reversible dress

 I wanted to make a dress to go with the shoes - The fact it is reversible is of no practical use whatsoever , I just had that idea stuck in my head and I had to do it. I had to line it with something anyway so it did not take much longer to do it that way.

The pattern I used was the retro-re-do dress by korpfan  which is free on the burdastyle site. I had to use a pattern as I have no idea what size and shape baby girls are! This was evident when I printed the pattern, cut the fabiric and almost completed the dress before reatining that something was very wrong - I had altered the settings on the printer and printed it out 20% to small! If anyone has a use for a dolls dress let me know! Anyway - I had to start again with very little fabric - I just managed to squeeze in the floral side but had to make the top of the pink side from the floral fabric - it looks like it was ment to be that way - honestly! The pink semicircles on the floral side are little pockets. The pattern suggests using fake buttons on the straps - I used poppers to keep it reversible and also because my material was not stretchy and I thought that the babies head might not fit through.anyway - all done and sent off - I hope she likes it!

tiny wee baby shoes

My cousin has just had a wee baby girl, more babies in the family is always a good thing , and, at last, a wee girl to make cute girly dresses for. I saw this clever little pattern for shoes from sweet pea patterns on etsy a few months ago - I am so pleased to have a reason to make them now. The detailed PDF instructions look complex but when you actually get down to it they were quite easy to do and not as fiddly as I had thought. I did initially make 2 right shoes by putting the sole on one upside down  but it was easily solved. I made the 6-9m size as I know how quickly james grew out of the smaller shoe sizes. I made a few changes to the pattern - I did not have any interfacing so I just used an extra layer of fabric - this made the shoes nice and soft but next time i will try them with the interfacing. I also did not fancy the idea of using glue as i wanted the shoes to be machine washable and safe to chew so i just omitted it from the uppers with no ill effect and used 2 small velcro circles stitched to the  cross strap as fastenings rather than attaching them to felt circles. it took a couple of hours to do both of them (including time spent unpicking and restitching the sole I put on the wrong way round). they are totally reversible. I like the pink side best - they look a bit like ballet shoes. 2 more of my friends are having babies this month - I hope they are all girls so i can make more of these!                                                                                          

Tweedy

 Winter has arrived - All of a Sudden - I think autumn lasted for about 4 days with its mists and mellow fruitfulness and now bleak novembers win's ensuin, baith snell an' keen. James has only 2 pairs of long tousers - both jeans and both getting a bit small for him.

I had had these tweed trousers for a couple of years - I did not realise when  I bought them that they were a hideous fashion disaster, but fortunatly for me, I worked in a pub at the time and the regulars there were only to happy to to tell me. Phew. I have not worn them since.

I used the pattern i had made for the blue linen short dungarees, just made it a bit bigger - far to big in fact - I had to trim 4 cm off each of the legs fold up a big flap in the front that then became the waist band. The waist band looks quite smart - I will try to copy it in future projects - it was a lucky mistake!

! used the pocket flap from the trousers fro the front pocket, everything went a bit skewif with the single welt pocket entrance under the flap - but nevermind, the flap hides it all. I used 3 buttons from the trousers on the front but the dog chewed off and ate the pocket button so that was replaced with the only other spare button i had - a big flat tarnished brass one

I am pretty pleased with this - it turned out way better than I expected. Its a shame james wouldn't pose for a proper picture of the front, he has now poked a hole in the front of one of the legs where the material was damaged from before so the dungarees are patched now and decidedly less smart

halloween

"I've just spilt my dinner all down the tunic - you dont mind do you ,mum?"

james' first halloween outfit (we did not bother last year). its a lot of effort for at best 2 or three parties, but a great opportunity to let imagination run wild I sent Mr midnite to mandors to get the material - ! m for the tunic and 1.5 m for the hat and cape and 20cm gold material for the trim. he misunderstood (how?) and came back with 2.5 m of the ridiculously stretchy dark blue material - perfect for the hat and cape but an old bedsheet had to be sacrificed to finish the tunic.

I made the tunic first - based on a well fitting sleeping bag as a pattern with  short sleeves added - the gold material proved very difficult to handle - it frayed like crazy and seemed to have a life of its own - I eventually beat it into submission and used it to bind the neck and sleves and trim the hem. the tunic was a pretty tight fit but I added elastic at the waist to give it some shape.

the cape was also based to the sleeping bag as a pattern - I added wedge shapes to the seams to make it flare out at the bottom and flared wizardy sleeves - the gold cuff on the sleeves were sewn in right at the start so all the seam are included in the sleeve seams and they turned out really neat. I finished the neck line by draping it over james and seeing where it lay best without rolling over. The sleeves are lined in red lining and the rest is lined in the old blue bed sheet . I found a tutorial online (if I find it I will add a link) about how to sew a lining into something with sleeves - somewhere along the line I went wrong and ended up with a twist so I had to cut, untwist and resew the inner lining - cape done - Phew!

The hat was a family effort with Mr M in charge of drawing the patterns and doing the maths. the rim was made out of thick corrugated cardboard - 2 discs of the covering material were cut and stitched right sides together on the outside of the circle - this was then turned the right way round and slipped over the rim. Mr M made a brown paper template for the shape of the cone. I cut one shape from the stretch material sewed the edge of the cone and then hand stitched the bottom to the cope. I the stitched the brown paper pattern to the lining material and made a cone that I sat inside the other cone with the paper sandwiched between the 2 materials. I placed a stitch to hold the tips together and hand sewed it at the base with all the seams covered. the brown paper helps the cone to keep its shape but allows it to be moulded it a more crooked shape if required.

with all the sewing done james threw a huge tantrum when I put it on him the first time but soon settled down - I had made the hat too small and it did not sit on his head but as you can see from the photos he was quite happy to hold it there as long as required.