Little Vintage Love

Absolutely adorable, right? Imagine your little girl/niece/goddaughter/cousin/friend's baby running around wearing this beautiful dress. 

Little Vintage is an online children's clothing boutique run by Emily. She searches world-wide for vintage pieces for her shop and having worked for many years as a fashion buyer you can see by the range that she knows a cute, conversation starter when she sees one.

There are items for ages newborn to over 6 years so I can be sure to be dressing Florence in some awesome outfits for a few more years to come.

Knitted cardi with peter pan collar and pom-poms?! Yes!

With my January budget threatened by the amount of items in my cart I was very sensible and just bought this gorgeous cardigan for Florence:

and these super cute dungarees for a friend's baby:

Emily will be in London at the Shoreditch Town Hall fair on Saturday, 9th February 2013 selling a selection of beautiful tiny clothes for tiny people. Facebook info here.

Please note: I wasn't paid or sponsored to write this post, just a little bit in love with the concept and the shop so wanted to say thanks with a little promo.

In Love with GAPS

I've fallen in love with these songs by GAPS, perfect for my relaxed Sunday afternoon. Sublime.

Listen through Sound Cloud here.

Via Mama Wolf.

Tutorial: Toddler dress from a man's shirt (part 2)

 Following on from making the bodice in part 1, here is the tutorial for making the skirt.

OR:

Make two parallel rows of gathering stitches at the top edge to within 1cm of the side seams. Then pull gently to make the gathers the same width of the bodice (text taken from 'Homemade' by Ros Badger and Elspeth Thompson.) I am sure this is a much faster way of gathering the skirt rather than pleating but I've not yet tried this method but wanted to include the option in this tutorial.

To finish:

Create new button holes if new ones had to be cut through the lining fabric.

Sew shoulders seams together and sew on decorative buttons if desired or create a button fastening and button hole and sew on buttons.

Press seams, pleats and dress. 

All finished. Then dress the girl in thrifty goodness!

Tutorial: Toddler dress from a man's shirt (part 1)

Here's part one of the tutorial for the thrifty Christmas dress that I made for Florence using two of the husband's old shirts. It fastens at the back with the button band found at the front of the old shirt and can unfasten completely from shoulder to hem.

You will need: 

• a similar dress to trace around 
• an old shirt for the main fabric
• either another shirt or other fabric for the lining
• Pins, thread, sewing machine.
• Scrap paper to make the template
• Buttons to fasten, if using different to those on the shirt (I ended up with 5 button holes)
• Buttons for decoration to the front of the straps x2, optional.

Sizing:

To give you an idea of my dress, I used a large size shirt and the finished dress fits an almost 3 years old Florence. But, obviously, the smaller the shirt the smaller/shorter the dress and the larger the shirt the larger the dress. Or, you could alway use two different shirts for the skirt and the bodice.

If using flat fabric for the lining you may want to just line the bodice. If lining the skirt also trace around the main fabric cut for the skirt to give an idea of size leaving 1cm or so for the hem. For ease, you may not want to allow the dress to open completely as you'd have to sew the lining to the button band. Have a think and I'll talk about sewing the skirt in part 2.

Or whatever seam allowance you're comfortable with, I like more to be able to account for mistakes when sewing!

I cut my template too short. It's not an exact science this being thrifty business.

If using straps for ties around the waist of the dress:

Using a knitting needle helps to push straps right-side out I find. Press edges with an iron once turned right-side out. Same with turning the bodice.

 Sew both side edges, turn right-side out and there you have the finished the bodice. Making the skirt in part 2.

I used the dress making section the book Homemade by Ros Badger to help me out with the construction of my thrifty dress.

Christmas in Somerset

And so we approach our second Christmas here in the glorious English countryside. In our newer, warmer, less mouldy house with some cracking retro features (fireplace ornament nook, anyone?) the Christmas crafting has been fully underway.

Fabric leaves wreath idea borrowed from last month's edition of Country Living. Sewn by candlelight eating mince pies and drinking mulled wine, watching Christmas films. Wonky leaves not shown in close up. I used a wire coat hanger, bent into a circle and padded with an old t-shirt and wrapped in pretty forest green dress fabric. Now we just need a rustic wooden door to hang it on- next year perhaps?!

Toilet roll owls painted by Florence, drawn by me, idea seen here.

The tree was decorated by us all but Florence does her daily adjustments, pulling up a chair to reach the higher branches. Our tree was grown locally, on the Quantock hills and is my favourite tree that we've ever had. It's so wonderfully imperfect with wonky branches poking out here and there. Thankfully the dog has avoided doing a wee up the stump. So far...!

My favourite character of late, George the Elephant made another appearance to decorate a gift for a little toddler. I made a few of these drawstring bags and filled them with felt bean bags, which, with Florence as tester, is pretty much the perfect gift for a 2/3 year old as it contains things to legally throw.

And finally, I managed to find a little time to make this Christmas dress for Florence. Tutorial to follow, hopefully sometime before next week.

Merry Christmas all!

Patchwork Baby Quilt

When my wonderful friend who lives quite a few too many miles away announced her pregnancy I was over the moon with joy. Being their first baby I knew they would be starting to gather baby bits and bobs so I wanted to make them not just something to cherish, but also very practical.

I used scraps of material hanging around in my fabric stash, in the true spirit of all things patchwork. In the mix there is some of the checked fabric I re-discovered for the Elephant Pencil Case, then the yellow floral 70s material from my childhood that I first cut into for my Mum's patchwork cushion, throw in a fat quarter gifted from another crafter friend and a couple of the husband's old shirts and there we have it!

Making the quilt was simple, planning the order of the squares then sewing them together in strips lengthways, then sewing these together, attaching the wadding and backing fabric (an awesome bird print that the husband brought back from Zambia), quilting them together then sewing the edging fabric on.

All in all a really fun project that turned into something I was truly happy with to celebrate the imminent arrival of a very special little person. 

George The Elephant Pencil Case

An extremely late birthday present (3 months!) for my sweet little nephew Toby who turned one in August. I spotted the elephant named George in this pattern book for sewing plush pals and recreated him out of felt for Toby's birthday card. So in keeping with the theme, naturally wee George had to adorn this belated pencil case too.

In making this pencil case I rediscovered the gorgeous checked fabric that I used to make some baby cot bumpers and birds for Florence, which co-ordinated nicely with the grey of the elephant and a light grey lining. As luck would have it I had a brilliant orange zip so gave George a matching bow tie and hat.

I made George from felt, the best fabric in the world to appliqué (and even better I could stick him together with PVA glue before I sewed him to the fabric!) Also, I'm a huge fan of pinking shears. It must be the 90s paper crafter in me, but man I love those pointy edges!

Florence was all about zips and buttons at that age so I wanted to include features that Toby would find interesting so I decided on a flap over and zip close for the case. I folded the grey lining fabric along with some backing interfacing into thirds and attached one side of the zip at the middle third edge. Then I popped in a length of elastic to house paintbrushes and rulers and sewed in some sections. Next, I put the checked outer fabric together with the lining and attached the other half of the zip then folded over the edges and sewed the case together.

All in all a pretty straight forward pattern with some fun elements. Fingers crossed he likes it!