A Crafting Day

After picking up my new overlocker after a warranty repair yesterday, today was lined up for some serious sewing. I had prewashed all the pretty material I bought from spotlight a few weeks ago (to preshrink it, it's cotton), and was all ready to go. Of course, I then didn't want to cut up said pretty material straight away, in case the pattern I tried didn't work. So a quick search through my recycled fabric stash revealed this pretty purple floral material. It was an old granny nightie. Much more useful now don't you think? And I was glad I didn't cut up the expensive stuff for this, since it was MEANT to be a dress, but was far too short! The addition of the shorts makes it a very cute little outfit regardless though.

Next I had a go at making a dress following this tutorial (from memory, since my computer wasn't turned on). I'm pretty happy with how it turned out (again from an old granny nighty that I posted about here). I've always wanted to know how to do that elastic gathery thing, so was really excited to find out how it was done (and it's very easy, check out the tutorial). Unfortunately DD has already broken one of the gathers from her habit of putting her knees up inside her dresses/shirts and stretching them. Oh well, no doubt I can fix it if I get around to it.

And finally, I took the scissors to the new material to make this skirt for me. This was actually my least favourite of the material, but I really like how it has turned out. After taking the photo, I added two pockets, as I hate wearing things without pockets. Nowhere to put my keys, and they always get lost in the bottom of my handbag. The pattern for this dress came from my "Stitch House" book, a great book, translated from Japanese, with measure and cut patterns for a great variety of clothes. For those who've seen them, it's very similar to Enid Gilchrist's books, only more modern (it's from the 80's I believe). I think I'm going to be making a lot of clothes from this book (and the other two from the series that I have) because most of the clothes can be made with 2m of fabric or less, unlike the paper patterns I have (and I have lots) that seem to need 3-4 metres for everything. Far more frugal, and usually easier and faster to make too.

So it seems like I've made a good start on our summer wardrobe. I am itching to make more, and have my next pattern already planned out. Well, I might have to make DD a skirt like mine first, as she's already requested one. Luckily I have enough material left over from my 2m to make her one!

And yes, for anyone who is curious, I did do all these in one day. Most of them only took 1/2 an hour to an hour to do, so I even managed to cook some johnny cakes, and do some craft with DD too.

We made these flower collages from cutout scrap paper and other bits and pieces. I helped cut bits out for DD, but she stuck all of it on herself. She's really enjoying these sorts of crafts lately. We made a pirate hat at the library yesterday, which she even cut out herself. While I'm at it, here are some other crafts DD has done in the last few days (not today!)

DD cut out and stuck these dinosaurs all by herself last night from some scrapbooking paper we bought her for her birthday. The one on the left is a velociraptor, and the one on the right is an apatosaurus.

These little paper envelopes she also made herself. The paper is some coloured squares, again bought for her birthday. She did it all herself, just asking me to get some masking tape off the roll for her. All the folding and sticking she did herself.

Her manipulative skills are really taking off right now, so I think we're going to be doing a lot more of these sorts of activities around here.