Jumping on the bandwagon - Tilly and the Buttons Cleo Dungadress

Ta Daaaaa.

I finished my new Dungadress, and I think I am in love! The Cleo by Tilly and the Buttons is fabulous. It is the first time I have used dungaree clips, and the first time I have done any top stitching so I am still working my way through all my firsts.

I ordered a meter and a half of Denim fabric from Sew Crafty Online which was more than plenty! I still have quite a bit left and was thinking of projects to stash bust with some hard wearing denim. I already had some top stitching thread, which to be perfectly honest I had ordered a good while ago by accident as I needed some normal thread the same colour for my Daisy Dress and didn't realise there were different types of thread! This is how far I have come in the last year of so, yet this project taught me I probably needed a top stitching needle but I managed ok.

The denim was easy to work with which I was surprised about and it wasn't too thick so I used a normal need rather than a denim one. The hardest part I found was turning the straps the right way, so I got out my giant knitting needles and it did make it easier.

I only did one line of top stitching mostly because I ran out of thread, but also I think it makes it a bit more unique. I didn't even have enough thread to do the hem but actually I love the frayed look! I have done a line of zip zag in an inconspicuous black just above the hem so it won't fray too far.

Here is a picture of the whole dungadress with added Murphy dog the cockerpoo! He loves it too.

Baby Clothes - The cutest things!!

There seems to be a lot of baby's around in my life at the moment, so I thought I would have a go at making some gifts for them! Sadly I can't claim the beautiful knitted cardi's as my own, my beautiful Grandma made those and she is such a speed knitter too.

I then made a couple of sets with car seat blankets like I have blogged about previously at this link.
Baby Car Seat cover. The parents I have given these too love them as the keep the car seat clean and it's easily washable but it is great for swaddling the baby in and keeping them warm without them being able to kick the blanket off in the back of the car.

I also had a go an some little hat's and matching leggings, as I knew each baby would be a little boy.
I made the knot hats using this tutorial from How Does She's Blog.
I used my overlocker for the entire of this hat, which made it so quick and easy. The band around the bottom of the hat is added on after so every bit can be done on my overlocker. I was quite scared of my overlocker till I made these projects and now I have mastered curves!

The little trousers were a pattern from Made by Rae with her Just Hatched Leggins pattern which again is so easy. It only has two pattern pieces and a small amount of elastic which makes them very easy to create. I had to do the cuffs and waist band on my normal machine for these but using my walking foot it gave them a lovely professional finish.

I bought this Horsey fabric especially for this gift as the Mum works with horses and the Dad is a farmer, hence the tractors on the car seat cover.

I made another car seat cover without the double layer, just a single layer of fleece which worked really well also. It then meant it was even easier for swaddling and washing as there is only one layer to get tangled.

All in all some very cute babies with some very cute iddy bitty presents!

Winslow Culottes in crepe!

Two firsts for this project! First some kind of trousers, with a gusset and pockets and everything, also first type using a slippery material like crepe.

The beautiful Crepe was from Sew Crafty Online and the flow on it is lovely. There are so many beautiful colours on the fabric I had too many to choose from for my jacket! Please excuse hubby's stupid face! Doh!

I really enjoyed this pattern though as it has minimal pieces and I am beginning to love PDF patterns as I don't have to trace them out and they seem much easier to store than rolled up grease proof paper!

There are 4 pieces for the 'legs' and a waist band, two pockets and a zip. So a nice easy sew really. I've never really made trousers before that have looked suitable for wearing outside the house!

I struggled with the fabric really as I have never used crepe, it seemed to creep a bit whilst sewing as I think my tension was a bit too tight. After I had done a few seams I changed the tension and it seems to ease off a bit. I used my normal foot for this but I'm told a roller foot may have been a better option for me, so that's one to try next time!





I love these culottes as they were so comfy all day at the wedding, I could dance and move around not worrying about skirts exposure, and they still looked formal enough for the wedding.

I think I am going to make myself a long pair of these for the summer as the waist band hit me at a really nice 'high wasted' point perfect with baggy tops. Made in crepe they will lovely and floaty for the summer too. I think I may experiment in a thinker cotton too for some for work as the shape really suits the shape of my body.

I really do recommend trying out the Winslow culottes!

The Butterick Retro B6318

This was another project from the lovely people at Sew Crafty Online the fabric is absolutely beautiful and all my scraps have been carefully saved for future quilting and small projects as I couldn't bare to throw them out!

My Butterick Retro pattern has caused me a few headaches. Mostly in the boobage area! My first issue was my measurement didn't really fit the sizing. So I just made the on the was going to fit my top half with the hope the skirt would be floaty enough to survive.

As you can see even on the mannequin this appeared to be a strange shape but my hope was the waist band would pull it in a bit. Which it did beautifully on a real person, the mannequin doesn't do it justice.

I think if I were to make this again, I would take the top in slightly across the boobs as it doesn't have any dates to give the top any shape. I think they shape would be perfect for a the larger breasted lady though i'm afraid mine were a little lost!

Once the tie is around the middle you really can see the shape it is aiming for which is beautiful, though I think I have learnt to stay away from Kimono tops as they don't fit me properly. I found the tie quite hard to attache and the instructions weren't great but after some perseverance I think I cracked it.

But seriously whilst the fit isn't perfect on this dress it is absolutely beautiful because of the fabric. The flowers are so cheerful and wonderful it brightens up any day in the office! So all in all a successful escapade.

My Project for the Refashioners 2016 challenge

What a great idea to reuse jeans in this way! I don't know about you but I had load's of jeans in my house desperate for re-use! I flitted around my ideas but finally decided on a bardot style off the shoulder top.

I looked around on pintrest and found Fabric Godmothers tutorial and thought this was a great starting point.

I started by making the darker jeans one big piece of fabric, mostly because at the beginning I was going to make a dress but I didn't have a big enough piece. This piece then became the top frill of my bardot top.

I then made sure I had enough of the lighter jeans. Now this pair of jeans were bought with 'designer' fraying already put in, which just got bigger and bigger of a hole! So I had to repair these holes before I could use it as the main bodice to my top and not expose myself too much! Once that was done I cut two rectangles one 40cm deep and one 20cm deep.

I used the jeans hem for the bottom of the bodice and I zigzagged in contracting cream thread for the frill which I think gives it a nice finish. One I had made two tubes of fabric, I attached them using the wonderful tutorial above.
I only had thick elastic in, and I'm impatient to wait to go to a shop, so I pushed that through the frill's tube opening I had made. Whilst we are on the subject of threading elastic through.. there HAS to be an easier way to do this?! this is what took me most of the time!tip and tricks most welcome please!

When I first put this top on my husband laughed at my soo much as I had tried it on over my t-shirt and put the frills on top of my shoulders like a vest top, once I rearranged it looked much better (shame about my tan lines though!)

There are so many great adaptations of using jeans to make something else so please check out the hashtag #therefashioners2016 and #jeanius and see what everyone has been making. I love how everyone has used it so different and I especially love the negative space removing the pocket gives you like on my shoulder details.

Childrens Shirt, with left over superhero fabric

I can't bear to waste fabric... its probably not the best way to make a garment but I made this kiddys shirts out of scraps.

I used a free pattern I found on pintrest you can find the pattern here. I chose this one with the cute contrast in colours.

This is the first time I have done a collar and a yolk on a shirt so it was a definite learning curve for me.

I made sure whilst I was doing the contrasting colours on the back that I pinned really regularly so that the fabric couldn't move whilst I was sewing it.
The collar was easy to make but inserting it was a bit confusing. I think the instructions on the pattern tutorial are really good so check them out, but once I had worked out it needed sewing on the inside of the shirt sides.

It definitely wasn't perfect but the little boy it was for loved his superheroes shirt so it didn't matter !

Simplicity 8065 another duvet cover dress!

 

I love a good 50's style dress. The tea dress style really suits my shape as it flares out at my waistline and hiding any lumps and bumps.

When I saw this pattern on the simplicity instagram I had to try it! It uses so much fabric though so I had to did out the other duvet cover I  bought from dunelm on the sale. It was a perfect colour for the summer wedding I was making this for.

The pattern was easy again because it is a wrap around dress. It is a full circle skirt so I didn't have enough table to cut it out so I had to cut it out the floor and so the dogs were desperate to help me... they aren't very good at helping!

Once I managed to cut it all out sewing it together was so quick! I was being a bit optimistic starting only the week before the wedding but I managed to finish it!

I got my beautiful flowery bias binding out again and it goes all the way around the back and the neck giving it a lovely finish. The back is a lovely crossover which is very low so I needed to get some kind of bra that wasn't so revealing.


Once I was wearing the dress it kept popping un done when I sat down. This is not ideal as its a wrap over I exposed my bum! I think I will upgrade the poppers I used to some cam snaps I have bought this week or some hook and eyes to help secure it a bit more.

I wore it with my fluffy underskirt and I felt fabulous! Perfect for dancing and making an entrance! It was lovely and plain but still made a statement, and it was talked about by the whole wedding party!

Poppy covered oven gloves

So I made these as a gift for my poppy mad Grandma, but now she thinks they are too pretty to use! Typical! Anyway i made them like this...


First I laid the patterned fabric out on the table and measure it with my current over gloves for width and length. I bought a meter of this poppy fabric and I have plenty left to make Grandma the apron to match she so subtly hinted about for Christmas.

So once I had two of those, I cut out the special heat proof wadding I had bought to be sandwiched between the two at the same size. I then with my matching thread just run straight stitched down the length of the sandwich and at four points side to side to quilt it all together.

I then used 1 fat quarter of red fabric and made the pockets. I copied again the size of my current over gloves but made the corners square. What I did was I doubled the length required of red fabric so I could fold it over the wadding and not have a seam at the opening. So I cut two sets of the red and sandwich that with heatproof wadding again. I'm not sure if you needed to use heatproof for the pockets but as it was for my Grandma I wanted to be safe. I quilted these together with a row or two of the fancy stiches my machine does which hopefully you can see on the top picture.
Please note a basted these with the spray glue left over from my quilts but there wasn't much left so it got a bit gloopy and left marks on the fabric where it settled. I won't use it near the end again as it left greasy marks on my red fabric.

I then sewed the two pockets on by doing a square all the way around the pocket attaching the pocket to the poppy sandwich I previously made.

I the trimmed the edges and put red bias binding all the way round to finish it off, and popped it in the post! The best bit was when the post office lady asked what was in my parcel... oven gloves! What a funny look I got!

The infamous 'Walkaway dress' Butterick B4790

After seeing this dress on The Great British Sewing Bee I instantly fell in love! My personal style is very retro and flared dresses like this flatter my curves well.
I bought the pattern on a whim when it was half price thinking I'll get round to it when I'm a bit more skilled, but no I decided to go head first on this one!

I was a bit daunted by the amount of fabric I needed to make this, so I thought if I mess it up it's going to be a huge waste of money. So whilst in Dunelm I saw that their plain block coloured duvets and sheets were on sale! I bought a bright pink and a bright turquoise double duvet for the grand total of £9! Perfect for messing things up I though!


I started by Ironing out the pattern pieces as this was my first go with a proper pattern so I was following all the things I had learnt watching plenty on YouTube! Once I have ironed them, I taped them to our living room floor then taped tracing paper over it. I copied out all the lines for my size then cut it out. I carefully folded my pattern back away and from then on only used the tracing paper and the instructions that came with the pattern.

Now as I was using a duvet the normal pattern placing on my instructions didn't quite work as my fabric wasn't the usual width or length. I made sure the folds were in the right places and I cut out enough of every piece.

Tia wasn't very helpful in this stage!

So after I cut all my piece out. I followed the instructions in the pattern to the letter, and I ended up with something that resembled a dress! Please keep in mind I am a beginning so I didn't move any of the darts or change the pattern in any way and I have since learnt it definitely needs to be done on this dress as it's a vintage pattern which doesn't fit modern bodies as well.

I then had the task of the miles of bias binding! I decided rather than buy a specific amount which I would probably end up messing up and needing to source more, I bought a 20m roll from ebay as the fabric was very plain I bought some polka dot bias binding to jazz the dress up a bit. I bought extra wide binding, half because I wanted to make life a bit easier and less fiddly and half because I wanted it to stand out.


I watched a tutorial on ebay about bias binding on clothing as I have only put it on quilts so far so there is much more of a sandwich involved. The video suggested ironing the binding in half reading to be slotted over the dress edges already ironed in place. I ironed about 4m of binding and started to put it around the dress starting on the corner of the piece that is at the back and covered by the skirt. I used my quilting clips rather than pinning it as it stopped it from being a bit too fiddly. This also helped me just keep moving the clips further down as I went the whole loop around the dress. make sure you leave extra binding along the back to tie the back panels together. I let about 20cm on either side which is enough to leave a small bow under the skirt.

I started by putting buttons in the front, but because I hadn't tweaked the pattern at all it didn't quite close properly in the middle and it wasn't very comfortable. So instead I took the buttons off and replaced it with some extra bias binding which I tie in a box at the front making it much more comfortable, and perfect for going out for a meal and overeating as it expands!

Ta daa! A very awkward looking me in an unruly looking garden!! As you can see the top it really baggy about my boobs and you may not see by under may arms is quite low and shows my bra so I would need to tweak the darts next time I make this. I'll have to learn how to do that first though! ;)

The wedding gift.. the final touches!

I then just had to bias bind the edges! I went with blue on Grandmas recommendation (check out the first post about the quilt about having boys under it!). I bought 9 meters of this extra wide binding as I though wide gave me more error space and a meter for mess up!

I sewed the back edge all the way done about 1/4" from the edge of the quilt making sure the rest of the binding was pointing towards the rest of the quilt. You can sort of see at the bottom of this picture how it is sticking out at the bottom, this is because I then brought the binding over my first stitch and clipped it on the front. This way you can only see one set of top stitched (in theory).

These clips were a god send, free with Simply Sewing mag! It saved it faffing around with pins and I could just slide the clip down! I then sewed all the way down and folder the corners over keeping the binding all one piece.


I made this panel for the back of the quilt with same ribbon from our wedding and some bits I bought which I thought gave it a great gift tag!





There we have it one finished quilt! Which she loved by the way :) Boy am I glad of that!!

The wedding gift continues!!! Basting

So I have it all stuck together with minimal glue (remember use lots!) and it has been moved upstairs ready for me to sew it all together in some the hottest days of the year! yay!
I decided to use a swirly random patterns as it was supposed to look random so it wouldn't show any mistakes I made along the way.

I watched a few videos which said if you have spray glued your 'sandwich' you can start basting anywhere in the quilt so off I set in the top right hand corner. I wouldn't recommend this as because I hadn't used enough glue I ended up with some squiggly bits with extra fabric in the middle like this.

 I made sure my feed dogs were down and just swirled the fabric around trying desperately to keep it taught and at an even stitch rate. I had real issues holding on the fabric whilst keeping it taught so my lovely husband whilst on a trip to Wickes bought me some building gloves with gripped palms. This made life sooo much easier as I could push it through with very little effort. Good job hubby!

I managed to sew right through my free motion foot though which bent my needle and got it stuck into the foot. This was because I was going too fast with the material I think and pulled it whilst the needle was on it's way out.

 It's quite hard getting a big quilt through the 'throat' of a home sewing machine. So I started rolling up the bits that needed to go through. As you can see. This left me spare to work on the square I was working on at the time whilst everything else was rolled up. I worked on a panel at a time in a patterened fashion, so I started with the top right, then I did one down and one across working my way diagonally across the quilt ending in the bottom left corner.

Hopefully you can see the difference in this picture between the bits that are basted and the bits yet to be done. It just shows you what a lovely texture it gives the finished product.


 Whilst doing this I caught the backing in my stitching a few times which left it rucked. I would recommend that once you have used plenty of glue to stop it moving always check your edge spares are hanging over the edges or they may get caught in the mix. I then cut all around the edges leaving the topper, wadding and backing all the same size.