Just like mummy

Recently I was slightly perturbed when youngest asked me to make 'a miniskirt'. After further questioning, it turned out that she wanted was a mini *version* of  my skirt. Ah...

My husband jokes that I am making her in my image (as we already have similar haircuts) but of course there is a little part of me that is quite flattered she wants to be 'just like mummy' at the moment. I look forward to reminding her of this when she is a sullen teenager, when she will no doubt shriek at me for not dissuading her from matching outfits. Oh well!

But as I had a spare piece of fabric left over, it seemed foolish not to use it. So I made a rough a-line skirt pattern out of paper, just a front and a back piece, plus allowance at the top for an elasticated waist (much easier for little hands, plus I didn't have a zip to hand). And there we have it one 'mini' skirt.

And seeing as even my trusty H&M doesn't seem to have the clothes that youngest wants to wear at the moment (and I'm not prepared to pay Boden prices), making a few summer clothes for her seems the best way forward. I've already made a pair of cotton shorts (below), but in the interests of transparency must admit that this was the second go at shorts, the first pair being rather on the <ahem> voluminous side. And as they were in blue/white striped fabric, did look a little like pyjamas.

I also had a little moment in Fabricland this morning, and bought these two cute heavy cotton prints. After consultation with youngest, the pink will become a skirt and the blue birds another pair of shorts.

Make a Pencil Skirt

So being unemployed does have its compensations, more time for sewing - yippee! I have made a bit of headway with my unfinished objects basket (finished off a denim pinafore for my daughter) been knitting squares for a blanket, plus getting costumes ready for World Book Day. So now time to start blogging about what I've been making...

I made this pencil skirt for my birthday night out in half term. These are definitely *not* the shoes I wore for the night out, that was a plenty of pints on the sticky floor kinda venue. But they look good with it I think.

So I started off by googling 'make a pencil skirt' and there are lots of great tutorials, this one on What the Craft particularly appealed to me How to make a Pencil Skirt.  Then I took my measurements. First my 'natural' waist - bend sideways as if you were singing 'I'm a little teapot' and that's where your natural waist is, seems quite high doesn't it? Then 'low' waist, which is sort of level with your belly button. Then hips, at the very widest part. Then I measured around my knees and added a little as I didn't want to be actually hobbled by this thing (more on that story later). Final measurement was from natural waist down to the point I wanted the skirt to finish, for the length of the skirt.

I made a basic paper pattern using these measurements (adding generous seam allowance) and then used this to make a practice skirt out of cheap lining material. Which was very fortunate, as the prototype turned out a little too snug (translation: it wouldn't go over my arse). So I let out all the seams equally (thanks to the generous seam allowance) and had something that basically fitted. I ended up needing to adjust it again over the hips as they then came out too big. But finally I was happy with it.  I then ripped the seams of this skirt and used them as pattern pieces for my real skirt. I found that I didn't need to add any darts.

The front is one piece and the back is in two pieces, as I needed to put a zip in as my fabric wasn't stretchy. I also planned a slit in the back for walkability reasons.

There is an invisible zip in the back of the skirt. I don't have an invisible zip foot for my machine, and although Youtube tutorials told me confidently that I could use a normal zipper foot, it didn't seem to work for me, so I ended up sewing the zip in by hand so that it truly was 'invisible'. I also machine hemmed, which I wouldn't normally do on clothes I make, because I think hand-hemmed looks nicer. But time was getting short and that red fabric frayed like a bastard...

To make the slit at the back I simply stitched around the seam that ran up the centre of the back of the skirt, up to the point I wanted the slit. Then I popped the seam up to that point with my seam ripper and removed any loose threads.

And there we have it, one party skirt, that I can walk in, and dance in.*


*but not as it turned out, go to the loo in, stairs also presented a bit of a challenge

Learning to Let it Go...

Firstly, apologies for the pun in the title, I just couldn't resist it... Even if you haven't spent any time recently  in the company of a girl under the age of eight, the Disney film Frozen has probably entered your conciousness on some level. But more of that later.

I hope you had a peaceful Christmas. Ours was very enjoyable, and although I hadn't made a Pinterest board of all the things I was going to make for Perfect Christmas, a fair amount of handmade festive things happened anyway, now I come to look back on it. I also completely relaxed about the children eating rubbish and watching telly, which has made the holiday particularly peaceful. I've warned them that it's back to gruel and strictly educational programmes for just 15 minutes a day come Monday.

Home-made stuff that I did this year included: Damson Gin (dead easy, just put damsons, gin and sugar into a big jar and leave in a cupboard for months), Christmas cake (easy to make in advance), and Gingerbread Houses (this was a bit faffy, but the children really enjoyed it). I also had a couple of lovely table decorations that were made by a very talented fellow WI member for our Christmas night out in mid-December. As the foliage was fresh it was looking a bit sad by Christmas so I headed out into the garden with a pair of scissors for new supplies. So I kind of made it myself, and will definitely be stealing this idea (and saving the pot & ribbon) for next year.

But of course I'm also desperate to be the kind of mother who just whips up a fancy dress costume with her sewing machine, so I did add a little stress to myself by promising youngest child a Frozen dress for Christmas. I used McCalls Costume pattern M7000, ended up going for the smallest size (3-4 years) as any bigger and it would have swamped my daughter, who has just turned six. Fabric came from trusty Fabricland, a slippery blue/silver slightly stretch jersey type stuff for the main dress and the net curtainy gauzy stuff (shown at the top of the page) with printed snowflakes and glitter for the top layer. There is a bit of lining on the bodice, I just used some grey cotton fabric I had in my stash. I muttered a bit about whether I really needed to do the lining at first, but it really does pull the costume together and make it more comfortable to wear.

Although I started at the beginning of December I was *of course* still sewing on Christmas Eve. All was going well until I buggered up putting in one of the sleeves and had to unpick it and re-do. But instead of stressing like I normally do (well, ok, there was a teeny bit of tension) I made a list of jobs that needed to be done and handed them over to husband. So he made mince pies while I sat and sewed, then the children decorated the cake (with Nana's help) while I sat and sewed. But by about 8pm the dress was done and I could knock back the mulled cider with abandon.

So was it worth it?

Absolutely YES! Smallest child is delighted with her dress and has been wearing it and twirling round the house in it pretty much constantly since. And I learnt a lot whilst making it (not least putting in a zip properly). Settling down on the sofa to finally watch the film on Christmas Day with her is a memory I will definitely treasure.

Party Frocks

Who's Queen?

My mum came to visit in the Easter holidays to look after the children while I went to work (thanks mum!). On my day off we asked my daughter what she would like to do, as her older brother was off at a friends house for the day. 'Go shopping' was her prompt response. Where she's picked up the idea that shopping is a desirable activity I don't know, not from me certainly!

However, I'm always happy to browse in the fabric shop, so after running a few errands, including buying more pegs (where do they all go?!) and visiting the post office, we headed to Fabricland. Having tackled blouses I picked out a dress pattern for me and some blue polka dot material. Needless to say this is still sitting in it's carrier bag, but I'll get there eventually...

My daughter loves to look at all the different fabrics and colours, and confidently announced that "You could make me a dress, couldn't you mummy". So I guided her over to the printed cottons (after explaining that stretchy neon swimsuit fabric wasn't the ideal choice) and let her pick one. We bought a metre for less than a fiver, although in retrospect probably would have been better to get a little more to allow for facings.

When we got home I made up a simple paper pattern for the top half of the dress, using one of her vests as a guide for size. I used some of the butterfly fabric for the facings. The skirt is just a straight piece gathered at the top.

I made it over the course of a weekend, including a bit of hand sewing to finish off buttons and hems in front of the telly in the evenings. There are a few things I'd change about it, for example I'd make the waist a little higher, but in general I'm pleased that I managed to take a flat piece of fabric and make it into something that is definitely a dress.

I am also mega chuffed that daughter has chosen to wear it to a birthday party this afternoon, without any prompting from me.

Do you like the lining?

Blurry back view - model getting wriggly

Hand stitched hem

Made to Measure

It's been nearly six weeks since my last blog post, and it's no co-incidence that I started my new job about six weeks ago. But I've finally managed to produce something worth blogging about - hurrah! I said in my last blog post that I'd been inspired by the Great British Sewing Bee, and something I've wanted to do for ages was make some clothes for me.

So I bought myself a pattern for a tunic blouse (it's Simplicity pattern ref 2365, if you're interested), trotted to Fabricland for some cheap bright cotton fabric, thread and interfacing and then did absolutely nothing with it for about three weeks... I found that by the time I'd done my stint in the office, picked up the children from school/preschool, cooked tea and sent them bedwards I felt a bit brain dead and more inclined to slump in front of the telly than start whipping up a blouse.

Phwoar, look at the sleeves on that!

However, I gradually got up the courage to start reading the instructions on the pattern and start cutting fabric. This seemed to take approximately a week, but eventually I had all the pieces I needed. It took about another week before I started to actually sew one bit to another, and when I started to do that, something really exciting happened...

You see as I followed the instructions to stitch piece X to piece Y, to clip notches, press seams, baste this that or the other, an actual piece of clothing started to emerge! And quite quickly I had a torso of a blouse to show for my exertions. The sleeves were quite anxiety inducing, particularly fitting them to the body of the blouse, but I got there in the end.

Headless model shows off blouse

I probably should have started with something a little simpler for my first project, like a nice A-line skirt, but something bloody-minded in me wanted to make something a bit more challenging, and I'm most proud of the fiddly detail bits like the tucks along the front (I think they're called pin-tucks?) and the tab detail on the sleeves. And although there are some small mistakes in it, it's a style that I would have been happy to spend money on in a clothes shop - some of the clothes patterns in 'simple' sewing books are a bit floaty hippy for my taste. I don't like patchouli either...

Anyhow, I'm pleased with it (you can just see the traces of smugness playing about my mouth in the photo) and it's made me keen to make more clothes. I'd definitely encourage anyone with a sewing machine and a gap in their wardrobe to give it ago. With a little bit of sewing skill and a lot of muttered swearing, who knows what might happen?