Finished: "Cross Stitch or Die" Shoes

 OH BABY!!! <3

I love these, and I've learned a lot making them, they're a little rough around the edge, but who the hell cares, no one is going to get close enough to my smelly feet to notice!! haha!

It's ME!!... well ... not really...

 

I finally got around to padding my dressform to make it something like the right shape....

Finished! Shirt and Tie Bibs!

Another triumph of pinterest inspiration:

pattern pieces coming soon!

Finished! No-Sew Cat Ear Hairclips

I went to London Film and Comic con with the husb0t, sister in law and her kids a while back.... and they were selling these for around £5 a pair.

want some? You will need felt, hair clips and a glue gun.... tutorial coming soon!...

Crinkle Taggie Baby Soother - Tutorial

ok then, remember these noisy toys?



In a previous post I showed you how to insert the jingle bells into the taggie plush :-) Now I'm going to show you how to make the Crinkle Taggie Soother.

The Internet has told me that babies love things that crinkle, and things with ribbon loops/tags, and this is my response! err... unfortunately I have no way of verifying this information at this point since my lazy baby still isn't here! and even when (s)he does arrive, I hear tell that they don't do much except cry, sleep, feed and wee for the first few days.

Anyhow, click here for the printable -step by step tutorial - for how to make a Crinkle Taggie Baby Soother!!

Click the read more link to see some work in progress pics and take a quick tour of the construction process:

PM: Upcycled Mens shirt into an Empire Line Dress. FINISHED!

6 DAYS TO GOOOOOOO........... !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  !!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!

OK time to come clean... this dress has been finished for AGES!... but .... well it's 'flouncy' and ridiculous... and it feels completely silly sitting around the house in it.

I will be making another one (because even when I don't need the bump-room I'm unlikely to want to be dressed in tight fitting clothes) I have a feeling when I've toned down the colours a little and got rid of the silly frilly/misbehaving collar it'll be a lovely comfortable nursing dress.

ok so lesson learned, don't pair a pattern with another pattern, a flat colour for the shirt or the skirt would be slightly less ridiculous.

but meh, life is for learning.... so here's the pics!!

as you can see (especially in the side-on pic) a 3 inch front hem extension is enough to keep the hem level with bump... I'm 39 weeks pregnant :-)

ooh... and another thing! I've converted the tutorial for this dress into a pdf, you can download it here.
also the stretch mark fairy visited me last night... bad times!

Unicorn Embroidery Finished (kinda) and why I love Pinterest

here's the wide shot:

The light in my dining room is terrible, this is after much colour/contrast manipulation and it's the best I can get.... nevermind... as the title suggests it's not quite done yet. The embroidery is done, but I'm going to make it into a frilly pillow ^.^ so there will be other photo ops.

Let me tell you the story of this embroidery, before I show you the close-ups.

PM: Jersey Dress COMPLETED

I've been quiet on the Project Maternity front for too long, in the words of Blink 182: "Work Sucks, I know"

What doesn't suck is this dress:

I'm not that keen on the colour, the green is a lot duller than I'd first intended. The pattern I butchered was from Burda Style magazine, it's not been published on this website yet, when it is I'll post a link.

As you can see I completely changed the pattern around, I got rid of that collar because I don't have time to learn how to do collars... I'm GROWING!! I also modified the sleeves, to make them the more summer-friendly tent sleeve shape.

How I did it:

• I traced the pattern pieces from the Burda Style Pattern Sheet.
• I used this great technique on burdastyle on how to create a Tent Sleeve (thankyou BurdaStyle member sunnie for contributing this technique)
• I modified the front pattern piece by performing a full tummy adjustment, with the effect of lengthening the front hem
• I cut the fabric, but as I said I was omitting the collar so I just cut the front piece on the fold and rounded off the neckline at this stage.
• I redrew the neckline on the fabric and after checking it was symmetrical and giving myself a seam allowance for the ruffle, I cut the new neckline.
• I drafted my pattern for my ruffle. Ruffles can be made lots of different ways A separate tutorial for how I did this collar ruffle is coming soon!
• I serged the edges of the sleeves and the ruffle using a 3 thread setting so that the weight of a hem wouldn't ruin the drape.
• I constructed the garment with my serger, on a 4 thread setting, in this order:
  (1) attach front piece to back piece at shoulder seams
  (2) sew on sleeves.
  (3) sew sides together with seams that run from end of sleeve to bottom hem.
  (4) attach ruffle collar as you would a facing - right side of ruffle facing wrong side of dress - use regular sewing machine on zig-zag setting.
  (5) finish hem by turning over twice, pressing and zig-zag stitching.

In retrospect, I think this dress is probably still too big. I think the pattern I cut was too big in the first place, but actually that's completely welcome in the heatwave we're having in the UK, and my classroom is so hot too!! Not to mention the fact that I am growing! I love the sleeves, I think some kind of interfacing around the collar would be a good idea as it feels a bit shapeless. I think the hem should be shorter... but then what is the appropriate hem length for a pregnant lady?

I wish I was better at modelling... 

PM: Today I went to School Dressed as a Strawberry:

If you're not on my facebook page (you really should be) you're behind on news... I've finished something!! Take a peek at what I'm affectionately calling my strawberry maternity pencil skirt:

this is what it looks like after I've been to work in it... now let's look at it on my (far more photogenic) dressform:

I love this fabric, It's Micheal Miller "Ta-Dot" I found a site I could get it for £5.95 p/half metre (and that was cheap!) it's actually quilting fabric I think but it's great for skirts as it's firm and strong and has a tiny bit of stretch. I think this fabric is the colour of joy.

The pattern for this skirt is available on Burdastyle (you can see my submitted project here)

I know... it's crazy and not everyone's cup of tea, but if you cant dress like a crazy woman when various hormones are *actually* making you crazy, what's the point of anything!

x G