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.

My Creative Space - Why buy what you can make better?

I thought I'd join in on My Creative Space over at Kootoyoo today, because it's so much fun peeking into other creative spaces!

My creative space has been busy for the last few days, working on a few different projects, depending on whether or not the twins are around. Lately I've been trying to get sewing done while they're not napping, so they get used to it going on in the background and don't feel the need to investigate what I'm doing in up-close detail! Um, yeah, this might take a while.

So anyway, project #1 was a singlet (vest, undershirt, onesie) for Isabella, who is about to outgrow the ones she's wearing now. I bought a couple on sale in Farmers and wasn't happy with either of them really. I didn't like one because I don't personally like the envelope neck style - great principle, but they never seem to sit well because the wrap over bit isn't big enough so they take fiddling . I'm NOT a fan of fussing with clothing on wriggly toddlers! The other was annoying because it's a wrap over style (so far so good) but it has too many domes. (See previous comment about fussing and wriggly children). So with two not-very-satisfactory singlets I wondered why I didn't just MAKE her some - I'd adapted an Ottobre pattern for Nicholas some time ago and it works really well, so I just needed to do the same thing for her size and get to it. (For the record it's Ottobre 01/06, #4)

First I needed a complete pattern for the front. Trace one, flip the paper and trace again...
At this point Nicholas got interested. This will become relevant later.

I drew my new style lines on the complete pattern. The outer neckline is there so I can measure it to see how long to cut my neckband. The inner neckline is the new seamline. The two horizontal lines are where to cut the under layer and it's hem fold line.

To make the singlet I cut one complete front and one (mirrored obviously) half front. I find the cross over style is easy to pull on over their heads and then sits nicely. And I only have to do up two domes at the crotch. Easy! Easy is good.

Then Nicholas did this....

Yup - tore it! By very lucky chance he only ripped the bit I was discarding anyway, but still! At this point I gave up till nap time.

With the tiny destructo-bots safely tucked up for a snooze, I went on to the Not-With-Them-Around project - freezer paper stenciling for a bubble dress. I wanted to use a darker, more wintery coloured fabric, but it still needed to have a bit of a pop to stop it looking too drab.

I didn't want to waste effort stenciling on the turned in lower edge of the bubble, so to establish where that lower edge would be I placed the lining pattern on the dress section and chalked on a line half way between the two to use as a rough guide.

Then I cut a bunch of leaves from freezer paper with a craft punch - how quick and easy is that compared to laboriously cutting each stencil with a knife?! Iron them on in what I thought was a pleasing pattern...

Have at it with textile paint, and there you have it. A front and two backs lying on the floor to dry. Slight panic while I figure out where I'm going to put them when the twins wake up...

When the paint was dry and I'd peeled off the freezer paper and heat set the paint, it looked like this.

Much prettier than plain navy I think. I have a couple of plaids destined for the same treatment once I get the right paint colours....

Meanwhile, while the paint was drying, I got to sewing Isabella's singlet. It took next to no time to sew, and cost pretty much nothing. Pattern from a magazine I admittedly bought, but already owned, so that's free right? Fabric courtesy of Keely destashing while I was pregnant - free. Domes - 2 sets of the 2000 sets I bought for $4.00. That's 0.2c each - not 2c each, 0.2c each! Thread - hard to assess how much overlocker thread I used, and the sewing was done with whatever was lying around, so next to nothing. End result is a style I really like, and all it really cost me was a small amount of time. So why did I buy two I didn't even like?

Edited to add - oops, domes are snaps. I forget that not everyone speaks New Zealand!

I hate dial up

Once again the teenager (with probably some help from the rest of us) has exceeded our monthly broadband allowance, dropping us to dial up speed for a few days. How did we ever survive on dial up speed all the time?!

Anyway, that combined with not managing to get a pic of Georgia in her new skinny jeans meant I've been putting off posting. Oh, and the tummy bug working it's way through our family making various members throw up or have diarrhoea. Or both. With five kids it can take a while to work it's way out of the house, making me very grateful for the nice weather making washing easy to dry.

Today I figured I'd grit my teeth and brave slow internet to post.

First up is this skirt which I made for Georgia when she had her 10th birthday recently. Her grandmother took her to the Royal New Zealand Ballet performing Peter Pan, which she loved. About five minutes after Mum called to ask me if she'd like to go I realised that Georgia's wardrobe is very appropriate for climbing trees and rollerblading, but she had nothing suitable to wear to the ballet. So I made her this skirt. It's #16 from Ottobre 06/08. It only goes up to a size 128, but since Georgia is pretty slender I just added a little more to the length and it was perfect. Fabric from stash + pattern from a magazine I already owned = free skirt.

While I was getting the fabric for the skirt I found a piece of red stretch suiting perfect for skinny jeans for her (her favourite colour) and she found a left over piece of red and white knit perfect for a T shirt. She figured that since she was turning double digits, that meant double new outfits! Since I had time, I was happy to oblige so that she could have the jeans and t for her gingerbread man decorating morning tea with the neighbours (instant party) and a good outfit for the ballet in the afternoon. Left over fabrics + patterns I already owned = also free outfit! I also made her a tankini because I got the fabric very cheap at Spotlight. I don't like making swimwear, but I do like getting her a pair for less than $10. I did swear quite a lot (as Keely will attest, since I was on the phone to her at the time) at various times as my thread kept breaking and the hem just didn't want to get sewn. However, I realise that Georgia will neither notice nor care, so I just left the stops and starts where they occurred.

She still needs clothes for the summer, so I guess I'm not done with her yet. She is also very keen to have proper sewing lessons, like I give to my student. (She comes to my house for an hour every Saturday and we work through her project.) I figure I'll just do the same for Georgia. If she stays keen and gets good I could make her make her own togs!

I've also made a prototype of my own design for Isabella. Very much inspired by some beautiful tops I've seen on the net, starting with this one from the very lovely MADE blog. It and various other tutorials I've read include instructions that say things like: "I don't use patterns, just lay down a shirt that fits your child well and draw around it, leaving seam allowances". I am in awe of anyone who can work this way! I'm very much a pattern user. I play fast and loose with them and alter them and generally make them unrecognizable, but I Don't Cut Patternless. I like the precision of a pattern which I have calculated will produce the design in my head, and I have just enough scientific geekiness to like the concept of repeatability - if it works I can make it again, exactly as I did before. Having said that, I know the principles of draping, and have done it. (One side-ruched wedding dress for a friend of my sister comes to mind. Must find a photo of that)

Getting back to the point, I was tickled pink when Jess used my comment on Samster Mommy's pant refashion tute regarding my method for drawstrings. So I thought I'd take a couple of pics of how it works.

I like the idea of a ribbon tie on Isabella's top, but I wanted elastic in it so I could pull it on and off without undoing it. So I cut a piece of elastic roughly half the size of the finished neck measurement and sewed ribbon to the ends of it, like this:

When that's threaded through the neckline casing I stitch through all layers at centre front to hold it in place. That way the ends are always even and the drawstring never falls out. If the stitching is obvious you can sew a button or flower or anything you fancy over it, but when the neckline gathers up I couldn't even see it, so I didn't bother. Yet.

Have I ever mentioned how hard it is to get a modelled shot of anything on either of the twins? Yes? Well every time I try I'm reminded of that! I ended up getting her big brother to hold her while I snapped.

I'm very pleased with the basic workings of this top, but I think the armhole ends up too low. I used the raglan draft from my Aldrich book, and I think for this design the proportions are a bit off. No fault with her draft, just my use of it. I'll rework it so the armhole is higher, then slash and spread to add the gathering. The joy of patternmaking - I know exactly what I did last time, so I can use that as a starting point for the next one. This one was always intended to be a prototype for my own design, but wearable for Isabella because I hate making prototypes - really feels like a waste of my sewing time to produce something that won't get worn.

Repeatability folks, gotta love it. (Well, I'm pretty anal, so I love it!)

The Coat. Finished.

Woohoo! At long last, here it is. Unfortunately this is the best shot I have of it on me. My husband quickly snapped it when he came home for lunch and I didn't check it till he'd left, then found it a bit out of focus. Maybe he just shot me soft-focus to be kind? (Bad hair day and squinty eyes. Not my best look!)

Here is an only-slightly-better photo of it on my dummy. The buttons are actually ones I rescued from a jacket I bought in 1987 and loved to death. When it wore out I kept the buttons, which I'd forgotten about till I came across them by chance looking for something else after failing to find any I liked for this coat in town!

I nearly went spare over the buttonholes on this. I had to pick out one of them FOUR TIMES because it was too close to the body of the coat and the buttonhole foot sat over it. I tried shimming the other end of the foot, and after four attempts and much swearing, decided to move the buttonhole so that I wasn't so near the body of the coat. This ended up being about 5mm. yep, I spent an hour of frustration swearing over 5mm! Since the buttons are unevenly distributed anyway, it's not even slightly noticable. I had to move the button to match, but that was no drama.

I like the way I can button the collar right up around my neck. I love my almost-ankle length wool-cashmere coat which is very warm, but not around my neck. I hate having a cold neck. A scarf is easily added, but a coat which buttons up high is just cosy. Having said that, this coat is not for the coldest winter days. Mary Nanna, coming from Dunedin you'll remember just how cold it can get with the southerlies whipping in straight from Antarctica. This is my Sunny-Winter-Day coat. The wool-cashmere is for the really cold days!

I'm very pleased with how it turned out, but I do wish I'd thought about pocket placement before I made them. They'd be so much better lower down. So far I haven't added any extra buttons (I do have some). I think I'll wear this at least once and see if it flaps open too badly before I decide.

Conclusion: I have proven to myself that, AMEW notwithstanding, I am capable of not only making, but also altering, an Issey Miyake pattern. Despite not having had a proper night's sleep in over a year. Life is good. :-)

While I was on a roll (and waiting for new camera batteries because the old ones died right after I took the dummy shot of the coat yesterday) I made this new Ottobre nursing top. I'm considerably bustier than my dummy at the moment, so I fill it out better!

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.

Appliqued baby jersery

As much as I'm enjoying making the coat, I felt the need for a bit of instant gratification. Nicholas needed a new jersey (in New Zealand a "jersey" is a sweater) because - well, because I wanted to make him one. I used my favourite modified Ottobre pattern, and decided to add a bit of interest to the front. The applique design is from Ottobre 06/07. I just thought it was cute.

I did the applique very simply. First I basted a scrap piece of cotton velour onto the front of the jersey.

Then I traced the design onto a piece of Glad Press'n'seal and pressed it over the velour. It works as a stabiliser as well as marking the design. It holds in place without any shifting, and can be removed easily without leaving any residue.

Then I satin stitched over the outline.

Then I pulled out the press'n'seal and very carefully cut away the excess velour. I wanted the slightly fuzzy outline, so this method suited. For a clean satin stitched edge I'd have done a wider zigzag, pulled out the plastic and cut off the excess, then done a closer spaced zig zag.

It didn't take long to do the applique, and constructing the jersey itself took less than an hour. (My coffee didn't even get cold.) Not bad for instant gratification. I have more of the fabric, so I'll have to think of something girly to make for Isabella.

Jeans for the girls

After my issues with sewing things requiring Any Mental Effort Whatsoever, I figured jeans are definitely safe - if I had a dollar for every pair of kids jeans I've sewn I'd be able to afford a night nurse for the twins for a start! Anyway, here's another pair of Ottobre 06/07, #32 for Georgia. They don't go with her T shirt AT ALL, but I wanted a photo of Isabella in her new jeans and Georgia wanted in on the action. These ones are made from a lovely soft baby cord which I've had long enough that had I not made this size for Georgia, I couldn't have made a bigger one.

This pair is based on Ottobre 04/08, #2. I "jeans-ified" them in exactly the same way as I did Nicholas' recently. The fabric for these was a remnant of denim inherited from Keely a few years ago. Again, if I hadn't made this size I wouldn't have got a bigger size out of the piece I had.

And the back view. I think the rear pockets are too small. For her next pair I'll make them just a smidge bigger. The proportions look a little off to me.

And here are the girls wearing their jeans. Isabella's fit her fine, but with non-stretch denim she could perhaps do with more butt-room. (She wears cloth nappies). Next time I'll add a little width and height to the bum if I use non-stretch fabric.

Babies are hard to photograph!

I tried really hard to photograph Nicholas in the latest version of his modified Ottobre jeans. (I see on their blog that the next magazine has jeans in it - can't wait!). The boy just won't stay still! So this is the best I could do. At least it's a good picture of how the back looks. They're made from babycord, topstitched in navy. Since he's a crawler, these are mostly going to be "out in the buggy" pants. To be worn when I want him to look presentable.

Isabella is easier to photograph but she's now a crawler too, so this isn't the best shot of her new pants. They're from Ottobre 04/08, #2. I traced this one from Keely and only traced a size 62. Naturally I didn't get to it as soon as I meant to, and had to make them longer. I did that by drawing a line perpendicular to the grainline at the narrowest point of the leg (they're flared pants) and adding 2cm extra length at that point. It's enough, but I added 5cm for another pair to give more growing room. They fit beautifully, so I think I'll make her a bunch more - even with the trim at the hem they're incredibly quick to make, and look very cute on their own or with a dress.