My Sewing Blog

Was just merrily sewing some wipes on the overlocker when there was a big bang. A needle exploded, scattering tiny sharp bits everywhere! Got stabbed in the boob!!!!!! Well, at least it wasn't my eye. I have cloth wipes now :-) LOTS of them! As soon as I have fished all the pieces of needle out of the machine and replaced it I can finish sewing the rest of them. I think I've done about 35 so far. I'm hoping to stop buying disposable products in an effort to be more eco-friendly. I won't need to buy disposable baby wipes any more. I had stopped buying kitchen roll, but M just bought some. To clean the windows he said. But I think flannel fabric will do a better job. I might make some "un-paper towels" for using in the kitchen. And I think i might make a small stack of cloth napkins for the children to use at the table. Not fancy cloth napkins like you'd get at a restaurant. Probably just some flannel squares to wipe their hands on. I'm also working on a

The end of my weeks challenge... and I did nothing! R didn't go to sleep till 10:30pm and I was a bit tired. I did sort through some things that just need a couple of things done to finish them. And I cut out a pattern. I don't think I did too badly this week. R has a new nappy and outfit and a pair of waterproof trousers for wet days. I've got a new top. And the smocked Ollie outfit is finally finished off (just about 5 years too late!) I think over the next few days I'll work on finishing off a few more things then move on to some new projects. I'm trying hard to keep my sewing area tidy, clearing up after every project. Sewing goes much faster when you know where everything is and don't have to spend half an hour hunting around for a seam ripper or fabric marker. I've bought a "few" more things in a couple of fabric co-ops. I can't wait to have a stack of lovely new knits to sew with. I'm also getting some new colours of PUL -

Waterproof trousers - well at least I think they are waterproof. They're made with a nylon fabric. Not very good to work with while you have a baby sleeping next to you! Its very noisy. These needed the crotch seam sewn. I'm not sure why I hadn't done it. I think these were from a Kwik Sew pattern, and are a size T2. They fit Mr Fluff perfectly! I was going to put elastic into the bottom of the legs, but I couldn't find a safety pin to thread the elastic with. I can always do it later. Its lined with a light weight micro fleece on the top part. I also finished off a KCK One nappy. It needed sewn together, elastic put in and all the velcro put on. I think I made a mistake with this. I didn't have the original pattern in front of me, so i cut the loop on the outside of the wings to 3 inches. I think it might have been 3.5 inches because it looks a little bit short compared to the others I have. But it doesn't really matter because we don't use th

Yay! It's finished!!! But one of the snaps is squint. And I just noticed a tiny scissor cut in the cuff of the shirt! I'm not sure if it happened while I was trimming the threads or if it was there when I started working on it. Ignore the little feet in the picture. He was asleep on the bed while I was taking pictures. The arm hole bindings are terrible, and I don't think the front button band is right at the bottom. I couldn't understand the instructions for that so I just did the best I could. The backs - I put snaps on the back of the shirt too. You were supposed to use buttons, but I was fed up with the project and I just wanted to get it done. The very unhappy little boy modelling it! Everyone came charging up the stairs and woke him up so he wasn't in a good mood. E is trying to make him stand up so I could take a picture and he is shouting at her! Huggles with mama made him feel better! We swapped the

It is almost done! I took this picture at 12:40 last night. The only thing that really needs done now is marking the snap placement and putting the snaps on :-) The snaps are supposed to be metal snaps, but I'm going to use the plastic ones that I use on nappies. R went to bed quite late, but at least he stayed asleep while I was working. He likes to sleep the wrong way up in the bed, and he hates having covers on - which is very annoying!

Nightmare... That baby didn't want to go off to sleep till nearly 11pm last night. I had a headache after that so I didn't do anything. Today I've been working on the pesky romper suit. Now I remember why I never finished it! Frustrating isn't the word for it... I nearly tossed it back in the UFO pile, but I made myself struggle on. It is the right size for R so I should finish it now if I want to make use of it. There is a lot of very slow hand sewing to be done on it. I might finish it off tonight - if I figure out how to do the front button bands. I don't understand the instructions at all.

Cheated again because I didn't get it finished off till this afternoon. This is a nursing hoodie from the Blessed Designs #1003 pattern. I made the small size. All through sewing this I thought it would be too small. I should have read the pattern instructions more closely. It does fit though! But it would be better with a bit more ease. I cut this out not too long ago, from a knit fabric I bought on ebay. Its kind of an odd fabric - it's a knit but its very thick. The fabric was a very strange width too. Very narrow. It doesn't have a huge amount of stretch to it either. I added cuffs to it to make it look a bit more sporty. I copied the cuffs that were on a hoodie that I already had. The nursing openings work really well, they aren't too small but they aren't so big that they are gappy. I've got quite a lot of transfers, labels and other embelishment bits a bobs. I knew I wanted to use something on this because it looked so plain. The heart wasn&

Cheated a little bit. My mum came over last night, and the children didn't get to bed till late, then M brought takeaway home, so I only had the chance to sew a couple of buttons on and hand stitch the cuffs in place. I finished it off completely when R was having a nap this afternoon. Perfect timing - he woke up when I sewed the last button on! The pattern is called Ollie. Its a long sleeved shirt that buttons onto 3/4 length bloomer sort of trousers. The trousers are cord and the top is made from a very soft and lightweight twill. I had to hem the bottom of the shirt, hand stitch the cuff linings, sew button holes on the back of the shirt and sew all the buttons on. There are buttons on the legs of the trousers too, so you can change a nappy without unbuttoning the trousers from the shirt. I also tried to fix a slightly crooked bit of sewing on the collar band, but I think i ended up making it look worse :-O Here is a close up of the smocking. I think this is

I've given myself a challenge. Finish up one project every day this week, starting Monday and ending on Sunday night. Mondays Project. Cloth pads from the Fern and Faerie patterns. Two of them needed over locked together and they all needed threads trimmed and snaps put on. Three of them are the #304 Foldable Wing pattern, and the others are made with the tops from the #303 Contoured tab pattern and the wings from the foldable wing pad. The patterns are interchangeable, so you can make any combination you like. I thought the tabs would be too hard to over lock around. It turned out the wings were hard to over lock around and they look kind of horrible and messy, like they've been sewn by a 7 year old. No more over locked pads I think. When I get round to making some more I will turn and top stitch them instead. The maxi sizes look pretty good (they're the medium ones) but the mini pads look kind of useless. I can't imagine using them. They are q

I got a new shelf unit from Ikea for my fabric. I thought it might be easier to have it organised on shelves, so I could see what I had more clearly, and reach things easily. I had it stored in boxes before. Its taken me about a week to move it from the boxes onto the shelves, but its done now! I also sorted through unfinished projects, patterns and cleared up my desk. I've got fleece on the top shelf - kind of messy since I can't reach that high. I just threw them onto the top shelf. Next shelf is knit fabric and cord fabric, next shelf has PUL, flannel, PRR fabrics and interfacing, on the bottom shelf there is a big stack of random fabrics and some natural fabrics - like bamboo and hemp. In the boxes next to the shelf I've got clothes for recycling (or upcycling I think its called?) a box of cut out projects, a box of half done projects - also known as UFOs (that's UnFinished Objects!). The narrow box is filled with smocking projects. On top of that is a box of finish

I got a new shelf unit from Ikea to store fabric on. I'm in the process of transferring fabric from boxes and drawers onto the new shelves. I have found a LOT of unfinished projects. I also found a little dress that I made for E when she was about 3. It was one of my most favourite things I've ever made. I kept it even though she'd outgrown it. I thought maybe some day I'd have another girl to put it on, but I've ended up with 3 boys instead! Well, i pulled it out and thought hmmm... that could be a top. And so it became a top! It looks really nice too, and seems to fit a lot better than it did when I made it. It ties at the shoulders and it was always a bit gappy. Its the perfect fit now :-) E tried to model it creatively so you could see better what it is like! There are a lot of unfinished things in boxes, some only need a couple of things to finish them off, so I'll get onto that as soon as I can. Some things I did throw away (into the tex