Tag Archives: upcycling

Third time lucky

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I’ll have to admit, I did get a bit side tracked last time when I meant to write about the spectacular First communion dress and ended up talking about shimmering sequins. Clearly that would have been very inappropriate for such a dress. Even I know that.

So, after the failure of our first shopping trip we tried again and came back with plain white cotton and some tulle with tiny dots perfect for a Leni by pattydoo, a pattern for a very nice and simple summer dress. Sleeveless. Which seems to be inappropriate for the occasion according to my mum.

By the way, very last-minute we had gotten informed that we would in fact not need a classic First communion dress. Any nice summer dress would do. Great to know, about two weeks before the event (not that I would have even started making it) after spending months and months selling the idea of a plain white dress (without any ANY colour!) to my daughter. And to myself.

I also knitted a cardigan as we couldn’t be sure if it will be 30 degrees or rather – 30 at the end of april. (See, I can still knit)

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Dress: pattern: Leni by pattydoo,fabrics bought at Komolka, Vienna. Cardigan: pattern: Posy by Georgie Nicholson, yarn: Lana Grossa Cool Wool Big (Merino)

Full circle skirts are great for dancing…

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The tulle layer is actually sewn on top of the finished cotton dress, the ribbon at the waist is hiding the ugly truth.

But why would a highly trained and skilled dressmaker with attention to detail do such a thing rather than treating the two skirt layers as one to have a clean finished seam on the outside?  Well, obviously the day of the First Communion was not the final destiny of said dress! So, the next day… ok, about two months later, I removed the ribbon and the tulle which is now serving as veil for dressing up and dyed the cotton layer blue. By the way, I had used cotton thread for the normal seams but I only had polyester thread for the serger. So whilst the seams have turned blue like the fabric, the serged seam on the finished edges has stayed white as anticipated.

Whilst a blue dress is obviously already a step forward, we were still not satisfied. After all, a blue dress is still monochromatic. So we cut some butterflies out of some gum….

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did a few trial prints on a similarly blue piece of fabric…

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and started to print butterflies onto the dress…

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Much better, what a relief.

However, as it is a woven cotton it creases easily and involves an annoying amount of ironing. I clearly hadn’t been thinking this project through.

Ok, what do you think? A project worth being the first post after such a long absence? After looking at it, I have to admit, I imagined it much better…. I guess this is not good enough! Back to the start then!

 

Scrap Sunday: It’s the little things

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If you are following this blog since a while, you will know how hard I have tried in the past years to please Mr. No thank you. This madness culminated last September when I made the most amazing play mat. For a 5-year-old. I mean how often is he going to play with it, really?

Because it’s so amazing, here are the pictures again for those who were too lazy to click on the link:

At the time, it was well appreciated, but now I keep hearing a complaint. It seems that I have ruined the whole thing by forgetting the road marking on a very short piece. Except that I did it on purpose. To have a little “one way only” challenge.

Anyway, lets just forget about this big failure of mine.

At least a year ago, I dared pointing out the huge holes on the far too short pyjama, stupidly suggesting that we could throw that old piece away. Goodness. How could I not have known that this was his favourite piece of clothing. Ever. So I suggested to use the fabric to make something. Like pyjamas for the doll. Phew, the offer got accepted. I then put it in my box of future projects where it stayed and matured.

After a little accusation reminder a couple of weeks ago, we settled on a cuddling blanket and I got straight to work.

First I carefully cut along the seams to get the maximum out of it and obviously we needed to take the biggest piece to make the blanket. Everything else would have been silly. The biggest piece happened to be the back of the original onesie.

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When I folded it in the middle, I thought, it looks like a bunny so we made a bunny cuddle blanket with appliqued face.

 

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The blanket gets cuddled a lot and is most likely the best thing I have ever made. He will take it everywhere (when he moves house, not everywhere everyday). And he said: “That was really nice of you.” Which is definitely the best compliment that I ever heard re any of my makes. At least it feels like it after having tried so hard for years 🙂

And just for the record, I haven’t just managed to please the boy. The girl has also shown a quick smile once. She kept complaining that the boys have matching clothes and that she wanted to have matching clothes with the toddler as well.

So I made T-shirts. I wanted to use different colours for the sleeves but no, it needed to be the same. Although the mint would have looked better with dark pink sleeves. Just my opinion.

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Can you spot the difference?

Correct, different types of sleeves. Luckily I got away with that 🙂

The baby version is the klimperklein baby top with buttons at the side and the bigger version is my usual pattydoo raglan shirt pattern.

I love the fabric. When I ordered it I expected smaller lions and I was worried at first how the big ones would look on a tiny baby shirt. But I love it.

 

 

Scrap Sunday: The upcycling bag

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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…