Handbags for me
These are the two handbags that I just had to keep for myself.
This one is made from some groovy paisley fabric that my Nana had cut out for a dress – with hot pink crimplene cuffs and collar – that wasn’t a happening thing, so sorry Nana I used it to test the pattern for this bag. I liked how it turned out, I know it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but I like it!
The button on the tab closure is pink mother of pearl from Nana’s button box, possibly from her mother so is quite old.
Next is the royal blue crimplene, which sounds terrible but actually is a light fine textured fabric rather that the stiff boardy variety.
I had wanted a bag this colour for a while so am pleased to finally have one.
This was a test pattern also, the next one will be a little bigger with a longer flap and slightly more shaped. I have also done a smaller version for evening style bags that I used for Mum’s bag.
The inside is made from some vintage cotton, from a partly made little girls dress that my Mum was going to make for me but didn’t get around to before I grew too much! It makes me smile to see it inside my bag.
Ewan’s baby clothes quilt
Sometimes I get very emotionally attached to clothing, and found it difficult to get rid of my son’s baby clothes. I decided to use all my favorite ones to make him a special patchwork blanket/quilt after child number two had outgrown the ones he was able to wear as well (one summer baby and one winter, so not much clothes sharing from size 000-1) and then give away the rest. I also kept aside my favorites of number two, he had some adorable little outfits 
This was my first ever attempt at doing a quilt of any kind, so I was a bit unsure to start with. I did a bit of research online to see what others has done and came to a grinding halt. Although there was plenty of information about “normal” quilting, there was very little about using baby clothes and I was completely uninspired by the T-shirt quilts, so I had to fudge my way through it.
I started off by studying the clothes, looking at the size and shape of any pictures or text on them to determine how big to cut the squares and also how big the blocks would have be to get the right size to cover the bed…yes, there was an awful lot of thinking involved this process!
Once I knew what I was doing (ha!) I cut up the clothes (scary!) into squares slightly bigger than needed and then ironed on squares of fusible interfacing onto the ones in knit fabric for stability and to avoid stretching. This was quite a long process. I then used a template to cut to the correct size, trying to centre any detail where possible.
Then it was the fun part of sorting them into blocks, stitching up (another long process) and arranging the blocks into some kind of pattern…yes, there was a lot of sorting, thinking and rearranging during this process too.
Once the piecing was done I made a quilt “sandwich” using some navy wincyette for the backing, and a layer of old fleece/sweatshirt fabric I had in my stash for the batting (I wanted something light – and really cheap). I tried to machine stitch around the blocks but the the wincyette fabric proved to be very unstable and kept moving and puckering all over the place. In the end I had to to quilt the whole thing by hand. Yes it took a long time. Luckily this was something I could do in front of the TV at night. I just stitched around the squares, didn’t bother doing anything fancy.
I’m glad to say when it was finally finished Ewan thought it was just great. The first thing he did was get out his little toy cars and drive them along the sashing “roads” How cute.
I am currently doing a quilt like this for my niece. I had her clothes sitting around for about two or three years, and got started on it properly nine months ago. Like I said, its a long, slow process! I am in the hand quilting stage at the moment and will post some pictures when it’s finished.
Here are some close up details of Ewan’s quilt:
Bags!
I’m going through a bag phase at the moment. Have been making a few when I can, mostly out of fabric from my Nana’s stash (thanks, Nana) and am finding it very satisfying. They don’t take too long, don’t use much fabric, don’t need to be fitted and hopefully you end up with something useful when you finish!
Here are a couple of my first ones:
This tote bag fabric is recycled from a knit T shirt I bought from an Op shop. I liked the floral print. The inside is lined with vintage cotton (Nana’s stash!) and a layer of thin flannel (from an old sheet) to pad it out a bit and give body. I also stabilized the outer fabric with fusible/iron on interfacing to stop from stretching.
This next one is a little evening bag, just big enough for the essentials:
I’m not sure what the outer fabric is, it was semi sheer and reminded me of my Nana’s curtains…maybe it was a scrap of that? But it looked pretty anyway, especially over the teal lining. The inside is lined with a coordinating velveteen fabric and as you can see the handle is beaded. I gave this bag to a friend as a birthday gift.
And this one is the last one I have made, to give to my Mum for Mothers day:
It’s a bit hard to see the details – this is what happens when photo’s are taken at night 
The fabric is a yummy soft velvet with a large velvet covered button closure and hand stitched ruching on the front. Took a lot of fiddling to do!
Ballgown Refashion
I needed a formal dress for an event I attended in early 2002 (Wellymoot formal dinner, 60th NZ Rover Scout Moot held in Wellington). So I did a quick refashion on my old school ball dress (red velvet, off the shoulder sleeves, princess line with flared skirt, that my wonderful mother shed blood sweat and tears to make – sorry Mum!).
First the sleeves were removed and armhole edges stitched down. I unpicked the centre seam to add eyelets to the waist level, and gathered/ruched the other seams to form a bustle shape – just like Gok did in Gok’s fashion fix! I then added elastic straps and stitched on a ribbon rose trim strap.
This formed the bodice. For the skirt I made a simple A-line petticoat from red satin, then attached a huge length of black tulle to the waist. The bottom edge was then gathered up to the required length, and red ribbon roses stitched on top to look pretty.
Result, one very quick Victorianesque evening gown!
My Wedding Dress
The first Wedding dress I completed was for myself, from my own design, ie I made the pattern as well
It looks nothing like the frou-frou meringue that I always dreamed of wearing as a girl, as the fashion at the time (2001) was for a more elegant streamline silhouette. And I wanted something simple to sew to avoid stress!
The top layer is an empire line style with ribbon loops on the bodice for the lace up closure, and a skirt that gets longer at the back to form a train. Cut from some beautiful lace that I fell in love with, it has a rose style floral pattern and a deep border on the bottom edge that I used for the hem and the bodice. I also had to hand stitch a piece of the smaller top edge border onto the cuffs, because if I had cut the sleeves with the cuff along the top edge of the fabric, the rose pattern on the sleeve would have been upside down.
The underneath layer is a simple slip dress style in delustured satin with elastic straps (eww, what was I thinking?) trimmed at the hem with lace.
The photo doesn’t really do justice to this dress, that lace is exquisite. However if I had the chance to do this over again, I would make the satin under dress a lot more structured and form fitting.
