Waste not, Want not…

Taking part in the OWOP challenge forced me to admit that my first Ginger, see here, was ready to be put out to pasture. I’d attempted to resurrect it once, see here, but it hadn’t really worked out that well 😦

Still, rather than bin it (it was way past the charity bag stage), I thought I’d attempt to turn it into a skirt for my daughter. Nothing ventured…

I simply unpicked the zip (possibly to use again?), cut off the waistband and sewed up the back seam a little higher. Then roughly following the very first skirt patterns I ever made, I turned under the top edge just a little and stitched. Next,using the width of my elastic as a guide, I folded again to form my waistband, sewing it down but leaving a small gap to insert the elastic through. Lastly, I inserted the elastic, pulling it through with a safety pin, and finished up the gap. My daughter was keen to add a little extra detail, so we picked a small mouse patch (£1.99 for three from H and M) to stitch to the bottom, right hand corner. And here it is…

 

This conversion from mum-skirt to daughter-skirt took me all of an hour. I’m really pleased with it and so is my daughter. While she’s still a lot smaller than me (and that really won’t be for long, even at the age of six, she’s catching me fast) this is something I’ll definitely try again. The perfect play skirt 🙂

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Frivolous Fridays! Love Sewing Mag’s Upcycled Teddy Night Shirt…

So this is what you end up sewing (although technically there was no sewing actually involved) when you leave your latest sewing magazine lying around for your six year old daughter to find…

I give you the upcycled man’s shirt sleeve made into a teddy’s (well, rabbits’, plural, in this case. My daughter’s is obsessed with them) bedtime outfit.

This was a cute project to complete together. Pixie and Blossom were very pleased with their new designer night wear. The only ‘modification’ we made? Well, we had to accommodate their tails… of course!

I have a feeling we’ll be kitting out her whole bedroom, my husband had better get a lock for his wardrobe 😉

Simple Home Projects

I’ve been up to my neck marking at home for the last couple of days, whilst simultaneously smoothing feuds been my two children who are on half term this week, but I thought I’d share a quick and simple home project I completed a while ago.

These little beauties hang on the back of our wardrobe door and I use them constantly for separating ‘delicates’ (and fragile home sewn items…) from the rest of the wash. I used a couple of ‘granny chic’ pillowcases I picked up for practically nothing at a local charity shop. They even had a lovely ‘crispness’ to them, so suspect they’d hardly ever been used. The tutorial I used (somewhere on the internet, but I just googled and there’s a whole host of them out there) involved simply chopping off some of the length, re hemming and adding a contrasting ribbon to the top. I had some lovely, old lace in exactly the same muted colour in my stash (another charity shop find) so added this too. I think they make a welcome splash of colour to our muted colour scheme.

I even made a couple of very quick and simple ‘bird’ lavender bags (using Cath Kidston’s Sew template) to use up the cut off fabric, so my awaiting laundry smells good too.

Sometimes the simplest makes are the most satisfying 🙂