Creativity or chaos?

I always enjoy peeping at the Creative Spaces, originally hosted by Kootoyoo. And it got me thinking about my creative space. While I have stuff all over the house, I tend to actually do the creating in a small area - my desk mostly, with a bit of cutting on my dining table (which is next to my desk) and hand sewing on the sofa (or outside if it's a really nice day).

Yesterday I snapped a few pics to illustrate my creative day.

Firstly there was a bit of freezer paper stencil cutting:


Then I had to help Nicholas build a house for his stone collection. The tidy bits are mine, the creative bits are his.

Which led Isabella to create too.

Back to my desk and on to pattern tracing.

After an interruption to dash down to Georgia's school to give her some desperately needed moral support for a vaccination it was back to the desk for cutting. Yes I cut small garments in this tiny space because I am too lazy to clear off the (adjacent) dining table.

And on to painting. (Note the coffee cup in the upper left corner. Same cup of coffee from the previous pic. Which I finished before it got cold. Rare event)

That was all I could do on this garment (for a baby shower on Saturday) until the paint is dry and heat set and I can get white overlocker thread today, so it was on to beading.

After upsetting the bead dish twice I took the hint and put it away and went on to plain stitching.

Looking at all that makes me feel like I was very productive yesterday! In around all that I built more duplo, dropped David at work after lunch so he could drop one car off to be serviced and collected him after work so he could pick it up, did laundry, finished reading the last chapter of "Dead Until Dark" (I really like Charlaine Harris), fed the ravenous hordes (repeatedly), refereed the who-gets-the-tv debate after school, went to the gym (the most peaceful bit of the day) and visited the supermarket.

And while I'm feeling really really smug, here's how David and I celebrated our wedding anniversary on Sunday - the inaugural Stadium to Surf fun run. Supposedly 10km, but the 10k mark on the map looked to be almost 1k from the end!

That's me in the white top right next to the marshal. David is right beside me but you can only see his feet. I should have given Oliver more direction in photo taking! This is just around the corner from our house, about 7km into the run. I wish I'd got Oliver to take a pic of Georgia holding up the "Happy Anniversary Mum and Dad" sign she'd made to wave at us as we ran past our street. It was great!

You know, I think all this post does is prove that I have a very short attention span.

Drafting for the World's Smallest Bum

I think I've mentioned before that Nicholas has the Smallest Bum In The World. It's not just because he was prem - Isabella is considerably more generously proportioned! Nicholas is just little - just like his elder brother (who is now taller than me). Anyway, making him clothes means that I can at least get things that fit him properly. Trousers are ok, but shorts are another matter. His skinny little legs look like matchsticks sticking out of shorts! The weather has been beautiful lately, and he needed longish shorts - he has short shorts, but needed some more substantial ones. So I skimmed in the sides of my size one trouser draft by *quite a lot* shortened it to shorts and added a cargo pocket to the sides.

And here they are - perfectly proportioned shorts for a Very Small Bum.

Isabella could use some too, but for her I have to add a little to the size one draft. If I hadn't been there at the time I wouldn't believe these two had come from the same stomach on the same day!

Inspired by history

I get a bit irritated by the overuse of the term vintage - a three year old dress Is Not Vintage, in my opinion. I do however feel completely justified in my description of my latest creation as "vintage inspired". More accurately, it's a modern interpretation of a historic design.

I own this book ("Costume in Detail, Women's dress from 1730-1930" by Nancy Bradfield) because about 20 years ago a friend found it in a 2nd hand bookshop and thought I'd like it. (This is the same friend who introduced me to the people at the Globe Theatre, where I volunteered for quite a few productions doing wardrobe. I was actually in charge for a few, and got my name mentioned in a review in the paper once! But I digress) Anyway, every now and then I browse through it's pages, and last week I found this page. This simple child's dress just called out to me and I had to make a version of it.

It wasn't too hard to draft but I had to allow for making the neckline much less wide than the original, so in order to preserve the proportions of the back sections I gave the sleeves a centre seam so that they don't have to meet at the shoulder, .

The front is very simple. The fabric is a pretty embroidered cotton voile, which was perfect for the design. Hidden domes again.

Everything interesting happens at the back. I just loved the seaming detail!

Obviously this has to be worn over something, so I think I'll make a basic slip dress to go under it. I wish I had a wedding to take Isabella to!

Don't let the teenager clean the computer

Because now we are looking at having to buy a new computer. He is careful, and has cleaned out the inside of the computer many times before, but this time it died and refuses to go at all. Probably not directly his fault, but still! Since our laptop was away at the time this meant No Computer for two weeks. The two weeks of the school holidays. When it rained. A lot. Oh yes, fun times in our house lately! Anyway, laptop returned, we are at least back in the 21st century.

At least with no internet to waste time on I did do a bit of sewing. This is the latest crop of my own designs.

This is a tunic I drafted and cut out several weeks ago, but felt a bit ambivalent about, so left sitting. I dragged it out when I couldn't be bothered dreaming up a new project and sewed it. And what do you know, I ended up liking it! The back has the same concealed domes I used on the two pink shirts a little while back.

This shirt is the same basic pattern as earlier ones with the front pattern piece slashed on a 45 degree angle to create panels. I made one from a contrasting fabric just to jazz it up even further. After I'd spent a considerable amount of time creating the pattern pieces, cutting out and assembling the shirt I realised that I could acheive a very similar result by simply sewing bias strips to the front to create stripes. Just to really top it off I realised that I'd already had that idea and sketched it weeks ago! I should go over my sketches more often.

This one is from some beautifully soft linen I found while cleaning up. Obviously my reward for procrastinating since I was cleaning up the fabrilanche (the overflowing pile of unsorted fabric next to my desk, christened the fabrilanche by my very amused husband some years ago) instead of some boring housework I'm sure I should have been doing instead.

And finally a tunic from the same linen. It's very wide thanks to the central inverted pleat and even though it's from the 80cm height block, which corresponds roughly to an 18 month size, I wonder if it should have been a size 2. I think it'd be too short on a 2 year old, and on a hot day loose swingy tops are so comfy to play in. The buttons came from a packet I got at Spotlight when I had to go back to get the sewing machine needles I'd bought and found missing from my bag when I got home. My reward for having to go back I think!

So that's what I've been up to. I went and visited my very clever and creative friend J last week to make some care label/swing tags. When I sew for her she sits next to me and says "Uh-huh, yes, right, I thought so" at appropriate moments. When I visited her to do the labels it was my turn. She is a whizz on the computer and a scrapbooker, so she has a very good eye for that sort of thing. Yay for J! So I now have the labels I needed to be able to sell my designs. The girls are coming over tomorrow, so I think I'll pick their brains regarding what they're worth, and then I can take them in and see what happens next. Now I'm nervous again - what if no one likes them? Self confidence has never been my strong suit.

I wish I were three.....

....because then I could wear this. I think I'm a bit old for this style, but I really like how it turned out!

I wonder if I made it with non-puffed sleeves and added a couple of darts to shape the body

if I could wear this style? Or am I about 20 years too old? I made this for a size three because I wasn't sure how it'd look over a real baby belly. Toddler bellies are still very round, but a bit more spread out vertically. I can just see this on my three year old neice! (Apart from the fact that she's in France so a bit far away to model for me)

Done

I finished Isabella's jacket while the twins were napping. I haven't added any detail shots because it's done exactly the same way as the previous one from this pattern.

I have cheated a bit and shot this pic from a low angle because the one I took from directly above shows the yoke seam, collar and hem uneven. They are even, but the bulk of the fabric and the thickness of the button shanks pushes everything a little askew. It was a battle getting the buttons to go through the holes! My buttonhole foot adds a little extra to the length of buttonholes to allow for this, but in this case it wasn't enough. I suspect this will be worn unfastened when she's in the buggy and I can tuck it around her and the harness will hold it closed. I considered taking it to my friend's house to make keyhole buttonholes, but I wouldn't have been able to do that till Sunday and I couldn't wait. (I'm Not Good At Waiting) The buttonholes are red for the same reason.

Mary Nanna and Jen, I confess I do really like sewing for little girls. Boy sewing is good, but not as creatively fun as girl sewing. I do like seeing all my kids wearing clothes I've made them though, so the boys do get Mum-made stuff too. At least boy sewing is mindless - by the time you turn out a few pairs of pants you can do it in your sleep, and it's quicker and easier than driving to town and shopping, with all the hassle that entails with small children! Which reminds me, Nicholas needs new pants.....

One for my own baby!

After all the sewing I've been doing potentially (hopefully) for other peoples' babies, it feels almost strange to be making one of my designs for Isabella! She has a warm furry winter coat, but with a glorious spring upon us she needed something a little less toasty. I have tried my first version of this one on her and it fit her nicely, so here we go. I shortened it to jacket length rather than coat length, but otherwise it's the same as last time, seen here.

(That's her hand in the bottom of the picture. Like Nicholas she likes to know what is going on at all times).

The fabric is a lovely soft cotton denim I was given a few years ago, which is probably rather old. It's thick and has a brushed back so it's very soft. The applique is done in exactly the same way as this one. (Clicking on the pic will make it bigger and clearer). Lining is "dancetime" satin from Spotlight. Left over from something else, so I have so far spent about $6 on this jacket - for buttons and topstitching thread. I still have quite a chunk of the denim left too!

It is getting harder and harder to sew with them around, so the hem and buttons will have to wait till today's naptime.

Finished baby designs

I spent the afternoon yesterday at my friend's house, having a lovely time with her sewing machine. It's WAY up the food chain from my beloved 26 year old mechanical, and does all sorts of decorative stitches. I made a bunch of labels for my designs and did keyhole buttonholes on the jacket and coat below.

So today I got stuck into finishing all the things waiting for yesterday's work to be done, and I now have eight garments ready to take in tomorrow before I take the twins to their paediatric outpatient clinic checkup. (They're being followed because they were prem. No drama, thank goodness!)

This one is the third version of my shirt draft. I like the collar a lot better on this one, one piece, with a cut on facing on the shirt fronts. It's a neater, cleaner look and easier and quicker to do. On the next version I'm going to cover the overlocking at the back neck with a strip of bias. It's not rough to touch but it doesn't look as nice as I'd like.

(Clicking on the pictures will make them bigger and clearer)

This is the first version. (The second is cut and waiting to be sewn. It has a stand and fall collar, and I'm not sure I'm going to like it, so I skipped straight to version 3!) Version one has a collar drafted straight from Aldrich's instructions to look like a stand and fall, but cut in one piece. As I sewed it I kept thinking that I've never liked this type of collar. I finished it, but I still don't like it. It's way harder to make a one piece stand and fall sit nicely than a proper two piece or a single piece like my third version. I'm not using this collar again.

This is the finished jean jacket. I love the red keyhole buttonholes and muted finish on the buttons. The buttonholes did give us some problems, notably on the yoke where there was uneven bulk affecting the feed. My friend had the very clever idea to shim the lower side with folded fabric, which we pinned into place. Going slowly and carefully worked a treat.

This coat also has keyhole buttonholes. I just love how they look! I am coveting a machine which will do them. I wonder if I could track down one of the Singer attachable buttonholers I've been envying on other people's blogs?

Now on to the party dress.

I'm BACK! (sort of)

It finally occurred to me that I could probably put photos straight from my camera to my blog rather than onto the computer first, then blog. The downside to this is editing. I have photos of my Vogue top which are sideways, and consequently not going to make it here till I can turn them around. These ones could use a bit of cropping, but I can live with my wrist pincushion and sewing machine popping into view.

This is the toile of my first attempt at a jacket block using the shirt block draft from Aldrich. I got a bit creative with some of the measurements, and I'm very pleased with how it turned out. This is for a size 80, and fits both Isabella and Nicholas as I want it to. Enough room, but not too much. Unfortunately neither was willing to pose for a photo!


From that I did a jean jacket draft of which I have yet to make my first prototype because (as so often happens) after many hours of work to get to that point I ran out of steam on it! And I got an idea from a really cute girl's jacket I saw on the web somewhere, and just HAD to try it out. Since I already had my blocks it was a very quick process from idea to completed pattern. And then I had to make a toile to see how it looked. So here it is, designated JAR #2 as my second drafted pattern from my own drafted blocks. (Jean jacket is JAR #1)

Unfortunately the photo isn't very sharp. The skirt is applied onto the bodice with three rows of topstitching holding the external box pleats flat. The sleeves have belts threaded through belt loops, and will be held with a button. I may do a buttonhole and make it functional, or just a button for decoration. Or snaps. We'll see!

The fabric was a b**ch to work with! I bought it long ago for goodness knows what reason. It's very thin, probably treated cotton. It has zero give, even on the bias, and Will Not Ease. Setting collar and sleeves was much harder than it should have been. It creases easily, but does not press well. I did say a few bad words over this!

Anyway, I'm very pleased with how the design worked out, and if Isabella needs a dressy coat in a hurry I might finish it for her. Otherwise it's on to version #2. I see this in a soft mushroomy pink cotton twill with pretty buttons and pockets....

New hard drive this week - yippeeeeee!!!!!!!

Finished baby jean jacket

And this is how the collar from my previous post looks attached to the jacket. The light is better on the jacket's left side, but you get the idea - no pointy collar points. The difference in size between under collar and upper collar isn't big - just enough that the upper collar fits over the under collar smoothly.

The topstitching tends to sink into the corduroy's nap and can look distorted in places, but it is actually pretty straight. I'm kind of anal about my topstitching. If I can see slightly wonky topstitching, it comes out. And I LOOK!

No snow today. Just a soggy back yard.

Snow Day!

We woke this morning to this in our back yard. Considering that we live very close to sea level this is impressive! All the kids' schools were closed so they promptly went out to play in the snow with the neighbours. I think they're watching a movie next door at the moment. I love our lovely neighbourhood!

So, since my plans to do a couple of errands in town followed by a visist to my parents came to a screeching halt, I figured I could SEW! I've been working on the jean jacket draft, but I'll leave that for another post, when I've made the next toile. Meantime today I worked on a corduroy jean jacket (from the same pattern as Nicholas' one) for my nephew. I thought I'd show how I do collars to ensure that they sit nicely.

In order to sit well, the upper collar needs to be slightly bigger than the under collar. To achieve this, when pinning the two together I make sure that the edge of the under collar just peeks out. You can see the upper collar is sort of wrinkling because it's a little bigger.

Then after clipping the corners, turning and topstitching, I sew along the neck edge. To ensure room for turn-of-cloth (ie, the upper collar sitting smoothly over the undercollar) I fold the collar to create the room it needs. This edge is then pinned.

When I sew it I fold it as well, which helps keep it even.

The finished collar looks like this. You can just make out that it appears to have a wrinkle along it's length. When sewn to the jacket it will fold over nicely and sit flat against the jacket rather than have points which stick up.

Easy! It's one of those techniques I had to learn the hard way, and it makes a big difference to the appearance of a finished garment.

Toile #1, Sleeve #3.

As expected, the sleeve cap on the first draft was too high and narrow. I decided to alter it, which I did this way: First I cut the sleeve along the vertical grain line, and then horizontally at three points within the sleeve cap. Each time almost to, but not through the edge (which is the stitching line). Then I just pulled it apart and overlapped the bits till it looked like this:

After adding back the length lost by this method, I had version #2 of the sleeve. This pic shows the toile with versions #1 and #2. #2 is a considerable improvement, but still not quite there.

So I repeated the process once more to get version #3, which is almost perfect.

The fabric I used for this toile is very springy, and hard to flatten, hence the wrinkles at centre front. I've tried this toile on both babies at each stage (loads of fun trying toiles on wriggly babies!) and decided that the sleeve is just as I want it.

Next up, turn my blocks into a DESIGN! Now I remember why I don't draft from scratch - it's great fun, but very time consuming. Still, once my block is perfected it's easy to modify into whatever design I choose.

The "Awesome As" sweatshirt

I hope she's always this easy to please! I wasn't sure what Georgia would think of this fabric with skulls all over it, so I was prepared to use it for her brother. Fortunately she is still pretty suggestible, so when I said I thought it'd be a cool sweatshirt she pretty readily agreed. It's very hard to tell from this photo, but the zip has green teeth on one side and red on the other. I bought a big bag of zips from the Tamahine (manufacturer) closing down (sob!) sale last year, and Georgia and I had fun switching some around.

The pattern is from Topkids 45, #22 with cuffs and waistband added to give it a bit more growing room. Georgia is pretty slender, so this skimmed in shape really suits her. The pattern is darted, and called a shirt, but I measured it and decided it'd do fine as a sweatshirt for her. I'm tempted to make it as a T shirt for her though by making a smaller size with the darts, and just adding length to sleeves and possibly the body.

Her verdict? Awesome As!

Here's Isabella in the tunic I made her last week. It's Ottobre 06/08, #6 in size 74. It fits her perfectly, and I really love it. I didn't have quite enough fabric to cut the sleeves long enough for the elastic casing (believe me, I tried!) so I cut them with no seam allowance, gathered the ends and bound them. Same look, little more effort.

Mean picture, but the best way to get a photo of her standing up facing the camera!

Reversible baby jacket.

Here is the best of four attempts to photograph Isabella in her new jacket. It's Ottobre 06/08, #4, in a size 74. The only alterations I made to this one were to make it reversible, and use domes instead of the very cute ribbon tie from the pattern.

Here's the teal/green side:

And here's the brown side:

This way it's warmer, goes with more outfits, and if she spills on one side, I can turn it inside out if she needs to look tidy!

Seeing it flat the fact that the hearts aren't straight looks odd. That's the way the fabric was printed, and I wondered if I should cut off grain to have them straight. I chose not too, because off grain by that much would not look good.

The domes are silver, and I used a scrap of each reverse side fabric to reinforce them and play them up a bit.

This was a great, quick easy project. The flower applique is simple, and making it reversible is not hard either. However, I am thinking of renaming my blog AMEW, because not a single project at the moment avoids the syndrome! This time I twisted one of the sleeves as I was sewing it in, and didn't notice till I'd finished topstitching the edge. A few choice words later, I unpicked the offending sleeve edge, untwisted it, ladder stitched it back together, and re-topstitched it. (For anyone new to this syndrome, AMEW is where I shouldn't be allowed to tackle anything requiring Any Mental Effort Whatsoever, due to lack of sleep causing my brain to refuse to function!) Oh well, it's always entertaining seeing how many new ways I can screw up a basic project! As long as it's not while cutting, everything is fixable.

Every baby needs disco jeans.

I had some nice shiny pink stretch woven left over from goodness-knows-what and figured it'd look cute as jeans for Isabella. I didn't have anything in a suitable pink for the waistband, so chose this rather bright lime green, which looks really funky with it. I love these jeans, but when I put them on her I thought that she looks ready for a disco! Every baby needs to be ready to party at any moment. Favourite altered Ottobre pattern again.

And here's the butt shot she'll hate me for when she's a teenager. It's a bit hard to see the green waistband thanks to the light, but hopefully you get the idea.

And just for a change of pace, I made this library bag for my niece. She's a big fan of Wibbly Pig, so I got one of the books out of the library for this very appropriate picture and appliqued it onto good sturdy canvas. I used fusible pellon as well, so the applique is slightly puffy. It's lined with sturdy tartan cotton, and I added a library card pocket to the lining as well. I just need to give the bag a final press before I give it to her.


I first thought of it to make for her second birthday. Well, she turned three in January. Oops. Fortunately her mother is my sister, who while overseas endeared herself to my eldest son (only child of the next generation in our family at the time) by sending very cool presents at random times of the year rather than specifically for his birthday. (She sent him Tinky Winky, who was his favourite Teletubby, before the toys hit our shores, and he nearly got mugged when he took it to pre-school!)

The Frankenjammies

Nicholas is the wriggliest baby on the planet. (I may have mentioned this before!) Getting him into his jammies at night is a mission. One piece rompers with feet are nice and warm, but getting him to sit still while I do up all the domes is near impossible. So the other night, after yet another mammoth wrestling match, I got fed up and decided to do something about it. For the seven millionth time I thought how glad I am that I can sew!

I wanted a one piece romper, with feet, and NO DOMES. I achieved that with a franken-morph of three patterns, one of which is my own adaptation of an Ottobre pattern to get the cross-over neck. The other two are Ottobre 04/08, #4, and KS 2344. I also used a zipped butt opening - easier than domes by FAR on Nicholas. I spent ages doing the pattern work yesterday afternoon to get a size 74, only to realise when done that it'd be too big, and had to do it again to get a 68. At least I'll have the 74 when he grows into it! The fabric is cotton velour left over from something I made myself a few years ago. Nice and soft and warm.


Today while they were napping I started sewing it up, and it didn't take a lot longer after they'd woken and had lunch. I'm delighted with it at this point, and can't wait to see how it goes when I put it on him tonight!
And here's the back. Very simple.


And this is the girly version of that grey fabric for Isabella. The zip and trim aren't quite the same colour, but look good together. The pattern is Ottobre 01/06, #2, with the same modifications as the last one. Her corduroy jeans are the same pattern as the last pair I made her. Thanks to C from next door for helping her stand!

More off the "To Do" pile.

These jeans had been sitting on the to do pile for an embarrassingly long time. All they needed was the dome, which I did yesterday. Oliver is pretty pleased with them, and so am I. This is the same pattern as these trousers, which I never liked much. I knew that in the right fabric they'd look great, and this good quality denim is the right fabric for sure! They look great. I've only posted this shot of the back because the light was so dim when I took photos before school this morning that it's hard to make out the details on the front. Assuming he hasn't trashed them at school today I'll get a pic in better light.

I also sewed up these corduroy jeans for Nicholas. I was curious to know just how long they take to sew, so I did them in one of the twins' nap times and timed the sewing accurately. It took almost exactly two hours from start to finish for all the sewing. (They were alrady cut out). Not bad considering the extra time needed for topstitching, not to mention swapping thread to do so! I have my construction order down pat to minimise the number of times I have to switch thread or swap between sewing machine and overlocker. I didn't really rush on these, so I could get the sewing time down a bit further. Maybe I should challenge myself to do that - just how fast can I turn out a pair of baby jeans?

And here's the back. I am so in love with these jeans.

Corduroy jean jacket for Nicholas

I actually made this jacket a couple (or four) weeks ago, and it sat on my desk waiting for the domes. I couldn't put them in because my dome setting thing-y was at my parent's place, having been used to attach domes to the boat cover I'm making for Dad's boat. I FINALLY remembered to get it when we went there for lunch last week. (Along with my sister. Between us we had six kids with us - kind of like how it was growing up, only this time my parents got to send all the kids home!)

Anyway, being the procrastinator that I am, I only got around to setting the domes today while the twins were napping. I don't think they'd have liked the hammering.

The jacket fabric is a nice thick textured corduroy with a heavy cotton lining. It'll be warm enough for most of our outings, since I wrap snug blankets over the twins in their buggy when it's really cold. The pattern is from the Burda Baby Boutique magazine from autumn/winter 1992. (Given that I had my first child in 1993 I think I must have got it either when I was first pregnant or as an old issue from somewhere!) I'm not sure exactly when this magazine stopped being published, but I think it was mid nineties.) It's design #320, and came in sizes 68-80-92. This one is a size 68 (Nicholas isn't very big). Over the years I've also graded it to a 62 and a 104, and it's been much commented upon when my boys have worn them. So, like my old Topkids magazines, I will likewise never get rid of my old Burda Baby Boutique magazines.

It's great to reduce the "to do" pile. So of course I immediately added another item to it - I cut a jersey for Isabella from the same fabric as Nicholas' one from yesterday. It's a totally different style, but I'm still mulling over how to girlify it and really distinguish it from his. I don't like them to look like they match. And there are two pairs of corduroy jeans on the pile too. Isabella's need one more line of topstitching around the hems and waist. (I ran out, but wanted to get one line of each done to see how it'd look.) Nicholas' are cut out, but I need to buy topstitching thread before I can start. I'm off to the Multiple Birth Club play group tomorrow, so I can whip into Anne's before I go. (HA! - who am I kidding - nobody with small twins just "whips into" anywhere!)