Showing posts with label Stash Busting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Stash Busting. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 28, 2015

cambie.... the weekly soap

Last year I finally bought Cambie. She (a dress pattern has to be female!) is a pattern that I have been pussyfooting about for ages. She is going to help me sew three wonderful dresses (or at least that is the plan!). Two for work, one for the winter in a dark brown wool and one for the summer in a lightweight grey and black patterned cotton-mix. And the third one in a traditional German woven blue and white check with red/orange details.  The third one is a special dress. I shall tell you more about that one when I get to it though. Just let me tell you it has to be a wow to live up to the occasion I am intending to wear it to.

 The fabric for this dress trio was all preloved fabric that people didn't sew up. The dark brown wool came from a charity shop fairly nearby that always has a tempting stock of yardage (or should that be meterage). I bought it thinking boy's trousers but the rate they get through trousers at the moment, the only thing I would be prepared to sew is leather with steel kneecaps! So after I got over the boys's trouser idea, it went into the stash for a while. The great thing is, now I can count it as stashbusting.
 
The grey and black cotton came from my "Nähtreff". More about the actual sewing evening itself another time. In November last year a local theatre put on a production of "The Fiddler on the Roof". There was a call out in the local paper for fabric and notions to make costumes with. The response was amazing. People brought in truckloads of wonderful fabric and notions. The lace.... people gave their buttons collections... well all that was left after sewing the costumes went into the Nähtreff stash! This lovely cotton was left over and asked if it wasn't used, if it could be earmarked for me. Lucky me... it wasn't needed. So it will become a lovely little Cambie for me. Lucky me. Despite picking it up this year, I reckon as I asked for it last year, that it does not count as a new addition this year. 

As I am making three dresses and using lovely fabric, I decided to make a muslin. That allows me to play with the bodice length too. Madame long body here. I even chose a muslin fabric with a stripe so I could see what went on with the stripes for the third dress.

Monday, January 19, 2015

Baby Blankets

2014 saw a old trend being revived by my friends. All of a sudden another round of babies were born. Numbers two and three were born all over the place. A completely natural thing you are probably thinking. Well , yes, only it was quiet on that scene for a while.
Being such a lazy friend, instead of sewing up complicated Welcome Baby parcels, I just sewed up some cosy blankets. I reckoned that by the time you get to Number Two ot Three you are probably swimming in stuff anyway! And I know that when I had Thing Two I was actually very happy to be able to reused some of the clothes/blankets/toys that I loved but had been put to one side. But you know, I am married to a man who is a Number Three. A favourite of the family stories is one where he was so chuffed to get something new and something that noone else had before. Having said that I am a Number One (and Only...) and I got plenty of pre-loved clothes! Anyway seconds and thirds should have at least one new thing. 

And so the blanket workshop opened:
                         



Wednesday, June 4, 2014

Family Pyjamas - Familien Pyjamas

These PJ trousers were a project many moons ago. Inspired by lots of American ladies who sew PJs for their families for Thanksgiving/Winter solstice/Christmas, I intended to sew PJS for my own kids and my nieces and nephews. Much dithering and perusing fabric happened before I found some that would be alright for boys and for girls. Very particular little girls who I knew would want pink and not wanting to put four boys into pink PJs, I finally found some fabric that had pink and blue and other colours. I dont think it is too girlie, do you?

Diese Pyjamahosen sind ein Projekt von vor vielen Jahren. Meine Inspiration kam von lauter fleissige amerikanische Frauen, die zur Thanksgiving/Winter Sonnenwende/Weihnachten, Pyjamas für Ihre Familien nähen. Ich nahm mir vor Pyjamas für meine Kinder und meine Nichten und Neffen zu nähen. Nach langes hin-und-her fand ich einen Stoff, den ich für Jungs und Mädchen passend fand. Oh je, meine Nichten waren damals in eine tiefen Pink-Phase, ich wollte aber keine vier Jungs pinke Pyjamas zumuten. Ich finde es nicht zuuuu mädchenhaft, was meint Ihr?


For the tops I picked up some t-shirts and designed a six starred pattern. The plan was that one of the stars on the t-shirt would be made of the same fabric as the bottoms. That one would be it's place in the family birth order.

Für Oberteile habe ich sechs t-shirts geholt und habe ein Sternchen-Motiv mit sechs Sterne kreiert. Der Plan war, auf jedes der T-Shirts sollte einer der sechs Sterne in den gleichen Stoff sein wie der Hose. Dieser Stern sollte dann in der Reihenfolge des Kindes in der Familie sein.

So I had my design and my fabric, t-shirt, about a mile of elastic and just had to get sewing six (at the time) pairs of Pjs: a grand plan. I got started on time and then somehow life got hectic . The kids keep growing.... Only Thing One actually got his. They now fit Thing Two. I had five pairs of PJs trousers cut, some half sewn, some alright, some with mistakes and one pair that needed repairing in my UFO stash. Now I have five pairs of finished PJ bottoms and a repaired one.

So Design und Stoff, mindestens 2 Kilometer Gummi waren nun vorhanden, ich musste nur mit dem waschen, bügeln, schneiden, und schliesslich nähen für sechs Pyjama-Sets anfangen. Ein ambionierte Plan. Ich fing pünktlich an und dann wurde das Leben sehr hektisch. Die Kinder hörten nicht auf zu wachsen ..... Thing One hat seiner bekommen. Nun passen sie Thing Two. Ich hatte fünf weitere Hosen geschnitten und teilweise halbfertig genäht, manchen waren gut, manche haben einen Auftrennle gebraucht und eine Hose, die repariert werden musste. Nun habe ich fünf fertige Hosen und einer der reparierte ist.

(Here you see only four as two are already in use. Hier sieht Ihr nur vier, da zwei schon im Gebrauch sind)

Luckily:
  • Thing One isn't the oldest of the six, so there are still two pairs for him to wear! 
  • I only printed two of the t-shirts, so I can go with a simple version of the six stars  (should now be seven)
  • Thing Two is small enough to wear nearly all of them. He is going to remember having this one pair of PJs that grew with him throughout his childhood. Hihihi.... 
Glücklicherweise:
  • Ist Thing One nicht der Ältester, da sind noch zwei Hosen für Ihn
  • habe ich nur zwei T-Shirts gedruckt, da kann ich einfach sechs Sterne (es müssten laut Plan sieben sein) auf die anderen drucken.
  • Ist Thing Two klein genug um fast alle zu tragen. Er wird sich an diesen einer Pyjama erriernen, der ihn seiner Kindheit durch begeleitet hat. Hihihihi....



Sunday, June 1, 2014

UFO Stashbusting

I have a big fabric stash. Lots of us do. I have committed to not buying any new fabric until a substantial amount of my stash has been reduced. I joined a Facebook Group to help keep my promise. It's not so easy with all those tempting fabrics out there. Enough said about that. I'll come back to my stash again another day.



Right now I am trying to reduce my U(n)F(inished) Objects stash. Inspired by Prolific Project Starter's dress, I have decided to reduce those two boxes of projects to zero by mid-June. This is the reason why I have been so quiet. I have been sewing like a mad thing. Some of them only need a little bit of work and they are done, some need bits taking apart and redoing, some are just cut out and some have irreparable mistakes (at least from my point of view now). In the past week I have finished 5 pairs of PJ trousers (will be posted about later), three Christmas stockings, a bread basket, two bibs and a summer top. Yipee! More pictures to follow....

German translations will follow too for the next posts. Promise!




Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Another Bib.... Oliver+S

This cute little thing is a finished, useful, stash bust. Say those words slowly and if you are anything like me, you'll get my amazement.


I used all stash fabric. Sadly, you can see it on the thick denim on the main part, but then again, it will have food splattered all over it as soon as it hits the table. The bias was my first attempt at home-made bias and I am pretty chuffed about it. In it's previous life, it had been a shirt. The pocket is double lined and made from some remnants from a friend's dress. I love the fabric, but don't even know where she bought it, nevermind who made it or designed the print.


I sewed them from the Oliver+S Book, Little Things to Sew. It is the first pattern I have sewn out of it and I seriously changed it. I added the pocket, lined and backed it in toweling. The finished product feels lovely, even if it is very thick. It certainly doesn't need to be this thick. The green quick and dirty bibs do the job just fine. Next time I am sewing something like this for a gift, I would definitely come back to the pattern.

Monday, May 12, 2014

Boys' Bibs

My last post being about another project started and none of the previous ones yet finished, I thought I would share my quick and dirty response to quilt piecing. Boys' bibs. Thing Two is one mucky pup who loves his food and is still learning to get most of the food in. Fair does, it is tricky when your mum gives you soup or musli. Here is this mum's answer:


I cut them a while ago from laminated cotton from my stash. I carefully pinned one and then tried to sew it. It is a long while since I sewed anything vaguely laminated. To give me my dues, even then it was on a different machine. After the machine had chomped its way through a bit,  I decided this was not the way to come out with something that satisfied even a quick and dirty sew. Well, I thought to myself, laminated fabric doesn't fray..... what about zigzagging it? For some strange reason my machine happily zigzagged it's way around these. I just carefully trimmed them around the stitching, added some cam snaps and they were ready to go. They have been tried and tested and the verdict was.... why did I wait so long?