Grown up dress

Having finished the little toddler dress I though a grown up dress couldn’t be that more difficult. I bought a pattern from Simplicity (thinking the name should really mean it is easy to make). First I made a try-out with fabric from an old bed sheet. See the results below. It actually looked quiet good so I wasn’t scared any more to try it out on my newly bought white/bleu flower fabric. I started last july, it’s nearly February now and I still haven’t finished. I guess what things intent to go wrong I quit and start something new or different. I decided in December to take sewing lessons (a world opens for me!) and now I am confident enough to finish my dress (pictures of the finished dress will follow!).

Little toddler dress

Last summer I actually finally got into sewing a bit more. I did a few bags in the past but nothing major and definitely no clothing! I thought the best way to start learning sewing clothes is by starting small. I took that literally and started sewing a toddler dress for our youngest niece. It was for her first b-day but as you can adjust the size she could wear it for at least 3 summers.

I found the pattern on Burda.com, It is one of the free patterns and it’s from Oliver.S. I thought this pattern would be so easy…I should be able to do it. And I did! See the results and say ahhhh waith me! Of course the very pretty fabric (bought in a fabric shop in Belgium during one of our weekends-away) makes this dress look even better!

 

Memory-board

My nieces their birthdays are short after each other, just before the holidays and close to many other family birthdays. You get the point…it’s always a hassle to find something spectacular for them AND to be sure you will be the only one showing up with that one present. So me and my hubby had the thoughts of taking the girls out on a shopping spree in stead. They could make their own choice of new clothes (we had to direct them every now and than though) and they love to have a “day out” like this. How to give a present like this? It shouldn’t be a dull card saying what their present would be, it should be more spectacular. So this is what I did:

I went to a cheap shop and bought 2 stretched on wood painting-canvas. I had some nice bright colour cotton left, enough to cover both of these canvasses. The cotton was stapled together on the back site against the wooden frame. Be sure you pull the cotton really tight over the edges.  Now the real fun starts, putting lace, elastic and ribbon forth and back all over the board. I have done one vertical, 3 horizontal and 3 crossed over the board. Than I hand stitched the places where the ribbons met each other by just 3 or 4 little stitches through the canvas as well.

Like this the board can be used by putting thing behind the ribbons. It will stay in place because of these stitches. It’s good for little paper notes, cinema tickets, letters, photo’s etc etc. To finish the board I have put a few buttons on it, a few mini clothes pins and hand-made lace and silk flowers.

The board was finished; we printed a nice picture of each of the nieces and put this on one of the boards. Now it was sure which board was who’s. We made a nice printed invitation for the shopping spree and attached this to the board as well. One of my nieces said it was the best gift they had that day…. and it was hand made! ... This makes me feel really happy, I am sure I haven’t spend a day in my studio for nothing ;-)

Infinity/loop scarf from fleece and cotton

I made it a few months ago, before I bought my new bleu winter coat (did I know?). I have made an infinity scarf which has one site dark bleu fleece and the other side nice flower-printed cotton. Use easy going cotton, not the stiff stuff.

I have cut a piece of 30 cm by 1.40 cm of both fabrics, put right side on each other and locked/sewed 3 sides together. Turned it around and put the sewed short side into the open short side. Pushing the fabric a little inside of the open side and sewed it all together (try to make it as flat as possible!)

I love this scarf! It’s not to warm, it’s not to bulky, and it looks great with my new coat! Of course I did not stop with one scarf and made many more. I will put some more pictures online soon!

Fingerless cloves for my new coat

A few weeks ago  I bought my new winter coat. The old one was grey and my new one is blue. This means my grey accessories should be turned into blue as well! This winter seemed to be a very soft one. No ice, no snow. This turned completely around this week….it’s freezing, a bit of snow has fallen last night and more will follow. Am I happy that I sewed my fingerless gloves last night!

I have seen loads of these on pinterest, all great ideas of how to sew them and how to decorate them. As I think these gloves should be perfectly fitted (not to wide and not to tight) I decided to make my own pattern by taking sizes of my hands. I measured the width of my 4 longer fingers,  the length from my thump to the middle of my fingers, the length to my wrist and the width of my wrist. Don’t forget the wrist will be tighter than the widest part of your hand, you need to keep enough space to put the glove on so measure this as well!

Having cut the fleece fabric in the right sizes (elastic fabric would be better, but I wanted to use this fleece fabric) I added a bit of lace (yes I love lace) on the top of the gloves and sewed the two sides together, but leaving a thumbhole! I hand-stitched the thumbhole, but I guess there as simple 100 ways of securing this part (in the past I have used bias, which worked very well).

Lace and jeans jewellery

Yes, I know…I have started my blog and didn’t write on it for months!

What kind of start is that huh! I will make things better…promised… and will start with writing about a few things I have made in the last couple of weeks.

Lace and jeans jewellery

One thing I really like, especially combined together, are lace and jeans. On pinterest I have found this great tutorial of making bangles out of jeans. It was written by Green Issues: http://greenissuessingapore.blogspot.com/2011/03/old-jeans-into-jean-bangles.html

I loved them! So there it started. Looking for an old pair of jeans (I guess everyone has at least one pair laying around which hasn’t been worn for months if not years). I took a dive into my lace stash and started making a bangle with black lace.

It turned out quiet well for a first try! I found some blue lace for my second creation and white for the “sweeter” look.  In the end I found some white flowers which I decorated with beads. This would have been nice with buttons as well!

As I really liked the last version I decided to make some ear rings with them. Using the same flower lace and beads. How cute are these? 

Still had a few cm. if the flower lace left I decided to make a bracelet with buttons. Very girly, my nieces would love these!