a dedicated sewing space, I have hardly sewn at all. That is partly because I feel I can't really indulge my hobbies when there are other things I should be doing, and partly because the creative part of my mind is kept occupied with interiors where it used to be fed by sewing. Let me assure you that interiors is a way more expensive hobby than sewing, and the stakes feel waaay higher because you can't just turn your mistakes into something else or donate it if you don't like it.

One of my new favourite blogs is interiors blog, Mad About the House.  Recently, she posted about the "Wes Anderson effect", essentially, the next iteration of Art Deco which sees our interior styles moving into pastels and round shapes.

While this look isn't really my thing, I do think it is fun and pretty, and a throw cushion is a great way to give a nod to a trend, show peeps that I'm in da club, if you will!

So my shopping fingers hopped on to eBay and got half a meter of pale pink velvet and a cushion pad. I got an 18" pad, but I wish I'd got the 16". I cut an 18" circle and gave it a 1cm seam allowance, I could have used 1.5cm and made it puffier too. (It's not a great pad, a bit mishapen, but not the end of the world).

I had some self cover buttons, left over from one of my very first sewing projects. They are plastic rather than metal, so I'm a bit worried about them breaking under the strain of the button tufting, but I couldn't manage to pull it that tight anyway.

I used fishing line for the tufting, and an yarn darning needle. Then I sewed up the gap which I'd stuffed the pad into and done!

Costs:
  Fabric: eBay, £5.95
  Thread: stash, £0.00
  Cushion pad: eBay, £3.72
  Buttons: stash, £0.00
Total: £9.67

African Wax Cotton Tote Bag

This is Bag No 3.

I was given this lovely African Wax Cotton as a gift, and I had a chance to make something for her daughter from it. It is a panel print so it was tricky to get something that made sense and had a nice balance of patterns in it. I'm pretty pleased with how it came out.

Dimensions are the same as the others: 88cm x 35cm with straps 7cm x 35cm.

Throw Cushion Covers

We are selling our flat and I needed some cushions for the sofa. This was the only feedback the estate agent gave: "It's too neutral, can you go to Habitat and buy some throw pillows?"

It turns out that throw pillows at Habitat are really expensive. And I didn't particularly like what they had at the time. But I had charity shops on my side, in the countryside they tend to stock throw cushions. I chose two based on their size and the colour of their zips. I should have been a bit more choosy about the cushion pad too, one of them is not great. I got two cushions for £3. (I got three more for £8, but I didn't upcycle them.)

Before

I knew I had some solid pink quilting cotton that I'd bought but never got around to using, and decided that this would match pink flowers, giving the room a bit of a lift. Being a plain, and a quilting cotton, I also knew that I would need to add piping to get it looking smart.

I used 4mm piping cord and 1 inch bias binding. I should have made 1.5 inch binding as this would have given me a bigger seam allowance. Some of the corners are not wash proof. I made the whole thing with my zip foot: measured existing cushion covers; unpicked zip; added binding to front, attached zip to front, attached zip to back, attached back to front. I didn't finish the seam allowances. If I wash them, I'll have to do this beforehand.

I know why I would never go on Sewing Bee, the first cushion took me about 3 hours. The second one was quicker, and I was truly grateful that I didn't have a third one in the pipeline.

But they look nice on the sofa, and I am sure they will be the difference between selling the flat or not! Afterwards, they are going to look very nice on the garden chairs.

Costs:
  Cushions: Charity shop furniture warehouse, £3
  Fabric: Knitting & Stitching Show 2015, £7.90
  Piping Cord: not sure
Total: £10.90 for two

Another Tote Bag

A quick post to share another tote bag that I put together as a welcome gift for my Mum. The previous London Bag has got great use and is now very shabby, so a replacement was in order.

I wanted to use this tan/brown twill from my stash. I had it earmarked for a skirt, but the colour is not good. I'm not really sure why I bought it actually, probably carried away by new making in 2013/14.

I really loved Erin's applique on her plain sweatshirt and I used that idea to jazz up Mum's bag. I almost bought the same pink blossom, but went for the gold in the end. It arrived fast from eBay and the quality was great: no dud stitches or mistakes in the design.

I cut out a rectangle for the bag, 88cm by 35cm. The overall dimensions are good, but I went too high with the applique and didn't leave quite enough space at the top for a good facing. 90cm would have been a better height. Straps are 7cm wide by 35cm long.

I sewed on the applique before I made up the bag. I used couching to attach the stems, then machine sewed the leaves on, then ironed it on, then went over the flowers by hand. It took many evenings, but I found it so relaxing! There is something so meditative about sitting and making hundreds of tiny stitches in a piece of cloth. I listened to podcasts and sewed away. I wasn't under huge time pressure, and the work feels productive too. You can see the work growing, but slowly.

I do worry about the durability of the applique on something as hard wearing as a bag. I didn't stitch the flowers on to the edges of the petals, these will probably curl with use, but hopefully won't look too awful. Machine sewing them down didn't really work, the threads got tangled and they didn't look nice. It will work well enough for the bag, it's pretty at the moment, and I can start thinking about the next one in two year's time!

Costs: 
  Fabric: twill cotton, eBay, £2.87
  Decoration: applique, eBay, £3.98 
  Thread: stash, £0.00
Total: £6.85