sewing : two christmas elephants

Two elephants I made for my boys this Christmas from some super-thick and super-cheap denim fabric bought from Simply Fabrics in Brixton and left over from a (not quite yet finished) mei tai style baby carrier.

I used the reverse side of the denim for all but the elephant's belly, hoping this will reduce the colour rubbing off onto everything - we will just have to see how successful this tactic is. The ears are V&A/Liberty quilting fabric - also left over, this time from baby trousers.

The pattern is from the Sew Everything Workshop book by Diana Rupp. I have made the baby elephants from this book many times but this was my first time with the 'mommy' elephants. They were pretty easy to sew and took about a week of late-night sewing (the only sewing time I have).

Both elephants were 'finished' Christmas Eve at 11.45pm - just enough time to wrap them up, not enough time to sew on any eyes. Not that I'd have been able to sew them on even if I had more time, there is only so long my fingers can take hand-sewing through several layers of thick denim.

These were the first toys opened on Christmas Day and the boys were very happy. However the poor elephants couldn't compete with the bright and shiny plastic toys which filled the rest of the day - and most of our living room by the end of it - and they soon fell into obscurity.

Maybe over time they will become well-loved treasures rather than languishing in a bottom draw... only time will tell.

Posted with Blogsy

upcycled : baby trousers

Once upon a time these trousers used to be a shirt, and that shirt used to live in a charity shop in South London...

And it just so happens that men's shirts are great for making baby and toddler clothes.

The sleeves, if big enough, are perfect for trousers. And there's always enough left over for something else: bibs, lining for other projects, or even another pair of trousers.

All told, this is a nice and lazy sewing project which is ideal when there are two small boys at home vying for your attention (and sewing time!).

Here are a couple of photos of the trousers, unoccupied, so to speak:

As you can see, each trouser leg is made from one sleeve and because the seams are left in place, half the work is done by the time you have cut them out!

I simply cut off the cuffs and cut out the top and crotch shaping from the sleeve using my favourite baby/toddler trouser pattern.

Next I sewed the legs together, hemmed the bottoms (where the cuffs once lived) and made hem big enough for some elastic at the top, with a small gap to thread the elastic through.

Finally I inserted the elastic, sew up the gap and voila...

The slit from the shirt cuff makes a nice detail. On these it quite plain, sometimes they have buttons. Either way it ensures a nice lot of room for little legs to move around.

baby surprise : hand-made vs hand-crafted

I have been knitting for almost 10 years now and have noticed that over time my tastes have changed.
At first I threw myself into projects head first - anything I thought of I would fearlessly set about designing and (attempting) to make. I learned any necessary skills on the way. I basically wanted own and wear exactly what I wanted.

My knitting skills developed a lot and I eventually became a competent knitter. I had occasional successes but mainly I produced little that was wearable/usable.

Everything looked 'hand-made' in the worst possible way.

Over time my desire for unique and self-made garments moved to a passion for knitting from vintage patterns. Tiny stitches in fine yarns appealed. Maybe this was a subconscious desire to distance myself from my hand-made first knits.

I had more successes, but many projects still lie unfinished. I learnt more and more advanced techniques and tricks to recreate garments from a time when hand-knitting was a common way to acquire a special item of clothing rather than the consumer driven fashion of today.

However, when I first became pregnant I no longer had the motivation, time nor energy for knitting complicated adult-sized garments. Nor did I have the time to care for delicate hand-knits. Also my ever-increasing baby-bump meant I may not fit into anything I did manage to complete.

Fortunately I now had an extremely important, very small, and as yet unborn person whom I wanted to shower with my knitting affection and so developed my appreciation for the knitting patterns of Elizabeth Zimmerman.

I now have two small boys and have made many of Zimmerman's Baby Surprise Jackets and the accompanying booties and hats. I have not yet tired of them. Rows and rows of cleverly increasing and decreasing garter stitch - comforting, interesting, intriguing and with a genius twist at the end when sewing it all together. For me it is the perfect knitting project when heavily pregnant.

Elizabeth Zimmerman's patterns were created not just with the end result in mind, but also with thought to the enjoyment of the process of knitting itself. This suits me well when I have few precious moments to knit and want to make the most of this time.

Zimmerman designed as a knitter, for a knitter. Her work embraces the process of the craft itself. The resulting finished garments looks exquisitely 'hand-crafted', as opposed to the rough-and-ready 'hand-made' of my first forays into knitting.

I never did quite finish this jacket for my son who took me by surprise when he arrived a week early. Despite the best of intentions I never got round to sewing on the buttons. Instead I am left with two rows of button holes due to Elizabeth Zimmerman's genius instructions to make holes on either side of the jacket and sew the buttons over the holes once baby is born (and its sex is known) neatly ensuring the holes and buttons are properly aligned with minimum effort.

It is just this sort of detail which makes Zimmerman's patterns such a pleasure to create.