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Two old skirts = linen slippers

For a while now, I've been wanting to make some nice slippers. I keep eyeing off a lovely felted pair in the Yass shoe shop, but at $70, who am I kidding. So I finally made a pair. I used this old woolen skirt from the free bin at Revolve. I know the picture is crooked. Too bad at this time of night!  

It's a black wool blend with white flecks. Nothing wrong with the skirt per se, just that it's a pencil skirt, and I don't find them comfy to wear. 

I also used a cream linen skirt from an op shop but I got it that long ago that it was well cut apart before I started photographing things first. It was basically another pencil skirt. 

The slipper pattern I used came from a lovely-looking book called Cloth. I borrowed it from the ACT library. Lots of projects specifically designed for wool, cotton, silk and linen, plus a bit of history and current uses for each type of fabric.

 

This is the pic of the slippers from the book:

And here is the first draft (left) and the second draft (right) of the my attempt. Can you pick the mistake?? Being one of those people with larger-than-the-average-Joe feet, the slipper patterns I see in books are always too small, so I just sized it up - but a bit TOO much the first time. 

Here they are on my dainty feet: Yep. Just a bit too big on the left there. 

The slippers were in the Linen section of the book. They are very simple to make, just a quilted sole with one layer of wadding (I put two layers in the second draft as the first was too thin). The front section is two layers sewn together along the curved back section. Then the front section and bottom of the sole are sewn inside out and the whole thing gets turned out the right way and stitched closed (supposedly with slip stitching, but hey, these are only slippers, so I slacked off and used the machine). 

Once I had the sizing better I made another left one. This one I used three layers of wadding in the sole as the other was still too thin!

In case you're wondering about the black skirt, yes, I did use it, on the bottom of the sole. You can see how nice and clean they are on the bottom after five minutes of use. Not. 

Overall they are comfy and I like them, but they are kind of annoying, because I have to shuffle around in them. If I walk normally they just fall off. So I guess they should technically be termed scuffs rather than slippers. 

I was also going to make a nice wool overnight bag out of the same book:

But the pattern sheet for the bag was  missing and I wasn't feeling clever enough to figure it out. I actually emailed the author to ask for the dimensions but never had a reply. Boo hoo. I am also tempted to make the ottoman, the pattern for which was in the book, so I have traced it and may make it one of these days: minus the cat.

I have about three bags full of tiny scraps that need to be stuffed into something - so I figure an ottoman would be a perfect thing to stuff!

Why I love Greendale fete

Every year in October, a little rural church about five minutes out of town holds a fete. Greendale is the place to be on that day for the best trash and treasure haul you are likely to ever see. Five-cent crockery, 10-cent toys, and best of all, metres of fabric for next to nothing. Last year I picked up about 10 metres in total for about two bucks.

And I don't mean any old fabric - check out this vintage 80's cotton god-knows-what you would call it.

Here's the close up for extra impact: Cool or what!

I don't know how it ended up in someone's cast off pile. Really! Who could resist. 

Of course cheap fabric and bargain basement crockery are not all what Greendale is about. Not remotely. From a town with a population of around 101, about 200 or 300 people seem to turn up to chat, have a devonshire tea (plunger coffee and scones, $2 anyone?!), buy locally made jam and tomato relish, plants, cakes and those frilly lacy coathangers that you just can't seem to find anywhere else....I love it. 

Ok -  back to the fabric! What else could you make from this, really, other than kids' shorts. At the risk of being predictable, these are Explorer shorts. Again. Boy, have I got my money's worth from that pattern. And I even made matchy matchy ones - sort of.   

First up is Ellie's, which she wanted to personalise with applique letters. Out of cat fabric. Which she positioned very carefully to get the cats in EXACTLY the right place, as you do.  Cats in the pockets, too.

Check out that cat placement....

Don't you love how these two fabrics go together so perfectly? Umm? If you are 8, they do.

Now Kai's: being a bit of a flag freak, he picked flags for pockets. The flag fabric came from Yass Salvo's, I think. 

Just in case you couldn't see the flags too well! 

And just because this post has been full of headless shots (thanks Kai for holding the shorts up) here is one with a head. He wouldn't put the shorts on, though. They have been worn a lot since these pics were taken, though; in fact, both pairs are starting to fade! At least they no longer blind me when I hang them on the clothesline...

Christmas shoeboxes and a cub blanket

It's been a school tradition the last few years to support the Christmas Shoebox appeal. The kids enjoy choosing small gifts to fill the boxes, such as toothbrushes, soap, colouring pencils, toys. I always try to make an item of clothing as well for something a bit extra. I think the kids don't completely fathom how a child overseas can only receive a shoebox of little things for Christmas and nothing else, but they are starting to (occasionally) realise how privileged they are...

Anyway, last year the school stopped doing the boxes, but the kids and I still wanted to, so we did. I made some Explorer shorts (about the only shorts pattern I use these days) for the boy's box, using the fish fabric from a friend's old sundress (also used on the iPad cover last year) and some plain blue, which probably came from an op shop, but I honestly can't remember. 

Back view:

For the girl's box, I made a little skirt using Simplicity 9611, which I picked up in an op shop. It's pretty simple, basically a rectangle with elastic drawstring, and a split hem detail at the side (which you can't see too well in the photo, but can see in View C in the drawing).

The fabric, from a garage sale, was an off-white cotton with little flowers. There were two bits of fabric in the same print but different colourways - pink/green and purple/orange. 

The pattern doesn't have a pocket, but I thought it needed one. I drafted the front pocket (using the second print) by tracing around a bread and butter plate to draw a circle, then cutting an arc out of the top. It still looked ho hum so I dug out some purple braid (from the op shop, of course..) Instant cute!

The last pic below is Ellie in her cub poncho/blanket. I remember having one as a Brownie back in the early 80's. I found the blanket in the Yass Salvos and after picking Mum's brain, turned it into a poncho by cutting a curved slit in the centre and adding a rib trim.

She has a way to go with covering it with badges, but we have 4 to start with at least! She did take this on a camp, but reported back that she didn't sleep under it because it was a bit itchy. I did say it was meant for wearing over clothes around the campfire, not actually sleeping in, but clearly that message was lost!

A Lane Raglan Tee and another Renfrew

Before: kind of hideous cowl-neck top from Yass Vinnies, I liked the colour and feel of the fabric. Hector looks a bit like a headless zombie holding this up for the photo...

After: a kind of respectable tshirt. I have forgiven Buster his heinous crime from my previous post (or maybe this photo was taken beforehand, I can't really remember).

The pattern is the Lane Raglan from Hey June. It's pretty popular in the sewing blog world. Very simple, I probably had several like it in the cobwebby pattern box but I am a bit of a sucker for the instant gratification of ordering a PDF pattern and receiving it a few seconds later. 

There wasn't enough of the green to get the sleeves out, so I used black ribbing, which I like the look of. Also for the neckline binding. The pattern was easy to follow and make but I don't like the way it has you finished the neckline  - you sew the neck binding on the flat and then sew up the last shoulder seam, it leaves a bumpy finish on the neckline that I had to sew down by hand. Next time I will just do it in the round.

Before #2: some cream and caramel (i.e light brown and medium brown) knit from Jamison Salvos in Canberra.

In the same box was a length of beige knit. 

After: another Renfrew top. I blogged about one of these here last year. (I made this one last year too, but am a bit sporadic when it comes to blogging completed projects, as you have no doubt noticed. I blame the slow-as-a-wet-week internet connection).

I like this one better than the previous version. I took out some of the excess sleeve length. I kept the overall length the same, but the difference in fabric ( this stuff is very stretchy) seems to have made it longer than the first one.

I was MOST impressed with myself with the stripe matching up the left hand side. Not perfect, but pretty close.

Not so much impressed with the right side.... you win some you lose some!

I also tried hard to cut the neckband so as to have an even stripe. I managed that pretty well if I do say so myself. It looks a bit wrinkled here but it's not actually.

 

Unfortunately the fabric was a little TOO stretchy and since sewing has lost of lot of its shape. But it's so snuggly soft I use it as a pyjama top. So no biggie. 

An exercise in futility

I thought it would be a good idea to make a dog bed for Buster. I used some opshop bits and pieces of heavy-duty, furnishing fabric. Here's Kai modelling it:

 We thought we were being very clever reusing the old frame of the kiddy pool (pool liner long since dead):

Buster wasn't too keen on it when he first saw it. 

He had to be encouraged on there...

  

And sat for approximately 2.5 seconds, 

Before showing me what he thought of it.

Oh no, wait. That's the wrong picture. THIS is what he really thought of it, less than 24 hours later....

It was so tragic, all I could do was shake my head and laugh. Oh, and tell Buster that he could sleep on the ground from now on...!

Old wool skirt + obi offcut = new apron

I bought a lovely lined, red woollen skirt for $1 at the Holbrook op shop about a year ago (no before picture). It was far too big but I thought I could easily cut it down to size.

It had other plans. After I cut too much off the sides, I thought I'd then add a blue panel from an obi offcut, off centre, to add the extra width back on before resewing the side seams.

Nope, that didn't work either! So to save balling it up and chucking it in the rag pile, I thought "Aha! I could do with a new apron." Et voila!

(Note; the girly looking legs in the photo actually belong to Hector. I thought he looked good with an apron in front of him so I left 'em in the photo).

I made the ties from the offcuts of the skirt sides where I had originally cut too much off. Added them either side of the original waistband, then simply hemmed the sides and bottom. 

Because the wool was a bit itchy I thought I would keep the lining intact. Who am I kidding, I just couldn't be bothered to trim it off!

So here it is in-situ (below). We all need a fully lined, woollen apron at least once in our lives, I figure (?) It's a shame really that I didn't make it work as a skirt, because looking at it in the photo below, it would be a pretty nice skirt! 

As an aside, those pants you can't see much of in the photo, are also 'something new from something old'... a red op shop sheet that I made up using my favourite drawstring pants pattern. I actually made them as pyjamas, but am currently short of long pants, so I renamed them 'long pants'. Oh dear, I need to get on to some serious clothes sewing! But am in the middle of a quilt for sister-in-law's 50th b'day so clothes are on hold...