Quick refashion on a stay at home day.

If you have young children of your own you will be all to aware that it's the holidays. After a day out at friends yesterday we had a stay at home day today. I had mountains of washing, some washing up and mountains of clothes to put away so we needed a day to catch up, not to mention the ironing. . . 

I grabbed a bit of time this afternoon to refashion a Good Deed dress made with some fabric from our trip last year, the bodice was getting too small but the skirt looked new still. Rather than adding another skirt to the mass of skirts already in her possession I decided to turn it into a loose tunic for the summer heat we have been having. I am well aware that in doing this I am probably cursing us to a month of rain but you can't blame a girl for trying right?!

Rather than unpick the bodice as I had also top stitched and sewn on ribbon as an afterthought I cut the skirt as close to the bodice as possible. I then cut two J shapes on either side of the top of the skirt. I used the cover stitch foot and hemmed the top of the back and front then I switched out to my normal foot and did a rolled hem along the new armholes. Finally I sewed a channel along the back and front top to thread my ribbon ties. As an after thought I stitched my ties not just in the middle to stop them slipping out but also at both ends as the width was a little too much to just scrunch when tying up the ribbons. I have found it can unscrunch in wear and then there would be far too much across the top in this case. If I had been making from scratch I would have made it slightly a..line but the idea was to make it as quick and easy as possible with the least sewing as it will probably only last until the end of summer anyway.

It doesn't look fantastic on a hanger but it didn't look too bad on when she tried it briefly in between wrecking her brothers room and trying to see how easy it would be to bounce through the ceiling. Only six weeks to go hey!

Happy holidays everyone.

Monday Madness

It's getting towards the end of term and everyday seems busy and full of things to do. We had a very busy weekend with a party for our soon to be 8 year old and his friends at an outdoor Forest School center. It was in the words of the children EPIC. Then we had three of them sleepover so six children in the house and bed time was ongoing. I think I gave up at about 11.45 and there were still odd mumbles from the boys room. Then we had a gathering to go to on Sunday afternoon which with our sleepy children went surprisingly well. I also managed to squeeze in an MRI on Saturday.

I have been busy with leaving gifts and cards the last few days so I thought I would share a few of my latest makes with you today.

A puppy bandanna for a friend who was entering a show. They came second!

A birthday present ordered by son for a friend.

This was for a friends son. Lining up the tartan was fun. I really like this little fellow.

A thank you gift for an above and beyond pastoral carer at the school.

A retirement card and bracelet for sons reception teacher.

A retirement card and partly done hoop frame for the receptionist at school.

I am about to back the second hoop. The first I had to ad lib a bit as the fabric wasn't quite the right size so I glued it in place. This one has enough fabric to try and finish it properly. I hope it works.

I have done the preschool drop and collect and popped to HobbyCraft for a hoop. I would rather have bought an old one but I need it for tomorrow so I didn't have time to do a charity shop hunt.

The weather is beautiful on this side of the country today. Lets hope summer is finally here.

Enjoy your week.

A home coming and some new embroidery machine projects.

We are a family again. After several weeks of being in Kenya Daddy is back and the children are loving having him home. It has been rather noisy I have to say but noisy happy children are 100 times better than noisy unhappy children.

No 1 son made a banner for the door. The door desperately need sanding and re varnishing but that's another post I think. Renovation never ends.

I have recently rediscovered the joy of the embroidery function on my machine. I have been having a bit of a play. It started when I saw someones 5x7 Three Wishes by Titania Creations and commented on it. I only have a 4x4 hoop and was a little disappointed but by that evening there was a 4x4 download on the freebie page. It's a lovely website with some beautiful patterns if you have an embroidery machine I highly recommend popping over for a look. Here is my practice piece, it stitches out really well.

This was just a trial on an old pillowcase but I think it's headed for a cushion or possibly a bag.

The dandelion is the symbol of the military child so this one is particularly poignant.

After getting my embroidery juices flowing again I went on the hunt for some more patterns to play with. Here are the results of a few evenings playing about.

This elephant was a freebie from Ann the Gran. I posted his progress on my personal Facebook page and my friends were going mad for him. He became this cushion, I thought the fabric was quite complimentary to the stitching. I love him and he has already marched off to live at a friends house.

These bunnies I actually bought from an American site, it was probably EmbLibrary but it might not have been. I should really have made a note of it. This picture does not do them justice at all. They stitch out very well but the silvery grey thread is impossible to photograph, I paired it up with this beautiful sparkly star fabric which is also very hard to photograph well and a friend of mine has requested it for her daughter who is bunny mad.

I have also been playing with some cows but that's another blog post and hopefully one I will get finished and sharing with you very soon.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

The end of MMM#16 AND The Everyday's a Party dress because when you're three every day is.

I never got around to finishing off the post about Me Made May mainly because my sons helped me tidy one day and I haven't found the laptop charger since. I have managed to resurrect the old one until we find it though and it is very slow but it works.

So I found that I didn't wear as much Me Made as perhaps I could have but I then realised that I had worn Me Made pyjama bottoms and underwear in the last week, so I didn't feel so bad.

I did find there were a few warmer days in June that I wore some dresses and skirts but May was a bit of a flop really.

The downside of the laptop situation is I can't see my photos so I have to hope I have the right one. For that reason I am not sharing pictures of the outfits worn but I am adding a picture of this little beauty I made over the weekend. I am calling it the 'Everyday's a Party' dress.

In the spirit of  'Buying Nothing New' I didn't buy the cute cow fabric my daughter loved and I went through my stash and found this organic cotton from Birch Fabric, there is now none left. It came in a bundle I bought last year. The lining for the bodice was gifted to me and the sash and band are form a set of pillow cases we bought but turned out to be the wrong colour. I knew they would come in handy for something. I love it.

MMM#16 catch up and a little bit of sunshine

So I have to admit to not doing very well on the MMM challenge since last time I checked in with you all. I have been wearing my owl pj bottoms last week.

This material was left over from a dress my husband made me for a bet in Germany, (It's actually a great dress and has been worn on more than one occasion), it had been waiting for a project to come to me. I finally decided after sewing pyjamas for everyone else in the household I would make some for me. I used Lauren's pattern from her Learn to Sew book and was pleased with my contrasting pockets, I am the first of us to have pockets in my homemade sleepwear. I could have made the elastic an inch longer but it's OK and I love them anyway.

I have also pulled out a top which while I didn't sew it I did refashion it from a dress that didn't fit anymore. I don't have any pictures, I will have to work on that. It was a dress I bought for a wedding years ago and then I had children and it never really fitted again but I liked the fabric so I chopped it up a bit. I am not sure it entirely counts but it's all I've got this week. Now the sun seems to be out I will try and be a bit more MM next week.

As the sun has graced us this weekend we did a spot of den building in the garden.

It's not quite finished but everyone was feeling a bit tired, we had to clear around the base of the tree before hauling the branches over from the uncut log pile. But it was a lot of fun and the three smalls enjoyed it a lot.

Enjoy the sunshine. I'll see you soon.

Procrastination. . . and some MMM#16

Today is all about not doing the washing up. I washed the same dishes every day for the last week, it's really boring! So instead I have sorted out a present for madam to take to her first pre school party tomorrow and wrapped it and also wrapped a present for oldest son to take to his sleep over tomorrow. I have played on Pinterest and watched some crafting TV. I know I really ought to do the house work but it's such a nice day.

I thought I would also mention my second MMM day which was yesterday when I wore a tunic I made with fabric I bought in London last year at Knit and Stitch, well actually I think it may have been on Goldhawk Rd after Knit and Stitch I can't quite remember now.

It was my first (and only) invisible zip and I used the Willow Tunic from Serendipity. I LOVE her patterns. I own three but there are many more I would like to add to my pattern library at some point.

As I mentioned before I don't have a mirror to show you the outfit but I wore the tunic with some dark grey skinny jeans my MIL bought me last year from Monsoon, black ballet shoes and a bracelet I made several years ago which happened to match the fabric perfectly.

This is an old picture I took when I made the tunic. It's not the best picture.

I was pleasantly surprised in the playground as I had lots of compliments from people and I did enjoy being able to say I made it when they asked where it came from.

How is your sunny Friday going?

MMM 16

I hesitantly joined in with Me Made May last year and it was a lot of fun. I haven't made an official MMM pledge this year but I am going to attempt a two to three times a week goal. I say this as most of my made clothes are summery and the weather just hasn't been playing ball recently.

The other issue is we don't have a mirror, last year we had a full length mirror in the bedroom and I used this for pictures but since moving we just have one small bathroom mirror. This doesn't effect the wearability but it does mean I won't be able to share the challenge with you pictorially.

Today I am wearing the skirt I made last year from the bags of fabric I was gifted by a school Mum with a long length purple jumper with 3/4 sleevs, faux fur body warmer and a necklace that was a free gift from Amazon for messing up on an order.

The skirt is this one.

This was from last years MMM. It's quite a heavy fabric that was I understand used as tunics for some costumes made by the mother of the lady who gave me the fabric. I loosely used the Tilly and the Buttons pattern from her book but just in shape, I scrapped the waistband and put in a lapped zip on the side. It is one of my successful hash ups, I decided in an afternoon I was going to make it and wore it on the school pick up, I had lots of compliments and I still love it now.

So that's me for today. I'll be back later in the week with another update.

I look forward to reading about what you have all been up to.