A New Look 6148 (wearable?) muslin

  I hate the idea of making muslins - all that time wasted! And if I were to chose material that I liked to make a muslin it would probably cost nearly as much as the final garment. However after my recent 'not so great garments' I thought a muslin would be a good idea to see if I liked the style of the pattern etc plus the husband had another shirt with a worn collar ready for the bin -  I just couldn't let all that material go to waste!

  Now that all of my little people have started school I find myself working more and my preferred wardrobe choices of leggings, tunics, dresses, and skirts are not suitable. I want something comfortable, loose fitting, but smart. I have seen quite a few loose fitting woven tops that I love the look of but that have a price tag beyond my means.

  I thought Simplicity New Look 6148 might provide me with the perfect work top.

  There are quite a few variations, I particularly like the contrasting yoke options  - I think a sleeveless one for the summer would look good too. I decided to go for the longer length of view D.

  After I cut down all of the seams of the shirt I discovered that my pattern pieces didn't quite fit onto the fabric so I had to add a strip of contrasting fabric into what would be the middle of my back (rather than cut two back pieces I just cut one on the fold). I also used the hem of the shirt as my hem - partly because I am lazy and partly because I liked the curve at the side seams. I had to make the sleeves slightly shorter than the pattern requires as the plackets of the shirt sleeves were quite long.

  Construction was OK but I did panic when joining the yoke as the fabric all seemed to bunch up at the 'v'. Joining the neck binding to the neck line was also tricky (mostly because I cut one back piece on the fold and forgot to take out the seam allowances!) and has resulted in some puckering of the fabric.

 The front.......

and the back....

The fabric is very soft and drapes beautifully but the pattern on it does make me feel a little like I am wearing some kind of uniform, so I'm not sure how much of a wearable muslin it is. However I like the feel and look of the top, perhaps the shorter version in  a different fabric with some skinny trousers will be perfect for work!

  I have the 'end of holiday blues' as it has been half term this week - I love having the little people at home and not having to rush around everywhere so I am always miserable on the last day of school holidays!

        Su xx

Up-cycled Pom Pom scarf!

  I love pom pom edged scarves like this one but they always seem so expensive in the shops and I have yet to discover one in our local charity shop.

 So I thought I might try to make one of my own. A while ago I found a hardly used Ikea single duvet set in a charity shop. The fabric was a nice open weave and I loved the scandi style pattern. It struck me that the two pillowcases opened up and sewn together with a pom pom trim added might make a great scarf!

I cut off the seams to open the pillowcases out and then attached the pom pom trim all around one pillow case edge:

 Then right sides together with the trim on the inside I stitched the two opened out pillowcases together on three sides and then turned them right side out. I probably should have hand sewn the last edge but I am lazy by nature so I just top-stitched it! The pom pom's made it slightly fiddly but nothing too tricky!

 I wasn't feeling very photogenic so I hung it on a bush to show the finished product! It really does look good when wrapped around my neck!

The cost of the whole duvet set was £3.50 so I estimate the pillowcases to be around £1 (I am planning a top or summer dress from the duvet cover!). I ended up needing nearly 5m of trim! This cost £1.20 per m so the total cost was around £7. To make it less expensive you could just use trim on each short edge, then it really would have been inexpensive!!

  During the process I dropped all my pins! It was easy to pick them up with my new magnetic pin dish, the pattern the pins made reminded me of all those science lessons using iron filings sprinkled around magnets so an impromptu discussion about magnetic fields with my biggest little person followed!

  

    Thanks for popping by!

              Su xx

Knickers and up-cycling!

  In our house when the little people have something really cool to tell me they use the phrase 'Actually in real life mummy'.

  Well this week I actually in real life made actual real life knickers like the kind that you could actually in real life buy in an actual real life shop!!

  There seems to be a bit of a knicker making frenzy going on in the sewing blogosphere at the moment I was inspired by the knickers made by justsewtherapeutic, Lazy Daizy Jones, and Clarinda Kaleidoscope

  I bought this kit and some extra elastic on-line:

I panicked at the instructions, had a cup of tea, re-read them and got going!

It really was very simple, quick and satisfying! 

 A few weeks ago I stumbled accross the my make do and mend year blog, Jen is running a me made wardrobe challenge (#mmaw2015), there is a facebook group and a pinterest board, and I thought it sounded like fun so I joined up too!

  Reading her blog got me thinking about up-cycling and refashioning clothes, my husband was about to throw out a shirt with a stain on it and as I was in a bit of a knicker making phase I thought I would up-cycle it!!

Ta da!!

 I'm not sure how economical it is to recycle in this way as fancy knicker elastic seems to be quite expensive (if anyone finds a good quality but inexpensive supplier please do let me know!) and the result is wearable but as my husband pointed out not very sexy. I think the Seamwork Geneva Knickers could look a bit less like granny pants and I could see how you could reuse old t-shirts but add in some stretch lace/elastic........

  I'm certain that most of my neighbors already think I am bonkers so seeing me out in the garden hanging knickers from a bush and taking photos of them on a cold Sunday morning probably came as no surprise!

  Thanks for popping by!

                    Su xx