Children's clothes

What a joy it is to be making stuff for little people!

Oh dear!  I made these for our baby grandson orginally, but the sizing was well out!  So, miss aged three has them, with a couple of yo-yos added for effect. (ps they do look better when the shoes are on, too)

The was the pair of trews he ended up with - in the new born size, despite him being a large size five months worth!  Nanny added the appliqué car with buttons.  The pattern for these has been in my cupboard for over twelve years, as I first did them for nanny's best girl, who is now aged 13!

These were made from vintage sheeting. 

 As is the next item - aged three's dress, here -

How cute is that, eh?  This one is the first of two I made from 'Weekend Sewing' which I just love, and will be using again and again, I'm sure.

Something that was promised a while ago is the cooking/painting pinney, so ta da!

She will grow into this, I'm sure!  This is nanny's own pattern.

Commission # 2 ta, da!

Another exciting project has, at last, been finished!

This dress began life as part of a huge pair of curtains, with pelmet, rescued from the charity shop where my brother works.  The manager, a lovely woman who, like me is rather addicted to vintage/retro clothing, wanted a dress made from the curtains and, would I be able to use a vintage pattern to do it? 

'Yes,' I said 'no problem!'

Except, I was busy and would become more so over the following months, oh dear.

However, as I wound down some of my work comittments, I found the time to just get on with it.

I first washed the fabric as I didn't know how old or how long it had been hung as curtaining.  Then, cut out the, very flimsy, dated 1959 vintage pattern pieces.

Some of the terms were new to me, such as binding the sleeve edges, adding tape to the sleeve seams and how to add the skirt to the bodice, while adding tape for strength.  However, I have some very old sewing books, which were so useful, and made it very enjoyable to be learning new stuff.  Though I machined the bottom of the skirt I didn't actually hem it, as I don't know the height of the woman who will be modelling it at a future vintage show.

I wish I could have repeated this, but in perhaps a retro sheeting, but the person wanted the pattern back, as well as her dress.

My thanks to J who was my super model, and I've stuck to my word and not shown her face here!

Commissions #1 Boat Curtains

Last year I was given three, yes three commissions for my sewing.  I was happy and pleased about this, but was so busy with 'work' stuff that I simply didn't get to them.  Yep, I felt guilty, really guilty actually, and stressed.

But, voilà!  I have, at last, completed all three.  The first of which I will show you the pictures of here today, and will save the others for the next few days, as I take photos of them.

The first is the boat curtains for my bezzy friend's lovely little boat.  What she wanted was me to decorate the curtain linings so that it brightened up the boat when it was out of use during the winter - what a brilliant idea!

Don't they look splendid?  Poor old little bruv had suffered a bit of damage on this trip, but is soon mended and they are travelling around in it for a whole month, soon.

I am really pleased with how they came out, and may be taking orders from her friends, who are very jealous, apparently!

More soon - about the dress from curtains, made with a pattern from 1959, and the charity bags.

ciao

Blog Workshops

I have recently had the pleasure of taking a couple of 'Build your own Blog' workshops, and have been so impressed with how well the people have learned.  Now, some of the people in the two groups just flew.  One called herself 'click happy' but others, looked, learned, took notes and best of all just played around with it.

Some were literally scared of what might be involved when they pressed a button on the keyboard - though all were guaranteed they would not blow anything up!  All were wary about what information they wanted to share with the Whole Wide World, and quite rightly one of the first things they wished to be shown was how to protect themselves and their family, friends or clients' confidentiality, while knowing how to get viewers to see their pages.

A few were very confused about the process, but I found that as each person thought about what they would use a blog for, they could apply it and so it would make sense.  Whether it was to be used for their business, a diary, or listing dates or recording events all found their own way to get the most out of their blog.

Welcome to our world, new bloggers!

A quiet den

A quiet sit down, with some sock knitting, a cushion and a book about caravans

some tea making stuff, an apple

and a view from the window.












Such peace.

I shall miss our old caravan, now it's been sold.  Ah well, it was great for the short time we had two caravans about the place.

But, all is not lost as we do have the newer 'van!

My Creative Space (or, the mess I'm in!)

We were talking at the craft group, last week, about the mess our craft rooms are in and as each one spoke, it seemed the 'mess' was getting worse and worse!  So, we agreed to email pictures to each other of just what a state our rooms are.  One commented, ages ago, that it doesn't matter that you have a designated room for your crafting work, the mess will spill out to the other rooms in the house.  And, Margaret, you are so unbelievably right!

Well, this is walking through the door.  As this is next to our bedroom, I usually keep this door closed-ish, so Mr T doesn't see, and then moan at me.  This is just the start of it, I'm afraid.

I have recently had a bit of a tidy-up and moved from using this flap-table (behind the ironing board) and facing where the chair now is, but the light is awful here.  The view from the window is on to another building and so the best light now comes in, over my right shoulder.  I can also use the sewing machine or flap-tables for cutting out.  Though, if it's for a large item, then either the living-room floor or the dining room table work.  The fabrics on the ironing board are my latest charity shop finds - a lovely embroidered dress, of which I will be turning into cushion fabric for my bedroom overhaul, and a lovely length of curtain fabric, which I don't know what I'm going to be doing with - just yet, but,there are ideas afoot!

It now gets worse, I'm afraid, as we move towards the yarn cupboard as here you might notice most or any of yarn recently 'shopped' for within my stash, but said stash not returned to the boxes from whence they came.  And, rather a lot of WIP's which I will get to at some point.  In here, I also hit upon the idea of hanging some of my fabric up onto coathangers, which works so long as you do it!

And, now, dear reader, the worst of my messy crime is visible here.  Every nook and cranny is crammed full of the evidence of a hoarder of addiction level!  In front of the radiator is the tall pile of the fabrics I want to use next in my projects, including the tweeds you cannot see at the bottom of a very deep box.  The dressmaker's dummy was my last year's birthday present, which I hav yet to adjust to my own measurements.  However, the bodice in progress you'll see there is not to fit me, but a dress being re-vamped from a pair of curtains.  This is for a charity shop in which my brother works, and the manager there asked me if I could possibly do this for them.  Last year.  Ahem,  I am just as the stage of gathering the very, very full skirt and then I can get it finished.  Pics on here, obv., when finished.

The spinning wheel was purchased about three years ago, after doing a day's spinning lessons, but never again picked up.  But, it will be.  One day, soon, I'm sure!

Now you have it - my guilty secret, about the place where I work and dream.

smoke and mirrors

We had a fright yesterday.  A 'friend' told my daughter something about the current child minder that deeply upset us, and I quickly went to fetch nanny's lolly-dolly-pop away from her.  We did enjoy her company for the afternoon, and, as I had to be away to work, grandad continued to look after her - taking her for ice-cream, yum.


We were then making plans for what should happen to nanny's l-d-pop when mummy and daddy are at their work.  All this while abstaining from confronting the child minder in any way, so as not to scupper (upset, put a stop to) anything.

Then, this morning, we hear that the 'friend' who had given us the 'information' that so upset us all, had been exaggerating!  What she had said she had seen was taken out of context, and out of proportion.  For goodness sake!  However, on thinking about it, she had previously told us untruths, and increased the drama of situations in which she had been.

The carer, who up until now has been entrusted with minding our little girl, and our little girl has been so happy with her, was nearly reported to the council.  This reporting would have been on her work record - forever.



Rightly, if it had proved the information was indeed correct, then swift action would have been necessary to protect, not only our nanny's d-l-pop, but other children, too.  And, we would have no qualms about doing so, at all.  Thank goodness we decided to investigate further.

It just goes to show - you can never really trust what someone says about someone else. Isn't it?  And this woman was just a drama queen, not even doing it in a spiteful, malicious way that some people delight in doing.



NB Pictures via Fotosearch, Royalty free