Relocating my creative/work space

Things have been busy around here, and I'm desperate to show off some of my handiwork.  In the interests of keeping the gender of the new arrival a secret, I can't show you what I've been up to craft-wise, so I'll share some of my 'nesting' progress...

The area at the top of our stairs at home is going through yet another transformation, as we rearrange things to make space for the baby.  At the start of the year I transformed it from this:

To this:

Now its had a coat of paint (lighter, not that you can tell in the photos):

And I've installed some new furniture, and am working on re-configuring some existing stuff plus manufacturing some new additions - more photos to come!

What are you up to in your creative space?  Add your link and check out others over here.

Progress...

I'm not sure if I've mentioned it or not, but the Man is a cyclist.  His idea of downtime is a couple of hours riding up a hill somewhere.  Not my idea of downtime, although I'm trying - we're off on a family cycling holiday along a rail trail later in the week.  The tradeoff works in my favour though - we have a deal that if he takes a few hours on the weekend to go riding then I can take the same to 'go' crafting/garden (ie. potter without needing to be on call for the kids).  Yesterday afternoon I had some time and I'm quite impressed with what I managed to achieve:

A skirt for the sofa bed cover (not sure how I managed to make it too long at the front but OK at the side, but a fair step up from what it looked like here).  My plan was to secure the cover under the mattress, but I've been impressed with how Stage 1 has stayed in place so far, so I'm going to play it by ear.

I also managed to finish cutting the coloured squares for my 'Scrappy Leaves' quilts, and stitch them into pairs.  There are six different patterns in the Gypsy Rose range, and I decided that I didn't want any four-patch block to contain more than one of each pattern.  Worked that out with little angst, but this afternoon when I came to join the pairs into fours I decided that I wanted to split the colours as well.  I'm nearly finished rearranging, unpicking, counting and re-counting (strangely, my 280 squares seem to have multiplied and I have at least 10 left over?!?).  Here's the more pink-toned (well, salmon really) one for Niece J:

And here's the mauve toned one for Niece H:

Hoping to pick up some coordinating fabric somewhere along the way next weekend (planning to trade a 'quick ride up Mt Buller' for some shopping without the boys wrestling on the sidelines!).

And then there were sleeves...

... well one anyway.

This week in my creative space I need to sew in the 2nd one, attach the bottom band and ruffle and tidy up a couple of things (if I say it fast it'll only take 5 minutes to do, right?), and then my spotty dress will be finished!  I'm pushing hard to get it done because the Man and I have a date on Sunday (Tim Minchin vs. the MSO) and I think that such a special occasion / rare occurrence is the perfect time to wear the dress for the first time.

What are you up to today?  Have you been over to Kirsty's yet?

The how and why of the sleeves:

I decided that the spotty dress (here and here) needed sleeves.  My arms need covering from time to time for vanity and more frequently for the weird Melbourne summer we're having.  I thought I'd document my approach just in case you'd like to try it:

I chose a shirt with a sleeve that included gathering.  This suits the style of the dress, but I also figured that it would be more forgiving of the fact that I was going to put it into a bodice other than the one it was designed for.  I used a shirt pattern with a similar fit to the dress.  I used the sleeve from View A of this pattern as my starting point.

** A note about notches **
Most likely the notches on your sleeve pattern and the ones on the bodice won't line up.  This doesn't matter, and you can ignore them as far as that goes.  What's important is that they show you which is the front of the sleeve and which is the back - check out the bodice of the pattern you're lifting them off to see whether the single or double notches are the back.  This is important because sleeves aren't quite symmetrical - there's a little more room on the side which joins the back to allow for arm movement.  I recommend cutting the notches in the back to help you be sure that they are against the back of your bodice.  On my pattern the double notches are on to the back.

 I traced the pattern, cut it out of calico, then pinned it into my trial top.  It was too long.  I had already decided that the best way to make the sleeves blend with the rest of the dress would be to finish them with a band of the spotty fabric with a red ruffle poking out the top of it.  I trimmed the calico sleeve so that the bottom of the sleeve would line up with the bottom of the top section of the bodice.

I then re-gathered the bottom of the sleeve, and pinned it into the actual dress.  I decided to steal 5mm from the seam allowance of the sleeve in doing so - it just seemed to fit better into the dress.  Once I'd done this I realised that I had trimmed too much off the bottom of the sleeve, and need to add about 2cm back (my seam allowances have been 1cm on the dress so far).  I also felt that there was too much fullness in the bottom of the sleeve.

I pulled the sleeve back out and reduced the fullness by changing the angle of the underarm seam.  I then re-fitted the sleeve (inside out - hence the fact that it's mysteriously changed sides).  I also reduced the width of the gathering along the top - I thought it made the gathering look more deliberate and less like ease gone wrong.  Once I'd tried it on I adjusted the width of the gathers at the bottom so that I was happy with the look and feel of it.

Removed the sleeve again, measuring the final width of the bottom with the gathers in before removing the gathering thread.  I also marked the new positions for the gathering across the top to start and finish.
Transferred the sleeve pattern back onto tissue paper (I wouldn't have worried, but I wanted to be sure that I remembered to add the 2cm back onto the bottom).

I had worked out that the gathered band for the bottom of the dress starts out being twice times the width of the dress.  The finished width of the base of my sleeve is 34cm.  This means I need bands which finish up being about 3cm wide by 34cm around from the spotty fabric, and red gathered fabric which starts out being 70cm long (including seam allowance), for each sleeve.  I made a pattern for each, then cut out and assembled as per the rest of the dress.

A longer process than I would usually be bothered with (particularly when you add the trial top into the mix), but I'm glad I made the effort, and maybe it'll give me more courage to personalise things in the future.

The dog ate my homework! [or I got sidetracked...

... and missed doing the vacuuming or finishing my dress and did something new instead!]

As you can see I've made a good start on my spotty dress, but have temporarily stalled.  I need to finish the armholes, but am still toying with the idea of sleeves - I have so many singlet type tops etc., and yet at nearly 40 I feel that perhaps I shouldn't be bearing my arms quite so much.  I'm considering something like Views C or D of the ancient pattern below, or view A of the newer one.

I also need to add a little red ruffle and then a band at the bottom of the dress (the ruffles are much quicker than the pleated trim I did on the trial top, and will be at least as effective once I topstitch along the lower side - sorry for the blurry photo though).  Can't decide whether or not to use the spotty fabric for the band, or try and find some grey (maybe?  not sure?).  I have plenty of the spotty stuff left over, as it was quite wide and as always my cutting out was quite frugal, but figure I should decide on the sleeves before hacking into it for anything else.

** I'm up for comments / suggestions / help!  The idea of adapting a sleeve pattern to fit into a bodice it wasn't designed for is a bit intimidating, so if you have any advice that'd be great **

What's distracted me was Lincraft's 50% off sale.  It went for a whole week longer than I thought, and when I got an email saying it was still on I lost my self control and went shopping.  I bought some lined curtain fabric and have started attacking the mess at the top of the stairs.

"Before" (on an average day)

Stage 1: "Fitted sheet"

Stage 2: A combined cushion cover for 7 of the cushions, all of which are the same size - I know that this'll be used a lot for cubbies, but it should make the whole thing neater and easier to tidy up as a general rule.  The fact that its even better cubby making material than individual cushions is a definite bonus from the Kinder Boy's point of view, hence the fact that I couldn't get a photo without him!  To make it I made a ~3m x 42cm cushion cover, with a zipper along the bottom, then sewed vertical dividers every 42cm from the top down to nearly the bottom (leaving just enough space to open and close the zipper).

Stages 3 and 4 will be a pleated valance style skirt to hide the rest of the drawers, which don't get used much anyway, and some ties or another mechanism to stop the whole lot from shifting about.  Stage 5 will then be some new cushion covers - I've been waiting to use some fabric I got from Yardage Design, and got some coordinating oatmeal linen at the same Lincraft sale, but suspect I have more ideas and pieces of fabric than is really necessary, so some might get reassigned.

My Creative Space has been officially taken over with other things tonight, but I'm hoping to squeeze out some time this afternoon or tomorrow to brave a shot at some calico sleeves for the dress (or maybe just sew the lining to the zipper if I'm still too intimidated by the idea of it all).  What are you up to, have you dropped into Kirsty's yet?

Frugal fabric Thursday

In my creative space today I'm doing something I've never done before: making a trial run of a project.

The spotty fabric that is the basis for what should be my current project according to my 'grand plan' (top left on the pattern below) is a silk-cotton blend that I picked up from Darn Cheap fabrics.  It feels lovely, and I now have some white for lining and a red to match for the trims - all I need is a zipper and I'm set.  But cutting into the silk and messing it up or finding that the dress I'm planning it for doesn't suit me scares me a little, so I'm following the pattern's recommendation and making a mock-up first (am I the only one frustrated by the fact that I wear a size 10-12 but according to my measurements the pattern companies recommend I make a size 20???).  Not one to want to waste the effort or fabric though I've found some leftover blue and some coordinating patchwork fabric in my stash and am in the process of shoe-horning the pattern pieces for View A [bottom right] into about half the recommended fabric (I suspect that it's probably taken as long already as the top will take to sew!).

Hopefully by the end of the day I'll have a nice little stack of cut out pieces, and maybe even a little sewing done.  Maybe by next week I'll have actually finished last week's cardigan (knitting done, sewing up 1/2 way there) and this top and have some 'after' photos to show.

Repair work

A few years ago I salvaged some deck chairs from various roadside pickup piles.  Some were perfectly OK and some needed a bit of repair.  I fixed and stained them, then made new matching covers, using the cover of one that was OK as a pattern (some had the more traditional two-piece seat and back, but I prefer this design, which came from a Freedom deck chair).  It's really simple if you have some chairs and want to revamp them rather than replace them, and I think it looks better than slip covers over the whole lot.

Well, all was fine until one of my larger nieces visited last summer and decided that using one of the chairs as a trampoline for her bottom would be fun.  Mysteriously she went through!  Luckily I have spare fabric, so today's repair day before the big NYE party tonight!

The fabric:

Each deck chair takes 90cm of fabric (you'll need a piece around 70cm across, so you should get two from a 90cm long section of canvas).

I use the following seam/hem allowances:

• 3cm at the top
• 1cm at the side of the backrest
• 1.5cm to the side cutouts and the bottom

The steps:

1. Using your existing fabric as a pattern, cut out a new seat & back, remembering to allow for hem allowances and pockets for the dowel at the side on the seat and uprights on the back.
2. Zig-zag or overlock the side edges of the seat section.
3. Hem the sides of the backrest and the top and bottom of the cover.
4. Fold the top in and to make the pockets for the uprights, and stitch across the top plus a double row of vertical stitching.
5. Fold the seat to create pockets for the dowel to go through, and stitch.

For best results:

• Wash your fabric beforehand (just in case it shrinks)
• Check the tension on your machine - I've found that I need to adjust mine otherwise the top is too loose / bottom too tight when hemming the canvas.
• Use stronger cotton (eg. upholstery thread).
• Stretch the fabric when you're hemming the curved sections, rather than clipping the corners, as this will help to prevent creating weak points in the seat.

Going dotty (part 1)

You might have noticed that my 'grand plan' includes a few dresses with spots, and that two of them absolutely must be finished this week or there'll be embarrassment around the Christmas tree come Saturday.  Well, I'm pleased to say that the first dress now totally finished.  I wanted a design that was a bit dressy, but not so much so that my nieces wouldn't get much wear out of them, so I've only lined the bodice, and rather than have a tulle frill peaking out from under the hem I've put a pink band on the bottom of the skirt.  So that's Miss 2 done, now I need to get onto Miss 5's matching dress.

Kid-friendly Christmas garlands

Thought I'd share with you our family Christmas version of the paper garlands at art as life: what is to be is up to me.  My ideal was all white stars, but the boys were insistent about using their new Christmas stamp (I got both the stars and the stamp from Riot).  Result was so effective that the neighbour across the road came to see if we had new fairy lights!  Maybe one day I'll get my simple version, but in the meantime this's a very kid-friendly craft idea for Christmas. If you'd like another Christmas alternative / a 'how to', check out the snowflake version at maya-made.

How many weeks is it until Christmas?

I've planned a very crafty Christmas.  You know - make as many of the presents as possible, that way they're unique, personal and hopefully you save a bit of cash along the way.  I've been doing a mental tally of the list though, and am getting concerned at this point.  Here it is in black and white:

• Finish the Trouser Project bag (I cut out the pieces last night and in theory they're ready for embellishment, but I'm obsessing about one of the pockets that I've added and I think I'm going to redo it).
• Make a dress each for my two younger nieces
• Make 2-3 fairy skirts
• Finish a photo album for my older son

It's a bit embarrassing that I've already culled the list, excluded the 'little' things like Christmas cards (soon to be relegated to next year again I'm afraid), and to say that I'd also like to finish the curtains that I'm making for our bedroom and make myself a dress, plus I've been looking at the trouser bag pattern and thinking that it'd be really cute to make little girl versions to go with the dresses (one side out of floral/spotted material and one plain, with a contrast binding)... [deep breath].  Hmm, and I need to work, look after the kids, etc..  Lucky my husband doesn't read this, or he'd be rolling his eyes!  I plan to finish the trouser bag and one fairy skirt this week, then take it "one week at a time" - wish me luck!