Sewing

Treat Your Car To Home Sewn Accessories: Trash Bag and Tissue Holder

on January 19, 2013

Do you like it? Its a trash bag for the car!

You see, I am a self confessed messy car owner. In fact, my husband would say I am a messy car creator! He is always going on about how my car is full of rubbish. Meh. It doesnt bother me at all. The car is a way to get from A to B, its not like i have an emotional attachment to it. In a bid to try to at least appear more concerned, (and to avoid eye rolls from the hubs) I decided to address the situation. You see, the mess is mostly tissues or receipts or the odd choccy wrapper – just one or two of course. By no means would there ever be a situation where there were several strewn all over the car, evidence of a particularly tough week at work! ahem!

Remember my toy storage box that i made from denim? Well i had so much fun playing with an old pair of Craig’s jeans that i thought i would pull out the remains of denim from the fabric scraps drawer.

The main part of the bag is made using the leg of the jeans, with a square of denim sewn in as a base. I then lined it using this bright funky material. The hardest bit was adding that little tab – there were so many layers of denim that the stitches were a bit wonky at times. I think i need to invest in a thicker needle that will manage denim at bit better.

To use the bin, I have added a zip lock sandwich bag as a liner, so if there is any icky mess it wont damage or stink up the fabric.

While i was happily crafting, i decided to make something to hold some tissues. It makes me cringe when I have bambino in the car then I hear a sneeze from the back seat and there is no tissues within reach! ick!

I made this so it would hold a roll of toilet paper. I removed the inner cardboard tube and then pulled out the tissue from the inside of the roll. Once again the main part of the project was made using denim from a leg of jeans, but with trim at the top. Using this patterned paper I made a drawstring feature so it could gather the fabric up together at the top, but there was also a hole to feed through the tissue.

To make it pretty, I added a fabric flower and a button too.

So now the question is: will my car stay clean? Well, that would be telling wouldn’t it!!

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Tennis Toddler Costume: Sewing Project. In The Olympic Spirit.

on August 10, 2012

Just wanted to share a quick photo of the newest Olympic Gold medalist.

Britain has been overcome with Olympic fever and its fantastic to see so many inspiring and motivating individuals who are acting as fabulously positive role models for todays youth.

To launch the Olympics, the nursery had an Olympic theme dressing up day so I bought a 2 pack of polo shirts at Sainsbury’s, cut them apart and sewed them back together to make this tennis dress for Pi. The medal is plastic, bought at a party shop last year, but i put a few stitches into the cord to sew it onto the dress, this way Piper couldn’t pull it or choke on it, but the bottom bit is loose so she can look at it and hold it in her hands. And see those ‘tennis’ balls – actually yellow balls from the ball pit with a little bit of sharpie magic. haha.

It’s Pipers first Sports Day tomorrow. I can’t wait! I’m not much good at sporty things, and given that Piper has only managed to learn to walk in the last week or so its not likely that she will be fully coordinated for the sporting events. Our hopes all rest on Daddy!

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My Little Spotty Dotty – Machine Sewn Toddler Dress

on June 15, 2012

Just look at my little Sweet Princess! That cheeky little face just makes me smile from ear to ear.

Just after Mothers’ Day I went for a trip to Ikea and spent waaay to much money in the fabric department, and to be honest, i haven’t used the fabric as much as i would have liked. When i was there my little brain was in inspiration-overtime but crafty time is limited so i haven’t been as motivated to start long projects which will take several nights/ weeks to finish.

I had an idea for a dress for Piper, but before I wanted to make that particular dress (which is going to be awesome by the way!) I thought i would throw together a simple dress first, just to see how i would get on. This way i could learn about the tricky parts, and the challenges before i start into the real, super cool, i-cant-wait-to-see-it dress project.

I used one of pipers current dresses as a guide. I simply laid it down onto a roll of paper and drew around each of the sections: the front bodice, back bodice, front skirt, back skirt, and shoulder straps; and then I added about 1cm to allow for seams and cut out the paper templates. Next I cut the various pieces of fabric using my rotary cutter, then got sewing.

I had lot of fun on this project, and learnt A LOT! – Which bits to do first, the importance of marking each piece clearly, which were the tricky bits, the best stitch to use for different sections and i even learnt that its best to keep cats out of the sewing room because they sit on EVERYthing. Every piece of fabric i reached for had either a big pile of cat hairs or simply a big bundle of cat on there! Bless my little fur baby!

This is what the dress looked like before the final touches. {Now, don’t be distracted by all the crafty products in the back ground! 🙂 lol}

I made a few roll up flowers for the front- you can probably see the pins holding them in place. I actually only added one in the end (the biggest one), and i added star buttons to the straps which you can probably see from the photos at the top. I also used some bias around the bottom edge to finish the seam. I love that it gives a punch of colour for the bottom edge.

I’m so very happy with the finished product, and now i can’t wait to get started on the super cool ‘real’ project. 🙂

Okay, Okay, just one more photo to melt your hearts….oh, there she is! ♥♥

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