Laminated cotton find

I am being pulled by laminated cotton. Every fabric store I visit, I find myself drawn towards the colourful rolls (laminated cotton usually comes in 50cm cut roll). 

I caved in..(as if it comes as a surprise to anyone.. *roll eyes*).  

I bought some yummy polka dot laminated cotton last weekend. 

They are so easy to sew (just like normal fabric, no additional tool required). The only drawback is they are quite pricey.. *sigh* 

They make lovely bags, wallet and pouches and recently I received a commission to make reusable food wrap out of these lovelies (will blog about it next)

Find out more about laminated cotton here, and I've listed them in the shoppe as well if anybody's interested. 

Pin It

From an adult shirt to a little girl's shirt - Refashion project

A rather straight forward project and something you can do between projects or on a lazy afternoon. 

Here's a simple how to:

* Get one of your shirt - in my case, I got this Benetton shirt awhile back but didn't wear it much and it has been sitting there in the recycle box for quite sometime now. 

* Identify areas you need to alter: 

- narrow the shoulder

- cover the neckline 

- shorten the length

To make the shirt fit snugly on a little girl, you need to narrow the shoulder width. Measure it against your little girl's perfect fitting shirt, mark the excess and cut (sorry no picture). I took out a good 2-3cm on each side. I cut out the sleeves as well and reattach them (making them shorter) using the normal stitch and then using the zig zag stitch that comes with every machine. 

To cover the neckline, I got a strip of knit (in a darker shade) from my stash and sewed 3 rows of lace (remember to measure how much you need to cover). Align and pin onto the neck area, sew and cut excess.   

From the picture above you can see Sofea added her own flower brooch (she made them herself), which I think goes nicely with the whole look. 

At this point of the process I was already getting restless and just wanted to finish the project *roll eyes*

So instead of cutting to shorten the length, I added ties (again something I saved from another shirt or skirt) on the sides. You'll need 4 equal length ties, 2 on each sides. Sew the ties - one outside and another inside - it could be tricky, either pin properly or hand sew like what I did *grin*

And wallah you are done, I'm glad I didn't cut to make it shorter. The ties give a nice gather on the sides and it definitely adds to the whole girly lacy shirt look.. and the most important of it all is getting the approval of your 9yo when she sees her new old shirt *priceless* 

Coincidentally this shirt goes well with the skirt I refashioned earlier, and now Sofea has a matching outfit. 

Hope you are having a good week..

Pin It

Sofea and felt

Sofea made a set of felt brooches during the weekend. Her first attempt was the strawberry and red mushroom on the top right. 

I noticed that she got confused at first on how to break down the pattern after tracing in onto a paper i.e strawberry body on one paper template and the leaf on another. But she quickly got the hang of it and managed to draw separate templates for the mushroom. 

Her favourite part was matching the different coloured felts (definitely my fav part too *grin*). 

After the success of the first two, she decided she needed 2 more mushrooms brooches, and this time she did almost everything by herself (even sewing the pin at the back of the brooch). 

She got a bit more creative with the colour mixing - baby blue mushroom, and experiemnting with shapes - heart for the red mushroom. 

We used the pattern from this book for her project. It is still available in the shoppe. 

Her first felt craft project.
Hope you had a wonderful weekend too..Pin It

Giveaway Winners

Thank you for participating in my little GA.

Sorry for the late announcement of the winners.

I enjoyed reading all the comments left about the fabric and decided the 2 I liked the most are:

1. Hueisei said: 

Thanks for the generous giveaway!

Well, I likes the Eiffel tower and also misc dolls showing the Paris's ladies daily activity and styles..

What I dislikes it's the color. Not that striking and not much caught attention. From the far, you wont notice how special this fabric is. You need to look it closer to catch the meaning behind of the whole picture. ^^v

2. Suzie said: 

Sue...love to join ur giveaway...

Ok....dari segi fesyen suka warnanya...suka karakter kartunnya ...suka juga gambaran designernya tentang Paris...

Kalau bab tak suka pula saya memang macam patriotik sikit ..orang Paris memang selalu bangga dengan Francenya..kan...sampaikan kain pun ada bangunan kemegahan Paris...hmmmm saya anak Malaysia ...hahhahaha

To the rest of the participant, thank you again for taking the time to leave a comment, better luck time yea.. 

Pin It

From a dress to a skirt - refashion project

A 4T cotton dress bought many years back and has been dearly worn yet still in good condition only now the bodice is quite tight for Sofea (who is 9yo). It has been hanging in my studio for months (over a year actually.. *roll eyes*) waiting for me to get an epiphany... which I finally did (thank god) last weekend.

I turned the dress into a skirt *grin* 

The first step was to unpick the stitches. All I needed was a long drive to somewhere, and coincidently last weekend we did go on a road trip and I separated the bodice from the skirt (as pictured). The dress originally (as usual forgot to take a before picture) has a full twirly skirt with lots of gathers and is fully lined.

I wanted to maintain the gathers and the lining so after un-gathering the skirt, I gathered it again (check out this gathering tutorial). 

Next, for the top edge of the skirt, I decided to make a waistline casing for the elastic band using some fabric tape from my stash (see the how to here). Once you have the proper length, pin the tape to your skirt with the right side facing.

Similar to attaching a bias tape, sew on one side, turn, fold and sew again, only this time you need to leave a gap to insert the elastic band. Once threaded and tried on for sizing, zigzag the raw ends. Tuck the band into the casing and topstitch the opening closed by machine.  

And there you have it, a pretty simple refashion project.. I didn't stop there, went ahead to refashion a shirt to go with the skirt. Will post that up next. 

Do you have any refashion ideas? 

On another note, my giveaway is still on till the 10th.

Pin It