rose garden dress

original dress from debenhams

this is s totally different copy of the same dress as for the denim dress. this time i included pintucks ( which are on the original). The fabric is perhaps a bit fussy but the geometrical design really helped in doing the pintucks and the button holes on the back. The construction is basically the same as the denim dress except that for some reason the shoulder seams were too narrow to attach the lining in the normal way, i just used zigzag stich instead - much less satisfying. I made the sleeves simpler too as there is quite a lot going on in this dress. The ribbon rose turned out well and is from a tutorial i found on line. I am pretty happy with this - it turned out very neatly

demin dress with bird shaped pocket

I've not posted anything on here for ages, I've not really made anything, but, I had a new baby girl in november and got my sewing machine up and running again. One of my friends gave me a beautiful dress for Baf (the new baby - its what her brother calls her - it has stuck for now - she may never forgive us) at christmas time - I love it, she is only 4 months now, her dresses look better in the hangers than on her right now. Too much pink or too many bows and she looks a bit like a tiny Grayson Perry so I wanted to make something that would suit her feisty charecter, A much loved blue cotton print shirt had recently worn out but I couldn't bear just to put it in the bin so I used scraps of material for the sleeves, collar and pocket. I traced roughly the shape of the dress back and front and cut it out in the demin and lining material from and old bed sheet, I sewed the shoulder seams together to attach front and back on both the outer and the lining, tacked in place the sleeves and collar. I then stitched the lining and outer right sides together around the neck. To stitch the arm holes I lay the dress out the right way around and rolled the fabric up so it was right sides together at the armholes whilst still being wrong sides together at the neck - difficult to explain - easier to work out with the dress in front of you, the last stage of this involves pulling everything through the loop formed between the neck and the armhole, with the denim being quite thick this burst some of the stitching and I had to fix with a needle and thread. I closed the bottom of the arm holes when i stitched the side seams on the dress and lining. The buttons on the back were added next - I find this stage the most frustrating - its a lot of faffing about but it is worth taking the time to do it right. The bird pocket was inspired by the shape of the collar - I am not very artistic so had to Google, print and trace the bird, despite this I still managed to get the wing upside down, it looks OK though. Believe it or not it won first prize in the dressmaking section at the local show - it didn't deserve to - there was not much competition - but what there was seemed much more accomplished

beach trousers - north ayrshire style....

 Laika was going through one of her 'phases' a few months ago when she chewed a hole in the back of Mr Midnites best waterproof jacket. He has a shiny new one now thanks to the amazing sale at trespass in largs so she has been forgiven (ish).

anyway - I took the oppertunity to turn them into a pair of waterproof trousers for james. They sat in my sewing box for months - althrough the snows of december and rain and mud of january when they would have been really useful. Now I have finished then the sun has come out - not that I am complaining about that though.

Its the same basic pattern as all the other dungarees I have made over the past few months, I left the back open with cross over straps as it will usually be worn over a jumper and it is easier to get on and off as you don't have to undo them to take them off. I stitched a small piece of thick elastic between the base of the straps as it was gaping  a bit. the strap fastenings were harvested off a rucksack - it has loads of straps - they cant all be useful? well hopefully not anyway. The front zip pocket was transplanted directly from the jacket - so no fussing about with the zip was required - I lined the front sction and a strip around the waist with the fleece material left over from the dressing gown. I was going to line more of it but James couldn't really move his legs so I trimmed it right back.the hem at the foot holes is elasticated on the inside to fit snugly around the wellies, I used the elastic cord from the jacket to do this, and threaded it through the jacket cuff hem ( the legs are made from the jacket sleeves)

I did take some photos on the beach but they are stuck in some dark recess of my cameras memory that i cant seem to access

everybodys happy!

 my sister gave me this fabric for Christmas, its dark blue fleece with large cars and trucks on it - I'm gussing she had james in mind when she bought it and not me!

Mr midnite immediately suggested that I made a dressing gown, I had wanted to make some kind of hooded poncho for post bath/swimming pool running around, but Mr M pulled a face and insisted a dressing gown with lapels, pockets and a little tie would be cute. He won, kind of, it basically is a dressing gown with all those things but I added an oversized hood and a button fastening on the front  so I can  can just do that up when he comes out the bath and let him run himself dry. the best of both world? Everybody's happy.

The best thing about working with this material is it does not fray at all - you can just sew, and go.....

The basic shape was based on the wizard's costume I made at Halloween which in turn was based on the shape of an Ikea sleeping bag. The sleeves are narrower - I made the too narrow initally - they need to have a bit of flare to allow the arms to fit easily - I had to re cut them but I was able to reuse the original sleeves as the side of the hood. this is the first time I have made a hood and I am pretty pleased with it - It fits pretty well and looks good too.

I made the belt out of a strip of the material folded over with regular seams sewn through it - I put the belt loops in completey the wrong place and had to move them - cuttung a small hole in the fabric :(

In the end I decided against pockets - there was a lot going on already - I might still add some

James loves running about in this at bed time - I sometimes regret putting the button and button hole on as it spoils the look of the lapels - but it is functional.

reversible dress

 I wanted to make a dress to go with the shoes - The fact it is reversible is of no practical use whatsoever , I just had that idea stuck in my head and I had to do it. I had to line it with something anyway so it did not take much longer to do it that way.

The pattern I used was the retro-re-do dress by korpfan  which is free on the burdastyle site. I had to use a pattern as I have no idea what size and shape baby girls are! This was evident when I printed the pattern, cut the fabiric and almost completed the dress before reatining that something was very wrong - I had altered the settings on the printer and printed it out 20% to small! If anyone has a use for a dolls dress let me know! Anyway - I had to start again with very little fabric - I just managed to squeeze in the floral side but had to make the top of the pink side from the floral fabric - it looks like it was ment to be that way - honestly! The pink semicircles on the floral side are little pockets. The pattern suggests using fake buttons on the straps - I used poppers to keep it reversible and also because my material was not stretchy and I thought that the babies head might not fit through.anyway - all done and sent off - I hope she likes it!

tiny wee baby shoes

My cousin has just had a wee baby girl, more babies in the family is always a good thing , and, at last, a wee girl to make cute girly dresses for. I saw this clever little pattern for shoes from sweet pea patterns on etsy a few months ago - I am so pleased to have a reason to make them now. The detailed PDF instructions look complex but when you actually get down to it they were quite easy to do and not as fiddly as I had thought. I did initially make 2 right shoes by putting the sole on one upside down  but it was easily solved. I made the 6-9m size as I know how quickly james grew out of the smaller shoe sizes. I made a few changes to the pattern - I did not have any interfacing so I just used an extra layer of fabric - this made the shoes nice and soft but next time i will try them with the interfacing. I also did not fancy the idea of using glue as i wanted the shoes to be machine washable and safe to chew so i just omitted it from the uppers with no ill effect and used 2 small velcro circles stitched to the  cross strap as fastenings rather than attaching them to felt circles. it took a couple of hours to do both of them (including time spent unpicking and restitching the sole I put on the wrong way round). they are totally reversible. I like the pink side best - they look a bit like ballet shoes. 2 more of my friends are having babies this month - I hope they are all girls so i can make more of these!                                                                                          

Tweedy

 Winter has arrived - All of a Sudden - I think autumn lasted for about 4 days with its mists and mellow fruitfulness and now bleak novembers win's ensuin, baith snell an' keen. James has only 2 pairs of long tousers - both jeans and both getting a bit small for him.

I had had these tweed trousers for a couple of years - I did not realise when  I bought them that they were a hideous fashion disaster, but fortunatly for me, I worked in a pub at the time and the regulars there were only to happy to to tell me. Phew. I have not worn them since.

I used the pattern i had made for the blue linen short dungarees, just made it a bit bigger - far to big in fact - I had to trim 4 cm off each of the legs fold up a big flap in the front that then became the waist band. The waist band looks quite smart - I will try to copy it in future projects - it was a lucky mistake!

! used the pocket flap from the trousers fro the front pocket, everything went a bit skewif with the single welt pocket entrance under the flap - but nevermind, the flap hides it all. I used 3 buttons from the trousers on the front but the dog chewed off and ate the pocket button so that was replaced with the only other spare button i had - a big flat tarnished brass one

I am pretty pleased with this - it turned out way better than I expected. Its a shame james wouldn't pose for a proper picture of the front, he has now poked a hole in the front of one of the legs where the material was damaged from before so the dungarees are patched now and decidedly less smart

halloween

"I've just spilt my dinner all down the tunic - you dont mind do you ,mum?"

james' first halloween outfit (we did not bother last year). its a lot of effort for at best 2 or three parties, but a great opportunity to let imagination run wild I sent Mr midnite to mandors to get the material - ! m for the tunic and 1.5 m for the hat and cape and 20cm gold material for the trim. he misunderstood (how?) and came back with 2.5 m of the ridiculously stretchy dark blue material - perfect for the hat and cape but an old bedsheet had to be sacrificed to finish the tunic.

I made the tunic first - based on a well fitting sleeping bag as a pattern with  short sleeves added - the gold material proved very difficult to handle - it frayed like crazy and seemed to have a life of its own - I eventually beat it into submission and used it to bind the neck and sleves and trim the hem. the tunic was a pretty tight fit but I added elastic at the waist to give it some shape.

the cape was also based to the sleeping bag as a pattern - I added wedge shapes to the seams to make it flare out at the bottom and flared wizardy sleeves - the gold cuff on the sleeves were sewn in right at the start so all the seam are included in the sleeve seams and they turned out really neat. I finished the neck line by draping it over james and seeing where it lay best without rolling over. The sleeves are lined in red lining and the rest is lined in the old blue bed sheet . I found a tutorial online (if I find it I will add a link) about how to sew a lining into something with sleeves - somewhere along the line I went wrong and ended up with a twist so I had to cut, untwist and resew the inner lining - cape done - Phew!

The hat was a family effort with Mr M in charge of drawing the patterns and doing the maths. the rim was made out of thick corrugated cardboard - 2 discs of the covering material were cut and stitched right sides together on the outside of the circle - this was then turned the right way round and slipped over the rim. Mr M made a brown paper template for the shape of the cone. I cut one shape from the stretch material sewed the edge of the cone and then hand stitched the bottom to the cope. I the stitched the brown paper pattern to the lining material and made a cone that I sat inside the other cone with the paper sandwiched between the 2 materials. I placed a stitch to hold the tips together and hand sewed it at the base with all the seams covered. the brown paper helps the cone to keep its shape but allows it to be moulded it a more crooked shape if required.

with all the sewing done james threw a huge tantrum when I put it on him the first time but soon settled down - I had made the hat too small and it did not sit on his head but as you can see from the photos he was quite happy to hold it there as long as required.

Finished!

I have finally finished that lovely simplicty pattern 2539 - Mr midnight fixed the sewing machine, well just about, the light now goes out when i press the foot pedal and the off/on switch only controls the light and not the sewing but other than that it works like a dream. I have almost forgiven laika. This pattern was pretty easy to make and I really like the results. I had to buy more material as a pen leaked in the bag it was stored it whilst the machine was out of action. I was not sure how to do the gather stitches but just increased the stitch size and it seemed to work pretty well. I could have done with gathering a bit tighter though - next time. The twisted neck was easy to do but it did take me a while to get it to look even - i perhaps fiddled with it a bit too much... I really like this print - I reckon it will look pretty good under a cardy for the autumn.

Hmm...

the wee fabric shop in WK has gone quilting crazy - its all craft cottons and fat quarters. There will be a lot of warm people in north ayrshire this winter! the fabric range has increased though and there are some pretty prints. This blue print caught my eye - I bought 1 metre. I fear I may have made a grave error. the lady in the shop commented as I bought it that she had just made a quilt from the same material last week and looked at me askance when I told her I planned to make a shirt. Having made it i wonder if she had a point - looking at the finished article ( which in terms of seams and finish, fit and neatness I am very happy with)  cant get past the fact that the fabric may have been better used making cushion covers. perhaps it will grow on me. She also hinted that 1 metre may not be enough - Its a common mistake I make - not buying enough material, but, I was determined to make it fit this time and did not fancy going back to get more. I bought the pattern (butterwick 5934) in a secondhand book shop for 20p and adapted it to fit the lenght of fabric I had - I had to make the underside of the collar in blue linen and made the waist tie out of five left over scraps. The fabric left over at the end would just about fit in a match box.
This was my first experience of using a printed pattern. I loved the huge seam allowance and the fact that everything fitted and matched perfectly. I have never made collars or the wee bit on the front where the buttons go before. It looked complex but following the patten everything worked out beautifully. I learnt a lot from this. I am really pleased with the neatness of the finish on this - I am definitely improving!! It fits really well - I will use this pattern again but with a different fabric! untill then I shall be a walking cushion cover.

Grr...

the dog has just eaten an important part of my sewing machine - I am so not happy with her right now

new project

I have just ordered simplicity pattern 2593 online after seeing the top on the burdastyle site - cant remenber where exactly - I am pretty excited about this but I have to make a waistcoat for Mr Midnite first - better get cracking - He wants me to copy exactly one he already has that is falling apart (hmm, a theme is emerging). It looks simple enough but I wont get away with odd baggyness like I did with the PJs. I finished my first pattern made top a few days ago - I tried to get some photos but I just looked huge in all of them., Mr M assured me that it's just a fault with the camera - i will post them up when the camera is fixed! (eating mainly salad this week)

bramble picking

went out for a walk and got loads of brambles - It was a lovely tranquil evening - the photos dont do it justice - made some pretty good bramble jelly too

pyjamas for Mr Midnite

gone are the days when mr midnite was more likely to be wearing ray-bans than pjs at midnite. he cares more about his jammys than the jamms these days - and he is fussy.. When I offered to make him a new pair of pyjamas he immediately requested that i exactly copy a pair he got from Marks at Christmas time. They looked pretty complicated with elastic and a tie cord at the waist, a concealed button fly and in seam pockets at both sides. I like things simple and suggested that we leave out some of these details, Mr M argued that he needed the in seam pockets to keep his hands warm when he takes the dog out during the night - he is pretty good about doing this so I did not like to argue. I did not feel qualified to make any suggestions about the concealed button fly and decided that elastic and a tie cord may come in handy if they are too baggy so I left that in too. I found a good tutorial for the pockets. The rest I just muddled through with.
I used seersucker cotton that was on sale in Mandors for 99p per metre. I thought seersucker sounded like some mythical creature but according to wikipeadia it comes from the persian for milk and sugar (smooth and crinkly).
  I copied the Marks pjs by using the stripes as a reference point and making lots of measurements - it was pretty complicated and got quite confusing. I had not bought enough material initially so had to add on the waist band and lower hems as separate pieces . the pockets worked well and were not too difficult to do, the fly was a bit fiddly and i made a few errors but the end result was good - I tried them on, they are a bit baggy around the front and I cant see how best to rectify this, but, boy, are they comfortable - I may steal them.
Mr Midnite was not keen to pose for photos in them - hence the washing line - the pair I made are the dark brown ones - the grey ones are the ones I copied - I put them in for comparison

For Me!! (lets face it, thats what this is all about)

love this pattern (it was free) – its really simple and quick to make. this is my second project and I’m learning as I go along. the material i had was exactly the right length for the medium size pattern but I possibly should have used the large size for width as its a bit tight at the hips. I wasn’t quite sure that I was doing with the neck (neck lines are definitely a problem area for me. initially the neck band stuck up like the ring of a cake tin (much smaller than a cake tin but you get the picture), Perhaps this was because it was not a stretchy material. I overstiched the hems with zig zags (not sure i did this right-see photo) and this helped a little but it still wasn’t right so then i doubled the neck piece over and stitched it down so it was half the size – I am relatively happy with it now – its still a bit cake tinny – just half as noticeable. At the lower hem the material got a bit wayward and did not want to lie the way it was instructed too. in the end i won but not without a few creases hear and there. I have since discovered a tutorial on burdastyle.com that would have helped with this. I made the tie longer so the ends show – I quite like the way that looks. All in all I’m pretty pleased with this – its wearable even if its not quite what it could have been – I will make it again soon. Its called flowers at midnight as I always sew late at night when my wee boy is asleep ( he loves to play with the presser foot whilst I sew – not helpful), hence the dark circles round my eyes by the time it was finished!

what i made first

I made these short linen dungarees for my wee boy to wear this summer. I had trouble finding patterns for boys clothes that i likes so i made this pattern from a mixture of ideas from dungarees he had been given and some projects from burdastyle. I tried to make then as simple as possible. I was not totally happy with the way the straps joined to the back section – there has got to be a neater way of doing this, also the back section gapes very slightly – perhaps i need to increase the overlap between the back and front sections or take a tuck somewhere . I thought the little tucks at the back of the waist might look a bit girly, but I think they look pretty good on
i used linen because i thought it would be cool in summer also its really easy to sew. I bought 1m and used a little over half of that. the 2 buttons are the only decoration so far but i might add pockets.
if anyone has any advice on how to improve on this?.