Jump to the beat

Sewing soundtrack: Stacy Lattisaw’s Jump to the beat! If I could have sewed wearing roller skates, I surely would have.

Hubby’s I ♥NY t-shirt has had a bit of a rough time over the years, sad to say – pale pink splodges and shrinkage, so off into the refashion pile it goes. Flush from the success of the Poppy Playsuit (she wears it!), I rustle up this number for Little Miss in a couple of hours.

This needs just one adult size tshirt. Cut it out like this – I used guesswork, a pair of shorts and a tshirt to get the proportions about right. It’s supposed to fit loose, so precision not necessary. First sew on the pockets. The pockets are made from the sleeves, so have a pre-finished hem. Gather the tops of the pockets by running a length of shirring elastic through the hem, and gather the bottoms of the pockets with a long running stitch.

Next sew the leg seams and crotch/centre front seam. I serged it. Easy-peasy. Then finish the underarm edge by folding a 4mm hem (twice) and multi-stitch zig-zagging it – this is the bit that was the original t-shirt’s neckline.

Lastly, fold over about 5cm at the top neck edge, and multi-stitch-zig-zag that too. This creates the channel to feed the ties through.

You can use ribbon, jersey scraps or anything else that works for you – I used the sleeve of another old tshirt and made these tapered tubes.

I left a gap in the stitching about halfway along the long edge so I could turn the tube inside out. After feeding the ties through, I secure them with a few straight stitches at the front/back centre seam.

DONE. And she wears it. I couldn’t get Little Miss to jump to the beat so we rocked down the street instead! Happy days!

Poppy playsuit

Loved this poppy print when I spotted it in a charity shop and decided to buy it whatever it turned out to be. And it was a cute shirred top… for a 12 year old.

There’s no way that’ll be me, so this is obviously destined for a certain Little Miss, whose wardrobe has a large poppy-playsuit sized hole in it. There’s enough fabric for my playsuit vision, although early signs are ominous – I hold it up to her to gauge size and she screams and throws herself to the floor. Oh dear.

Undaunted, I trim about 20cm off the overall width, and use the spare fabric for a couple of wide-ish shoulder straps – the original straps were a bit cheese-cutter for little shoulders. I cut a semi-circle out of the hem to create legs – not sure how well this will work, but we’ll see. The cute, gathered pouch pockets move over easily to sit at her hip height – I hope she finds something interesting (and non-staining) to put in them!

More importantly, I wonder if she’ll wear it?

Drawing on stripes

I LOVE stripes. My husband loves stripes. So we reckon Little Miss will too, damnit.

In that hope, I took a tshirt that greyed in the wash, and pepped it up by adding Breton stripes with a Dylon Fabric Painting Broad Nib Pen. As you can see, we’ve gone for the artisan look. Oh alright – I was rubbish at it. Drawing straight even lines on jersey is hard! Disappointed but not disheartened – the final tshirt has *some* impact…

Next time, I’ll

• stretch the fabric really tightly over cardboard to minimise stretch/drag
• mask off the stripes with tape for a more even line
• draw *down* the fabric (not across) – this will take longer but gives a more even colour application because the fabric stretches less
• practise writing her name better!

And then there were three

Following my daughter-seal-of-approval of the sunshine yellow skirt, I’m on a secret operation to make a bunch more. But shhhh! Don’t tell anyone, because it’s a… you know! Operation Sunshine Yellow begins…

First step: preparing the fabric. An overnight soak in the bath removes the starch from the fabric – which is used to literally stick the threads together while it’s being woven. Then into the washing machine with some Dylon machine dye.

Next step: refining the construction process. While making up three skirts in three different sizes I learn:

• my overlocker blade gives up the ghost when cutting through more than four layers of fabric. So I precut some of the side seams before overlocking
• my labels melt if I iron them at maximum temperature. So I’ll give that a miss next time.
• put pockets on before doing the side and back seams. Otherwise, you’re working in a tube of fabric that’s only 25cm wide – very fiddly!
• I should consult my commercial patterns fffffor construction methods – a slow learning curve at this stage impinges on my fffffmotivation and satisfaction.
• I need to ffffffffix the ‘f’ key on my keyboard. It’s sticking and makes me express myself in fffffunny way.

All in all – this is a good place to be. At the end of my first week, I’ve run up three trial skirts in sizes 18m, 2y and 3y. Next steps – getting my numerous toddler friends to try them on and see how they fit!

Sunshine yellow skirt – finished

An amazingly sunny day, and instead of rushing out to the park to enjoy it, I finally completed the sunshine yellow skirt. I tried to sew quickly and efficiently, and sort of failed. Don’t get me wrong – the finished item is a good bit of sewing, but my thought processes were super-muddled and I did LOTS of staring into space. My muddledness included: sewing on the yoke upside down. Three times. Sewing the faux pocket flaps on the back instead of the front, as per my design. Then realising they look better on the back and sewing them back in place. Cutting the waistband 10cm too short. And instead of focusing solely on drafting the pattern and making the skirt, getting sidetracked, halfway through, into a poorly executed and fruitless tidy-up of the hall cupboard – abandoned after 35 minutes, annoyingly. But I’m happy with the finished item – it’s as I envisaged, pepped up a little with a contrast floral fabric on the pocket flaps and the waistband facing. The adjustable elastic on the waistband looks about right (see, I’m very scientific about these things. Measurements are for wimps). Next step – seeing if Little Miss will wear it. The photographic evidence is…. Yes! She likes it – strikes a moody model pose! Yes! She tries to put it on, voluntarily, before I’m quite ready with camera! Hurrah! Selects coordinating shoes! Praises be! Wears it while washing hands! Gadzooks! Confronts dinosaurs in it! and finally, wears it in public at playgroup *sniffs* To say I’m pleased is an understatement. Thanks Marina. I made your skirt, you made my day.