Tag: buttons

New Old Knitting

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I was absolutely convinced I’d blogged about this last summer, but apparently not! Anyway, way back in July or August, my friend Chris sent me a parcel full of knitting patterns. Some I kept, some I passed on to my Mum, but the one that really stood out to me was this one. A probably-1960s raglan cardigan, with a smart cable detail, that should fit over the top of the 1950s dresses I’d been making at the time. One of the problems with new knitting patterns, even vintage-style ones, is that they tend to be very fitted. When you’ve got a dress or a blouse with quite wide sleeves, you need a roomier cardigan to go over the top!

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Image © Victoria & Albert Museum

The pattern calls for 18 ounces of double knitting yarn, in my size. That translates to roughly 525 grams, which seemed a little on the light side. I wanted to check on the yardage in those 18 ounces, as it varies from yarn to yarn, and I wanted to make sure I’d have enough. The yardage wasn’t stated in the pattern, so I went online to have a look. I didn’t find much in the way of helpful information, as it turned out – although the V&A do have this lovely shade chart. Remember those? I used to love choosing wool with my Mum, from the little tufty shade charts that she used to keep in the sideboard. Wouldn’t it be nice to have those again now, so that we could see what we were getting before we ordered online?

Anyway, I digress.

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What I did find, eventually, was this. The exact wool called for in the pattern, a grand total of 18 ounces, all in the same dye lot, and in absolutely perfect condition! And to top it off, a rummage in the button stash turned up the perfect set. I still can’t believe the serendipity of it!

The thing I still don’t know, sadly, is the yardage of each of those tiny one ounce balls of wool. It’s not stated on the label, so the only thing I can do now is unravel one, and measure it. I might also, for the first time in my knitting life, actually make a gauge swatch and measure that too. Given that I have precisely the amount of yarn called for, I can’t even entertain the possibility of running out. After all, it’s not as though I can pop down to the shops and buy some more!

Vintage Haberdashery

button sample card

Today I came to the startling realisation that my mountain of vintage haberdashery isn’t going to sell itself whilst sitting in a box in my sewing room, so I thought it was about time I listed at least some of it on Etsy!

Above you can see a lovely button sample card, and there’s also another sample card with metal buttons, hooks and buckles.

stockings darning kit

This is the one thing that I was really tempted to keep – a gorgeous little leather pouch with five cards of thread especially for mending stockings! The front of the pouch is embossed with gold writing which says “troubles are ended when they are mended”. I did keep one card which has multiple shades of stocking-thread on it in actual stocking colours (like the ones above), and one which has the most gorgeous pastel colours for mending your silk lingerie. Some things are just too lovely to part with!

Also on the “I can’t believe I’m letting this go” list are an enormous folding needle case, and two pretty little card ones.

embroidery transfers

My enormous stash of embroidery transfers are also looking for a good home – this time as a job lot of around 100 sheets. The oldest one in the collection is the lovely Crinoline Lady above, who is conveniently marked May 1939. The rest are a mixture of 40s, 50s and 60s, mostly pulled out of an assortment of needlework magazines. I’ve been taking them out to craft stalls in an enormous great folder, to very little interest, and to be honest I just couldn’t face the thought of listing every single transfer individually. So a job lot it is! I have kept an envelope full of transfers for myself – mostly the ones that had been torn or cut out in places, or written on, or traced. I also kept a few of the smaller designs, as well as the drunken chickens, of course. I’m never going to part with those!

embroidery transfer booklet

Also on the embroidery front, there are two little books of transfers, and a catalogue for already-printed linens. The booklet above features designs for children, so there are Nursery Rhyme characters and little cartoon animals. There’s another which was free with “People’s Friend” magazine, which is also tiny designs but mostly florals.

embroidered coronation brooches

This one, if I’d been organised, probably would have been snatched up in seconds flat if I’d managed to get around to selling it last year in time for the Jubilee! It’s a really gorgeous 1953 transfer set for making Coronation Brooches, never even been unfolded. I couldn’t get a proper photo of the actual transfer sheet, because it seemed a shame to take it out of the original staple for the sake of a picture! Hopefully it’ll be appreciated in its pristine state.

If you’re not terribly interested in royalty, but happen to like dogs, birds, flowers or yachts, there’s another set containing exactly those designs.

And of course, there’s just one Mystery Haberdashery Box left, just waiting for somebody to be brave enough to snap it up! Mind you, if the thing you really wanted from the box was the slightly frightening plastic doll face, you can now buy the last remaining few all in one go.

I’ve got a couple of stalls coming up over the next couple of months, and I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the INEXPLICABLE EMPORIUM and what I do and don’t want to include in it. Just for once I haven’t been doing that thinking out loud (hence my somewhat sporadic appearances here), but I can tell you that I’m hoping to be around a bit more often from now on.

Milly’s 2013 Christmas Dresses

Milly's Christmas Dresses 2013

Today I have been mostly making Christmas dresses. Yes, I only have the one niece… but I got a bit carried away in the fabric shop! The pattern is Butterick 3772, again. This time it’s in the largest size I have, so I want to get a few more made before they’re outgrown.

Milly's Christmas Dresses 2013

I didn’t deliberately buy birds and bees… in fact I didn’t even notice the combination until Paul pointed it out to me! But given that birds and bees are two of my favourite things, it’s probably no surprise that I was smitten with these fabrics.

Milly's Christmas Dresses 2013

I was waiting in line to pay for the fabric when I spotted this button across the store. How perfect is that? I kind of want to knit myself a cardigan now, and put great big BEE BUTTONS all down the front.

Milly's Christmas Dresses 2013

Not wanting the birdy dress to feel left out, and in the absence of a matching bird button, I thought these little pink flowers would do very nicely. In case the super-observant amongst you are wondering why you can’t see any buttonholes, it’s because the buttons have great big snap fasteners sewn underneath.

I haven’t added any pockets to these dresses, as I want to use the leftovers to do the same thing as last year and make a couple of matching outfits for her rag doll. I’ll make a start on those tomorrow, and if there are still any scraps big enough then these two dresses might end up with pockets after all.

(Note to self: Don’t wrap them up just yet!)

More Marvellous Mittens

Purple organic pointelle gloves

I had grand plans for making lots more pairs of gloves today. Above, you can see the total sum of my glove-making endeavours.

Admittedly I got rather sidetracked this morning by a hat, and didn’t start making the gloves until after lunch. Unfortunately, it turns out that making gloves from organic cotton pointelle is the most enormous pain in the backside. It’s very thick and very stretchy. It’s difficult to mark, and it’s difficult to cut and sew accurately. All of this makes working with it very slow going indeed.

I’ve prepared the backs and the bias tape for two more purple pairs, and cut the contrast stripes for three more pairs. Those will be teamed with more pointelle but in brown.

However frustrated I might be by the length of time it’s taking me to sew these, I have to admit that I rather like them! The bias trim (which is also around the thumbs) is a pleasing finishing touch, and I’m happy that all of the fabric is organic cotton. Now I just need to get a move on, and finish making them!

Buttons and Bows

First bow tie, finished and boxed.

This was the first of Mr Magpie’s Adjustable Bow Ties to come off my mini production line. It’s a cotton hand-tied bow, on a grosgrain ribbon adjustable band. I love the look of a hand-tied bow but I find it impossible to tie one on front of a mirror, so this seemed like the ideal solution!

Organic cotton covered buttons, 15mm

While I was making the bow ties, I used all the offcuts of organic cotton to cover a little pile of 15mm buttons. They’ll be for sale alongside the ties and the vintage button stash that I’ve been sorting out.

Organic cotton bow ties

Here they are in glorious technicolour – all the striped fabrics are all from fat quarters of organic cotton designed by Kaffe Fassett for Rowan. I don’t think that particular fabric’s available any more, but I’ll definitely be making more bow ties with new organic cottons as I buy them.

I’ve got one more batch of fragranced tealights to make before the Frome Steampunk Extravaganza, and once they’re done, it’ll be a matter of what else I can make in the time I’ve got available in between my shifts at work. Hopefully I’ll end up with a stall that shows a good variety of the things I enjoy making, and that people will actually want to buy!

Inexplicable Emporium

Inexplicable Emporium Poster

So, Paul and I came back from Waltz on the Wye with an idea…

Beautiful Buttons

…that seems to be turning into a reality!

New Old Cardigan

New Old Cardigan

This morning I rediscovered the gathering foot for my sewing machine, and combined it with Pretty Jane’s continuous bias tape tutorial.

Half a metre of fabric turned into around twelve metres of tape, which I then ran through the gathering foot. This resulted in about four and a half metres of pretty ruffled trim! It’s about 4cm wide, and I ran both long edges through the overlocker. This gives it a nice finish, and also a little extra wiggle as the bias edges stretch a bit.

New Old Cardigan

I wanted to use my lovely new ruffle straight away, so I decided to re-vamp a very old cardigan. My Mum knitted this for me many years ago (I might even have worn it to school!), and the cuffs had become very threadbare.

Once I’d chopped off the worst of the unravelling cuffs and run them through the overlocker, I simply zig-zagged a length of ruffle into place. That looked a bit silly on its own, so I added some matching buttons. Good, but still nowhere near ruffly enough, so I decided to go a bit mad and stitch the ruffled trim all the way around the neck. Much better!

I was looking at the bias tape tutorial because I have quite a lot of small pieces of fabric lying around in the Shed, and I wanted to find a use for them. Now I’ve got the hang of it I’m planning to make some lengths of bias tape in different prints and patterns, and see about resurrecting my old Etsy shop. I have lots of vintage buttons that I’m never going to use, so I was thinking about listing them, along with some covered buttons and bias tape, and having a little haberdashery clear-out. Chances of this happening soon are minimal, but I’m thinking about it, and that’s a start!

Steampunk Coat

Almost finished...

Here’s the final part of the outfit – a somewhat modified version of Simplicity 2172. Actually, it’s not as heavily altered as you might think – I just left off a few pieces that were surplus to requirements. Like the sleeves.

The buttons are the original ones from my friend’s military jacket. There are four on the front (complete with more hand-sewn buttonholes), two on each pocket, and an extra one at the centre back.

Almost finished...

As you can see, I decided to bustle the back of the coat, so I made thread loops in the seams which simply pop over the buttons on the pockets and at the back. The coat was exactly the same length as the skirt, and the red lacing looked a bit out of place without being able to see the red of the skirt to tie it in, so to speak.

The feather collar is actually a cape that I bought from Next, last winter. Sewing it into place around the neckline of the coat forces the feathers upwards into a more wing-like shape, rather than the cape simply sitting flat around the neck.

In case you’re wondering where on earth I’m going in this outfit, it’s for the Wild Boy’s Ball at Kensington Palace. All I need to do now is add some more feathers to my mask, and carefully choose the rest of my accessories. I’ll make sure to show you photos of the entire outfit when it’s finished!

Fifteen silk buttons

Fifteen Silk Buttons

These are fifteen silk-covered buttons, waiting to take their place on a waistcoat to match the pirate shirt. They have to wait until I’ve made all the buttonholes by hand. This could take some time…

Twenty-eight buttons

Military jacket

This is a lovely jacket that belongs to a friend of mine. It came with black buttons, and we’d been chatting about how nice they were, and how difficult it would be to find a replacement if one was lost. A couple of hours later… you’ve guessed it! One missing button.

There were no spare buttons with the jacket, so the only option was to replace the whole lot. All twenty-eight of them. (There are two more on the sleeves that you can’t see in the picture.)  They’re ever so slightly larger than the original buttons, but thankfully they still fit through the buttonholes.

I bought practically every button in this style, and I’ve tucked a couple of spares into one of the pockets. That way, if another button goes missing, I don’t have to replace them all again. My fingers are really sore, from sewing them all on in one evening!