Hats!

After we lost Sophie's hat somewhere in Japan, I noticed that both my girls were struggling with what to wear to school. Even though Rachel still had hats and there was even one offical school hat in the basket, neither of them were wearing them. I wonder if Rachel's old ones have actually gotten too small for her but she hasn't put two and two together yet and is just avoiding them since they are now uncomfortable. 

Anyway, as always with a problem, I turn to sewing for a solution and with hats, there are plenty of sewing solutions to be found. Even though I had made hats for the girls before, I had found a new pattern from Liz Haywood that I wanted to try out. 

Did a quick look through my stash and came up with some options for fabrics, most of which were heavy weight enough not to warrant any interfacing, so that was good. Then I sat down, cut out and sewed some hats. Why make just one for the daughter who truely needs it, when you can make one for each daughter with a spare just in case? 

Rachel's is actually made out of some more of this great Ikea fabric that I've used before in a dress and skorts. The one Sophie loves the most is made from some scrap fabric my mum gave me after making Sophie a dress out of it. I think it came from Japan and is a navy blue with kangaroos in various wrestling poses on it. 

The only one I made fully reversible was this other one for Sophie. It was made from a fat quarter of space fabric that I had lying around. The inside is lined with a grey pillowcase that I got from a friend who works for Lorraine Lea. It might be last the last of the pillowcases she gave me to sew with a few years ago. 

But even though it's fun and reversible, Sophie is yet to wear it beyond these photos. Oh well!

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. 

Guide Camp Sewing

Our girls started Guides this year and have loved every minute of it. I'm glad, because I have great memories of being a Guide when I was a kid too, and I know they are learning so much being there with other people. It also has the perks of being two hours on a Friday night. I'll be honest, Steve and I haven't really taken full advantage of that yet, but every now and then, we do enjoy the quiet dinner together. 

So one thing Guides do, if you don't know, is go on camps. Pretty frequently actually. The girls had one in August that was just at a local guide hut for two nights. I was so excited for them, because again, I can remember so much fun on guide camps. Hooray! 

What I didn't remember was all the packing. Our Guide group is lovely, but they aren't the most organised, I'll have to admit. So we got the packing list a week before the girls were to go away. All well and good if you have been on a camp before, and it's not like the list contained too many out of the box things. Wet pack, spare clothes, sleeping bag were all there. But extra things like a plate bag, to put all their cutlery/crockery in, and a tarp, that had to be two by three metres. And a "Sit-upon" which is a square mat (preferably water proof) they can use if they need to sit on the grass for a long period of time. 

Reading the list, I felt a bit silly for not remembering some of those things, but also frustrated. We did have a tarp, for example, but it wasn't quite big enough, and I didn't have two of them. Most people would have a spare drawstring bag lying around for a plate bag, but two that are roughly the same to avoid arguments? Sigh. Even one extra weeks notice would have been greatly appreciated. 

In any case, I got my thinking hat on and then got sewing. Plate bags first, since drawstring bags are easy and I was sure to have some fabric I could use up in the scraps box. Serendipitously, I found that I had exactly the right amount of material for two plate bags from two rectangles of  fabric that the girls themselves had tie-dyed after Christmas. The tie dye powders were a Christmas present from my Godmother, and I had just given them any white fabric that I had on hand to be creative with. 

Perfect for their plate bags: hooray! Rachel sewed hers on her little sewing machine while I did most of Sophie's on Sally. She had to patch her piece of tie dyed fabric first since she'd cut a random circle from one corner for something else. (See my peacock fabric below?) Sophie did come over and do a bit, but was mostly not interested. I happened to have exactly the right amount of cord and two wooden beads in my stash as well. So perfect. 

While I was looking through the stash box for plate bag fabric, I stumbled across the strip of leftover vinyl that we had from recovering the chairs. I had to patch it together to get the squares, but they are pretty sturdy. 

For the flip side, I used a quilted Lorraine Lea pillow case that my friend Katie gave me. (I've used pillowcases before see?) I figured that the quilted bit would make the mats slightly more padded and thus comfortable on the ground. Rachel learnt how to bind things when we finished all the edges with strips of the other side of the pillow case.  

Done and done. Though it was rushed, I did feel good sending them off with home made things in their bags. Also happy to report that the girls both had a fantastic time camping and can't wait to go again. 

Rachel's Mouse

I think this is our last post involving pillow cases. After making the skorts, Rachel's dress and the Bunny Bags, I was down to only a few scraps remaining of these three pillow cases, most of which were donated to the girls when they set up their sewing baskets. 

So when Rachel asked to sew something, I showed her a picture of a little mouse softie that I had seen on Pintrest which I thought would take her fancy. I was right. She was delighted, and told me when her mouse was done, it would live in her sewing basket and be her sewing companion. 

This was significantly more complicated than the small pillows that she had made. We made a pattern with paper. There were parts that needed to be cut accurately, and things needed to be sewn in stages, in the correct order. I talked her through each step and she made it. 

It's a little wonky, and the ear is caught in the side seam at one point, but Rachel loves this little mouse, and already has plans to make Sophie one too. 

There go the last of the pillowcases. Who knew fabric from three pillowcases would go so far? 

Not the Usual Pillowcase Dress

More sewing with the pillowcases gifted to me by my dear friend Katie. I actually sewed this dress and the skorts ages ago, maybe back in late Feb, or early March, but I've just been so busy, there has been really no time to blog! Rectification of that in progress now. 

After the skorts, I knew I wanted to use the Ikea fabric to make Rachel a dress similar to the one I made Sophie two years ago, based on the Izzy Top. She had been wearing Sophie's hand me down a lot, so I knew it was a style she liked, and I thought I could combine the Ikea fabric with another pillow case perfectly for it too. 

Rachel was not in a photo taking mood for this photo shoot, so it's a miracle any of these photos are sharing worthy. 

Yes, she's wearing this dress down to the park for a play. Yes, I have had to start soaking dresses and doing a separate white load (don't judge me), for all the white dresses that Rachel loves to wear. Is it worth it? Probably. Rachel does love a good white dress, and who am I to argue with that beautiful pillow case top that is living it's best life out in the sun now? 

Pillowcase Skorts

I've been sewing long enough now that many of my friends are aware one of the best ways to show me love is to gift me fabric. Oh the blissful feeling of free gifted fabric. You have no idea. So when one of my longest friends (22years of friendship!) who works for Lorraine Lea, offered me some of the pillowcases from discontinued linen designs, I jumped at the chance. 

Suddenly, so much more fabric to inspire me to sew! Hooray! 

Not long after receiving these, I had a spontaneous trip to Ikea with my mother-in-law, Maria, and I noticed a print in their fabric section that I knew would match perfectly with some of the pillowcases that I had been gifted. It was meant to be. 

The Ikea fabric is the floral on the left of this photo, the white, pink and green are all pillow cases, deconstructed and ready for sewing. See how perfectly the pink and green match! 

I knew the girls (being the strangely tactile creatures that they are) would love the fringe from the pillow cases, so I took that off first to add to the skirt. I wanted to make Rachel a skirt with shorts inside (using the plain backing fabric from the pillow cases), and Sophie a pinafore/overall dress type number, but Sophie just wanted a skort too, so I rolled with it. 

Sorry for the night time sewing photos; I know they're not the best. Anyway, trim on, skirts and shorts sewn and the girls are rocking their skorts. 

I did try to talk her out of the white shirt that doesn't really go, in favour of one that complimented more, but Sophie was determined to wear it. Kids right? 

Surprise shorts!

The pillow case fabric in these is so soft and comfy, and the girls love their skorts. Hooray!