I found time for a refashion…

Since I already had my sewing machine out I thought I’d grab something off the Easy Refashion pile.

This jumper dress is from Zara kids and was originally intended for a 14 year old! Anyway, it’s 60 % wool and somewhere in its past someone has washed it badly and it has stretched widthways – so much so that it’s too big for me. Well, there is a quick way to fix that!

Turn it inside-out and pin, pin, pin! I needed to take in about 2 inches either side to stop it looking like a sack!

I sewed the new seams, trimmed off the excess and zig-zagged all round to give it a chance at not fraying.

All done and looking far more slinky, it honestly isn’t as lumpy as it looks in the photo! I know it’s not the most dramatic or complicated refashion in the world but it’s all I have time for these days, and if it gets one more thing off the pile and into my wardrobe I’m happy!

I’ve got two more weeks until Open Studios and then I can relax for a bit – I got some lovely kidsilk haze for my birthday and the new Rowan pattern book that demand my attention! Also that refashion pile… and a serious amount of WIPs…

Beccy

A ramble about an injury and some amazing jewels…

Ok, the injury first. I dropped my window to the world, my most precious object, my, er, repository of stuff, my, um, well my laptop. My laptop!

Both the hinges sheared through but miraculously the rest of the thing was unharmed. Unfortunately it’s been in hospital (in bits under a wonderfully technical student’s desk) waiting for hinges to arrive from Hong Kong. This of course means that all my photo’s and pre-written posts are not to hand.

To make matters worse, when I tried to take more photo’s today I couldn’t find the charger for the camera so that’s dead too until a replacement arrives.

I feel lost without it – my uncle has lent me a netbook because I was getting severe withdrawal symptoms so at least I can access the world again, (although using it feels like someone rearranged all the furniture in my house while I was out!)

In the meantime, I’m going to show you some wonderful jewellery made by my talented friend Ellie Crosby.

Inspired by 1940's and 50's fabric prints, she makes unique contemporary jewellery using fused glass and silver. aren’t they lovely and delicate?

Even though they are inspired by vintage fabrics, they are very contemporary and her work ranges from pieces you could wear everyday to showstopping creations for those special events.

I might even have shown you these before, but you know what? They deserve another look!

If you’d like to see more of Ellie’s work, you can pop over to her Facebook page and say hi. If you’re in York on the 13th, 14th, 20th or 21st of April, you could even come and say hello in person!

What do you think of that?

We’ll be doing York Open Studios from my little workshop on those weekends and we’d love the company!

We might even have cake!

Beccy

A little sewing…

I managed a bit of sewing this week! In a good cause of course – no frivolous sewing for me (well not much!)

This is sewing for the project I told you about last post. My plan is to copy lines from love letters onto fabric using my shiny embroidery foot and then setting the fabric into recesses in the top of my little porcelain pots.

I’m not sure which fabric I want to use – something off-white is as far as I’ve got. I haven’t got a clue which fabrics could work so I rummaged through my stash to find different weighted fabrics to have a play with. Best way is to just have a go I always think, and this is what I came up with:

Regular thread on an old felted jumper. The bulk of the thread made it hard to get this through my machine without a fight.

Metallic thread on the left and regular on the right sewn onto dress net. Interesting but hard to get any definition.

Metallic thread on stockinette. Way too thick to get through my machine! Thought the stretchy nature of the fabric might make for interesting results. It didn’t.

 

Freehand writing with regular thread on synthetic silk. Doodling really. I like this one but I need a bit of practice!

I also had a go at accurately sewing my own handwriting which is frankly as hard as it sounds and didn’t give much better results:

I’m on the way but I’m not there yet!

Beccy