Category Archives: Scrap Sunday

Scrap Sunday: Essentials

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I am afraid but today’s Scrap post will only be a link to a brilliant idea of how to use up scrap fabrics.

I had already mentally prepared an incredibly funny pun about having something up my sleeve and this week’s fashion course homework but I am too lazy to talk about different types of sleeves and knitted surface decoration and all this kind of stuff. Will have to be another day.

Anyway, I came across a lovely blog which linked to another lovely blog. They make me both rather jealous as they just prove an impression that I am having since a long time: German speaking blogging world has access to much nicer fabrics than I have here in one of the world’s fashion hotspots. At least when it comes to children’s fabrics. I am now following both of them and the second one, Schnabelinas Welt seemed to have felt my need of a good scrap idea and posted just today about scrap fabric knickers  for her daughter. I think they look amazing and they are a brilliant and perfect idea for me as I had already been wondering what I should be making for my daughter in future considering that she has to wear a school uniform for most of the time when she is awake. Unlike Mr NoThankYou she usually likes the stuff that I am making for her and wears them with joy. So knickers made by mummy it will be 🙂 … Just for her I am guessing, just imagine the life long trauma and hours of therapy for Mr NoThankYou: His mother not only buys his underwear, she is actually making it. We definitely don’t want that to happen 🙂

Have a lovely week and don’t get your knickers in a twist! Thorough information about sleeve types and fashion course progress will follow.

Scrap Sunday: Sunday Roast Left overs

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Did you ever get a very useful advice that has changed your life?

A wise woman who happens to have a beautiful, clever, witty and kind hearted daughter (and a few other children) once gave me an incredibly helpful advice and I really try to live up to this wisdom. Well, maybe she did not think of it as advice, rather as a joyful story about her past. Anyway, apparently this wise woman used to put all those children’s tights and socks on one big pile to be mended in front of the fire on cold winter evenings. The pile grew bigger and bigger and so did the children. Until the waiting-to-be-mended tights did not fit anymore. As a good daughter I really try to follow this rule but today I broke it.

I wanted to mend my son’s trousers (hole on the knee) as we only have two warm ones, one with and one without hole. So, I offered him a good choice of beautiful and suitable fabrics for the patch. Which he all rejected. Not really to my surprise as he is notoriously rejecting everything I have ever made for him (Apart from literally one item. But I am not complaining. Really. He never asked me for all those silly dungarees, knitted jumpers or tiger costumes.)

Much later, when I had already given up on the idea I stumbled across another – probably less manly – fabric and showed it to him. I interpreted the lack of “yuk, disgusting” as a “yes please mother, I would be over the moon if you could mend my warm trousers with this beautiful fabric and I will be grateful for the rest of my life” and went for it. I cut out two manly footballs, appliqued them to the knees of the trousers (size 3y trousers are awfully tiny, in case you didn’t know it) and took a picture of a perfect left over project: left over trousers, left over fabric and left over food on the trousers.IMG_3128

A picture of the trousers covering a pair of legs would probably look better but I personally would not wait for that. I am already looking forward to tomorrow morning’s discussion in front of the wardrobe. And then we will just continue with our routine for the rest of the winter: Boy wears trousers without silly patches, comes home from nursery with incredibly dirty trousers, mum washes and dries them over night. Boy wears them again. Spring will come eventually.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Scrap Sunday: Christmas Crackers

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I guess I should apologise for what you are about to read, I have been stuck at home with two sick children for a couple of days now and we are watching a lot of fairy tales, so please forgive me 🙂

Once upon a time there lived a beautiful princess. Well, probably more of a queen since she was married to a king and the mother of two beautiful, clever and well behaved children, but she certainly looked like a young beautiful princess, who happened to be also extremely clever, witty and kind-hearted.

The queen and her family lived on an island where the sun always shone far away from her home country somewhere in the highest mountains you could possibly imagine.   During one particularly hard winter there, the queen decided to travel home to help her family who lived on top of a very high mountain.

The beautiful, clever, witty and kind-hearted queen did not want to come empty handed and in countless sleepless nights she created very useful little gifts for all the members of the her family.

After a few weeks of preparation, she, the king, the little princess and the little prince set off  in their golden carriage drawn by twelve white horses  and after days through wind, ice and snow they finally arrived on top of the mountain.

The parents of the beautiful, clever, witty and kind-hearted queen could not believe their eyes when they opened the door of their little wooden house and her daughter stepped in with lots of presents in her hands. Rapidly, they called all of the queens brothers and sisters, their partners and children to celebrate the family reunion. The mother of the queen hustled into the tiny kitchen and started to cook a beautiful meal, her father lit the fire and everybody gathered around the big table to enjoy the meal together. And it was a miracle, the food came out of the tiny kitchen on big plates which never got empty!

The beautiful, clever, witty and kind-hearted prin queen handed each one teir  handcrafted, extremely useful gifts, beautifully wrapped in something she called “cracker” in the language spoken by the indigenous people on the sunny island.

Everybody got a beautiful crown made of the finest and most delicate paper and a little written thought to cheer them up.

All the children got little toys, something that they had never even heard of, let alone owned.

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For the adults, she had chosen more practical things to help them through difficult times, for example magic wands for her sister and sister-in-law, both mothers of young children,IMG_0826

a portable milk frothing device for her brother-in-law, a coffee connoisseur,

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practise nappies for her brother and his partner who were expecting a child,

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and the probably most challenging to be executed by the beautiful, clever, witty and kind-hearted queen : a working satellite for her brother, a sage (not the plant, the wise man of course) who has given the world the knowledge of befriended location determination…

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The presentees were gobsmacked yet not surprised by the creativity and the skills of the beautiful, clever, witty and kind-hearted queen and just did not know what to say, they had never seen such refined technology and did not even know how to use some of these items. But they were overflowed by gratefulness and the evening ended in lots of laughter, tears of joy and an amazing firework display in the clear sky mirrored in the peaceful white blanket that covered the mountain that night.

And the beautiful, clever, witty and kind-hearted queen knitted happily ever after.

 

Scrap Sunday: Leaving Presents

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I know, I know I promised to show you something you will need sunglasses for but as it is already Sunday I will have to talk about the latest scrap project first, the potential eye hurting post will have to wait.

My daughter had her last day in nursery on Friday, she will start big school in January so the pressure was quite high to produce some good gifts as unfortunately she has really a few great teachers and assistants in that stupid nursery!

She has a reputation of a …. ahem…. very creative style and some of the cloths I had made for her had been complimented a lot and are definitely recognisable so I really wanted to use some of these fabrics for the gifts.  The plan was to make make up bags for the 4 main persons in her nursery life and necklaces to hold the keys/badges or whatever they keep carrying around their necks for all the others. I was a little unsure if I should just use the same fabric for everyone (cute little strawberries on yellowish background – she had a dress and a skirt made out of it) or different ones and I actually got the answer just on Thursday (I always knew my last minute approach to get things done will eventually pay off) when one of the teachers mentioned that she really loved one of her dresses and she that she wished she could wear it herself. On my way home I decided to make different ones… if I could find that particular fabric the teacher had been talking about. I knew there was only a tiny amount left and that I had not thrown it away because it was really pretty. At first I did not find it, only when I eventually gave up and looked for something else instead (classic, I know). I decided to actually put a mini pocket on the bag rather than making all those boxed pleats the other bags will feature, as this particular detail had been pointed out by the teacher.

I think the idea is brilliant, the execution wasn’t really (good enough for the occasion, the amount of fabric left and the pressure I was under). I have lined all bags with cotton plus interface which makes the inner rather stiff and in the case of the jersey fabric outside, this was just not great as the jersey is almost glued to the inner. It is looks like a jersey dress that shows of all your rather not so great bumps and rolls 🙂 I should have cut out the exterior bigger or keep a softer inner. Anyway, it looks funny and it will definitely always remind her of the little person wearing the same kind of dress.

For the other bags I used the pattydoo pattern that I have previously used to use up some of my own skirts left over (I am just realising, that idea isn’t exactly new).

I have to apologise for the quality of the pictures, we were quite in a rush. I had to finish the last bag Friday morning and then the whole family, visiting mother in law included, had to help me getting everything together. Present wrapping, card writing, picture taking in the darkness of London 8.30am…. But we made it.

Strawberry skirt:

Corduroy dungarees:

Rainbow skirt:

For everybody else, I made the key holder necklace out of the strawberry fabric – I can proudly say that this is a great scrap fabric use up as I am sure you will always know lots of people who have to wear these kind of things. So it is a quick little fun present and not at all over the top. Unfortunately, I have no picture of the strawberry version (rush, remember), so I took one of the trial version out of a different material.

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I made a trial first to see if I can cut the material straight or if I have to cut it on the bias. To be honest it would probably lie around the neck better if cut on the bias but the straight version seemed good enough for me. Especially, if you overlap the ends before bringing them both through the ring bit and stitching them together.

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And in case if you were wondering where I got the clasps from – ebay is full of them.

So to sum it up, both bags and key holder thingy are excellent scrap use up projects and with the choice of fabrics you can actually create some fairly simple  and yet very personal gifts who will be very appreciated… although probably not as much as  cards written by a 5 year old (for the “lanch pipl”) 🙂 – you can’t compete with that.