Belated Baby Quilt Squares

The only thing belated about this is my blogging of it. I'm excited to do so now, because the baby in question has arrived safely, and that is always joyful news. 

For both of my girls and for Hugo, my mum put together a quilt where special people who had been in our lives for long and short times contributed a square. I didn't blog about Sophie's, but Rachel's is documented here, and you can see both of them in use in this rather funny photo recreation post. 

My younger sister was expecting a (now arrived!) little one and so the girls and I contributed a quilt square for his quilt. It was really cool to have the girls old enough to really add some sewing to this one, rather than the drawings they have donated to quilts in the past (see here and here). 

Rachel, the more sewing minded of my girls, was quite dedicated to the different embroidery stitches and had lots to say about how her square would look. 

Sophie was happy to do some decorative running stitches and let me do the rest for hers. But she was committed do giving it a good go. Good on you Sophie. 

We took a lot of inspirations from the squares on the girls quilts, and added our own flare. I hope this little baby loves his quilt just like my girls love theirs. 

Under the Surface

People ask me how the holidays were, and I honestly struggle to answer. Sure they were, on the whole, good; restful even. I got time at home, time with the girls, time with Steve. We had day trips to South Bank, and park play dates with friends. I made a table, oiled the deck, sewed a jacket. There was delicious dinners and fun lunches. 

But there were also moment of discontent. Of frustration and annoyance. Of feeling like things were not quite right. On top, we were doing fine, but under the surface I was feeling unsettled. The truth is, when someone asks how it was, there is never a good way to bring this side of things up. 

I think this feeling is pretty normal, and I'm happy to say that even though I have felt like this before, I know it will pass. The sun rises and sets, the days turn into weeks and if I keep my feet moving forward, somehow, I walk out of this unrest and into feeling content again. 

This is part of life that reminds me that what I have here and now isn't perfect. It's not what we are made for. What I'm experiencing is brokenness. Like I've turned the bowl and discovered a chip on one side, reminding me that I'm not always patient and kind or gracious and self controlled. 

The difficulty is expressing this discontent in a way that isn't complaining. That isn't morose and depressing. It's just a part of life, but for some reason, it's inexplicably hard to engage with or share. 

So yes, the holidays were good, but I was also not quite right for most of it. And that's ok. These moments remind me that this life will always be a little less than what we are dreaming for. My heart is longing for the day of perfection which is yet to come. In the mean time, Jesus tells me the kingdom is here and now, and that if I come and lay my burdens down, he will give me rest. 

Made a Table

What I've learnt from this blog post is that I am absolutely terrible at documenting things with "before" photos, and that my life would be so much easier if I got better at it. That said, let's dive in for the post for today!

My kids have had this little table that they use all the time. It actually was originally from my childhood and my parents passed it on to me when I was running the Family Day Care in the early years of life with Sophie and Rachel. The original chairs had died, but the table was still solid. A quick trip to Ikea sorted some new chairs and we got on with our little table life. 

This is the best, most recent photo I have of it, early 2021. Solid frame, but the table top bit was just chip board and had started to lift where the chip board was swelling. It did not get better, but we just kept using it. I was convinced however, that if we just replaced the table top, the table could continue to live a long and happy life. 

Enter the day that Rachel's dressing table drawers finally gave up. Rachel's dressing table was also a relic from my childhood, again, sturdy wood construction, but the drawer bases had popped out and the plastic runners they were sliding in on had started to split and fall off. When I took out the drawers to move the whole thing out of the room, what I saw was a whole lot of wooden potential for a table top. 

My original thought was to reuse the drawer fronts, but they were all nicely bevelled, and in the end I wasn't sure the three of them would fit nicely across the table. Also (I'll be honest), I couldn't get the handles off easily. But, there was an excellent surplus of wood in so many other places, that I figured I would just need to take it apart and make it work. 

So that's what I did. Holiday time came around and I started with the table, and then I unscrewed everything I could on the dressing table, and we borrowed a circular saw to do the final dismantling. The two side panels of the dressing table put together, fit perfectly across the table top. 

I sanded back the old table and cleaned it up. Then I put the new top together, with some extra support wood also salvaged from the dressing table. Rachel helped putty all the holes, even the ones no one would see. 

Steve did the final secure of the top to the frame with some brackets underneath, and I added one more extra support under the top just in case. Then I sanded the whole thing back some more and varnished it up. 

This table lives again. It's heavier, but it looks good, and I feel good knowing that two things that were previously destined for the tip have had their lives extended just that little bit more. 

Maybe one day I'll be better at before photos too. 

Jacket Adventure

At the end of my reflections on Me Made May this year, I realised that one item of clothing that I wear all the time and love, is a black, Calvin Klein, jacket which my sister gave me as a hand me down. I wore it heaps in May, but almost every day through winter this year; all the time. I don't think I could love this jacket more. So what became a passing comment at the end of May, stuck in the back of my mind: could I make a copy of this jacket? 

Enter September. The weather is warming up, and I'm using my jacket less and less. To be honest, recreating it was not high on my priority list given the weather change; if I did make a second one now, I likely wouldn't even get a chance to wear it until next April at the earliest. Still, the thought of doing it niggled at me such that one night I just decided to get on with it. 

My thinking was that recreating it would take at least one, if not two draft attempts, to get the fit right, so I may as well start now. I took an evening to trace out the shapes from the original jacket. Lots of shapes. It had seams in both the front and back, as well as darts in the back. The sleeves also had strange extra seams, but I ended up not bothering with those. The original jacket is unlined, but with facings, cuffs and welt pockets at the front, and an extra fake pocket flap on one side too. 

I went through my storage tubs looking for what would need to be a substantial amount of fabric to make an entire draft jacket with and stumbled across this wrap skirt. It was 100% cotton, but also quite heavy, I guess similar to what you'd want in a jacket. I thought it had come from my friend Megan down the road, but she can't remember it. Makes me think it might have come from Carrie, which means it's been in the stash for at least 12 years. Time to do something with it. 

I unpicked the waist band and lay it out with all my pieces. It looked like I would get most of the jacket out of the skirt, but I realised I needed to unpick the trim on the bottom edge to get the facings out of it too. An hour or so of unpicking later and we were ready to cut! 

Putting this together was mostly me making it up - I mean, in some ways, it's straight forward; darts, seams, sleeves, side seams, facings. But on the other hand: cuffs? Lining? Pockets? A second time round, I would absolutely do some things in a different order. It didn't help that after the first time I put it on and found it was fitting really well. 

Given that I didn't actually need to adjust anything major (just cut a bit off the shoulder seam at the armhole), I decided I may as well make this jacket a wearable toile. And then I figured I may as well attempt to line the whole thing too. Pro tip - adding lining to already stitched on facings is not the way to go. 

Mostly done, just going to add lining and buttons now.

Back to the box for lining fabric, I found this blue stripe which I had nearly enough of, and then added the remains of a Lorraine Lea pillowcase for the sleeves. 

Since you can't see the sleeves at all, it's almost like it's all the same lining fabric. 

The cuffs on the sleeves were the trickiest part. (You can see me contemplating different cuff length options in the photo above where I'm wearing it. The verdict from my sisters was the non-watch arm length.) I wear the original black jacket with sleeves rolled up all the time. 

Since I never roll them down, I wasn't going to bother make a replica with long sleeves, which to me translated to a total waste of extra fabric. But then I wasn't sure how long to make the sleeves, or how to do cuffs, or if I should make them able to roll in case I thought they were too long. In the end, I'm happy with the cuff length, but I did face the inside of the sleeve lining with another strip of the outer fabric so that if I want to, I can roll it up. 

I watched a tutorial or two on YouTube to get an idea of how to do the welt pocket with a flap. I've done welt pockets before, but you have to cut into the actual fabric, so it's not something you want to accidently get wrong. 

A couple of finishing things - loop at the neckline to be able to hang the jacket off and lastly, the tag from the original skirt, stitched into the lining on the inside. Just for a little bit of history. I only had two black buttons that would have been the right size, but mum had three lighter coloured ones, and Fiona advised to go with that, so I did. 

Couldn't be happier with the finished trial jacket. I actually love that it's got a print, even though I feel that's not usual in a jacket. I'll definitely be keeping this to try out in May next year and I'm excited to make another with some more serious jacket fabric. 

Rachel's Lady Bug Jumpsuit

Just want to keep a quick record of Rachel's latest sewing feat. 

For her birthday, she was given some lovely lady bug print denim from her cousin, Hugo. We talked about what she wanted to make out of it, and she decided on a jumpsuit. 

It was actually kind of fun brainstorming it with her, and finding out what she liked in her clothes. She wanted shorts, but no cuffs. Zip and elastic waist. No sleeves. Pockets on the pants, but not in seam, and none on the chest or back. 

We also talked about how to achieve it all, and what sewing features it would need given what she wanted as an end result (things like facings vs linings, for those sewing people playing along from home). We traced a jump suit she currently has and then made a quick mock up in some random fabrics to check the fit.

 

Success, so on we went to the real deal. Rachel wanted to wear this at a family event that was three days away, so I did way more of the pinning and cutting than I would have usually, but we were under a tight deadline. Rachel sewed it all like a champ on the little sewing machine - even the zip and the elastic. 

The pockets are lined with some lady bug silk from a tie of my dads, and I had just enough of it to use for to bind the edges of the neck and arm holes. Zip came from the stash too. 

Rachel is super happy with her fun jumpsuit, and I'm pretty proud of this little sewer.