Self-drafted – Hopefully Creative

Doggy Bag

Adding some embroidery to a double handle tote bag.

I was browsing Etsy (always a bad idea for the bank account) and found a bunch of super cool cross stitch patterns. This galaxy animal paw from OhMyStitchesShop spoke to me. My brother’s partner is graduating as a vet and they own dogs, so I thought this would be fun for her. There are so many stitches in this, I highly underestimated how much time 5552 stitches would take, even in eight different colours.

Cross stitch of incomplete dog and cat in a dog paw in purple galaxy hues

Cross stitch of dog and cat in a dog paw in purple galaxy hues

I started with the big pad and finished it fully apart from the little stars. I did a part of those in white, before I decided that I wanted to use glow in the dark thread for those, to be extra appropriate. So I took the white out and went on to stitch the small pads and then added the glow in the dark.

Purple bag with cross stitch of dog and cat in a dog paw in purple galaxy hues

To make this a useful(ish) gift, I decided on making the embroidery the front pocket of a tote bag. I stitched some white cotton to the back of the embroidery and attached that to the purple fabric that I used for my Edwardian skirt. Since I am short and I know how annoying it is to have bags drag on the floor, I added a double handle. On the inside are short straps, and there are long ones for over the shoulder too. If I ever make myself a tote, I’m totally doing this again.

Inside of purple bag with double handles

The project was finished and mailed. I hope she gets some use out of it and I had a lot of fun making it. And have thus since learnt that I prefer my projects either smaller, or coming in bite sized pieces, more on that later!

Sleeve Board

Recovering two sleeve boards.

So I’ve had an ironing board with an attached sleeve board for a long time already. The main body has been redone with a new cover several times already. Mostly once so much water spilled on it that it’s so stained that I don’t want to look at it anymore… I’ve also had a loose sleeve board in my cupboard for some time now. In both of these, the foam underneath the cover was quite dead and the fabric itself exhibited some holes.

Top of two sleeve boards recovered in a linen with brown text.

Top of sleeve board recovered in a linen with brown text.

So I redid them. I put the sleeve board upside down and generously cut some quilting batting out for them. Then I located some cotton canvas that I used for the book dress and cut out the rough patterns. I sewed some tape along the edges and folded those over and stitched them down to create a channel. Then I grabbed some ribbon and threaded that through. I tightened them over the batting and board et voila, a fresh sleeve board or two!

Non-stretch Culottes

Nice and cool culottes for the warm summer weather.

I wanted some more of these culottes but this time non-stretch, so that they wouldn’t almost fall down when I stick too much in the pockets. So I looked in the hoard and found a bit of the blue fabric I also used for these pants and for a mock-up of another pair of pants. I found the original pattern, cut it out with a bit more crotch depth, freehanded some pockets and pocket openings on the front and set out to sew it together.

This fabric frays fairly easily, so I attempted to French seam it together. This worked remarkably well. I even managed to French seam the side from the zipper down. The zipper was an invisible zip and went in pretty smoothly. I cut the waistband just a little bit too short, which is why there’s a little extra tab on that side. I also added a little snap to keep the overlap to sit flat.

Side view of blue culottes with pocket and zipper.

When all but the hem was done, I let it hang overnight so that it could get all the bias stretch out. When I pulled it back on to see if the hem was level enough to sew, I found out that it wasn’t. This wasn’t really surprising, I always have to cut the front down to match the back. It was hemmed with bias tape, which was so much easier than trying to double fold it. The final detail was to add a little d-ring on a ribbon so I can hang my keys. All in all, pretty nice for not too much work!

Waves Ring

Making a shiny wave ring.

I’ve been taking a jewelry making course for the past couple of months. It’s been fun and I’ve been severely challenged in the patience department. The first classes were about reading measuring tools, how to saw, what soldering entails and how much sanding is going to be required for any project. Then we got started on our first item.

For the first project, we needed to make a ring composed of a simple inner ring and an outer ring with some sort of decoration it. Since I never wear rings, I didn’t want to make a giant thing, but it needed some size in order to get a decoration in it. What I settled on is making a short-ish inner ring, and then make an even shorter outer ring with a flat bottom edge and a wavy top edge. Once I managed the sawing of the outer ring, I also decided to drill some holes and saw some lines for more wave action.

Then there was some amount of sanding and polishing before soldering the two rings together. There’s one line decoration that came out great, and two that were partially filled in during the soldering process – can’t be perfect when you’re still learning. On to so many sessions of filing, sanding and polishing the thing to a high sheen. I learned about something that translates to ‘skin spots’, which is apparently copper coming out on the surface of the silver and looks like a dirty spot. I managed to get them all out in the end though. I have still not managed to wear it for a full day and I’m not sure that I ever will, but the process and the people in the class make it very enjoyable.

Doggie DPN Roll

Finally a place to store my double pointed knitting needles.

So, at some point in the distant past, I got hold of some DPNs, double pointed knitting needles. DPNs are needles that are used for knitting small things, or things in the round, or i-cord. I used them for the dragon, for example. As I am wont to do, this meant the start of a DPN collection. I never set about to find storage for them though, and that was a problem. They’ve been left in plastic bags, pen-things, stabbed into a cardboard box and I’ve found them in all kinds of places. But no more!

I set out to create a storage for them that was similar to my interchangeable knitting needle storage. Found some fabric in the hoard that had cute dogs on it, some semi-coordinating fabric for the needle pockets and got to work. I first had to sort all the DPNs into size and length to figure out how many and how big the pockets would be. I ended up with 19 different needle size/shape/length combinations from <2.0 mm to 9.0 mm in diameter.

Full view of DPN holder with plastic covers, green dotted needle pockets and dogs in the background

Since the doggy fabric was a specific width, the case would be a maximum of that wide. The height was determined by the longest DPNs I had, so it turned out around 37 cm. I cut out the front and back from the doggies and some batting for the middle. Then cut a long strip of coordinating dotty fabric to into the pockets. Sewed down one end and just started putting the DPNs in and sewed the pocket down so they fit somewhat snuggly.

The interchangeable needle storage has a plastic flap over the top to stop the needles falling out. This works really well, so I decided to implement it in the Doggy case too. Since there is such variation in length, and I didn’t think to split first by length then by width, there are actually two plastic covers, one for the shortish needles and one for the longer ones. To combat the ones on the end falling out, so I made a tiny flap on the side too. I sewed down all the flaps, and bound the edges of the whole thing. Made some spaghetti straps from a coordinating fabric, wrote the sizes with a textile marker and called it a day.

I love this thing and it has already brought so much joy!

Purple Eyelet Scarf

Flower eyelet pattern for a purple scarf.

After the success of the knitting machine eyelet scarf, I figured it was time to finally knit up a skein that has been in the stash for years. I’ve held on to the yarn since it was bought during the closing sale of a yarn shop. The intention was to make a scarf for a former colleague whose favourite colour is purple. I forgot what kind of yarn this is and I didn’t dye it myself. I did not use a pre-written pattern for the scarf, I initially just started knitting over 51 stitches and would see where it would end up. It wound up being too short so it was frogged for a second attempt.

Using a closed cast on, and skipping every second needle, I cast on 31 stitches. Then I knit 10 rows and hand-ribbed them. While keeping two columns of rib on the outsides, I started with an eyelet pattern down the center. The eyelet pattern was:

4 rows knit
Transfer the first stitch to the left of center to the previous needle on the left and transfer the first stitch to the right of center to the next needle on the right.
4 rows knit (to create 2 eyelets on the first row).
Transfer the second stitch to the left of center to the previous needle on the left and transfer the second stitch to the right of center to the next needle on the right.
4 rows knit (to create 2 eyelets on the first row).

Repeat until there is just about enough yarn left to do 4 rows of finishing knit and 10 rows of ribbing. Then weave in the ends and block the scarf to a width of 15 cm on your pool-floor foam pieces. Next, hope that the intended recipient actually likes it.

And she does like it!

Spur of the Moment

Sometimes Pinterest just sparks your imagination and you’ll make it come to life in less than 24 hours.

Browsing through Pinterest has given me lots of ideas over the years. Recently there was an image of a dress that really tickled my fancy and that I’ve been thinking about on and off. So last Monday evening around 20:00, I remembered that I had an event on Wednesday. I decided that I wanted a new outfit, but if it didn’t work out, I’d have enough in the cupboard to make something work anyway. To the hoard I went to select a piece of fabric. I chose a length of blue synthetic something with a smooth back and an peachy outside.

For the pattern, I decided initially not to look for an actual pattern to but to try and drape something on my dress form. I cut two bits of fabric and attempted to pin the shoulders in place. It didn’t really work as I intended so I moved on to another part. That was the side straps, which involved cutting 4 and sewing them together. By then it was bedtime, so I postponed the further fiddling to the next morning.

At that time I’d decided that I did want some sort of sleevelet unlike the sleeveless inspiration image. I thought it would perhaps work to fold over the sleeves and create some sort of integrated facing. To make my sleeves, I grabbed the bodice pieces from Simplicity 1076 (also used here), and centered them on my fabric pieces. Then I rotated them out so that the sleeve edge would be straight vertical and could be folded in to the center. I sewed the side seams, cut the neckline, made the facing and added pockets.

The fitted waist is accomplished with an identical arrangement of pleats in front and back. They are 5 cm high, 1 cm wide and 5 cm apart. I had no idea if that was going to work, but my pin-try-on indicated that it might, so I just went for it. The side straps are caught in the outer pleats. Once that was all sewn down, I put it on again to mark the button holes. For the first time ever, I sewed buttonholes on my Pfaff! The buttons were added, lovely green ones with a small pattern that I have an entire tube of. Added the hem and sewed the facing edges over. The dress was completed at about 17:20, right in time for a small gathering. All in all, less than 24 hours from fabric to finished dress. Quite a decent turn around! For the event, I chose to wear it with my tiny petticoat for a little bit more oomph. I really enjoyed wearing it.

Happy Holidays!

Making others do the dirty work of designing the holiday card!

When the year has been somewhat challenging and normal procedures don’t always apply, I do still try to keep some traditions alive. While I didn’t start my card production until it was already December *shock* *horror*, I did manage to finish them. Since my personal creativity was a little stumped, I relied heavily on my printer and everyone else inspiration.

I had found some holographic paper, where there was a holographic design beneath a layer of black. You would use a pen to scratch out your own design. I decided it was perfect and set out to create an ornament type shape. Printed it on the white back and cut them out with scissors. I used my trusty star punch to make a hole for hanging and added a wooden stick with a star glued to the top as the scratch pen. I wrote personal messages with a red pen (to distinguish from the instructions) and put them in the mailboxes, pigeonholes or on desks.

Since they have been distributed, I’ve received some very cute pictures of people taking the pen to hand and making their own designs. I recommend this as a strategy to make others do the creative work. So hereby to you all:

I wish you a creative 2022!

Antique Dress Form Cover

Making my new antique dress from a new skin.

Recently, I bought an antique dress form on ‘Marktplaats’. It took me a month to pick it up as it was literally across the country, but by the start of October I managed to get it home. It did take a few hours in public transport with the unexpected train replacing bus service in the middle, but we got there in the end. I really love it, it’s got such a nice shape! However, as the dress form is quite old, not all of the fabric has survived the century or so it has been in existence. Therefore, I decided to make her a new cover.

All the seamlines were drawn out on tissue paper while making sure the grainlines made some sense. Then those seven pattern pieces (neck, upper front, lower front, center back, side back and lower back) were transferred onto some cotton that has been in the hoard for a little bit. I made sure to put in the seamlines and sewed the cover together. It fit pretty decently first time around, which did surprise me a little. I did have to take in a number of the seams, but nothing was horrendously off. The only bit that was quite difficult was the center front at the armhole area, which wasn’t too strange because it had two darts in it and getting those to work wasn’t trivial.

The new cover is a lot lighter in colour than the original, but I think it worked pretty well. I’m quite proud that I managed to get the seam lines to work and the cover to fit quite nicely. While I’m not even close to her measurements – that waist is seriously tiny – she does fit my clothes somehow. So now I have an Edwardian lady in my living room hanging out with her pet dragon.

Not sure how, but my entire Edwardian outfit seems to fit her!

Teacup Holster

Finally getting that unnecessary project of the table does make me feel good.

Ever had that thing where you watched a video on YouTube of someone doing a project and then you decided that you also needed to do that project? This happens to me quite frequently and it generally ends up with me just collecting the materials and then either not starting or not finishing said project. In this case, the materials for this Teacup holster have been laying around my house for a good few months since this Rachel Maksy Teacup Holster video sparked my interest.

Last week, I finally got around to both starting and finishing it. I looked up some more examples on Pinterest and started to make a design. I got so fascinated by it that I completely lost track of time and went to bed way to late, but ey, suffer for the craft or something? In any case, with my paper model ready to go, I set out the next evening to cut the shapes from leather. At some point in the past I’d bought a bag of scrap leather from a purse maker in town and I used those bits.

The main design included a bag to carry stuff in, a holster for the teacup that would actually cover its bottom, belt loops and a teaspoon holding section. I wanted to make sure that I could loosen the different straps so I used different closure methods. Some screws for the saucer strap and belt loops and a ‘mirrored’ swing hook on the front. I was counting my swing hooks and found that I had 11 and one was the wrong way? It seemed fine to use that one for this project. It hangs a little more than I would have liked, but that might be due to the suppleness of the leather and that the saucer holder is maybe a little too big?

All of it is hand sewn and I managed to bend and break a few needles in the process. I don’t think my fingers approved of this project, but it is finished! I don’t know if I will ever use this thing. However, finally managing to put that cup and saucer that have been on my dining table since January away feels good! On to the next impractical project!

Tag: Self-drafted