A giveaway! - Closed

Remember yesterday's posting about the Ikea pouches I made? Remember this yellow one? 

 Well, I had enough fabric to make two!

 Would you like to have one? If yes, just leave a comment and tell me what has been your favourite craft project I've done so far. The giveaway is open to entries through the end of the day Monday, July 5th when I will pick a winner at random! I don't have that many followers (yet), so you have a fairly good chance of winning :)

Giveaway rules:
Leave a comment on this post, and make sure to leave your email address so that I can contact you if you win.  Only one entry per person. I will announce the winner on Tuesday, July 6th. Good luck!

Giveaway closed, congrats to the winner!

Getting your money's worth - another Ikea project

 As I've already mentioned, I like Ikea's fabric selection. I could not pass by a children's fabric called Annamoa so I bought a meter of it for 4, 95 euros. I wanted to make a small travel pouch for my crochet stuff and I fell in love with the cute deer print. The pouch is nothing special, just a square piece of fabric with a zipper on top.

After I had made the green pouch I had quite a few pieces of fabric left, so I decided to make another pouch. And another. And a bag. I went a bit crazy and made a needlebook as well using a pattern from a Tilda book. That was not a success, but that doesn't matter, I only have one embroidery needle anyway!

I did warn you: the needlebook was a bit of a failure...

I still have a few fabric pieces left and I am going to make an another bag from the birdcage part. I like the print a lot, so I need to think carefully what kind of bag I would use before I make it!

Time for a midsummer party - Have fun!

 

We are going to our summer cottage to celebrate midsummer. Now let's just hope the weather stays nice and warm... I'm going to go to sauna, hop in the lake, eat great food and mostly just relax - I love summer nights when the sun doesn't set, I could stay up forever :)

Harem pants

My husband was very generous and reluctantly gave me three pairs of his old jeans. I love well-worn denim and those jeans were very well-worn.   I had a project in mind, so I was becoming a bit impatient and kept eyeing his jeans every time he put them to the laundry basket. I was actually wondering how he could wear them in public anymore and luckily he finally consented. I wanted to make Emma a pair of harem pants from soft, distressed denim.

The pattern is from an old Ottobre design magazine (Spring 1/2008), but I modified it a bit. I left out the gathers from the side seams, and since I was using old jeans I did not have enough fabric to make this from one piece of fabric like the pattern indicated and had to include front and side seams as well. I used the backsides of two pairs of jeans, since the front sides were too narrow for this project. I wish I had also added pockets, these pants would really be better with pockets! 

I kind of like them, but I think these are not quite what I was looking for. I want the harem pants to be baggy, and these are not baggy enough. I think I will add elastic gathers to the side seams, maybe that will help. At the same time I might also add the pockets. I'll show you the end result when I figure it out!

Emma: Mom, I think there is something wrong with these pants.

Me: No, they are alright. Why do you think so?

Emma: Well, they are too big from the top. They are not very practical.

Me: Well, that's called fashion, darling.

Summer hat

My husband was watching football last night and since I was not interested in that, I decided to sew something simple. I decided to make Emma a new summer hat. The pattern is from Ottobre design magazine (summer 3/2010). Very simple and cute, and most importantly, very useful.

In hindsight, I should have used a bit sturdier lining fabric, since the hat is a bit soft and not so structured. I used starch when I ironed it and that helped a bit. Unfortunately my ironing skills are really bad, the hat is still wrinkled. The lining is the remains of an old white sheet, the pink and white fabric I got from my mother, probably comes from my grandmother's stash.

Yes, she is naked. I barely managed to get her to put on a cardigan... She is also missing two teeth. She lost them last week and we were only aware of one tooth moving. Anyway, she tripped over and left her teeth to the living room carpet. Now she is very proud of the gap, she thinks it makes her look a lot more grown up!

I won!

I am so happy! I have never won anything from any give aways, but this time it was my turn. The blog by Petra hosted a giveaway and I won these lovely magazines by Ariadne at Home, special kids editions. Petra's craft blog is full of eye candy, she uses lovely, bright colours and shares really nice blog finds from the blogosphere. Very inspirational!

Thanks a lot, Petra :)

Image from byPetra.

10-minute nightgown

I have been busy with renovating our apartment and have not had time to sew. I have crocheted a bit and sewn a bit but I have not finished anything in ages. Well, for a week at least which is a long time for me!

So yesterday evening I decided to make something very simple and made a nightgown for Emma from a very boring jersey fabric. Emma needs new nightgowns so I made something useful for a change.

It seems to be a bit wrinkled even though I ironed it, apologies for that! As you can see, it is very basic and I had the pattern ready from earlier projects, so all I needed to do was to add the sleeves.

I did not even bother to turn the seams, I think it looks OK anyway. I might still add a ruffle to the hem since I have a few strips of the jersey left. The cutting and sewing took literally ten minutes, so it is good to save  used patterns. Something of a revelation to me actually... Anyway, one boring fabric used up, plenty to go. Sigh.

Ikea dress

Ikea has a very nice selection of fabrics. Unfortunately most of them are upholstery or curtain fabrics, but from the curtain fabrics you can find 100% cotton fabrics that would make awesome clothes. I decided to make a dress. Since the fabric was very cheap, I thought it did not really matter if the end result was not going to be so nice, or wearable, but at least I could test a dress pattern. 

I chose a dress pattern from an 80's Burda magazine and since this was an experiment, my choice was a bias-cut dress without a zipper (I did not have a zipper and I wanted to finish the dress fast). I did not cut the dress pieces on bias, but opted to try whether it would work with a normal cut. It kind of did, but I had to add a few darts and folds to make it really fit and it is still a bit too big on the backside. However, I was planning to use it together with an obi belt, so the fit does not have to be perfect. The lining is made from white bedsheet that I sacrificed (we are running out of those soon...).

Anyway, here is the dress. Nevermind the smirk on my face, I was just giving my husband some instructions on how to take a photo of the dress, not me :)  - and he is standing on the couch, since I thought it would make me look slimmer but it kind of looks weird!

The fabric is Ikea's Cecilia, 2.95 euros per meter, so it really is cheap! It comes in the following prints and I can see myself using them all (pictures from Ikea) ... Maybe a skirt? Or a tunic dress?

Bias-cut pants

I was rearranging my clothes rack the other day and found a linen dress that did not really fit me anymore. Or it did fit, but the cut was very unflattering. I decided to make wide cropped pants for Emma from  the bottom half and saved the upper part to me. The upper part will become a top for me at some point.

Anyway, the dress was cut in bias and I was a bit nervous about how these pants would end up.  The fabric was a bit more difficult to sew but all in all, the pants were still very easy to make. Additionally, bias cut added a bit of flare to the pants and I like them a lot. I used a general trouser pattern and modified it a bit to make wider pant legs.