Scrap Sunday: The upcycling bag

Posted on 26/03/2017 by atelieroursonne

For this one we need to start way back, a couple of years ago ….

Once upon a time…. don’t worry, it won’t get that bad.

Anyway, years ago, I have made a small shoulder bag for my daughter’s best friend. As I quite liked it I made a few more for other friends.

I never actually saw the little girl using her bag. It was always her mother carrying it with this very insisting and slightly scary glare in her eyes… until I made her her own. And one for my equally glaring daughter.

My friend seemed happy. But not only did she continue carrying her daughter’s bag around, she also kept telling me “casually” that her other daughter really liked those bags and that the poor child was interested in placing an order and paying real money for it.

Around the same time she gave me her daughters old rain coat with the words that maybe I could use it for one of my sewing projects. After years and years of heavy hint dropping I finally gave in and made my first proper upcycling project. A bag made out of an old rain coat. Apologies for not taking a picture of the original rain coat but here is the bag:

I chose a London themed lining as it was supposed to be a bag for a young lady so it needed to be cool rather than the usual childish stuff. I am extremely pleased with the result, think it really looks cool. I am not sure what the girl thinks. Probably she never got it, instead there will be a blond woman running through London carrying three bags and glaring at other people who dare carrying nice bags. If you ever see her, don’t look her straight in the eyes, slowly move backwards and keep your bag tightly.

Oh, and just for the record, I also made another one for my niece who asked for one for her birthday a few weeks ago.

I suppose my niece liked it… Thinking of it, I haven’t handed it over myself, maybe she never got it and there is a glaring lady with 4 bags running through London…

Scrap Sunday: Scrap gifting

Posted on 23/10/2016 by atelieroursonne

This week we were really busy, almost stressed. We had to prepare a birthday gift for a little girl who likes crafting. And what better present could there possibly be than a personalised choice of material from crafter to crafter? Plus mummy gets to write an interesting blog post. So we have spent hours of choosing fabrics from my scraps, cutting them nicely with pinking shears, rolling up tiny balls of yarn, and finally sewing small bags for beads and glass gems. What a particularly nice and peaceful activity! To be enjoyed most with three children, ideally with two of them negotiating carefully an accurate schedule for the sewing machine use and a baby quietly making the most of that time of divided attention to measure the exact length of each thread and arranging a complicated maze with said thread.

Last but not least I contributed something as well and made another personalised gift bag, just like for the birthday party a couple of weeks ago. I am actually quite fond of this one.

I think dark blue for the zigzag is rather ideal, not as hard as black would have been yet still a proper border. As you can see there are a few minor issues, it is quite difficult to go around all these curves and corners correctly with a standard foot because you don’t see where you are going to insert the needle next. So I am considering to invest in a quilting foot to be able to freestyle easily.

Other than that, I have actually used up quite a bit of my scraps this week by making a few pieces of clothing for babies, I might or might not show them to you next week. Plus I made my new favourite piece of clothing for myself. I am just telling you to keep up the tension 🙂

Scrap Sunday: We certainly had this one before

Posted on 02/10/2016 by atelieroursonne

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We were invited to our first birthday party already and as all my daughter knew about her new friend seemed to be her interest in horses, we made a special horse bag with horse-y stuff in it (Considering that all other party guests brought horse-y stuff along, this information seems at least to be accurate).

Anyway, as I like gifting handmade stuff, I wanted to make something simple – I know a bit pathetic, just because I don’t know that girl yet I didn’t want to go the extra mile and invest as much time as I would normally do for my other friends. Plus I wanted to leave myself room for more in the upcoming years. If I already start with a handmade gift bag from scratch, where will it end? A handstitched dress? So a shop bought cotton bag with a personalised decoration seemed and actually seems ideal. I am considering to make that my signature thing and always wrap our presents in personalised cotton bags from now on.

Remember the workshop about freestyle machine embroidery? I still haven’t invested in a proper foot for my machine as I am always thinking that I might eventually swap it for a better one. So I did not use that technique although I really loved doing it. and I would have wanted to draw some lines onto that applique.

I love the thin lines done by the freestyle …

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… but I am not too sure about the practicability and washability of it – we had been told “handwash only” – so I prefered anyway to fix the applique with zigzag to make sure it can be washed safely.

Apart from that quick project, I have also done other things. It started with a long list of clothes that we will need for this autumn (I am not publishing the list on here, my husband reads this and I do not want him to make a link between the state of the house and said list, he is quite a clever boy). Now I am on a strict working schedule: Sticking pdf patterns, copying and cutting preferably in the evening and early morning when sewing noises might disturb the neighbours or draw husband’s attention to the project list and sewing during the day whilst baby is asleep or measuring the length of thread that fits on a bobbin or two.

The first projects include a baby shirt to grow into, pattern from the klimperklein book.

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a soft pair of sweat trousers to grow into in about 2 years, pattern from the same book (I only made it one size to big, can you believe it?)

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I guess two sizes smaller would have been just right. Which is why I quickly made another one. One size smaller, this time with teal ribbing instead of the much better aubergine as I didn’t have enough aubergine left.

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As you can see, much shorter, I am sure it will fit him. Eventually.

I am also still knitting, imagine I made the first pair of socks since 25 years. They really would deserve their own post but who knows if it would ever get written, so lets just admire them – It only took me 6 weeks to make them:

Tada!

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Aren’t they amazing and beautiful?

And last but definitely not least: In all that business with moving, new school, nursery,…. I was spending my evenings wondering what to knit next. Only when I was measuring if I could squeeze a pair of tiny octopus trousers out of todays left overs for my soon to be born baby nephew, I realised that I have to knit a traditional baby blanket. In a months time! For 8 months, it had not come to my mind. Well, 6, they didn’t tell me that early. I guess, I suffered a bit of a trauma when knitting 4 in 2016 🙂

So, if I go quiet again, you’ll know what I will be doing.

Scrap Sunday: Slightly bigger tissue issue

Posted on 24/07/2016 by atelieroursonne

I know you are waiting for the big one, but let me tell you one thing: moving houses, actually moving countries with three children takes up slightly more time than one would have thought. Especially at the end of term with all those extra activities to attend.

Sure, they all help a lot, sorting out toys, peeling down wall stickers,…

Especially the little one. He kindly wakes me up at 5 o’clock in the morning, so I can make the most of my day and then goes and searches for all those small pieces on the floor that my old eye can’t even spot and examines them carefully if they needed to be processed any further. In which case he takes care of them and kindly hands them to me after a day or two.

He is actually a big fan of tissues hence the big tissue issue you are all waiting for. But back to the small one for now.

Initially I thought that there won’t be any teachers’ presents this year but very last minute (we are speaking of the eve of the last nursery day) I decided they should get something. It just wouldn’t have been fair.When my daughter had left her nursery, I had made bags and badge holders using fabrics I had used for her clothes.

So I quickly cut out lots of squares for tissue covers.

I had found the pattern when I was looking for my knitted one from last week. Funnily enough this one by Two Brown Birds features also contrasting edges (through the lining fabric)

At 7 am the next morning (I’m sure the neighbours appreciated I hadn’t started using the sewing machine at 5am) I quickly made the 4 I needed for nursery. The other ones followed later that day and the next morning. I have to say, this project is really quick. Basically 4 seams with a little bit of ironing in between (ideally). However, it annoys me to know that there are ugly seams inside which can potentially be seen. I zigzagged them as well as I found it not secure enough with raw edges. And I do wonder how much more time it would cost to make a reversible version. But enough talking, lets have a look. I guess you’ll recognize some of the fabrics.

I’ve tried to use some of the fabrics the teachers might now (difficult due to uniform, so it is all about the sunhats) so they would actually be reminded of my children,

or fabric to match their personal style:

or cute fabric (you know because my children are cute)

or because a pretty piece of fabric had about the right size

or simply because it was the manliest and scariest fabric I found (for the male deputy head teacher 🙂 ) – which happens to be a hopefully good reminder of my son too (not because he is scary)

Which one do you like best? I find it really hard to decide.

Oh, and in case you were expecting another post about tissue issues soon, forget it. The packers are coming tomorrow and the whole week will be about getting to Vienna, settling in and unpacking some of those boxes.

So, enjoy the blog free time as long as you can – I’ll be back

Atelier Oursonne

handmade for you

Category Archives: Scrap Sunday

Scrap Sunday: The upcycling bag

Scrap Sunday: Scrap gifting

Scrap Sunday: We certainly had this one before

Scrap Sunday: Slightly bigger tissue issue