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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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Scrap Sunday: Phew, done (well, not really)

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IMG_3014The scrap skirt is officially done -well, apart from the hook, can’t find them, might have to buy new ones. I might have donated them to a sewing class, thinking that I will never ever sew a skirt.

I have only ever been working on it on Fridays, so it took for ages.

I think we can file this one under “a few lessons learnt”. It is not bad but also really not what I had in mind, so lets recapitulate:

I had this burgundy, very fine corduroy, a huge piece of scrap from a previous project. I wanted to make a skirt with 8 panels, each cut on the bias to show off the lines of the corduroy when they meet on each of the eight seams. Great idea I think, well not idea, great remembering from skirts that I have owned many kilos ago.

I did not have quite enough fabric to do that and it had been pointed out to me that since the corduroy was so fine, no one could actually see the lines. So I cut it straight. Big mistake as now I have an awkward seam in the middle of the front for no reason which actually blocks the fabric from falling nicely. Once I realised I had to cut it straight, I should have gone for 6 panels to avoid that seam.

I wanted too many things at the same time, nice A-line skirt with godets, cheekily showing of some kind of patterned fabric. Oh, and the whole skirt rather short.

The proportions of the whole thing are wrong, the corduroy can’t even hold the A-line shape as it’s seams are broken by the godets.

And the godets? Don’t get me even started. Too small, or rather too short. And maybe too many.

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On the other hand, I still love the colours and their combination. I also love the unplanned overlocked hem. Remember I only wanted to neaten the edge and then turn once, to keep the godets as long as possible and it actually looked rather nice. I did consider to do that again in blue but actually my blue thread was not quite the same tone so I kept the white edge.

And the blue lining is really cool, I think. Remember, you can’t see it but I know it is there 🙂

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Will I ever wear it? No, most likely not. I guess, this would have been a good calico project, I know now how not to do it and what I could have done better (I am now even thinking of a simple  A-line, with one big pleat in the front, more or less from the top, and that is where the patterned fabric is hiding – but that might also be a bit too extreme – I will definitely not try that one with nice fabric, but 6 panels with longer godets would definitely look good), so I do not regret the project as such but it is a real shame that I have wasted that cute patterned fabric as I only had one fat quarter bought on my weekend away in Oxford a couple of weeks ago. Clearly, I should have found a better use for it.

Anyway, with or without hook, I consider this project done and can move straight to the next one. Which has it’s deadline next Friday but I should really have it finished by Monday. Which happens to be tomorrow. I don’t want to reveal too much yet but you might consider wearing sunglasses next time you are looking for new posts on here 🙂

 

 

official advent post

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IMG_2787Before you are thinking : No, please not another posting advent calendar this year! don’t worry I won’t be doing that again. Not that I would not have enough to say to post on a daily basis 🙂 but I really haven’t got enough time for this at the moment,

But I would still like to officially switch to Christmas mode. I guess when you have children it is easy to go back to the excitement of this particular time of the year.

How do you celebrate Christmas and the time before?

We have our advent calendar hanging from the railings of the stair. I guess I should make new bags. (Every year, it annoys me that actually I haven’t got as many green as red ones.) Each morning, they can open one bag from the bottom. When we have reached the top of the stairs it will be Christmas 🙂

IMG_2784Each morning we light a candle on our advent wreath and sing a few songs. Usually rather Christmassy ones. But my three year old sees a candle and sings Happy Birthday 🙂

For those who are not familiar with this tradition: There are four candles (sometimes one has a different colour), and each sunday in advent (waiting time before Christmas) you can light one more. Yesterday was the first sunday,  so we will always light just one, until next Sunday, when the second one will join.

We will now be waiting for two things to happen, on the 6th, Nikolaus (much more bishop looking than Santa Claus) might be passing with a few tangerines, gingerbread and nuts. In Austria he would probably pass in person and talk to the children about their behavior in the past year, here in England he is just passing very early in the morning and leaves his presents on the balcony. (I guess, as he has to rush to Austria, visiting everyone there 🙂 )

And the second thing to wait for is obviously Christmas. We will get presents on Christmas eve already. Brought by Christkind (baby jesus but not baby looking, rather like an angel, I think. I have never seen it, really. It is very shy and flies off with all the presents if you would ever make an attempt to see it).

To make this waiting time more exciting, I have started to decorate the house, starting with the window display. Remember I used to have flowers in there and lately I was wondering what to do with them as they get damp now in Winter. (I must admit, on the first morning with a wet window I tried to give them a blow dry). They would not have survived the whole winter. So the christmas posts by the twisted yarn came in handy and I stole adapted her idea of a knitted wreath.

IMG_2771I used two green wools held together to get a more “real” variegated tone for the actual wreath. As you can see (if you look closely), I had to cheat, I did not join the ends as it would be far too small (I was running out of the super chunky yarn). The red ribbon has been knitted by my daughter using her knitting fork and the bow is made by me. I am very pleased that we have finally been able to make a project together.

I love all of thetwistedyarn’s ideas for Christmas knits (and they are all perfect Scrap Sunday projects too 🙂 ) so I might make a few other things, depending on my time really. But that wreath looks a bit lonely, doesn’t it. So we will see what time brings. In the meantime, enjoy your Christmas preparations.

And the winner is….

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Time is over – the yoga bag has found a lucky winner 🙂

Out of the 8 entries, random.org has chosen the lucky 7! And the 7th comment came from Silvia! Congratulations. I hope the bag will serve you well.

yoga bag competitionThank you all for entering the competition, I hope you had a little bit of fun with it even if you did not win this time. Who knows, if I am getting into a Christmassy mood there might be another give away soon 🙂