Search Results for: happy 2008

Crafternoon

The moorings’ first Crafternoon was a smashing success! We normally have a monthly craft night amongst the neighbours, rotating around to different boats so no one person always has to host. Since our usual craft night falls on a Bank Holiday Monday in May (and again in August), we decided to move it to the afternoon and outside to the Arts Ark (which is like our little floating, communal village green).

Rather than everyone coming at once, it was more of a drop-in thing, with different waves of crafters coming throughout the afternoon… Clare from Selvedge Magazine and her flatmate helped out with the organza wedding flowers, as did Susannah from Cargo Cult Craft! I was a bit crap with taking photos, though, so I missed the bulk of the crafters, sorry!

James raised the bar for “boy craft” and built a step!

Racy lacy lingerie set

When fellow blogger Sigrid visited me last May, she brought along a birthday gift for me – a fantastic lingerie kit from Kantje Boord (a big lingerie notions shop in Amsterdam), full of really cool goodies you only ever see on high-end RTW underwear. In fact, it was all so nice that I was hesitant to cut into it as my bra-making skills are not quite as polished as the rest of my sewing yet.

But Pattern Review are having their first-ever Lingerie sewing contest, so that gave me the impetus to cut into the kit!

I planned on making the same partial-band, underwired bra I’d sewn once before (twice if you count the muslin) with a few improvements, plus my TNT thong panty from KnipMode, and, as it turns out, I was able to squeeze a camisole out of the yardage included in the kit, too!

Camisole

We’ll start with the largest item first, even though I made it last… This one was really easy – I started with a RTW knit vest (tank top if you’re American) that I really liked, laid it on my fabric and traced the front, then did the same with the back.

Christmas Present – Grey stars hoodie shirt

I had an idea of what I wanted to make for my nephew, Logan, but with the kids being so far away I had to get the sizing correct, and all I had to go on were their US RTW clothes sizes. I definitely didn’t want to draft anything from scratch, so I had to find a pattern I could start from to ensure the sizing would be right. I ended up choosing Knippie Fall 2008, #13 since it was in his size range and had the long sleeve and hood, but that was about all I kept!

This pattern is meant to be a sweatshirt with assymetrical stripes, so I altered it quite a bit here, primarily by only tracing one half of the front and back pieces, and laying these on the fold instead (once again I’m happy to be working with patterns without seam allowances so I didn’t have to faff about with removing zipper facings or anything). I also shortened the body of the shirt since the pattern has you fold it up over wide elastic for a sweatshirt/jacket feel and I just wanted a teeshirt here.

Christmas Present – Breton top & sweatskirt

The October 2009 Burda WOF magazine had some really cute winter girls clothes in it, but for me, the sweatskirt (#145) jumped out right away as a great present for my neice, Megan.

This was a really quick pattern consisting only of the skirt (the same for the front and back) and the kangaroo pocket, with a length of ribbing attached for the waistband! I was able to make this using the last leftover navy blue sweatshirting and a ridiculously tiny amount of leftover ribbing from James’s 2008 birthday sweatshirt and it was all done in under an hour. The only changes I made to the pattern was to lengthen it by about an inch because Megan is rather tall and lanky and I’d rather err on the longer side than shorter!

Thank god it's finally 2010!!

The worst year of my life is finally over, hurrah! Celebrate!! Woo! I always try to live each year so that it’s better than the one before, and I don’t think I’ll have to spend much energy to make 2010 a success by that yardstick! Still, my cathartic sewing output hasn’t been too bad, especially considering I spent a full 8 weeks/2 months in a hospital bed!

(Click the composite photo to zoom in, and have a look in the Gallery to read more about any of them. Except the last few, which you’ll see in greater detail next week.)

Here’s 2007’s and 2008’s roundups, for comparison.

Let’s find some highlights in what was an otherwise incredibly sh*tty, sh*tty year….

Ruffled pink girlie dress

I hadn’t planned on making this dress, but I suddenly remembered it was our neighbour Matilda’s fourth birthday today so I went over and took some measurements yesterday, and chose dress #6 from the Fall (Herfst) 2008 Knippie idee magazine:

Remember back at Christmas I made this as a top for my niece? You might also remember Matilda from the knit balaclavas I made her at Christmas…

This time I made the smallest in the size range, 98, after measuring Matilda (who’s turning 4), whereas I’d made the biggest size, 128, for my niece who was barely 6 then.

Here’s the dress, front and back, laid out flat:

Blue Sky sewing

Last second delays, delays, delays are really getting me down. So last night I forced myself to sew a quick knit top to cheer me up and give me something new to wear…

For me, “quick” means:
1. the pattern’s already traced (and previously made is a bonus!)
2. the fabric is in my stash, washed and ready to go
3. Made from knits so no stopping to press seams

Luckily, I fondly remembered BWOF 11-2008 #125, so I went through my traced pattern pile (I knew I kept all of those for a reason!) and whipped this up in under two hours.

Thank You!

I’ve been so touched by all the kind thoughts and words that everyone has sent to me since I spoke about my illness here. A few of you decided to send cards and gifts, too, which just blows me away! I never expected such an outpouring of camaraderie and kindness, and for that, I thank each and every one of you.

These adorable wooden koala and kangaroo buttons are from Sandra in Australia, through whose quest for instructions on the KnipMode twist top, I discovered the pattern myself!

She got them from this local shop, and I really must find the perfect place to use these as an accent!

Then I got a mysterious package in the post with a card from Cidell!

Bridesmaids' choice

The bridesmaids have chosen their dress design! The only parameters I gave them were that it had to be a knit dress (no way am I undergoing extensive fittings for them on top of my dress!), and they had to choose the same pattern. Luckily, both of them have similar body types so picking a pattern that suited them both was relatively easy!

So, drumroll….

I will be sewing up two versions of BWOF 09/08 #132, the Gant Exclusive Design dress:

What I gave…

The tree and the outdoor lights are all taken down, the chocolates have been scoffed, and the last of the pine needles are being hoovered off the floor… My Christmas sewing was in overdrive this year, but it’s not until now that I really get to see how everyone liked their gifts!

My neighbour Jamaica was telling me months ago how impossible it is to find the cute little jersey balaclavas her 3 year old daughter loves, so she lent me one to copy after I had a good look at it. It’s really just one pattern piece, cut four times (two in each fabric) and sewn together along the back/top seam and also on the lower neck seam. You can see the pattern piece in the side photo on the left below (the right photo is the front view with the hole for the face). Then I connected the two around the face hole, turned them right side out, and serged the bottom edge together and left that raw (like the RTW one, which is just peeking out below on the left).