Stash Avalanche

Being busy

Nobody seemed to find the woman giving birth in a tank full of koi carp funny - not even Mr G. Perhaps it was just too extreme. Ah well...

Anyway, just wanted to check in and say I'm still alive and frantically doing lots of fiddly things before we go away for a few days.

I added some fleece padding to the mei tei that Baby Stash hated so much back at the beginning of May and he seems to have had second thoughts...

And I made him a sleeping bag out of cotton sheeting because it has been so hot in his room, even with the door and window open.

It was pretty quick to make; I just traced round one I got from Mothercare and sewed it together. It's a 6-18 month size so it should do him for next summer too (fingers crossed). The outer fabric is from Ikea's kids department (can't remember what it's called though) and I lined it with white cotton lawn. I used a 30" zip which just about made it to the middle of the bottom - alright for getting Stashlet in and out of but probably a bit of a pain if we were still in the midnight nappy changing phase.

It would have been even quicker if I'd bias bound the arm and neck edge (as with the Mothercare version) but somehow that didn't occur to me and I'd cut out a seam allowance and sewed half round. That's what comes of doing too many things at once probably.

Happy Tuesday!

the internet - don'tcha just love it?

Had to share this one with you:

I'm starting to think about weaning Baby S - yes, I know he's not 6 months yet, but both the GP and the public health nurses have said that he may well need to be weaned early because he's so enormous, and well, it never hurts to know how to do these things in advance.

So anyway, like any other 21st century mother, I've been looking on the internet to see what people have to say. And you know, one thing led to another, and out of sheer curiosity I ended up here.

Yes, a woman is planning to give birth in her fish tank with , I said with, her koi carp (all 15 of them) to support her through the birth. Apparently they are excellent birthing partners and will guide her through the whole experience.

My favourite line is this one:

How long does the baby stay under water?
Well, I plan to let the koi guide him up to me. But Shane [her husband] will be standing by with a net, just in case.

You just can't make this stuff up.

Cute as a Button theme and variations

First there was this...

The original Cute as a Button baby jacket that I made in January.

Then I made this...

The Whale Jacket: a size bigger and a teeny bit tweeked from the original.

And I thought, that's a useful little pattern, I wonder what else I could do with it.

And made this...

But the sleeves - well, the wrists - turned out to be too tight and I could just only get Baby S's hands through them.

So I cut them back and added a little cuff...

But I didn't like the seam across the top of the sleeve, so I altered the pattern to make raglan sleeves instead, top stitched the sleeve seams, added little vents in the side seams, and took a really wonky photo of it...

And then I thought, I still really like that original Charlie Tunic which is made in linen rather than cotton jersey. So I was going to make a Bomull tunic version (which admittedly is cotton not linen) but Baby S was having a bad eczema week and didn't like pulling his arms through sleeve holes, so I decided to make life easier for him and made this...

Which admittedly needs ironing but there's no space to unfold the ironing board at the moment!

I think it looks a bit like something a Chinese Mandarin would wear, but perhaps that's just me. I kept the raglan sleeves and the vents in the side seams, and added 1cm to each front half to enable a bit of overlap for buttonholes (yay! for a sewing machine that makes button holes!).

So, despite the fact that I originally grumped about the miniscule seam allowances, I think I can say that all in all it's quite a versatile and alterable pattern. I still intend to make a linen/cotton pull-over-the-head version, and there is also a half-made dressing gown version waiting to be finished, so I think we can officially call this my first sewing frenzy of 2011.

Happy Monday!

(ps. the binding for the shirt and the blue top are both Kaffe Fassett.)

 

 

CTSB: sun hat

At last, the final and very late entry for Rae and Dana's Celebrating the Summer Boy...

I wanted to get a better photo of Baby Stash modelling his sun hat but bad timing and now the weather have conspired against me so here is the wee sprog sitting in his bouncy chir and sucking his fingers. Very cute, but bad for his eczema.

Ooh! and he's even modelling his tunic - only just noticed that!

I made the hat about a month ago but me being me, I made in in Ikea Bomull so then it needed dyeing, and I only managed to get round to that last weekend. It's from the same Burda 9522 pattern that I made the navy short onesie from, and whilst the finished article came out very happily, I have to say (yet again) that this is not a great pattern to work with in terms of fabrication and directions.

I'm used to bucket hats being, or at least looking, reversible. In other words, no raw edges. If you follow the pattern as it is, you end up with a raw edge where the brim and the what's-it-called? sides? are sewn together, which to me looks pretty cheap and not very cheerful.

I ended up turning everything underneath, pinnning it to within an inch of it's life and top stitching it, which did the trick. I suppose you could also bias bind the raw edges, which might look quite smart.

There was also a lot of (far too much) ease between the sides and the top of the hat, of which there was no mention in the instructions, and made me a bit annoyed as well.

The thing is, I don't understand what has happened to Burda. I'm sure they weren't always this slap dash about their patterns or their instructions, and I think it's sad that they appear to dumbing down. It's not like the hat or the onesie are difficult to make - and I'm confident that even a beginner could manage to sew with jersey - so why end up with a poor quality garment?

Sorry. I have inexplicable stomach ache, the poor Grey Cat ended up at the vet for the second time in three weeks with a serious leg wound (what does she do when she's out?), next door's house alarm  has been ringing since quarter past 11 this morning, and I discovered my favourite summer jumper developed two holes when it was last in the wash, so perhaps this is not a good blogging day!

Grumble, grumble.

By the way, the fantastically cute ribbon is from Blooming Felt, who have quite a few lovely ribbons for sale. Their minimum order is £5 (which is really no hardship at all given what they sell) so I also got some dinosaur ribbon and some sky rockets ribbon and these will make an appearance at some stage. The great thing about all these ribbons  - apart from the fact that they SO CUTE - is that the designs are woven into the ribbon, not printed on like a lot of the stuff you can get. So no looking crappy after they're been in the wash ten times.

More tunic developments over the weekend...

New gadget #2: a sewing machine!

I did it. I bought a new sewing machine.

Not a cheapo one from Lidl (you know how much I love those) but a Janome from a proper sewing machine shop!

It was the Burda onesie that was the final straw for the Elna Supermatic. Much as I love that machine, I have to admit that it can't cope with anything other than straight stitch these days, and there I was trying to use a twin needle through 5 layers of akwardly tight jersey. This is what happens to you when you're 50 years old (the machine, not me!). There was a great deal of changing needles (I started off with a 6mm twin needle and ended up with a 2mm one), a lot of skipped stitches, and a long time spent pulling things out and starting again.

And then there is the button hole issue (it doesn't do them), which is a pretty basic requirement I can no longer do without.

It was a bit of an eye opener looking for a new machine after sewing on the Elna for about 20 years. Things have certainly moved on! There are lots of things I'll miss about the Elna (the knee bar being one of the biggest) and in some respects it is easier and better than this new one, but there will be no more skipped stitches, there will be buttonholes, and it even has a range of stitches specially for stretch fabrics which I have already used several times (although the most useful one has the fabric edge on the left of the presser foot which takes a bit of getting used to).

No doubt I shall go back to the Elna occasionally, and I certainly won't be getting rid of it, but I am well on the way to mastering this new one and pretty pleased with it so far too.

p.s. It's a Janome 2522LE and I got it from here.

CTSB: tunic

I'm starting this year's potential tunic frenzy (should there be one, that is) with one for Baby Stash. This is my overdue and penultimate contribution to Celebrating the Summer Boy which ran last week on Made By Rae and Dana's Made.

Actually, it was Made By Rae which originallly inspired me to make a kaftan-esque tunic for Baby S, because I completely fell in love with one that she made for her son, Elliot. Everything about it was just perfect (sorry to gush, but really, it was!) - a cream linen mix for the tunic and some colourful Tailor Made measuring tape fabric for the facing.

This first one that I've made is a bit of an experiment. I used single rib cotton jersey for starters, because it is probably a lot less of a fight to get on a 4 month old than a woven, and I customised the pattern from Jackie Clark Design's Baby Jacket, which you might remember I've made a couple of times already (here and here).

Clearly there is room for improvement in the shape of the tunic, but cutting it out at 1am on Sunday morning is partly to blame. It hasn't actually been tried on yet, but I'm anticipating too short a body and too wide as well, and probably the sleeves will be too long, so there will need to be some fiddling done to fix it.

But I don't want to give it up as a lost cause because the facing fabric is so fabulous. It's Beep Beep Daylight by Michael Miller and I got it from Seamstar in the UK although no doubt you can get it from other places too.  There is also Beep Beep NightNight and Beep Beep Twilight and to be honest, I am a little obsessed by all three of them, so don't be surprised to see them popping up again.

Anyway, we shall have a trying on session in the very near future and I shall make another to better specifications and let you know how it goes.

Oh, and nearly forgot to say, Rae's Charlie Tunic as it is now known, is available to buy as a pdf pattern. It's too big for Baby S at the moment, but I have it stashed away ready to make up by the dozen once he gets big enough. It fits 12 months to 5T (which I'm guessing is 5 years old-ish) and of course, works just as well for girls as for boys (have a look at the Celebrating the Summer Boy Flickr photo pool for some lovely examples).

 

CTSB: jersey trousers

I've been wanting to make a pair od jersey trousers for a while now. Something that will have long legs but be soft and comfy for Baby Stash.

This is my second pair of trousers (first not posted yet!) using the Baby Overalls pattern from Jackie Clark Design.  I cut a deep waist (about a centimetre below the arm holes) so that I could fold a turning into the waist band, and lengthened the legs by about an inch. Oh, and I didn't bother with a popper crotch, they're just pull on pull off, which I find works perfectly well with jersey.

I was going to put leg pockets on both sides and call them cargo pants but I decided one was enough, especially as it took me three goes to get the button hole right (yes, I know I've given up doing botton holes buth there's a secret there that I need to tell you about...) so they're more like yoga pants than anything else.

Mr G calls them Baby S's old man's trousers - they're not the most flattering item in his wardrobe and they do sit rather high on his waist (mostly due to the bulk of the cloth nappies he's in), but they do fit the soft and comfy bill to a T.

The jersey came from Tia Knight, by the way, and it's a single rib; much easier to sew than that akward stuff I made the onesie out of. I have learnt that to get a reasonable weight jersey (not the flimsy stuff that cheap t-shirts are made out of) you need to go for something that weighs at least 230g per square metre. This is a really lovely jersey; it drapes nicely and is a very reasonable price.  I only got a metre of it to try but I shall definitely go back for more, and perhaps even make something for myself if I can get organised.

CTSB: short onesie

(navy: never the best colour for photographs...)

Number one in my contributions to Rae and Dana's Celebrating the Summer Boy week is a short onesie.

I want to make Baby Stash a couple of pairs of these because we'll be in Germany in July and it will be pretty hot, and he seems to be quite an easily over-heatable baby.

I went to look for a patternand at the same time I was also looking for a bucket hat pattern, so when I found Burda's 9522, I was very pleased because it has both. Plus a little pair of shorts, a t-shirt and a little bandana-style hat.

The pattern is easy enough, although I didn't like Burda's instruction to add a slit to the neckline. Not only is it unnecessary in terms of getting the neck over the child's head, but it's just a raw zigzaged edge which looks pretty rough; I left it out.

The thing that was a complete pain was the jersey. This is just a plain, light weight cotton jersey from my LFS, but lordy was it tough to sew. It's really tightly woven and my Elna had to fight to get a needle through it when I was sewing multiple layers doing neck, leg and sleeve bindings. And getting pins into it (even fine ones) was neigh on impossible.

I'm sure it would have been a quick sew if the jersey had been more amenable, but it felt like it took an age. I have some different jersey now so the navy is being relegated to a pending pile, and I shall see how I do with the new stuff. So hopefully another one to follow in a day or two.

Birds for Midi

 

Well, that's this year's May Giveaway well and truly done and dusted! How did you find it? There were so many bags that I am having second thoughts about doing a bag every year, although if I remember rightly, most of them were fabric bags so perhaps one that's crocheted or knitted might still interest people.

What I wasn't so happy about was all the  become-a-follower requirements, even though SMS asked people not to do that, and new this year was the go-to-my-Facebook-page which really annoyed me - but that's mostly because I am not a Facebook fan at all.

But anyway, this is supposed to be a post about Midi's birds, so back to the Giveaway...

I asked readers to leave me a comment, a joke, some baby advice, or anything really, and Gina left me a joke from her 3 year old daughter (known on her blog as Midi). Midi's joke was so funny (well, I thought so, and so did Mr G, so it must have been good) that I decided to award her a special prize.

So.

What's blue and square?

Not an orange!

Ok, I laughed til I nearly cried, but that might just be me.

But what do you send a 3 year old who you don't know and don't have much time to make for? Bunting? bit over-done. Biscuits? might not survive the post. A bag? I think she has several already. But I liked the idea of hanging things, and I had some felt that ws looking for a use, so I settled on felt birds.

I started off with the basic bird pattern from Sew Mama Sew, got out the embriodery threads and away I went.

I got a bit carried away.

I made eight! In two sizes.

See I had a big plan to string them up (like bunting) interspersed with hearts, but in the end there was no time and  so I just made loops instead. Midi can hang them off some twigs like I did for the photo shoot , or make them into a mobile, or whatever she likes.

Some had chain stitch feathers...

s

and some had running stitch...

And as you can see, I used a random dyed embroidery thread in a pink/lilac/blue combination which I have a bit of a thing about (but in a good way).

The eyes are a tiny bit of cerise pink felt and a french knot, and then I zigzged round them and stuffed them.

Happily I can report that they went down very well with Midi and she even divided them into two lots so that her brother, Mini, could have some too.

 

Celebrating the Boy - second attempt

I got all excited in February with Rae and Dana's Celebrating the Boy month, and then two days later, I was in hospital being induced, so we ended up celebrating a much more live boy, and I suddenly didn't have any time for anything other than feeds and nappies.

So I was very pleased to see that Rae and Dana are doing a Celebrate the Summer Boy, and this time I'm hoping to join in.  Admittedly I'm rather late in telling you this because in actual fact, it's this week!

This is typical of my life at the moment. I'm even still trying to catch up on some of my blog reading from February - but that's probaby because I subscribe to too many. There are the ones I rush to every day to see if there is a new post, and there are others that I don't want to delete from my feed reader but adopt a sort of hmmm-maybe-I'll-read-that-tomorrow attitude. Clearly this hasn't served me well since Baby Stash came along!

But back at Celebrating the Summer Boy, I have some things to show you in the next few days and I shall definitely be keeping an eye out for new ideas to try out for Baby Stash. Rae has already done a fab little hat and some great shorts, and Dana has posted a tutorial for some racer shorts that look good, and a post on  choosing fabrics for boys which goes along with my tastes to a large degree (although I can confidently say that I won't be making an orange check bow tie for Baby S any time soon!).

Of course, the majority of all the Celebrating the Boy items are for children who are significantly older than Baby Stash, but he's getting there (and on the verge of moving on to 6-12 month clothes, even though he's only 15 weeks old!), so my view is save it and then I know it's there to come back to.

Happy Thursday!

Can't seem to get the button in the sidebar to sit centrally even though I've changed the html - does anyone have any suggestions?