Crafting update

As Winter closes in, crafting increases. I have been industriously knitting the cot quilt WIP and I think it's finally big enough. All the rows are stitched together, but I haven't yet tidied up all the loose threads. I am contemplating teaching myself to crochet from You Tube videos so I can make a bit of a border for it. Maybe. The irony is, since I started knitting the cot quilt several months ago, I don't think SP has slept in her cot more than once or twice! Still, I think she likes it anyway!



Another WIP, the front garden design, is nearing completion too. I am reasonably happy with it. I need to sit on it for a while and think about it.


And finally, not a WIP but craft related... I have finally sold a kid's quilt on Etsy! This green beauty will be winging it's way to the UK shortly.



Happy cold weather crafting, folks!
xx

Addendum to previous post

Dress photos! As promised :)

So this is how many photos of the divine Miss SP turn out: As a blur moving rapidly out of shot.

But when she can be persuaded to stay still for a nano-second or two, she's super-cute. Suuu. Puur. Cute.  Excuse the top under the dress. It was a little nippy here today. 

I wondered how short the dress was going to end up on my little miss, but it's just about perfect.

And I tied the straps at the back, which works very well for now.

Could be a dress for a first birthday party, which is sneaking up on this Mama much faster than I'd have ever imagined!

Upcycling nostalgia.

[This is my addition to the Weekend Rewind at 'And then there were four' for the 19th of August, 2011. I found it hard to choose a post this time, because I try to recycle/upcycle things quite often and blog about it from time to time, talking about everything from baby dresses, to floor joists, to pavers!

Click here to see some of the other things I've tried to reuse.

Click here to see how this little dress ended up on my girl.]

When I was a teenager I used to wear this cami. I'd never wear something that exposed my stomach like that now, and, in fact, I rarely wore it back then. To be truthful, even if I did want to wear it now I doubt I could get it on: I'm still breastfeeding SP and, well, you know the rest... But I've never been able to get rid of this little top because I loved the fabric too much. It's a crinkled sheer white silk printed with pink and blue roses: lovely!

It even has a fine edging of lace around the top.


So I was feeling creative today (you must catch those bursts of creativity and hold them tight to your chest in your hands) and I realised this top was just a tube with straps. It doesn't have so much as a dart to shape it. I washed it and smoothed it flat and left it to dry while I cut out a lining from some cream-coloured poly I found in my fabric stash. I sewed the poly into a similarly sized tube and sewed it inside.


Then I got shirring, and you know how I like shirring! My machine cooperated and I didn't need to re-thread it or tighten any screws even once! With my old cami I've made SP a pixie dress. I left the straps attached and long, and the dress can be used as a top as she grows.


Tomorrow I'll see if SP will stand still long enough for me to take a picture of her in it.


Happy weekend crafting, everybody xx

Fun with shirring.

I thought I'd try my hand at shirring the other day. I popped up to my local fabric shop and bought my elastic, and after dithering for ages over pink floral fabric versus the same fabric in blue, I bought both.
To my amazement, shirring is actually really, really easy! I didn't think my ancient Singer machine would cope, it's almost as old as I am for a start, and the tension is not what it was, and don't even talk to me about doing zig-zag stitch. But I should have trusted Old Faithful, for look what it helped me make! Isn't it amazing how a rectangle of fabric can be transformed into something so cute with 20 minutes of careful stitching with elastic and the addition of some -rather long - straps? I can't go any further without acknowledging the online tutorial that I referred to for help, which was the "Shir Madness" Tutorial (cute name, too, Portabello Pixie!).
Look out, SP, Mama's learnt how to shir and has lots of fabric to practise on! Poor child's going to end up dressed head to toe in it.