A pair of flower skirts

Last year I ordered some South African fabrics for my Dad to bring back from Cape Town for me. As well as a few metres my beloved Three Cats brand, I chose a selection of rectangular cloths which are traditionally worn by Tsonga women (you can see some examples of the way they are worn here).

These things come in a variety of super-bright colours and have a flower motif along the border, making them perfect for simple gathered skirts with just one seam at the back. All I did was cut them to size, sew them into 'tubes' of fabric, make a double casing for elastic at the top, then hem the bottoms. So quick, so easy! I had to line the yellow one, though, because it was a little transparent - and then I accidentally snipped part of the fabric so I used the lining as the waistband as well.

One for R and one for her sweet little cousin! The girls made such an adorable pair in their matching skirts, I couldn't stop snapping away.

Little M is somewhat recalcitrant when it comes to modelling - this is a girl who knows her own mind! - so it was fortunate that she took a liking to the skirt and put it on happily (unlike R, who only put hers on because I refused to give them a tub for their 'Barbie bath' until she did so).

Two happy cousins, two cute skirts and several very clean Barbies! 

Kids Clothes Week: cat dress

I've only made one thing this Kids Clothes Week and I'm pretty sure I won't finish anything else by tomorrow. So here it is, the 'ribbon-back tunic' from Linen Wool Cotton: Kids. I made the sleeveless version of this top (here) and loved it, but this one didn't quite turn out the way I imagined.

I had a vision of the tunic lengthened into a dress, but I was far too short of fabric to make the double-layered skirt I had envisaged. And as it was, the skirt part of the dress turned out rather too short. As I did with the previous version, I lined the top (and also the sleeves) instead of using facings, and I should have narrowed the bodice like I did last time, but I forgot, which made the neck and shoulders a bit too wide.

I'm not thrilled with the giant flutter sleeves - they look ready to take flight! I prefer a far smaller flutter, so if I made this again I would be chopping a fair bit off their width. I'm also not sure about the merits of the waist, where a gathered top part meets a gathered skirt part, which is kind of weird. Then there's the back - there's something about the way the tunic/dress hangs that makes its loveliest feature, the open back, not sit as nicely as it does in the sleeveless version, which has a band at the bottom. But as I didn't manage to get any decent photos of R from behind, you'll just have to take my word for it!

It's not so obvious in the photos, but the unlined skirt portion of the dress is quite see-through. As I write this, R is wearing the dress with leggings and a cardigan, and it suddenly looks much better. Given the issues of size, length and transparency combined, I think it's destined to be worn as a tunic. I'm not sure if I'll shorten it or just wait til R grows into it - she's shooting up fast lately - but as a top/tunic with a pair of leggings or pants (will she ever agree to wear pants??) it's clearly going to work much better. And it HAS to work, because I adore this fabric with its little hidden cat faces:

So not a total sewing success, but not a complete failure either. I reckon by next summer this dress will have a new life as a top!

2016 SVE - what I received

Putting together a parcel of gifts for someone in a land far, far away is so much fun - but the joy of the Secret Valentine Exchange is as much in the receiving as in the giving. Arriving home to find a parcel on your doorstep is a wonderful, wonderful experience. And if that parcel is covered with colourful stamps, and if, when you open it, there is a large box inside, all the better! My parcel came from Mirjam in Switzerland, who blogs at Miushka learns to sew and and who goes by @miushkamiushka on Instagram.

I had to shoo Moriarty away so I could open the wrapped gifts without him chewing the paper off (that cat chews anything!). Inside the two beautifully-wrapped packages were... (drumroll):

A little handmade pincushion turtle (tortoise?) so beautifully hand-sewn and decorated with sashiko stitching. He has magnets in his hands to collect pins, and as I write this is making himself useful beside my sewing machine. And...



An oven glove with spotted linen on one side and striped on the other, also decorated with sashiko. Mirjam very creatively embroidered little crosses on the spots, which is a really effective technique (and, she told me, a great way to keep your stitches even and in line!). Going to have to try this myself one day.



Both gifts are so thoughtful and beautifully made, they really made my Valentine's Day special and will always be treasured. Thank you so much, Mirjam!

2016 Secret Valentine Exchange

This was my second year participating in Sanae and Ute's Secret Valentine Exchange, where sewing and craft enthusiasts make handmade gifts for a secret partner. You're given a few details about them - their favourite colours, fabrics, motifs - and if they have a blog or instagram account you can get a sense of their style that way too. It's amazing how much fun it is to make gifts for a stranger - it gives you license to sew all sorts of pretty little things you might not otherwise have a chance (or an excuse) to make. And you can't beat the scrap-busting opportunities that little sewing projects provide!

My SVE partner Sarah lives in Florida and blogs (occasionally!) at dear little water. When I looked at her blog, though, there weren't any recent posts, so I mostly went by the information Sanae and Ute gave me: she likes triangles, moons, stars and nature-inspired things; linen and cotton; and the colours blue, lavender, grey and white. I'd also seen from her blog that she had a young daughter and liked gardening. With those things in mind, here is what I made her:

Drawstring bag from the book Carry Me, made in linen-cotton, lined with lavender linen.
Pleated pouch (from this tutorial) in linen.
Little paper-covered notebooks (inspired by this tutorial) using reproduction vintage paper.
Parsley seeds from my garden.
I also included a teeny tiny paintbox - I adore these, and they make a great handbag-friendly portable activity for little kids.

It was so exciting packing everything up and posting it, although once you place something in Australia Post's hands you never really know what's going to happen to it. It eventually reached its destination only one week late, which isn't too bad. I

You can see all the other Valentine's gifts on Instagram using the hashtag #2016sve. It's well worth a look if you need ideas for handmade presents - there are SO many beautiful things there and plenty to be inspired by. I'm really tempted to buy myself the Stowe Bag pattern now that I've seen so many stunning versions of it, but I really should stick to the patterns I already have, shouldn't I... let's see how long my resolve lasts!

In my next post I'll show you what I received from my lovely SVE partner Mirjam!

Pintucked dress with collar

This pintucked dress caught my eye in A Sunny Spot: Girls' Simple Clothes, so when R flicked through the book and announced that she wanted one, I was thrilled! Had I remembered how useless I am at pintucks I might have chosen something else, because I really don't have the knack of lining them up and spacing them perfectly. Luckily I did the back sections first, which gave me a bit of practice before I got to the front. They worked out OK in the end, but I've resolved to buy myself some kind of precision fabric-marking tool (as opposed to chunky bits of tailor's chalk) before tackling anything like this again. Recommendations, people?

If not for the dreaded pintucks (which are on front AND  back sections of the dress) this would be a super-simple sew. The book includes an extensive photographed 'lesson' on how to sew the dress and its adult version, but really the pintucks are the only remotely difficult bit, because the dress is just one piece for the front and two for the back, plus collar and facings. I added in-seam pockets - a lesson for this is included in the book, too - and made an extra-long button loop at the back in order to place the button right under the collar so R's long fine hair won't get tangled in it.

The fabrics are linen-cotton for the dress and a thicker linen for the collar. I spent ages in Spotlight looking at fabrics and fell in love with an overpriced teal linen. Sanity prevailed and I ended up with a much cheaper linen-cotton in this gentle lavender shade, then spent a further half-hour agonising over the choice of fabric for the collar, finally settling on a very light, subtle pink. This colour combination has really grown on me, and I'm so pleased with the way the colours look together in the dress that it's actually going to be hard to let R wear it (ie spill things on it, wipe oily hands on it and go down filthy playground slides on it). But if you love something you should set it free, right? So, into the wardrobe it goes...

The relax dress

Another dress from Fu-Ko Basics, probably the simplest pattern in the whole book - just two pieces plus facings for the neckline. I wasn't sure how this would look on R or whether I really liked it at all, but I was after a nice quick sew after the confusing front placket dress, and that's exactly what I got.

A Japanese friend informs me that the pattern is called a 'Relax Dress', and that the fabrics used for the two dresses pictured in the book are French terry and jacquard knit. I used some rather colourful cotton jersey I'd picked up on clearance a while back, which wasn't quite the understated style I was after, but this was right in between Christmas and New Year and I couldn't be bothered to go shopping. As it turns out, I really like the way the big floral design lends the dress a summery, beachy feeling. Perfect with a pair of thongs for a day at the beach or pool... and having just had an amusing conversation with my son about the different meanings of certain words in American versus UK/Australian English, I feel obliged to clarify the word 'thongs'. These are not undergarments but footwear - what others might call flip-flops, only you'd sound like an idiot if you said that here, because thongs are the national shoe of Australia!

The Relax Dress has a high-low hem and the waist is pulled in by means of a strip of elastic stretched out and stitched to the inside (I sewed mine about 5cm lower than the line indicated on the pattern pieces). The back opening is meant to have a button but I skipped this to avoid tangly hair issues and put in a snap instead. The dress could be simplified even further by omitting the facings and back opening and binding the neckline using a stretch stitch - providing, of course, that you're using stretchy fabric, because I think the dress would be really nice in a light woven as well.

A quick and rewarding sew with a comfy, calming name - there's lots to love about the Relax Dress. And check out K photobombing the picture below!

Front placket dress and a summer cardi

This is the front-placket dress from the lovely Japanese book Fu-Ko Basics: Girls' Clothes I Want to Make, and I would have given up on it pretty quickly were it not for this fabulous tutorial that Sanae put together (thank you! thank you!). There's nothing especially complicated about the dress, but the diagrams for constructing the placket are not very clear, and I suspect that even if the book were in English I'd find this particular pattern hopelessly confusing. With the tutorial, though, it's very do-able and I enjoyed seeing the dress come together. R insists that this is actually a tunic, and perhaps she's right - it did turn out on the short side. It's pictured in the book worn with leggings, a pattern for which is also included, so I tried them out and lo and behold, I seem to have found the perfect pattern for R's skinny legs. I used a lovely light linen from Kim Anh for the tunic and cotton/elastane jersey from my stash for the leggings, pictured below.

I found some beautiful (if overpriced) cotton knit at Spotlight - I don't know what it is, but it's not stretchy enough to be a jersey and not thick enough to be sweatshirt knit - which worked beautifully for this little short-sleeved cardigan. I used pattern F from A Sunny Spot, which is a bolero-length cardigan with buttons down the front, but I made mine waist-length with just two metal snaps at the top. It's comfy, easy to wear and goes with lots of R's clothes, so I imagine it'll get a lot of use. I'm less sure about the dress/tunic, because much as I love it, I suspect it might not be R's cup of tea.

All in all, a satisfying little outfit to sew, even if it's not exactly leggings weather around here. Next up, another dress from Fu-ko Basics - and it isn't blue!