tiny happy

Thank you for your sweet comments on my last post- you are very kind and I'm excited by all the helpful suggestions! I think I'm going to busy this year. 🙂 I drew a name using the 'random generator' and up came #26, which was Brooke. Thanks again for taking part!

I sewed the last button onto my new blouse this morning and thought i'd show this latest finished project. A while ago I found an old Butterick pattern (#3696, from the early 80's, I think) with designs for short-sleeved blouses, which i thought would be a handy garment to go with skirts and cardigans this coming autumn. I chose the 'D' model, which has a rounded collar and to make it, I cut into my favourite-ever vintage fabric. I originally found it in my parents' barn (I have no idea how it got there?) and it was extremely dirty, but after washing and pressing it I felt like I'd found hidden treasure. It's a kind of drapey georgette crepe in dark blue with small red and yellow flowers. It proved tricky to work with (slipping all over the place) but I'm happy with the finished blouse- even if I did discover a couple of small moth-holes on one shoulder. When will I learn to hold fabric up to the light before cutting into it? Never mind, it's to be expected from fabric that lived in a barn for a long time.

Aother tricky thing about making the top was the buttonholes. Even though I have quite a modern sewing machine, I get a bit anxious when making tiny little buttonholes on such slippery fabric, so i ended up sewing them by hand. The buttons are red vintage ones- all similar but not quite the same, and I chose to sew them in pairs instead of the usual, equally-spaced distance.

I hope you have a great weekend ahead. We're off to Wellington for a friend's wedding (hooray!) so I'll see you on Monday.

I had fun making these cosmetic/project cases from some of the rainbow-coloured vintage linen that I'd been hoarding for a while. I've reopened my etsy shop for the new year, and thought it would be nice to start with some cheerful and bright goods. I think most of the linens I used to make these cases are from the 1960's or 70's. My favourite is the one with orange marigold-style flowers.

And every new shop opening is a bit sweeter with a giveaway, don't you think? To say thank you for all your support and for visiting my blog, I have the blue linen case (in that last picture above) and some other wee things to give away to a reader. If you leave a comment on this post I'll draw a name randomly tomorrow or the next day. Maybe you could tell me something that you'd like to see in the etsy shop this year? Or otherwise, something about yourself. Cheers!

Today I have a guest-post up on Jill's blog, Today I Saw. Jill makes beautiful things and sends her handmade postcards all around the world, featuring drawings of her everyday life in London. I'm honoured to join in on her blog today.

I hope your Tuesday is going well- see you again tomorrow.

Cicadas and bees are humming outside, the radio's going inside, it's hot and sticky, and I've made things even sweeter and stickier with a spot of jam-making. Thank you, K, for the bag of red-fleshed plums- we made jam with them. X

Hope your Monday is going well and you're not getting into any sticky messes.

I'd say the majority of Keira's clothes are homemade, and of those, the majority were made using recycled fabrics of some sort. And now she (and her friend next-door) have a few more recycled things to wear, which should be useful when school starts again. Because you see, I discovered the easiest garment to make from an older garment- jersey skirts. The children report that they are soft and comfy to wear, and quite useful for a hard day's work tending to the pot plants.

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Here's how I made them (the process is so simple, I don't think a diagram is required.)

1. I brought home from the op-shop several large-sized, stretch-cotton T-shirts (from memory, I think they were even in the 'free-bin', so stretched out of shape were they). Then I washed, dried and ironed them flat.

2. Using tailor's chalk, I drew a straight line across the centre of the shirt, just underneath the sleeves. Then I cut along the line, through both the back and front of the shirt. (I still haven't thought of a good use for the leftover sleeves- maybe baby leggings?)

3. I folded a narrow channel along the top of the rectangle and pressed it down with a hot iron. Then I folded this down again, to make quite a wide channel, pressed and sewed in place, leaving a small gap through which to thread the elastic.

4. I cut a piece of wide elastic (mine measured 1" wide and 18" long) to fit around the recipients' waist, threaded it through the channel and sewed it closed. And that's all! Thank you, t-shirts, with your ready-made and neatly-sewn hem, that i could never achieve on my own.

Happy weekend. See you next week.

The dwarf-variety sweet peas that I planted in an old sink a while ago have burst into flower this week. I love them.

Tom and I have spent the last couple of days painting our living room a milky shade of white (actually, I think it's just plain 'white'- nothing fancy). The white-washed look has really brightened up the room and everything looks shiny and clean and I must confess, I felt strongly tempted to start painting the wooden floor white, too (inspired by Soulemama and her new house) before realising I hadn't bought enough paint for that. The room was previously a shade of beige (not unlike the colour of pantyhose) so the paint job had been on our to-do list for a while. Hooray for summer holidays and teacher-partners who are home to help with d-i-y.

Here are the instructions for making your very own Beach Dress, as promised yesterday. It really is a dress for hot weather- mine is made from lightweight fabric, is knee-length and ties up at the nape of the neck. But I think you could also make it from a stretch jersey cotton or a fine wool fabric and wear it over warmer layers if you like. Ironically, today is the darkest and rainiest we've had this summer- so I'm sorry that some of the photos are rather dull. Hopefully you get the picture anyway.

You will need:

3. Now you need to do some shirring. This is the fun part! Take your spool of shirring elastic, and an empty bobbin spool. Begin winding the elastic onto the bobbin by hand, stretching it tightly as you do so. (It took me a while to learn this tip- all my previous shirring efforts were futile because I didn't realise it needed to be tightly wound!) Place the wound bobbin into your bobbin case and thread the machine as usual. I like to set my stitches to a fairly narrow setting for shirring, but you can experiment with what suits your machine and fabric. Start sewing about a machine-foot-width away from the top channel you made earlier, and sew in a straight line until you reach the end of the fabric piece. You should find that the shirred fabric gathers up in a most pleasing way as you go. Continue working in this way until you have sewn about 9 or 10 rows of shirring, evenly spaced apart from each other. (You could do more or less shirring, depending on your bust size.) It should start to look a little like this:

and this on the back of your work:

4. When you've finished shirring, measure around your chest where you want the sundress to sit and cut a piece of narrow elastic the same length. Thread it through the channel at the top of the dress and sew the ends together. (You might want to adjust this elastic so it's not too tight or loose around your chest.)

5. Make your straps by pressing in the edges of your cut strips, folding them together, pressing again and sewing down close to the edge. to make a neatly finished strip. Sew the finished straps in place where you'd like them to be, inside the front of your dress. (I machine-stitched mine about 3" in from each side seam, and also secured them with hand-stitches right at the top of the dress.)

6. I wear my dress with the straps tied like a halter-neck but you could sew down the straps at the back of the dress too, if you prefer. Or even crossed over at the back. Now you should really wait for some warm weather, if you're in the Northern Hemisphere, otherwise, head straight to your nearest river, beach or picnic spot in your lovely new sun-dress.

It was a bright and hot weekend here in the South Island. Here are some glimpses:

:: chocolate cake baked and eaten outside under the umbrella with help from next-door children

:: some new (old) books from Tom's grandmother, complete with the orginal Harrod's receipt, dated 1964

:: a cleaned and organised children's bedroom (I wonder how long it will stay that way?)

:: the kitchen window- cool inside, hot outside.

I will have the dress pattern ready to post here tomorrow. Happy new week!

Thank you for all your encouraging comments on yesterday's post! You are all very kind, and have got me excited about doing some more fabric designs. I hope to offer some up on Spoonflower soon, so I'll keep you posted on that.

I've been getting into the band Beach House lately, do you know them? They're coming to NZ soon but I don't think I'll make it to Wellington to see them. In any case, their songs have been the perfect backdrop to these warm and long evenings of late. This song is a favourite of mine- especially the great 80's inspired sound.

And speaking of beaches, I devised a way to make a simple summery beach dress over the New Year holiday and got a chance to test it out today, where the children and I spent many hours at our local beach. I wanted a garment that would be cool and easy to throw on over my swimsuit. It has a halter-neck tie and shirring around the top. If you'd like to make one too, I'd be happy to write up a little 'how-to' next week.

Wishing you a happy weekend, whether you're deep into your summer or winter-time!