Author Archives: atelieroursonne

Scrap Sunday: Small Toys for Small Hands

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There have been quite a few self centred posts and makes recently but in between hours of searching the right dress pattern and fabrics and hysterical messages to friends and shop owners about the Eden collection by Hamburger Liebe I have actually made some small gifts for cute little babies, too. Ok, that sounded very nice and caring but actually it is just as selfish as the me makes if not worse as I am exploring ways of finally turning the expensive hobby into a multinational moneymaking business in combination with fame and glory (I am talking of magazine covers and biopics)  🙂

You might remember the tag blanket I made a while ago. It is a big hit with the baby and in my role as mother I love it too because it fits into my handbag and is made of cotton (well, apart from some of the trims) unlike most other soft toys. And whoever made it had such a good taste in fabrics and colour combination 😉

So I have experimented with different shapes and I invested in rattle and squeaky noise devices and crackling foil.

So far, I have only filled them with one or two layers of an old towel, so they are all flat and I am not sure if I like a flat heart. I think in some cases a normal soft toy filling would make more sense.

This is what I have got so far:

a flat heart (about 13cm wide) with a rattle thingy and one layer of toweling in the middle

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a heart with a double layer plus a rattle thingy – still rather flat but also annoyingly stiff

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a star (about 15cm wide) with trims on the sides rather than the edges as I figured that those edges would be delicious to be chewed on so I wanted to keep them free. The strawberry tag has crackling foil in it and in the centre of the star is a rattle thingy.

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a triangle (about 20cm on the long side) with crackling strawberry tag and squeaky thing in one of the corners.

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a tag blanket  (15x20cm) with two crackling tags

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and last but not least a tag blanket with an applique on one side and two crackling tags

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What do you think? Would you buy such things or want your babies to play with them? Do you think the sizes are good or would you have preferred bigger ones? How much would you spend on them? Which one is your favourite? Should I already go to the hairdresser in anticipation of the front cover photo shoot? You see, I am doing proper market research here. Next step would be CE certification research and I wonder if it is worth the time and possibly money so I am looking forward to hearing your comments and constructive criticism.  At least they have been a good and fun way to use up some pieces of my oRight, after all that hard work I am going back to looking at the Eden collection 🙂

 

Spring brings new life…. into my wardrobe

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A week has passed since the last Me Made May post and lets see where we are pledgewise…

Wardrobe is still unsorted, but I still have 2 weeks to do that.

I have been wearing me made things 4 times already, but only two different items.

One of them is a new make, so lets have a look:

As you might remember I bought a couple of schnittreif patterns, started with a Frau Emma size L which turned out too big so I made the batwing shirt Usedom, my preferred pattern anyway in size M. Which was a good decision.

I had bought quite a lot of cheap viscose jersey for my breastfeeding top project and intended to use a bit of the teal one as I thought that might look classy.

But then I realised that the left overs of the plum-magenta (not sure how you would call this colour), bought at least two years ago, might just be enough. I would need some stretch jersey for neck, hemline and cuffs though and found a bit of orange and a bit of teal. What a coincidence. If not a sign. Could we say that this is my all time favourite colour combination?

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I had even considered it for the fashion course dress which in the end I kept simple 😉 with teal-orange and shiny anthracite for a more glamorous evening look. I wanted a good mark and I am happy with the final dress but just imagine those trims would have been in bright magenta!

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But back to the actual topic of this post. The signs or the destiny of my fabric boxes. I swear there was only this one small piece of teal stretch jersey left to make those two cuffs and a slightly bigger and especially longer piece of orange to cut two stripes for neck and hem. If that is not a sign than I don’t know. Plus I would not have had enough of the magenta jersey to make the whole thing (nor would it have been stretchy enough)

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After all that excitement I am slightlly disappointed colourwise. It is not horrible but it doesn’t really work. I am not sure why. Is it unbalanced? The orange is much lighter than the teal and the magenta. So it should be the one in the middle. It’s actually the cuffs that I don’t like. So maybe they just shouldn’t be in a different colour? I am kind of considering to chop them off. And put orange ones instead. It would at least be more balanced. But maybe too pyjama-y. And I could use the teal ones to make an all teal Usedom. I think that could work well.

All this talking about the colour combination sounds a bit out of proportion negative, I do still like that particular combination. But lets have a look at the shape and fit. I really like it. It is loose without being unflattering. And it is totally different from the rest of my wardrobe. Plus, even if it is not a breastfeeding top, it is still bf friendly. IMG_4875 IMG_4874 IMG_4873

So there will be defintily more Usedoms joining the family, maybe even cuffless ones. I think that might be nice and airy for summer.

Enough talking, time to sleep and only ten minutes left for the RUMS deadline, so I better hurry and link it there. And then I can see what others have made for themselves.

 

 

Scrap Sunday: Super cool sun hat and freestyling

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I thought, I’ll skip today’s scrap post as I was busy learning a new technique involving scraps but let’s just have a quick look at today’s super efficient morning. (It helps when you get woken up at 5.30)

After realising that all existing sun hats are about three sizes too big for the baby, I quickly started to make a new one yesterday and finished it this morning to make sure he has something to wear on his first day at the zoo.

I used schnabelina‘s pattern and one of the advent calendar fabrics plus a few other scraps and voila:

IMG_4879 IMG_4881 IMG_4880Super cool and super cute! Maybe the self made ribbons are a bit bulky. The main part of the hat is lined, the back thingy (shall we call it neck protector?) is only one layer, otherwise it would be another fully reversible project. I wonder if a lined hat will get too hot but one thin fabric might not give enough sun protection. In any case it looks super cool. And super cute. I didn’t have time to take more or better pictures because I didn’t want to be late for my class. Yes, I spent sunday morning (and such a sunny one) in a class. I did a three hours workshop about Freestyle Machine Embroidery at Tilly and the Buttons in south east London.

20160508_111311view from Tilly’s workshop

Our teacher Sophia, owner of Jessalli came all the way from Dorset to teach us a very creative way to take those appliques a step further.

20160508_101403serious paperwork

20160508_115314first steps

20160508_115230mid work

20160508_123117final result (not my own design by the way)

It has been a fun morning, and so suitable for Scrap Sunday. What better reason to keep the tiniest pieces of scrap fabric! I will definitely use this technique more often in the future, I think children’s drawings would be the perfect templates. I am just not sure what to decorate with. It is a bit delicate and shouldn’t exactly be washed at high temperature on a daily basis. Which is a no for children’s clothes. At least for the children I know. So it is more about personalised gifts I guess. We will see. Anyway, time to sleep. Good night.

 

 

 

 

More Oh dear, oh dear

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I have looked into ticket prices to move to the north pole for the rest of the Me Made May challenge and decided it might be cheaper (and healthier for the baby) if I stayed here and actually made a few items to wear for the rest of the challenge.

I think I mentioned a while ago that I am experimenting on the perfect breastfeeding top. I am thinking of a loose double layer top where the bottom one has two slashes for easy access. This is still in progress, I struggled with neatening the edges of the slashes properly and threw it in a corner. In the meantime I decided to order a schnittreif pattern that I had seen on a blog somewhere. When browsing their shop, I bought other patterns too. Some of them are extremely unsuitable for breastfeeding but I guess I will stop at some point.

Anyway, I decided to make first a Frau Emma to see how it goes before I will make the much cooler Usedom. I think, whilst those two might not be the perfect breastfeeding tops, they are at least breastfeeding friendly as they are loose and can just be pulled up. Which is why I made my trial Emma even with a loose hem rather than a ribbing. I started with it last weekend. First, I took my measurements to see which size I’ll need. Let me just say that my measurements have changed slightly over the years, pregnancies and children….

The good news is that all of a sudden, my chest measurements are about the same as my hips. That sounds a lot like an hourglass figure. Which is the ideal female bodyshape in my opinion. So, I am two thirds there. Hurray! Lets have a look at my waist then just to confirm! Oh, the same number! Is the measuring tape broken? No? Hmm. So, what does that make me? A stick? (sounds slightly more flattering than barrel or drum).

Anyway, I made a Frau Emma, size L, using a cheap viscose jersey from Shepherds Bush. It is just a trial but if if works well, it will actually be a nice top.

Hmm.

IMG_4828It is not flattering, that’s for sure. I think I should have made it a size smaller. But the hem is not cool. Easy to pull up the shirt but not cool.

IMG_4835I used contrasting pink for the sleeves and for the hem line seam. The orange of the 80’s skirt looks much cooler. Great, now my 6 years old is cooler than me.

I am also not sure of the neckline.

IMG_4837Actually, I am sure about it. I am sure I don’t like it. It is not the patterns fault. It is me. Maybe I liked it better when made with an even thinner material, possibly woven fabric. The ruffle is too bulky for my liking. But lets move on.

I am usually quite a fan of those loose tops with a stretchy and tight hem. Which seems to be called “bubble hem”. Right. So I quite like bubble hem tops. Except that they are always a bit short and keep coming up. Which is bad in combination with those low waist trousers. I don’t like them. They expose my kidneys to cold draft. I am an old, uncool woman. I don’t like that. I want warm and cosy kidneys. (I have recently invested in two Japanese belly warmers. They are nice. But I would just prefer long enough shirts and high enough waistlines. )

Anyway, I thought, I might give it a go and just cut a hole into the existing hemline to insert an elastic.

IMG_4845Not too bad from the front.

IMG_4844But still too much material at the back. Which I take as a definite sign for a size too big.

As I was experimenting and the shirt was now in a rather unexciting state, I wanted to take it a step further and replaced the existing hemline with a wide-ish stretch jersey to make it more jumperlike. This would have been one of the initial options of the pattern anyway. Except that there would have been a cutting line about 6cm higher than my hemline. I decided to just cut off those two cm where I had stitched the hem to make it longer.

I measured the needed width by putting it actually around my hips. I needed to really stretch it when I stitched it to the grey fabric.

IMG_4865Which doesn’t look great as you can see.  Another sign that large was actually  a size too big for me. Thankfully.

Normally I wouldn’t wear it like this. It is not meant to look like a mini dress. So:IMG_4851 IMG_4853The back still looks wrong. And actually it is too long now. Ha, who would have thought. I’ll leave it as it is for now. But it will probably still only be something I want to wear at home or to exercise.

If I used the pattern again, then definitely size M and with a waistband. But to be honest, I am not sure if the ruffled neckline and I will ever be friends.

Next step will rather be the Usedom. And I guess I will go for size M this time.

For now, I will just quickly put this online. Wow, two posts in one day.

But there is not only Me Made May – in the German blogging world there is RUMS on Thursday, where female bloggers show off what they made for themselves. So I guess, I should always do my MMM posts on a Thursday and link it with RUMS to then see what others have made. Off we go.