Category Archives: children

Scrap Sunday: authentic knight costume

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I guess, I will most likely loose one of my dear readers when I post pictures of this extremely well researched and authentic knight costume. He is not only a historian but also a Lord of the Rings fanatic expert. In my defense…. well, there is no defense, so lets just get it over with. Just a few words before we have a look at the pictures.

So, as you might remember, the little Mr No Thank You has since a long time requested a knight costume made from the beautiful light grey fabric with white dots he had once chosen in the shop for this purpose. So I thought his 4th birthday might be a good occasion to finally follow up on my promise. In addition he also got a very elaborate wooden shield, made and painted by daddy and big sister. That shield is actually really cool and makes my costume look even more ridiculous. (During the birthday party two mothers were admiring the “helmet” and thought the fabrics would make a great skirt!)

But, should I tell you a secret? And please never ever tell the brave and fierce knight. But thanks to my pregnancy hormones I find my little knight extremely cute in his costume. I guess, not quite the look I should have been aiming for 🙂

01 Ritter vorn 02 Ritter hinten

So, lets have a look at each item:

the trousers:

04 HoseI have used the requested fabric for these and made them from the bottom part of a dungaree pattern from farbenmix and just added a few centimetres on top to make a casing for an elastic band.
I have used this pattern a few times, sadly I do not have pictures of the first version, they were quite 70s.

the tunic with the emblem style pattern – no idea to call this

05 Ritter Oberteil

I thought the red and white stripy fabric would be very suitable and somehow I was convinced the blue dots would go well with it. At least this way the costume doubles up as a clown’s costume. How very efficient. 🙂

They are both left over fabrics from a play pen cover I had made a few years ago. (so this is the Scrap part of this post, just to justify why I am using a Scrap Sunday post for this project)

The blue lines are made from shop bought bias binding. My initial idea was to use a black one but I wanted to match the shield which has blue lines.

I made this without pattern, just using rough measurements and I made a split neckline for easy access. And for easy sewing I left the split without the bias binding.

06 Ausschnitt

the helmet thingy:

03 Helm

I have used a hood pattern from the usual pattydoo shirt and just added a circle at the bottom: I measured the length of the bottom line and took this as the circumference of the inner circle and added a good 15cm for the outer circle (which is too much for a little knight – it does look perfect on my shoulders though).

I enhanced the hood part with a rather strong interfacing. If I had to make this helmet again, I would probably alter the pattern a bit and make it a bit less pointy at the interfacing makes it stick out a bit.

I lined the whole thing with a nice grey fabric, I once found in a remnant box in a shop in Shepherds Bush.

As mentioned before this combination would apparently be lovely for a skirt. At least according to some mothers at the birthday party. Which was about the first time I doubted the fierceness of the costume 🙂

I promise I will do my very best to stop seeing him as mummy’s little boy and start making him less babyish costumes. After all, he just turned 4  🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Scrap Sunday: The legging project

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I have this lovely, pretty and witty friend whose son decided a couple of months ago that he is not wearing trousers anymore. Ever. Under no circumstances. He wants to wear leggings just like his big sister. As these feelings seemed to be very strong, I my lovely friend went and bought leggings, sets of two to make sure that she wouldn’t get into trouble with the big one if the small one had suddenly nicer ones. As it turns out, pink or grey leggings are ok, black leggings aren’t, leggings with butterflies are ok, leggings with teeny tiny pleats at the hem aren’t. It is all rather complicated.

Suddenly it seemed like a good idea to give this pattydoo leggings pattern a go. Up until then I found it slightly pointless to make leggings myself. I did consider to make some out of a thicker material like sweat for the colder season as I know another person who things that trousers are not an option for girls whereas I think that at some point it gets too cold for leggings only. Even in England. I did adapt a fair bit to the English way of not dressing properly when it gets wet and cold but not all the way! If you put your feet under my table, you will wear trousers AND tights when you go outside in winter. And boots. And a hat… But ok, I live here since 8ish years, so I don’t have strong feelings about scarfs or gloves. But definitely trousers! Even if you are a girl! Ok, I am getting side-tracked. So back to leggings.

I still had a rather big piece of the dragon and knight fabric from the lovely shirt I made for the little boy and thought it would look rather interesting as leggings. Certainly something you don’t see very often. I was only a bit worried he might combine the two, which I think, would look a bit silly.

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Rather cool, isn’t it.

Now, how about a picture of the boy wearing these? When wearing leggings he generally looks a bit like a 70s rock star. (I quote a friend here, sadly I did not come up with it myself, but it is true).

Well, as it turns out, there is no need for me to worry that he might go for the silly combination of dragon shirt and dragon leggings as obviously he doesn’t wear them at all. So no picture of them in action, sorry.

I also made a pair for my daughter. And they look rather cool too. At least that is what I think.

IMG_3602IMG_3603You might find them not tight enough for leggings. Well that was done on purpose. She is very skinny so I would have had to adapt the pattern but I decided to just go for the right size lengthwise as I thought the fabric might just last longer if it is not constantly stretched over the knees. And as it is a relatively expensive fabric, I would prefer if they last longer as the shop bought leggings.

So, I will definitely make a few more leggings in the future but I guess, it will be limited on the warmer versions which you can hardly find in shops. In that case, I guess it is worth the money.

 

Made from scratch

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It has once again been quite on here because we have been on holiday and I didn’t even bother have the time to announce it before leaving. Anyway, we had a lovely time climbing mountains, swimming in cold water, having encounters with big cows and celebrating the baptism of my niece who happens to have, by the way, a lovely and very well dressed god mother.

I will really try to catch up on all the things I have been working on (believe it or not but I have been knitting a lot) but for now I’ll have to start with a dress that I made a few months ago as I have at least a few pictures on the computer already. And no, it is not a scrap project.

It was a proper independent project from start to finish. I took my client to the fabric shop and she chose, very unsurprisingly a rather odd fabric considering that she is not a 50s wall in need of a fresh wallpaper. And wanted to combine it with a not at all in any sense matching fabric. (The second customer joining on this trip chose a light grey cotton with big white dots for a knight costume still to be made)

I asked my client to bring some sketches to our second appointment where I tried to find out what she was really looking for and what would suit her type.

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Once we had agreed on the final design, I took her measurements and made the pattern and a calico version (sadly no picture of that step) to see if it would fit her.

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The next appointment was about necessary alterations and to see if it needed a zip or not. Together we agreed on a zip just to leave a bit of room for growing.

In the next step I started to work on the actual dress but before I could finally hand it over we needed another urgent meeting to discuss the trimming around the neck and armholes. My choice would have been a plain white bias binding but hey, I don’t have to wear it.

So, we have a straight and long upper part in a nice medium weight cotton and a rather bouncy skirt with three layers of frills (each being a full and separately cut circle –  I have used up more than a meter of that lightweight cotton, just for that short skirt)

The bias binding for the edges have a mini crochet edge which make it a bit stiff and therefore not ideal to go around narrow curves and I particularly struggled with the finish of he invisible zip. Hopefully I will do better next time 🙂

In any case it was a perfect dress for the baptism and both, my client and I, are very happy with the result. I wouldn’t want to be the person who has to iron this nightmare though. Knowing the client she probably has some kind of housekeeper who has to do it for her.

Paulas Designerkleid 01

Early midlife crisis

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I think I might have a problem. I struggle a bit with age appropriate behaviour. Or rather taste. A couple of weeks ago I made a birthday cake for a family member.

IMG_1940(Sadly, I am cheating, the picture is from last year, this year I messed it up and wouldn’t want to show this year’s interpretation of a football online).

“Lovely” you might think. “A football cake for her son”. No, it is a football cake for her husband.

And then I made this skirt, after carefully (translates: spending 20min) choosing fabric combinations:

IMG_3541IMG_3540IMG_3539“Lovely” you might think. “A colourful skirt for her daughter”. No, it is a colourful skirt for herself.

And you know what? I do not regret it. I even want to make another one. They are perfect as I can wear them now and after pregnancy. I do slightly worry about my taste though as I clearly have the taste of a 5 year old.  Except that the real 5 year old is much better at this. This is what she chose for her skirt:

IMG_3568It took her about half an hour back and forth and comparing and I found the combination really bonkers but she was right. It is perfect. Maybe a step too far for me to wear but no need to worry, I am not making a bigger version of it.

IMG_3571This is very similar to my orange bit and it is the one that i used as a lining for my niece’s bag.

IMG_3570This fabric is actually a rather thick cotton, not really suitable for a skirt but it worked. You might see this one again, probably in bag form 🙂

IMG_3569My daughter insisted on this one when I ordered fabrics a while ago. I was secretly making fun of this choice… until I realised that it reminded me a bit of this one (sorry no picture yet) which I had ordered for myself (in the same order). I guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree 🙂

Oh, and a little update on the taste of the other apple:

Remember, he usually comments all my finished products with a polite “No, thank you.” Well, I realised that I never make things he has asked me for or where he had actually chosen the fabric. This time it was a little bit different. He could chose the fabric and I suggested then a top (as it was a jersey) and he decided on one with a hood.

IMG_3554Lovely, isn’t it. I would have preferred orange sleeves but I didn’t quite have enough orange fabric left. Not even for the hood lining.

Anyway, I proudly (and nervously) presented the finished top and got a…..

“Thank you, can you please put it in my drawer. I will wear it tomorrow”

Which he didn’t.

He did wear it once though. When it had about 35 degrees, with the hood up.

IMG_3556And I was desperate enough to let him. Oh, well, the saga will continue, I haven’t given up just yet 🙂