By the bucket load!

I have definitely had a siesta with my sewing blog.  :)

I had promised my two girls ages ago that I would make them a hat each, hubby had an order for one as well, and I thought I would make one as a birthday gift for a close friend.  Anyway, this time, I managed to remember to take a few photos of the Lazy Days hats (pattern from Make It Perfect).  These are basic reversible bucket hats.  Instructions are easy to follow, but I tend to finish off the hat by following the instructions on this tutorial so that I don't have any hand sewing.

Here are the finished results.

Father's Day hat for hubby

Hat for Daughter #1

Happily modeled by Daughter #1 (it's a favourite for daycare)

Hat for Daughter #2

Hat for friend (same fabric pattern, two different colour schemes)

A dress for my niece

I was asked if I would mind making a dress or two for my niece for Christmas.  I made one a-line dress but for the other, I thought I would make something a little fancier.  I used Simplicty 2677.

I picked a pretty blue floral print from Spotlight and teamed it with a crisp white for the contrast tie.

I think it turned out great.  I just hope it fits!  :)

A-line dress bonanza!

I managed to get a few A-line pinafores done for Christmas.  One was for my niece and the other two pinnies were for my own girls.  I used Simplicity pattern 5489, which is about as easy as it gets.  Although you do have to do two buttonholes, the bane of my existance!

I basically followed the pattern, just made each dress a little unique. All fabric was from Spotlight - they have a fabulous range at the moment. I hope they all fit now!  :)

Sneek peek at niece's dress

Pink and purple flowers, with purple batik border

Samantha's dress

Pink with a ruffle hem

Love the buttons!

I used an iron-on butterfly motif to give it some interest

Asha's dress ...

It's all in the fabric

what else but hooty owls for Asha?  :)

Cargo pants for a boy

For my nephew, I am making some cargo shorts for his Christmas present.  I bought the Inside-Or-Outside-Pocket-Pants pattern from Fishsticks Designs through Etsy.  These pants/shorts have side leg cargo pockets, inside pockets at the waist, a flat waist band at the front with an elasticised waist at the back. This was the first time I had ever used an e-pattern, so I was a little nervous.  Stick-taping all the pages together was very easy and the pattern came up a treat.  I traced it out, cut the fabric and away I went! I started this last night and finished it today, so it's been pretty quick.

Fabric was all bought from Spotlight - I just picked up some soft cotton drill.  Since I was making two pairs of shorts, I picked a blue camouflage fabric for one set of shorts and a skull & crossbones fabric for the other pair.

Here's the camouflage shorts.

Front view

Back view

Detail of cargo pocket on the leg

pocket off the waist band

Finished product!

And the other shorts are here ...

Front view

Back view

Close-up of the back pocket

Cargo pocket detail

Viola! Ready to wear!!

I'm really pleased with how they turned out.  I just hope they fit now.  :)

Tutorial - a petal pin pocket

A few months ago, I made a petal pin pocket for a friend.  Since then, I've had a few people ask me how did I make it.  Actually, it's very simple, so in response I thought I might try to make a quick tutorial.

What do you need?
- fabric 25cm x 50cm (or two pieces, each 25cm x 25cm)
- pellon 25cm x 25cm (pellon is lightweight fusible wadding)
- felt 20cm x 20cm (buy at Spotlight, Lincraft or a craft store like Riot)
- a small button
- pins

all the necessary 'ingredients'

Drop me a message for the pattern pieces (I don't know how to attach a PDF to this blogger page) and I will email them through to you.  Alternatively, let me know how I can attach a PDF to this post!

You need to cut of two pieces of the main petal pattern from the fabric.

pinned and ready to cut

Once that's done, you will also need to cut a main petal pattern piece from the pellon.  Fuse the pellon to the wrong side of one of the fabric pieces.  This piece will be the outside fabric for the pin pocket.

Left piece has the fused pellon attached, right piece will be the inside fabric

On the fabric piece that does not have the pellon, mark the centre on the right side of the fabric (I use a chalk pencil for this).  Then, make a  2"-4" (5-10cm) cut around the centre of the piece (not on centre that you have just marked, just close to it).  This is what you are going to use to pull the pocket through after sewing it together, so try to keep it as small as possible.  Keep the cut smaller than the felt piece, as the felt will go over the cut so you will never see it.

After the cut has been made

Cut the felt piece out.  Mark the centre. Now you are ready to sew!

Putting the right sides together, sew around the two large fabric pieces using a 1/4" seam, backstitching at the start and end of the sewing.  (Hint : the pellon is on the outside while you are sewing.)

Once you have sewn around the outside edge, you will need to trim and cut the seam allowances back. Use small sharp scissors to take notches up to the stitch line but take care not to cut through the stitch line.  Once you have done that around the entire edge, pull the pocket through the small cut you had made on the fabric without pellon, taking care not to rip the cut further.  Roll the edges between your fingers to help it sit flat and then press with an iron.

Now match the centre mark on the felt with the centre mark on the fabric.  Pin the felt in place, matching the curves.

Showing how the felt is pinned down
(orange lines indicate where to sew)

Now sew from one side to the other side, four times.  This is what provides the petal appearance and gives the 'fold' lines for the pocket.

Now, on the tab, sew a button hole, measuring the button you are going to us to give you the length required.  (I love an automatic button hole!)

Once the botton hole is done, sew the button on the outside, on the edge opposite to the button hole.  And viola, you're done!  Put a few pins in it and it's perfect as a small gift.

Variation - if you don't want to do a buttonhole, it would be easy enough to use a small loop of hat elastic.  Put this in as you are sewing the two fabric pieces together (would be on the inside while you are sewing).  If you do this, I would probably cut the tab off and re-shape that side to be the same as the others, in terms of continuing the curve.

I reckon all of this can be done in about 30 minutes.  Too easy! :)

Toy ironing board cover

One day, a couple of months ago, Pete made the girls a toy ironing board.  The girls loved it.  I promised the girls I would make a cover for it.  I finally did it over the weekend. 

I simply traced around the ironing board to get the correct shape.  To give the cover a bit of cushioning, I also cut up an old scrap of a woollen blanket and an old flat terry nappy.  I stitched these together around the edges to hold them together.  Then I attached a 2 inch rectangular band around the edge - this was finished off with bias binding.  A thin piece of elastic was threaded through the binding and viola!  It was finished, one hour later. 

Do you recognise the fabric?  Yep, still a favourite of mine.  :)

The girls love it and the ironing board is getting carried all over the house - bedrooms, rumpus room, lounge room and bathroom (don't ask about that one!).  Big success, and so simple to make.

My first bag!

So, when Samantha had her birthday a few months ago, she was very lucky and received a fabulous handmade pillow from her best friend Ella.  The pillow was made by Ella's mum Jo and depicted a drawing by Ella, showing Ella and Samantha holding hands.  It was very creative and so well made and Samantha just loves it.  It's one of Samantha's prized possessions now.

The fabulous pillow
(Ella is on the left with curly hair,
Samantha is on the right side with straight hair)

So, it's coming up to Ella's birthday shortly and I was trying to think of what we could give her.  I thought of a girl's bag and Samantha thought that was a great idea.  I ended up buying a small tote bag pattern from Nicole Mallalieu's website.  It's a great pattern because it comes with options to alter the bag into several different styles and the instructions were good to follow.

Given Samantha's design instructions, the bag had to be predominantly pink. So, off to Spotlight we went to buy the fabric.  We bought hot pink cotton drill for the outside and a multi-coloured dot fabric for the lining (with a pink background).  Predominantly pink it was!

I decided to make a satchel style bag, which gave me the opportunity to do some applique on the satchel flap to make it more personal.  At first I thought I'd just make the flap with Ella's name on it.  After I had made done that applique, I then decided that maybe emblazoning a child's name all over their bag is not a good idea for their security viewpoint.  Any stranger would know their name just from the bag, so not a terribly attractive idea to a lot of parents, I would imagine. So, after making the applique of Ella's name, I ditched that idea.

Samantha suggested flowers, so after a bit of image sleuthing by Peter, we managed to find a flower design that I could applique (with a bit of tweaking).  I did the new flower applique one night and then made up the bag the next night.  Here's the finished product.

I used a metal tri-glide to give the bag an adjustable strap, which is more functional for a growing girl.  To give the strap a bit more body, I also used pellon (a fusible light wadding).  The flap was also given a bit more structure by using pellon and medium-weight interfacing. The outside fabric was stiffened with medium-weight interfacing and I also created a sturdier base by inserting a stiffened structural base piece at the bottom between the outside fabric and the lining fabric. 

This was also the first time I had ever made my own bias binding, to use around the edge of the satchel flap, so that was another 'try-and-see' experience.  Afterwards, I did wonder whether I should have simply used the plain outer fabric (instead of the spotty lining fabric) but I still think it looks good.

I also used printable fabric to make a personalised birthday message to Ella from Samantha.  This was stitched to the lining of the bag, so it was discreetly out of view.  And it was the first time I have ever inserted a magnetic catch (super easy, I have to say).

Thankfully the appliqued flower was centred in the flap, so I was very happy about that.

Anyway, I'm very happy with the way it turned out.  Tonight the bag will be wrapped up and tomorrow it will be given to the birthday girl!  I hope she likes it as much as my daughter does.  :)

One ruffle skirt completed ...

Finally I finished the ruffle skirt for Samantha.  It took a few late nights and loads of fabric. :)




Nie Nie skirt from Pink Fig Designs

  I changed the pattern slightly as I wanted a flat front, not the full elastised waistband.  (The back is elastised, so that gives a bit of growing room).  This took a bit of fudging from one of Samantha's old skirts and then took one ruffle before I was able to match up the fabric directions with the pattern.  But I think it works quite well.  Now that I have thought about it, I have also figured out how I would make it if I want the back section to easily allow elastic replacement.  Maybe I will try that next time.

Also, I used my ruffling foot, rather than manually gathering the ruffles.  That saved on a lot of time but I wasn't quite sure how much material it would use compared to gathering.  Turns out it used less fabric - I'd hate to think how full this skirt would be if I had manually gathered the full required amount of fabric.

The last two ruffles are 80 inches (2m) in length, so very long.  It adds up!  :)

Things I learnt - don't use a stretch denim.  It adds a lot of weight to the skirt.  Unfortunately, that's all I could get at the time when I bought the fabric and it does look good, but it makes it a heavy skirt. If using denim, go for lightweight denim.  Samantha does like the skirt, but she says it is heavy, so I'm not sure if she's going to wear it as much as she would if it was lighter.




Modelling her new skirt!




Time for a twirl!  It's a skirt made for twirling. :)

I'll make one for Asha, but will use lightweight denim.  That's next on the list ...