Category: sewing

A scarf and a squirrel handbag.

Remember that frighteningly tangled skein of silk?

This is what became of it:

Silk & Mohair Scarf Silk & Mohair Scarf

It’s a narrow scarf, which is long enough to reach below the waist on both sides. It’s knitted with one strand of Debbie Bliss Pure Silk and two strands of Colinette Parisienne held together. I cast on 13 stitches, on 5mm needles. Every fourth row, I changed to a 10mm needle. Otherwise it’s just plain garter stitch – keep knitting until the yarn runs out!

Here’s the last of the pre-ordered tote bags, which I finished today.

Squirrel handbag Squirrel handbag

You may have noticed that it’s a different shape from the others!

The photographs don’t show the shape particularly well – it’s more curvy than it looks. It’s big, too – in the second picture the bag has an A4 pad inside it, to keep it nice and flat. It has one long handle, and you can just see a tiny sneaky peek of the Design By Claire label in there too.

Tomorrow night is Hallowe’en and I’ve just rustled up a very quick costume thanks to Martha Stewart. I’ll tell you all about it as soon as I have some photos. Happy Hallowe’en!

Marmalade sandwich, anyone?

This skirt is another commission for Lisa. I wasn’t sure whether the print would be too big for it to work properly, but I’m actually really pleased with the way it’s come out.

Considering the age this duvet cover must be, the fabric’s in absolutely excellent condition. I’ll probably make another skirt out of what I have left.

Paddington Skirt

New job, new skirt…

I haven’t posted anything for a while, so I thought it was about time I showed you what I’ve been up to!

I’m working on some cravats for my sister’s wedding, although I don’t have any photographs of those yet. I need a stylistic opinion from my sister before I can complete them. I have to say that they are quite possibly the fiddliest thing I have ever made, and I’m having to do them in stages so that they don’t make me cross-eyed and drive me crazy. Still, I’m seeing my sister in a week’s time, so as soon as she’s seen how they’ll fit together I can finish them off.

You may have gathered from the title of the post that I have a new job! As of Tuesday I’m going to be working with my partner, , as a part-time web content manager. I’ll still be working at the bookshop until my notice period is up, so I’m just about to embark on a very busy four weeks! If you don’t hear from me, please don’t panic. I’ll be checking my journal and my email as often as I can, and I’ll be able to catch up with everything properly at the beginning of September.

This is the skirt that I’ve made to wear on my first day at work:

Yoda a-line skirt

I have a bet with that nobody will even notice that it has Yoda all over it until at least lunchtime. He thinks all the geeks my new colleagues will notice straight away. We’ll see… 😉

It’s made from cotton flannel and fully lined, so it’s not really a summer skirt. I’ll be working in an air-conditioned office though, so I’m sure it’ll be okay.

Star Wars Skirt!

This one’s a commission for – she saw the fabric on the website, and couldn’t resist!

The print goes in all directions so it’s inevitable that something’s going to be upside down. I decided it was probably safest to make sure that Darth Vader was the right way up though!

Star Wars a-line skirt Bambi dress...

Here is also a sneaky peek at one of the next projects I’m going to be making for myself. The Bambi duvet cover arrived this morning, and the printed front is backed with plain brown cotton. That makes it perfect for this dress with contrasting trim, I think.

Erin would be proud.

Knickers!

I’ve been meaning to do this for ages, and only just got around to it – I turned an old t-shirt into a pair of knickers!

You need quite a big t-shirt for this. If, like me, your bum is bigger than your chest, there’s no way you’re going to get a pair of knickers that fit you out of a skinny-fit t-shirt! If in doubt, try the t-shirt on, and make sure it goes round your bum with room to spare. You need seam allowances too, don’t forget.

Before

After:

(The picture’s now on the back, in case that’s not clear from the photos. The last one is of the inside.)

I probably won’t be posting these to because I’m really not very pleased with the way they’ve come out. They fit me, and they’re wonderfully soft and comfy, but the finishing is frankly awful. The tension in the elastic is uneven, and I hate the way that there’s a raw edge on the gusset inside. How annoying is that going to be after a couple of washes, when it’s all rolled up?!

The knickers I normally wear don’t actually have a gusset, so I’ll probably leave that out next time. The edges are all overlocked, with pretty elastic topstitched to the outside, so I think I’ll follow that example on my next pair as well.

Now to search Ebay for some pretty knicker elastic…

More space…

Remember the space bolero?

Now it has a matching skirt.

The waistband is bomber-jacket elastic, simply zig-zagged to the top of the skirt. The hem is bound, partly because I wanted it to match the bolero and partly because I couldn’t find any other form of navy trimming which was actually nice.

Space Outfit Space Skirt

I like elasticated waistbands, because my waist size varies by up to four inches depending on my health (long story), and this way I know that I’ll be able to wear it whenever I like.

I think it might be time to investigate a new camera though. This one is extraordinarily fussy about what kind of batteries it will eat, and it seems to have completely forgotten how to focus. It’s a Canon Powershot A95 which I inherited from Paul. I love the flip-out viewfinder, and the zoom and macro functions are excellent, but I really don’t need the dozens of different settings, and the shutter delay (on a digital camera? why?) makes it really frustrating to use. I’m quite tempted to replace it with something smaller, which I can stick in my handbag and carry around with me all the time. If anybody has any recommendations, I’d be very interested to hear them.

Nymphadora Tonks.

Too tired to make anything today, having been at work until 2am selling the new Harry Potter book.

We all went in costume, so here’s what I put together:

Tonks is described as having bubblegum pink hair, and wearing a purple t-shirt with “weird sisters” written on it. She also wears heavily-patched jeans.

The boots are Doc Martens, the hair’s not a wig, and the t-shirt says “Harry Potter and the Deathy Hallows” on the back. Given the number of small girls who shouted, “hey, it’s Tonks!!” at me from the queue, I guess the costume was at least recognisable!

I need to get myself invited to more fancy dress parties. I love dressing up. 🙂

Space is big. Very big.

My jacket says so.

This is a little bolero jacket that I put together this afternoon, following a sudden flash of inspiration yesterday evening.

Believe it or not, it’s made from a kids’ pillowcase!

Space bolero - front

Space bolero - back

It’s a different style from the red silk bolero – shorter in the arms and the back – and I think I like this one better. It’ll be more comfortable to wear to work, as my arms are more free to move around.

I do have tons of this fabric left (I bought a duvet cover as well as a pillowcase!), so if anybody wants one of these, please yell!

Prices start from £30, depending on fabric.
(Obviously, a silk bolero is going to cost more than one made from a recycled pillowcase!)
It’s fully lined, and the sleeve edges are bound. I can bind all of the edges if you prefer, or none at all.

These little jackets look fabulous over corsets, by the way… 😉

Before and After…

Before: 1 REM t-shirt, size XL. This is what happens when you’re at the back of the merchandise queue.

After: 1 REM t-shirt, much smaller. This is what happens when you have a sister with a sewing machine. 😉

My sister bought this t-shirt when she went to see REM at the Milton Keynes Bowl, approximately one million years ago. She has kept the t-shirt all this time even though it in no way fitted her. In fact, her fiancé wore it when they went to see REM in Hyde Park, slightly more recently. Apparently it was also too big for him, and he’s over six feet tall!

It’s actually quite nerve-wracking, chopping up other people’s precious t-shirts. All it takes is a snip in the wrong place and you’ve got a hole, or a t-shirt that’s too tight. Band t-shirts in particular come with a lot of memories attached, which imbue them with greater significance than you might expect in a mere item of clothing. Being entrusted to refashion someone else’s beloved t-shirt is actually quite an honour.

I’m Not a Plastic Bag.

Chloe is my new hero.

Were any of you daft enough to queue outside Sainsbury’s for an Anya Hindmarch “I’m not a plastic bag”? Or worse, to buy one for a ridiculous price on Ebay?

Yes, in some ways it’s a good idea. The most influential handbag designer of the moment jumps on the green bandwagon. That can’t be doing her profits any harm. Or Sainsbury’s. It brings the issue of recycling and re-using and landfill to the public’s attention. But I would like to bet that these Anya Hindmarch bags won’t be used by people who actually care about not using carrier bags for their shopping. They’ll be used mostly by fashion victims as a handbag, while they continue to drive their groceries home in the car, in ordinary carrier bags, as per usual.

The bag itself was made in China, and shipped over to the UK. It will also shortly begin another production run to be shipped over the the US. Hardly a low carbon footprint or an ethically sound manufacturing option! It’s made from “unbleached” cotton, but nowhere does it say whether the cotton is actually organic, or fairly-traded.

Maybe that’s asking too much from one small bag, but why should it be? There is no excuse for designers, especially designers who are jumping on the “green” bandwagon, not to be using cotton which is either fairly-traded or organic, and preferably both. Yes, organic cotton is more expensive, because the yields are lower. Gradually, as the earth recovers from being doused in pesticides for decades, this will change. Yes, Fair Trade cotton is more expensive because, shockingly, you have to actually pay the farmers for growing it for you.

A number of high street stores are now selling “green” clothing ranges, although it’s quite difficult to find out what criteria they’re using to make this claim. M&S has a range of t-shirts, Asda has similar, and even Primark are somehow producing the cheapest “green” clothing around. I’m happy to see this kind of thing filtering down to the high street, even if I am suspicious of how Primark can produce so much, so cheaply.

At the moment I simply can’t afford to buy organic and fairly-traded cotton to make my clothes, although it’s something that I’ve been looking into for a couple of years. This is why I’m currently taking the recycling route, and trying to make something new out of something which would otherwise have been thrown away.

How long do you think it will be before the fashion victims get bored of the “I’m not a plastic bag”, and simply throw it away in favour of the next most fashionable thing? Still, if they all end up on Ebay, at least they’re being recycled…