The doona cover that keeps on giving

Last time I mentioned a doona cover that I had made a few things out of. I found it in one of the Goulburn op shops. Here's a picture of most of it: I'd already cut up a bit of it for a top. It was almost brand new and for $6 for metres and metres of fabric it was a steal!

Combined with an opshopped pillowcase, I turned the missing part into a top called a Scout Tee, which is basically a woven  tshirt pattern. Here's a pic - accessorised with the season's latest hats as made by Ellie and I for our local school fete ;) Are we stylish or what!

The top part is the pillowcase. It has a weird wavy pattern on it that would seriously hurt your eyes if it wasn't a light beige colour. Just the bottom part was from the doona. It's a very simple pattern to make up; no darts, no facings, just a bias binding edge on the neckline. It's not terribly flattering, since it's not at all fitted, but it is nice and cool to wear in summer. 

The back is also partly pillowcase and partly doona cover, but cut from the plain beige section. I wanted to have the whole back as the pillowcase fabric, but it didn't stretch to that. So the plain beige was a compromise.

Although it is very comfy to wear, I felt like it was a bit on the large size. So, I made up a second one the next size down using some floral fabric pinched off my Mum and some red broderie anglaise that I had bought to make Ellie something as a baby and never got around to it. So not really recycled, but at least repurposed!

I think this second version is a bit nicer than the first one. Unfortunately the red colour ran badly in the wash. I haven't let that stop me wearing it a lot. Taking these photos was tricky as it seems that every time I go out to do so, a big wind picks up. Nearly every photo looks like the one below, which I kept just for a laugh. I really have to pick my moment and use a fast shutter speed to take a picture that is usable.

The other thing I've made so far from the doona cover is a pair of drawstring pants. I love this pattern and have used it about a million times. It's Simplicity 7229 and I picked up the pattern in the Yass op shop a few years ago for 20 cents. I don't know if it's still in print, but I would highly recommend it for an easy pair of pants, shorts or A line skirt that is super comfortable. 

The reason it is so comfy is the yoke/waistband, which is cut on the bias. The pattern says just to add a drawstring but I use a piece of thin elastic and sew two shorter drawstrings to each end. This makes it much more comfy around the waist. I mostly made these pants to do my Tai Chi in - they are perfect for that. 

I liked how the pattern placement worked out. But the first person to see me wearing them laughed (not unkindly) and said that from a distance they looked like I had a pair of old fashioned lacy undies on.... 

I guess they kind of do. But I don't care. I still love them! 

Lots of op shop fabric = jackets for me and my girl

On a visit to Albury recently I scored a few lengths of knit fabric from the Vinnies in the centre of town. I have been frequenting that op shop since I was in Year 11 and 12 (that's 1987-88) - it's a good one!
So I found some white, and some black:

And some blue.

The black and white, I turned into a hoodie for myself. I've had this pattern cut out for a while, waiting to find the right fabric.

My friend Ankemaria told me to get over being camera shy and start putting photos of me actually wearing my creations, instead of just on a coathanger. So, here it is: The Sol Hoodie by Jamie Christina.

The white fabric was pretty thin, so I decided to use two layers of it. Made for some very thick pain-in-the-butt seams, especially around the pockets and the neckline, but it was worth it. It's warm enough for our unseasonably warmish winter days, though it wouldn't cut it on a proper June day. 

The fabric lining the hood used to be a top belonging to my friend Georgina. She gave it to me one day when she decided to get rid of it, and remembered that I had admired the fabric one day. Thanks G! The fabric on the band is patchwork fabric I flogged off my Mum a few years ago. Apart from the zip, it's the only non-recycled part of the jacket.

Here's how it looks with the hood up. The pattern calls for buttonholes in the hood band and a drawstring. I made the buttonholes but then thought it didn't really need a drawstring. Next time I wouldn't bother.

You may not have noticed in the first picture, but one of the things I liked about this pattern when I saw it on other sewing blogs was the funky cuffs - they are quite long and have a hole for your thumb. So cute!

Unfortunately...making a design feature like this in white fabric is a bit of a faux pas. I have only worn this twice and I've already unpicked the cuff - it has become filthily feral, just from driving and generally hanging out. I'm going to replace them with black ones, so they last a bit longer than two wears without becoming yuck! 

I'd recommend the pattern, I think it's a really nice hoodie. I know you can pick them up in the shops for next to nothing these days, but not like this one ;) 

So, as soon as Ellie spotted the cuffs on my hoodie, she immediately requested one herself. Enter the blue fabric, combined with a cloud-printed op shop singlet hijacked for the pockets:

Don't you love that rock star bed hair look? 

She didn't want a hoodie though, just a jacket. I used a Kwiksew pattern for kid's pyjamas/tracksuits that I have used a million times in the past 18 years. (The first use for my then 2-year-old niece Brianna, who just turned 20!).  I also made the pyjama pants, but can't claim that as recycled fabric - they're super soft minke fabric I couldn't resist last week in Goulburn. 

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Last picture, I promise: Ellie wanted me to put this on my blog. It's a potpourri 'amulet' she made (she also made the potpourri, and then ate all the cinnamon bark out of it - kids are hilarious, aren't they?). 

It even counts as upcycled, as the fabric is from an op-shop doona cover. I have actually made several things out of that doona cover. I willl show you next time...

Two little things...

After more than eight or nine years, I had been thinking that it was finally time to make a new oven glove. The previous one was so feral I didn't even like to touch it! Inspired by a recycled grey woollen blanket that my friend Kahli bought on one of our regular op shop visits to make an ottoman from, I thought we could use some of it as a lining for new oven gloves. We both made one at our Thursday night craft group. 

Spoiler alert though, the funky red fabric is not secondhand in any way. I bought it off the internet one night for absolutely no reason other than I thought it was way cool. I rarely do this, and I am still counting it as something new from something old, because the interior blanket, the binding and the backing were all recycled.

Here's the whole view:

The back is some old curtain fabric I found at a garage sale near Goulburn. The navy binding I made using the bias binding maker (How I love that thing!) from some op shop linen fabric. It frayed like nuts when I was sewing it on but is so much nicer than that god-awful polycotton binding you can buy in the shops.

The second little thing is also not really 'recycled', unless you count fabric that somebody else gave you either from their stash or as a gift. I'm counting it, because it's cute and I want to share it with you! 

It's an iPad cover I made for my Mum's birthday. Funnily enough, two of the fabrics were originally hers :) The third fabric was a gift from my Tai Chi teacher. I added some velvet ribbon from my box of random ribbon offcuts to tie it up.If I'd thought about it beforehand I'd have sewn the ribbon into the seam, but I didn't, of course, so it's just hand-sewn on afterwards. Hopefully it lasts for a while.

 

It's a very simple bag pattern from a little book of bags that I have. It's called a messenger bag and is meant to have a handle, but I didn't think it really needed one. There's one layer of quilt wadding inside to provide some cushioning. Happy birthday Mum!

Baby Charlotte's change mat

A new baby in town is a reasonably rare event, given the population of about 101. Oddly enough, three baby girls were born within a few weeks of each other a month or so ago. One of them is Charlotte, who lives just over the back laneway from us. 

I had some fun putting together a bunch of pink remains (that sounds gruesome!) - perhaps I mean pink leftovers - to whip up a quick change mat for Charlotte. Given Ellie's complete abhorrence for anything pink, all the bits I had collected to make girly things for her had basically remained unused. 

It's a bit of a conglomeration - in there are pillowcases and offcuts from the op shop, part of a fat quarter from one of my sewing friends, and a few bits that I did actually buy new, many moons ago. 

The binding was put together from a whole load of strips cut from scraps, I took little note of colour and just chucked it all together. Looked a bit ordinary as a pile of strips, but came out fine as a thin binding. The little tiny green section at the bottom, in between the two brownish sections, is a couple of the last remaining inches of my Nana's leftover dressmaking fabric from the 80's. She used to get most of her dresses made by a local lady in Holbrook. 

 The inside layer is an old towel for soaking up all those sticky baby drools pee and god knows what else. The backing is a bit of black flannel from the op shop in Yass, so it can be put on any surface and dirt won't be too obvious!

Charlotte's mum was very happy to receive the change mat. Best of all she said it might inspire her to take up sewing or something else crafty - I hope she does! 

Two very different bags...

Bag #1: inspired by necessity, due to the old but actual excuse of 'my dog ate it....'

I had the need to replace our laundry bag, originally bought at Ikea and made of white plastic. The new dog decided not only to sleep in it, but then completely destroy it.

So: out came two lots of op shop fabric, one an original 70's curtain fabric that's been lying around for years, and the other a floral cotton from a garage sale. Voila!

This was a bit of an experiment, as I had to measure the old bag and try and figure out how it went together. I normally make lots of mathematical errors during this process, but it worked first time, which was nice! Here's the inside:

For the tops, which were sewn on to the frame in the original, I used mass amounts of velcro so that I could wash it occasionally.

And here's a shot of it in use! Just to show that yes, it can hold laundry. I would have made it all from the 70's fabric but I didn't have enough. Then afterwards I remembered that I had another two metres of it that was on the back seat of the car to catch food from the kids! Oh well. My friend Ankemaria eyed off that bit the other day so it has found a new home. I hope to see something cool made out of it by her. 

And bag #2: needed a birthday gift for a friend of Ellie's in a hurry. Aki had recently visited and spied this small piece of secondhand obi silk fabric in the sewing room. I bought it in Japan at a shop selling millions of rolls of preloved obi widths. She loved the fabric so much, and since I had not got around to using it in five years, I thought, why not.   

Here's a close-up: I think it's hand-painted. 

I made a very simple drawstring bag and plonked a bit of purple ribbon in to draw it up. Here's side 1: 

And side 2: 

And just for fun, and 'arty' shot of it drawn up and hanging on my chest of drawers. I love this bit of furniture, it belonged to my Nana, and I'd had my eye on it since I was about 7 years old. The other little baggie is one my Mum made me many years ago.

From kimono to skirt

On a holiday to Japan with my mum five years ago, I discovered that second-hand goods seem to have very little value there. Much to my advantage, when I found a rack groaning with second-hand kimonos at the Yokohama quilt show. All the fabric for sale was crazy expensive, but silk kimonos were calling out to me at a  measly $15! If I'd thought at all about it, I would have picked several, but I didn't.

Here's a closeup of the fabric - it's such a gorgeous design, and has lots of subtle colours in it. 

After four years hanging in my wardrobe, I realised I was never going to actually wear it as a kimono. It was far too long, and I just didn't ever feel like taking the hem up. One day, inspiration struck in the form of an A-line skirt by a great Aussie designer, Nicole Mallalieu. 

Here's a picture of her version:

I didn't add the contrast panel, and made the shorter version, but otherwise I followed the pattern, which is a good one. Here's mine in the kimono fabric:

For something fun I used some left over red satin lining for the facing.

This is the second skirt of this pattern I've made, and the first one was a bit too big. So I made the next size down, but unfortunately there is no give in the yoke of this one at all, and as a result it is a bit too small! Next time I'll go in between....

New tops from old clothes

Found an A-line skirt (no photo) with a very funky print in the Yass Salvo's a while ago. Although it fitted fine as a skirt it didn't thrill me. I liked the previous Washi top that I've blogged about a while ago. But, it is a bit on the small side, and the fabric turned out to not breathe too well. It might get re-remade into something else yet! 

Anyway, I thought I'd make the next size up of the Washi using the skirt. I broke every rule about placing the pattern on the grainline to get it out of the fabric - pieces went every which way and a lot were on the bias. But t is fairly sturdy fabric so it didn't warp at all. I also decided to take out two of the front pleats from the original as they made me think maternity, and I am past that stage of my life! I like this version a lot better than the first one, and it's a lot more comfy. 

This second top below is only partly reusing an opshop Tshirt. The contrasting purple is the last piece of new fabric I bought at Spotlight about six months ago, and I've bought no other new fabric since. Since keeping an eye out for stretch knit fabric in the opshops I've amassed quite a stash!

The opshop shirt (no photo again, but you know what a tshirt looks like!) was a Maggie T brand plain tshirt in about a size 20 so plenty of fabric in it, but not quite enough for this. It's a Penny Pinafore pattern, from another independent designer. Fairly simple to make up, with princess seams, and comes as a tshirt, tunic and a dress.

 I made it shorter than the shortest tshirt as I didn't have enough fabric, but's plenty long enough. I'd never done princess/curved seams on stretch fabric before but it was a lot easier than I thought it would be.

Oh that's funny, I've just noticed that the version I made looks like I copied the colour scheme from the middle pattern picture! So didn't. This photo also makes it look almost asymmetric at the hem but it's really not, the hanger must have slipped in the breeze that always seems to spring up whenever I take pictures of clothes!

I was very lazy and only overlocked the neck edge, didn't finish the other seams at all, but hey, that's one of the benefits of sewing with knits. This turned out to be a really nice comfy tshirt and more flattering than the usual plain tshirt shape. Certainly figure hugging...

Before I made this top, I had made the dress-length version using the same purple. I planned to make it all purple, but ran out of length, so used a bit of red from an opshop buy years ago. I don't have a photo of it at the moment. A friend's partner refers to it as my 'tennis dress', which I take as a backhanded compliment (get it, backhanded....oh, I am so hilarious when I am tired. Goodnight!)