Category Archives: projects

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: Origami Purse

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A couple of weeks ago I saw a cute little project on an Austrian sewing blog and I really wanted to try this Origami purse as a Scrap Sunday project. Luckily, there was a link to the original pattern and tutorial . A couple of days later, I had the perfect opportunity to make one for a friend as there was still some space in the envelope full of art work that my daughter intended to send to her.

We chose some green and blue fabrics (the friend’s favourite colours) , the green one is a piece of a so far untouched fat quarter that I had bought in a small shop in Oxford ages ago, the blue one you might actually recognise from the “designer dress”.

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I was also very happy to finally get to use my kam snaps for the first time. I had bought them thinking they would be good for jersey but I was wrong. Anyway, they are definitely great for this kind of things. I find the purse rather cute and it is definitely a nice little something for the not so special occasion and it is most definitely the most useful thing the world has ever seen. And this is why I quickly made one for my husband as well. My children have already been complaining why I never make anything for daddy. So before starting the big project of a short sleeved raglan shirt for him, I made him a purse for coins or head phones or whatever in the colours of his two favourite footballl teams (for lack of neutral or manly fabrics). Oh the joy in his face when I presented it to him! I can’t even describe it! He didn’t even know what to say! Just what I had expected 😉 And I am almost certain that he keeps showing it off to his friends who are now all really jealous and want one too. What a successful little project!

IMG_3697 IMG_3698 IMG_3701The stripy fabric is actually a left over from a play pen cover I made years ago. And you will see it again very soon in a few blog posts about amazing dressing up things. So watch this space! 🙂

 

 

Ticking some boxes

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It has been a busy week and I have been able to finish a few things on my list, for example I managed to finish the cardigan for my auntie…. well, except for the buttons. I did buy some but I am not sure if I like them. I bought them without taking the cardigan which is never a clever idea. We will see. Oh, and baby blanket no 1 is only missing  3 squares. And lots of sewing I guess.

I also made a beautiful knight’s costume but that really deserves its own post. I am not sure if it is a good sign that some mothers attending the best birthday party ever (Really. No fights. No interfering needed.) thought that the fabric of the helmet would make a beautiful skirt.

You’ll soon be able to form your own opinion, as – much to my surprise – the knight was actually wearing the costume for about 5 min! On the same day he got it! Who would have thought?! Certainly not I.

And I have not only finished some of the yoga bags, I have even already sent them on their long journey to Austrian country side.

I have finished two of the waterproof ones, I just looove these fabrics and I so want to make a bag for myself out of the brown one:

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On my last trip back home I have also finally realised that the local taste is more subtle, not quite as loud, colour mixing and childish as mine (It only took me about 38 years to realise) so I attempted to create some more tone in tone, maybe slightly more sporty, even manly ones  rather than cute flowery playful ones. Oh, well, I did try but see for yourself.

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For the next one I used a very special fabric that I have in my treasure box since a few years. It is a precious, very expensive left over Marimekko fabric and I was wondering for years what I could use this rather thin stripe for. It was just enough for two very special yoga bags and I do hope that they will find a lovely and caring new owner 🙂

One of them is on it’s way to Yogastueble in Austria:

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And the other one is actually in my etsy shop:

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I have also made one “traditional” one, which is on its way to Austria.

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It is really interesting, sometimes when I choose the fabrics for a new bag, I might not be too keen on the combination initially (when I try to suit somebody else’s taste rather than making something for me), finding it maybe too “boring”, like the green one, which is the most tone in tone bag I have ever produced. But then, when it is finished, I really like it. The green one is now almost my favourite (but please don’t tell anybody). I say almost because if I had to chose between the Marimekko one and the green one, then I would still go for the Marimekko I guess 🙂

But enough of the yoga bags for now. Tomorrow we will have to attend a Peter Pan themed birthday party where we are asked to come as a pirate and a Tiger Lily. I had to google the latter. And the pirate told me already that he does not want to be a scruffy pirate. Not sure what a smartly dressed pirate looks like but in any case I do not want to spend too much time on costumes for a one off event. I will keep you updated though.

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.