Easy Sewing

Yesterday I wanted to do some easy sewing; something quick and simple but something that would also be useful.  With braxton hicks and baby kicks taking up pretty much every waking moment (and waking me up!) it was always going to be baby related.

I’d always planned on making a blanket for the baby as they’re one of those things you can never have too many of.  We have them strewn around the house and in the car when Boy was small and I doubt this time around it’ll be any different.  In fact I ordered the fabric from Plush Addict months ago, pre-washed it and then… Nothing.  I guess I got this weird idea into my head about tempting fate and all that, so it just sat there.

Until yesterday, when I used Jane’s tutorial for making a very simple baby blanket.  The only things I did differently were to round the corners (using a saucer to get the round) and slip stitching the gap closed, because I’m obsessive like that!  Oh, and use dimple minky because IT’S SO FLUFFY!!

Found on Pinterest – can’t find the original owner…

We don’t know whether we’re having a boy or a girl and to my mind, pewter grey and aqua would work well for both.  I like them too so that’s what I used!!  I was careful pinning this together because Minky is a knit and the polkadot is a woven so there was the potential for it all to shift around a fair bit.  The only other thing I did was to sew with the cotton uppermost.  There really isn’t a whole lot to say about it – but it was nice to spend a bit of time with the sewing machine, doing something quick and easy that I know will get used!

Plotting and Planning But Not a Lot of Sewing… Yet…

I’m not even keeping up with my ‘one post a month’ target at the moment am I?!  But hey, tell you something you don’t know – right?  I promise I’ve had my reasons though, the main one being this:

Meet Fidget, mostly known as ‘our baby’ if you ask Boy.  It’s earned the moniker as during the dating scan earlier this week they did not want to stay still and have their measurements taken, or give the sonographer an easy first appointment of the day!  Hence the face down, slightly blurry image!  Everything looked good though and the blood tests have come back as all being well.  We’ve also made it out of the first Trimester so are starting to feel a little less worried and able to share the news.  We’re hoping to meet Fidget in mid to late February.

I’ve been too tired to sew and the be quite honest, not even sure WHAT to sew!  Bed time has been 9pm for weeks, which basically means no sewing.  Sleep was the priority!  Instead I’ve been hoping, dreaming and making some vague plans – what to wear being one element.

I’ve had fun sketching in my Fashionary and come up with a few ideas that I hope will work in the coming 6 months or so as well as afterwards, and some may even have a longer ‘shelf life’.

Here’s what I’ve come up with:

Butterick 5860, which is a wrap dress.  I’ve got some fabric earmarked to make at least two of these as I suspect they’ll become my uniform at work.  I have a colleague who had the most chic and pulled together maternity wardrobe during her recent second pregnancy and is the inspiration for a couple of pieces in my planned wardrobe…

Staple Dress by April Rhodes but with the shirring falling just under the bust and with a bump accommodating adjustment.  This is currently in progress.  I’ve just got to get brave to make the bias binding from a very silky rayon.  I’m gonna have to face that soon as I need it for a wedding in just under two weeks!

Papercut Patterns Circle Top as this will work now and well into the future!  So far I’ve got a navy and a purple version planned.  These will be in solids to give maximum wearing potential and are in two of my basic colours.

Maria Denmark Day to Night tops (why do I always want to type Knight when writing about this top?!).  I’m going to use Zo’s maternity alteration on these as I need some tops to go with the maternity jeans I had when pregnant with Boy.

I’ve also found a gorgeous French company called Deuxieme Arrondissement which make some gorgeous maternity patterns.  I’ve bought two:  The Duo 13H and Robe Minuit.  I think the Duo 13H will be perfect for a wedding we’re going to in December.  They’re completely different to any other maternity patterns out there, and whilst they’re entirely in French, I have faith in my language skills…  They’re printed on lovely thick paper and I’m looking forward to using them!

I’ve also hacked Jamie Christina’s Mission Maxi and am wearing a maxi skirt from a slightly failed experiment as I type.  I basically used a double knit and whilst I compensated for the lack of stretch everywhere else, with my changing chest size, it was a tad snug up top!  So I lopped the top portion off to turn it into a skirt.  I will probably revisit though, armed with a more suitable knit and again use Zo’s tutorial.

Finally, I’ve bought Burda 7239 with the express intention of recreating a top I wore when pregnant with Boy.  It was basically a cropped wrap cardigan with a false top underneath it made of a very light weight cotton.  It was fabulous to wear and my only splurge on maternity clothing with Boy.  It came from Mamas and Papas and cost me close to £40.  I wore it to death.

What I also need to do (and this is going to have to be interspersed by other projects) is crack on with my Papercut Patterns Milano Cape.  This was also inspired by my colleague, but it seemed wrong and tempting fate to do too much work on it whilst trying and then in the early stages of pregnancy.  Call me superstitious or plain daft, but after previous experiences I didn’t want to be presumptuous.

As for Fidget – well not a lot planned there at the moment as we’re not going to find out whether they’re a he or a she until they make an entrance into the world.  We’ve also got the vast majority of what we need for the early months from when we had Boy.  He was also an unknown so all our early baby stuff is neutral!  I think I may have a go at adapting Dog Under My Desk’s Day Tripper bag to be a more fun changing bag as the one from the days of Boy is a very man friendly grey!  Oh, and I’d love to make Boy and Fidget matching quilts…

So, some ‘quick’ projects (I hope) and some more involved…  Time will tell if I manage to get even half of them done!

Ombre Cambie

I thought I’d break up the By Hand London love in that’s going on around here with a return to our favourite Canadian designer!  This is my second version of the Cambie and this time I chose to use the A-line skirt as gathers on my waist aren’t my favourite thing!

I made this dress for a party with a BBC theme – which is about as broad a remit as you can get!  I decided to go with Star Trek as I used to spend every Tuesday evening sat on the floor in the lounge, eating dinner with my Dad watching The Next Generation on BBC2.

Captain Jean-Luc Piccard was and is one of my heroes!  And when I saw the above it was just perfection.

But back to the dress!  As I mentioned, it’s Sewaholic’s Cambie with the A-Line skirt.  Bodice wise it is identical to the first version; usual FBA and sway back adjustments.  The skirt is as Tasia drafted.  It all went together beautifully.

I had a lot of fun turning the plain Enterprise printed fabric (from Plush Addict) into the gorgeous Ombre you see!  I did a bit of Google research (seriously, doesn’t all research start there?!) and used this tutorial to dye the dress.  Because I wanted the Ombre fading down the dress I made the dress shell first and then dyed it in a mix of Navy and Amethyst Dylon dye with the shoulders staying in the longest.  That was fun and messy!  But as I made this dress back in June (I did warn you I was way behind on blogging my makes!) I played with the dye outside.

It’s not a perfect job, there are some bright pink spots where I didn’t quite mix the powder properly into the water before dunking the dress, but I kinda like the odd bright pink spots dotted across it.

 

I then finished the construction with the bodice lining etc as per Tasia’s instructions.

Just to finish off the outfit, I bought a communicator style brooch from eBay and wore that on the dress as well (Not a TNG one though too much ££!  It’s the style in the recent films which I loved!).  I got so many comments on the dress and I can also wear it as day wear.  In fact I’m wearing it today, along with my Victoria Blazer whose lining coordinates beautifully with those bright pink spots!