Tessuti linen apron

Where did April go? I've been making things alright, but my motivation for updating the blog has hit a wall. - I think that's to do with a pattern test I did in January that kinda sucked as an experience. I want to write about the sewing and pattern reviewing experience because I document everything here, but it won't be an altogether pleasant write up, so I keep putting it off.

Meanwhile I make stuff.... Easter sees us travel out to my parents place for the long weekend and I always like to take along a little non-machine project. I decided to make an apron for a client of mine.

I bought 1.5m of lovely natural linen from Fabric Deluxe and then downloaded and printed off the free Tessuti Apron pattern while I was at my folks place.

That always sounds like an easy thing to do but it never is. I should have been able to download to my phone and print from there via the wireless connection at my parent's house. But inevitably the printer settings need tweaking and the test square is never right. It took about 4 tries and using the main pc not a phone to get the printer to not scale or adjust the pattern. I have a nice crossover back apron pattern in Sanae Ishida's book Sewing Happiness that is based on rectangles, but I was keen on the curved armholes of this pattern. So often PDF pattern's are more trouble than their worth, even when they're free! I'm glad I persevered as the apron turned out beautifully.

All I sewed on that weekend away was the handstitching on the pocket anyway, and I adjusted the pocket size to suit my stitching, so the pattern could have waited until I was home.

I didn't want the threads on the back of the pocket to be exposed so I made it a lined pocket, turned through an opening at the bottom. 

Otherwise I mostly followed the pattern, although I turned a 5/8" hem rather than 1/2" and followed Liesl's technique of basting along the fold line, pressing up, then tucking under the raw edge. As opposed to Tessuti's suggested technique of trying to baste the 1/4" line and turning twice.

I wouldn't normally sew something for a client, but this lady is especially nice. She's the Japanese-Australian grandmother whose adult son is technically the dog' owner, but she's very involved in the dog's care. During our long lockdown last winter she took up baking and would regularly come to visit the clinic and bring me biscuits or cakes. (vet clinics were one of the few open businesses and I think we got  a lot of visitors who just needed an outing more than anything else!)

Her little dog has a ridiculous list of illnesses and injuries for one so young, so she keeps me both busy and well fed with snacks! Bless little Ada. (and yes, she usually looks that cross when she comes to see me, so I think my embroidery is fair! :) )

I hope my apron is well liked and useful. I enjoyed making it.

Metro T for Flipper

It was birthday time and while all he ever wants is World Peace, or that model of bike that isn't released yet but has already sold out all over the world.... I figured I'd make him a T-shirt 'cause that's always sure to please!

He still wears the Galactica cross-stitch T-shirt all the time but it irks me that the sleeves are a bit short.

So this one is the same size XL Liesl & Co Metro T-shirt but with about 1" extra sleeve length.

The fabric is a bamboo jersey from the stash and I used self fabric for the neckband, then decided to add a back neck binding using the method described in Sasha SecondoPiano's free Basic InsTinct Tee.

The camera is stitched using the design from the another of the Amy Kallissa patterns that I picked up. (Here's Cedric the cat). There's no way I could use the iron on transfer on such dark fabric. I tried tracing onto tissue paper and stitching through that but it didn't work. I know I could have bought wash away stabiliser but I was trying to make do with what I had. Eventually I found that tracing the design with a chalk fabric marker then rubbing it face down onto the fabric gave me enough of an outline to stitch over.

It has a suitably shaky, handstitched look, no? :)

This T-shirt pattern suits him so well, giving me the perfect excuse to keep stashing good quality solid knits when I find them. 

Details:

Pattern: Liesl & Co Men's Metro T

Size: XL, +1" sleeve length at hem

Fabric: Bamboo jersey from stash

Embroidery: DMC cotton and Amy Kallissa design

Secret Valentine Exchange Part IV - Cedric

The Secret Valentine Exchange is usually an annual, big circular gifting pool for creative people to make something for an unknown recipient for Valentine's Day.

It's foundation was in the lovely friendship between Sanae Ishida and Ute. With Ute's absence from the virtual craft world, this year it hasn't gone ahead. But, to honour those two wonderful women I've decided to run with it and create a Valentine's style gift every month until next February.

Let me introduce you to Cedric....

I was in Fibresmith a few months ago and found these wonderful embroidery patterns by Amy Kalissa on sale. Each pattern had a principal character, an emblem and a phrase, set out as three separate iron-on stencils to stitch.

I'm not much of an embroider-er but these patterns sold me with the quirky characters. Meet Cedric:

"Cedric is your stereotypical hipster, although don't tell him that, as far as he's concerned, he's a complete individual who does not subscribe to mainstream views. He fashions cushions out of scarves found in op-shops, manages to attend the opening of every new pop-up store within a 10km radius of the CBD, drinks pumpkin chai lattes with a pinch of nutmeg and enjoys going to Bingo with his posse.

By day, Cedric runs his own café, where customers flock to experience his famous deconstructed hot chocolates, Foie Gras Poutine and Trout Ice-Cream."

Just your regular inner Melbourne hipster really. 

Each of the patterns is intended to be stitched with variegated embroidery threads designed by Amy Kalissa. 

Before heading out to the country for Easter I noticed the little quilting shop in my parent's home town was listed as a stockist for these Cottage Garden Threads. So I packed an embroidery hoop and a bit of this quilt backing cotton fabric from the stash. Turned out they didn't stock the particular Namesake range intended for these patterns so I made do with ones that looked similar.

At least, I did until I realised the designer intended for me to stitch blue eyes on a tabby cat. Well that's just wrong and I couldn't come at that. My cat got green eyes instead. And now, you know, it really bugs me taht the whiskers are black. Cats simply don't have black whiskers. No matter what the cat colour, the whiskers are always white. Of course white whiskers on a pale background was never going to work, so as much as the veterinarian part of me is irritated by it, the whiskers are black after all. :)

Because I'm quite capable of laughing at myself, check out my first attempt:

I'd completely failed to see the instruction to only use two strands of the embroidery thread. No wonder it was looking so chunky in comparison to the example in the instructions. I had no idea that those multi-stranded embroidery threads were ever split! Lesson learnt.

Here you can see the iron on transfer. PSA - if you're doing this at your mum's house using her ironing board, put something under the fabric lest you end up with a permanent hipster cat tattooed on your mum's ironing board cover. Just sayin'.

Buttonmania came through with teeny tiny 5mm doll buttons for Cedric's cardigan. A quick phone call and they were in the post and arrived the next day. Thanks Buttonmania!

So where has Cedric gone to live? I delivered him today to Marisa. 

I've been a blog following fan of Marisa's for many years. She makes gorgeous clothes for her daughter and uses so many great Japanese sewing book patterns. I can always, always be tempted into buying yet another pattern book after a visit to her blog.

She had requested a stitched portrait of one of her own cats, but you know, a craft gift is never quite you expect, right? :) 

Not that her cats aren't great. One of my favourite photoshoots is when her cats met a tiny Arriety - check it out

It was lovely to catch up with her in real life for a coffee and I thoroughly enjoyed stitching Cedric for her.

Secret Valentine Exchange and sweet kids

Ah holidays... When I wasn't standing in the river being photographed in my swimwear (eye roll) or riding my road bike up the mountains, or chasing the boys on the mountain bike trails on a borrowed mountain bike... I was stitching.

 ... and eating and drinking obviously. :)

Every year I look forward to participating in the Secret Valentine Exchange, and since it coincides with our annual end of school holidays vacation, I always take my project away with me.

This year I was creating a gift for Simone in the Netherlands. She was very brief in her little survey about her craft tastes. For favourite colour(s) she listed simply: earth, and for favourite styles/textiles etc she said, even more simply: handmade.

So, you can imagine my heart leapt at the Earth bit. I am all over that as a colour scheme! And then I figured the Handmade made part gave me carte blanche to do whatever the heck I liked! Nice one Simone.

I did do a bit of stalking/research via her instagram and web pages to discover that she makes absolutely lovely jewellery. I also saw a very handsome dog pop up in the occasional photo and one of my original plans had been to make a nice dog collar and matching lead set. But then I realised that the elegant silver buckle, slide, D-ring and clip would all weigh so much that postage would be crazy. Another plan....

I'd been wanting to make another cross stitch cushion since the one I made for Sanae herself (one of the Secret Valentine Exchange organisers) and found a simpler looking one in one of my Stitch Idees magazines. - bonus points for getting to participate, ever so lightly, in #sewjapaneseinjanuary.

So my little bundle of Aida linen and DMC threads came away on holiday and during the evenings I stitched, and stitched, and stitched.

Of course it took longer than I had predicted and I was mindful of needing to sew it up quickly when I got home. And of course I failed to do that and made all the same mistakes over and over again that I had made when I sewed Sanae's cushion cover.

To make a fully lined, envelope cushion cover is actually not that hard but it can be a brain teaser to get everything in the right place so that when it's turned out all the different layers are in the right places. I've drawn myself a diagram and some step by step notes and I really should photograph it as well one day. My brief, late night, ill tempered online search failed to turn up any tutorials that showed what I was trying to do.

I had the 28 count linen and DMC threads in my stash, but nothing suitable for the back or lining. I needed some swimsuit lining from GJ's Fabrics anyway and knew they would have the perfect fabrics for this project so off I went.

The backing is a linen of a similar  mushroomy grey to the DMC thread, and then the lining and self made piping was a quilting cotton that co-ordinated nicely.

By the time I had finally figured out the cushion construction I was in no mood to sew buttonholes, but luckily my grey snaps were perfect and in 5 minutes it was all done.

I sent it off to Simone without an insert and I was delighted to see that not only did it arrive in time for Valentine's Day but she seemed sufficiently pleased with it that she went out and purchased a cushion insert for it that very same day. Phew. It's nerve wracking creating for other makers, but immensely satisfying as well.

Meanwhile, a Secret Valentine gift was winging it's way to me, all the way from Tuscon, Arizona. Arriving the day before Valentine's Day I only had to sit on my hands for 24 hours before I could open it.

Where I had been gifted a valentine partner with very similar tastes to mine, I can only imagine my poor gift maker's face when she read my survey. My gift creator was Kirsten, aka @bobbypinbandit.

Her Instagram feed is all colour, delicate stitching and really, pretty things. In making my gift she made something exceedingly beautiful and very pretty but also adhered to my beige/neutral and useful ethos.

She made me this beautiful little needle book. The front and back covers are padded with internal pockets and look at that gorgeous wool embroidery on the front. Those flowers are so fluffy and soft it's crazy!

The internal pages are cream felt, and she included a card of thread, a few needles, buttons and safety pins for me. I'm super-intrigued by the perfect scalloped edges on those felt pages. I'm thinking there's a tool I don't have yet... ;)

Just a few days before receiving this gift I had gone into the city on the train with a bag that needed some running repairs to the leather strap. I stitched it up on the train ride but then was left with my needle and thread hanging out in my coin purse just waiting to impale my fingers when I reached for my coffee money. I'm always joking that "safe" and "elegant" are two states of being that I find simultaneously unobtainable, but damn if this gift doesn't shoot me straight to swanky-safety-stratosphere levels! Thank you Kirsten , it is perfect and stunningly beautiful.

Another little holiday gift was getting to catch up with Maiike of Maaidesign when we were on holidays. We hit the mountain bike trials together then drank coffee and chatted all things swimwear and activewear sewing. A pretty perfect morning in my book!

To finish up, a gift for a kid, designed by a kid.

One of our kid friends was having a birthday, and since this cool little kid falls into the category of having a mum who I really enjoy spending time with, she qualifies for a handmade gift. That's how the equation works, seriously.

My kids get pocket money and purchase gifts for their friends out of their own pocket money, but then for those select kids with the awesome-parent asterisk next to their name, I supplement with a handmade something. My daughter chose the pattern and the stash fabrics and trims and thus this super sweet skirt was created.

The pattern is Pattern C from Sew Sweet Handmade Clothes for Girls. I had it already drafted off in size 110cm which A is still wearing 2 years after I made it here. This friend is a bit shorter than A, so I knew it would fit ok. The fabrics are a Japanese lawn and a Nursery cotton, both from Spotlight but long vintaged in the fabric stash.

I would never have put them together but I think she chose well and it's really sweet.

I hope everyone had a happy Valentine's Day. We've had a birthday at our house too recently, so there'll be more birthday gift sewing to share soon.

Gift Sewing Part IV - The Shaky Man's BBQ Apron

The last Christmas gift I made hadn't been planned, but suddenly popped into my head as an idea that just had to be made.

I'd asked my mum what my dad might like for Christmas and she suggested a barbecue apron. I thought about a standard BBQ apron and where I might buy one, but then I thought more about how my dad would, or could, use it....

My dad has Parkinson's disease and while he's perfectly capable of wielding the BBQ tongs I figured tying apron strings in a bow behind his back would be impossible. And that would mean a regular BBQ apron would just never get used. Time to make one, right?

I wanted some nice elastic and an easy to do up buckle. The straps could cross behind and then buckle in front. I knew exactly where I would find nice elastic and a good variety of buckles - Jimmy's Buttons.

I zoomed across town and found exactly what I needed. As I was describing what I was making to Jimmy himself he was enthusiastic and when I mentioned needing a denim or canvas he went upstairs and found a bolt of very dusty, but perfect denim. He cut off a metre or so from the uneven end of the bolt and gave it to me for free! Awesome - I was on track to make a $13 apron.

You don't get to see my dad modelling it, and Roger wasn't available this time, sorry.

I kept it pretty simple and measured up Flipper to get a rough measurement for two rectangles. Each is hemmed on three sides before being joined with two waistband sections.

I cut the waistbands to be the same width as the elastic so it could exit cleanly out the short ends, then topstitched the whole lot.

Flipper was now having some input and suggested a pocket (good call), then I decided it needed to be monogrammed.

It turned out to be too hot for firing up the barbecue on Christmas day but my brother gave the apron a test run in the kitchen on Boxing Day - cooking our dinner, while consulting Jamie Oliver on the 'net and drinking.

It may be that this is the only time the apron will be used for cooking. I rather think dad liked the idea of taking it out to the garage where he has a pottery wheel and paints and so on.

Christmas day was so very hot. We moved our table to the carport for shade, strung some bunting and made it as festive as it could be. Only cold food was served, lots of drinks then a round or two of Wet Head....

 Here's what Christmas lunch looked like:

I think that needs to become a new southern hemisphere Christmas tradition!

The last of the handmade Christmas gifts weren't made by me, but I really want to share them here as I think they're brilliant. I discovered Odds and Ends Handmade through her instagram feed and fell in love with her quirky little cacti and succulents.

On our kitchen window was a ceramic pot that Flipper had made some time back in primary school - let's say more than 35 years ago. He'd kept it, or rather his granny had kept it for him and now we had it. It needed a plant, but our track record with plants is poor. I contacted Odds and Ends for a custom order and was delighted to discover that she's a local. There's a cactus knitter in my neighbourhood!

It's such a cute little cactus and perfectly designed for the pot. Thanks Andrea, we love it!

My brother and his partner have a new house so, with another cactus, a house warming and Christmas gift could be combined and it wouldn't matter that their "houseplant" would be in a suitcase for a month or two.

This little one has the softest, fluffiest feel!

When I put them both together for a few photos I realised that I really want another to keep for us! Good thing I know where to find the cactus knitting lady now - if there isn't one in your neighbourhood then hit the internet and check out Odds and Ends.

That's it for this year. Hope you're having a great New Year's Eve. If you're still sweltering from today's heat then come on over. There's beer in the fridge and the Wet Head game ready to play!

Gift Sewing Part II - Nick's new bag

You never know if a handmade gift will be appreciated, or even used at all. But I'm happy to report that this Messenger Bag that I made for my brother in law has had continual daily use in the three years since it was made. So much so, that it has worn through and the interfacing is peeking out through holes in the canvas.

He casually mentioned how worn it was when he was visiting at Halloween and also reported that it had been the perfect daily bag - just the right size, ideal pockets etc. OK, hint taken. You need a new one, right?!

I didn't get allow him any design input, except that we had agreed it might be made from the leftover blue canvas from P's original Messenger Bag

That fabric was gifted to me by a local canvas shop that makes tarpaulins and awnings etc. I'd wandered in and asked for offcuts of something akin to Kevlar to patch the knees of my toddlers jeans. The guys kindly gave me a narrow length of this insanely thick canvas that I'm sure is intended for external building use. From memory I swore back then that I would NEVER use the remaining parts, yet for some reason I didn't throw them out and here I am two and a half years later...

There wasn't enough of the canvas for the whole bag, which was certainly a good thing. Some heavy weight grey denim for the front and side pockets was tough enough but still easier than more layers of that blue stuff. that was also leftovers (from here) and bias binding made from leftovers too (this dress)

The strap buckle happened to be in my stash as well. I think it had been salvaged from an old bag that was turfed out during the last major wardrobe clean out. I didn't think of it, but by using a buckle that creates a loop the strap ends up much shorter than when you use a sliding buckle where half the strap length is still functional.

I had to cut another piece of denim for the strap and join the pieces on an angle before refolding and edgestitching them.

There's a couple of other modifications which I've made before. Firstly a front closing buckle and strap and secondly a redrafted and slightly enlarged interior pocket flap (comparison of original and my size is seen here).

 

You know how some people get known for a "thing"? Say, they once commented that their favourite animal was the cow, and suddenly everyone gifts them cow related gifts and their house becomes a shrine to the knick knack novelty cow.

Well, apparently Nick's "thing" is the elephant. So, for the only purchased part of the whole project I hit up Spotlight for some heavily reduced $4/metre elephant quilting cotton for the lining.

But hang on, SPACE INVADERS I hear you say.... Yep, couldn't resist adding a Galactica cross stitch shooter and a few bullets to the bag front. Here's the blog post with the full fleet and a downloadable pattern if you're keen.

I knew the canvas fabric didn't wash too well so I drew the pattern out on graph paper then punched holes through each grid corner and pencil marked the fabric.

Nick's previous bag had a nice, dorky name tag up the side of the strap which read "Uncle Nick's Bag". I don't know if that's a design feature that he had liked or not, but thought he may have become used to having his name on his bag, so this one got a name tag too. Cross stitched to match the Space Invaders theme.

While the total cost for making the bag may have only been $4, now that it's finished I'll be spending some money on new sewing needles, new pins, and some of those Clover sewing clips. At least this time around I did own a thimble and that saved me a trip to casualty to retrieve pins embedded in my fingers!

I hope he likes it!

Details:
Pattern: Messenge Bag from Little Things To Sew
Size: Large (adult)
Modifications: Enlarged front pocket flaps. Addition of closure strap and different strap buckle style

When I asked what he wanted for his birthday....

.... curiously he didn't answer "cross stitch".

But that's what he got!

Gift giving time is always tricky with this bloke. Ask him what he wants and he'll usually answer "world peace" or something equally Miss Universe worthy. The trick is to give him exactly what he really wanted but didn't yet realise he wanted!

....And what child of the 70's could resist a Galactica Space Invaders cross-stitched T-shirt?!

This idea came about when I was browsing Japanese Amazon for embroidery magazines after making this little shirt. I came across a book of cross stitch patterns for Pacman and other video games, but they were much more of the hand held console era, and when I showed them to Flipper he simply said "I'd prefer Galactica"

With those few words I had my mission.

Searching for ready made cross stitch patterns didn't yield any results. So, I grabbed a bit of graph paper, sat out on the back verandah in the sunshine with a sick kid who was home from daycare for the day and got drawing.

I downloaded an image off the 'net and created my own cross stitch pattern. There are 4 main variants of the enemy fleet and the active shooter is a bit different to the reserve fighters. In total there are 33 spaceships, a few bullets and a little Game Over tag on the back. Each ship is about 1 hour's work for me, so starting this a week out from his birthday meant that every spare minute and many late evenings were spent stitching!

 

Thankfully, my parents, who are evidently blog readers and pay attention, had bought me a thimble for my birthday (along with an autographed, no less, copy of Thimbles of Australia). My birthday is just a few days before Flipper's, so my last night of cross stitching was done with a happily thimble protected finger! (and the Giro d'Italia had started so I got to see Gerro take the first pink jersey while sewing until 2am))

After the birthday rolled around, and I'd caught up on some sleep, I decided to digitise my first ever cross stitch pattern and make it freely available to any other insane soul who feels the need for sharing some Free Downloadable Galactica Space Invaders Cross Stitch Pattern love!

The pattern is positioned to fit on an A4 page and still be legible, but the shooters and the Game Over tag should be repositioned from where they are on the page. I used DMC 14ct/inch soluble canvas and the finished fleet ends up about 24cm x13cm.

Details:
Pattern: Liesl & Co Metro t-shirt for men
Size XL - note to self: add about 2cm to sleeve length
Fabric: Stable cotton interlock with rayon jersey for neckband (due to lack of black ribbing)
Extras: Cross stitch pattern as above using DMC25 embroidery thread colour 169 - probably a bit thick and some of the detail is lost. Topstitching type thread may be better