Applying labels. In a way unlikely to cause controversy.

A series of exciting packages* paraded into our house whilst I was in the throws of Extreme Tonsillitus.

My new woven labels finally arrived and look fittingly cheerful in a massive glass jar. The lag time from ordering to receiving was a lot longer than I expected (about seven weeks if you're asking) so in the interim I made these labels to sew into clothes:

In an ideal world I would have had my woven labels printed with this rainbow on black logo but there were too many colours for the weaving machine so I had to change it quite a bit to comply. I made them with printable fabric, my desktop printer and Heat and Bond and it was a super quick and pretty inexpensive job (although not as inexpensive as ordering the woven labels in bulk from Hong Kong!).

*The least exciting package that paraded into our house whilst I was in the throws of Extreme Tonsillitus was Jamie's friend from across the road. I could hear Jamie saying, 'Do you want to see my sick mum? She's in bed!' but being unable to move or talk rendered me incapable of stopping him from bringing his friend bedside to stare at me. Where I languished in a sweaty and underdressed state, grunting and shaking my fist to GET OUT.

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Make it in a metre series: The Tennis Skirt

After so many fantastic guest posts in the 'Make it in a Metre' series, I reckon it's high time that I contribute a project tutorial! So here we go with The Tennis Skirt, which is a very quick to sew a-line skirt using knit fabric. The hem is full and curved so there's quite a lot of flounce and body. From cutting to finishing, the skirt can be completed in about a half an hour and requires half a metre of fabric at most! I can definitely see myself knocking a dozen of these out for summer basics. The sizes I've included in the file are 18m/2T, 3T/4T, and 5Y/6Y.

Version one is seen here:

And version two here:

I made one small change between versions one and two... the combination of my daughter's rounded belly and bum meant the hemline was riding higher in the back so version two has a higher rise in the back piece. If your recipient has this body type I recommend using both front and back pieces; if your recipient is more straight up-and-down through the torso and hips you can use the curved 'front' piece for both the front and the back.

Materials required:

1/2m knit fabric for skirt body
1/4m ribbing or cotton lycra (or anything with lycra / spandex / elastane and good stretch recovery) for the waistband
Stretch needles for sewing with knits
Pattern pieces (download the pattern and assembly instructions here)
Tape to assemble the pattern
Optional but recommended: a double needle for hemming

Cutting your fabric:

If your fabric is dimensional you will need to cut the skirt pieces side by side (requires slightly more fabric with some wastage between the pieces)

If your fabric is not directional, cut one piece on the fold first, then refold and cut the second piece upside down (practically no fabric wastage!)

Your finished pattern pieces will look like this:

Sewing your skirt:

I have used a serger for the construction only because I have one. But it's not a problem to sew the skirt on a regular machine! You will need to use a stretch needle, a stretch stitch (either a pre-set stitch like the lightening bolt, triple stretch, or overlocking stretch, or if your machine doesn't have a pre-set a narrow zigzag), and reduced pressure on your foot to reduce wavy-ness. If you can't reduce the pressure on your machine, I've heard others swear by a walking foot but I've never tried one.



Step one: Sew both side seams of your waistband:

Step two: Sew both side seams of your skirt:

Step three: Fold waistband down, fold in half an place pins at centre front and back. Fold skirt in half and place pins at centre front and back. Now you have all your quartermarks to match.

Step four: With all the raw edges at the top, pin the waistband to the skirt, matching up the side seams and the centre front and back pins. As you can see, there is excess skirt fabric between each of the quartermarks that the waistband will be stretched to fit as you sew.

Step five: Starting at a side seam, drop the needle into the waistband / skirt. Holding the fabric at the next quartermark, stretch the waistband only so that the edges match up without wrinkling. (If you have curly edges on the skirt fabric that you find hard to tame, this tute should help!). While holding taut, sew up to the quartermark, stop in the down position and repeat.

Step six: continue this process all the way around.

Step seven: Flip the waistband up. Press the seam allowance down to the skirt so it's flat and smooth.

Step eight: Starting the the side seam, press the hem of the skirt up one inch. Continue this all the way around. Where the curve of the hem is the deepest, gently pull the fabric so it follows the curve evenly.

**Tip**: What works the best for me is to brace the fabric against the ironing board with my hip while pulling with my left hand and ironing with my right. When it's not being pulled it looks like this:

See how there are small sections that lift up a tiny bit? When stretched just a very small amount whilst sewing they go completely flat.

If you are not going to use a double needle for hemming and instead want to hem with a normal single needle, after you have pressed an inch all the way around, additionally press the raw edge under a quarter of an inch all the way around.

Step nine: Hemming your skirt.

I am using two needles with my Coverstitch, again, because I have one. The result with a double needle in a regular machine is practically the same: there's a row of parallel lines on the right side and a weave on the wrong side. (There's an intro to twin needles here or here). When coverstitching or using a double needle you sew with the right side facing up, which can take a little bit of practise to master. It can help to use twin needles with quite a bit of width between them, and to draw a faint line with chalk on the right side along the hemming line.

If you are sewing with a single needle, you can sew from the wrong side (so it is easier to follow) and I suggest lengthening your stitch to 3 or 3.5. You shouldn't need to do a stretch stitch because the hem is wide enough it won't be overly stretched or prone to snapping.

Starting at the side seam, sew your hem so that the raw edge underneath is being straddled by the two needles (or so both needles hit the hem if you want to be safe!). Pull ever so gently in front of the foot so it lies flat, and go slowly.

Continue all the way around until you're back to where you started.

You're done! Press the hem again if it needs flattening.

Then find a cute model and post it in the Flickr group :)

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The 'Anything But Tennis' Skirt

With the weather being glorious (and therefore slightly less perilous for bare legs this week), I've ventured into skirt country. My plan was to call this 'The Tennis Skirt'. Until I asked Maia to channel tennis playing for pictures. And got dancing....

And boxing...

And golf...

A fundamental lack of understanding of tennis.

Until I said be a tennis winner.

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Made it in MADE

Waaaaaay back in January I was contacted by the editor of a new magazine for parents in Edinburgh about being included in their children's clothing feature. And thanks to my eagle-eyed childminder who managed to find a copy, now I've seen the finished article:

Unfortunately the feature was written right as I was putting the finishing touches on the new shop launch so I didn't have the shiny new website (and a current 'About Me' page) to direct her to. Slightly out of date information was taken from my Etsy profile, but I'm not complaining!*

*Much. Only here. And very graciously.

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Turquoise and Lime. Rhymes with 'Whine'.

I made a second attempt at a Renfrew today. The catalogue of changes I made to the pattern include (but are not limited to):

• Graded to size 12 at bust on front piece tapering back to 8 at waist
  
• Sleeve cap changed accordingly
• Overall length shortened by one inch at shorten / lengthen line
• Shoulder point moved half an inch towards neckline
• Shoulder slope reduced
• Neckband tightened / shortened by at least two inches (and it still needs to be more!)

The result is better, but still not the ever-elusive great fit. Excuse me, God, THIS IS WHAT I WANT:

Can anyone tell me how she did this?! It is worth mentioning that she has to FBA the Renfrew two sizes (like I did) but wherefore art thou, draglines? Just look how thoughtful this is making me:

So thoughtful. While I have God on the line (and also many helpful readers), please can we address how to pose for pictures without looking like a complete wally? My full facial repetoire is 'pensive' (see above)...

And 'benign'. How do you all take natural and normal pictures when you're modelling clothes?*

I do relax a bit when Jamie is behind the lense, but he knows nothing about ideal lighting.

To summarise: How do you solve a problem like a Renfrew? And then photograph the results without having to crop your head out.

*Or look natural and normal as you go about your day-to-day life, in fact.

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The State of the Boy

Jamie had his operation yesterday; two little grommets went in and the residual regenerating adenoids came back out.

Monkey came too and even got a hospital bracelet.

The time before the operation he had probably the best time of his life. He played the new Angry Birds Space game, completed the Ward Easter Egg hunt in record time (whilst enchanting all the parents and nurses with his earnestness) and painted several hundred plaster of paris figures. And then he was called down to surgery. This time the anaesthetists were able to locate one of his miniscule little veins, so he didn't have to fret about the mask afterall. He was under for just over an hour, and in a strange episode of syncronicity I swapped messages with an American crafty mum friend whose daughter was under at the same time. I wonder if they met in the ether?

On the way home he said, 'Dad, your car sounds like a jet plane'.

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Navel-gazing through the medium of Kelvins

After what feels like (and could quite possibly be) hundreds of hours of research into how to take better pictures indoors in poor lighting, I shelled out for a behemoth of a lightbulb that is especially calibrated to mimic daylight. It's almost as big as my head, which is admittedly small, but still- the lightbulb is massive enough that it can't be contained by my previous lightshade. I took some very quick test shots:

These are completely unedited comparison pics, straight off the camera.

And these were given a quick white balance adjust in Picnik.

What do you think... better, worse, indifferent?

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