Naughty-cal!

I just made this rather sweet little stripey number for myself... The blue and white jersey fabric was about £3 per metre at John Lewis in the January sales so I just made a really simple cap-sleeved top out of it (using my own pattern) and then I used a scrap of vintage jersey to trim/gather around the neckline and a spare button for decoration. Not the neatest job I've ever done; but pretty good for a few hours' work. This was my first try at using the stretch stitch on my machine too; don't ask me why I never used it before but I'm never going back to my old [incorrect] ways now!

To make the pattern for my top I just traced around the neckline and other dimensions of a shirt I already liked. And the same with the sleeves - I just traced around each half of the sleeve, then taped the halves together. It's pretty easy to adjust the sleeves when you're pinning if the pattern isn't quite perfect. I pin everything together and make sure it's all as neat as it can be before I sew. This fabric was quite slippery to work with - but I have heaps more of it - so when I get around to attempting something else I will at least have lots of room for error!

This t-shirt was made with the support of Jeff Goldblum's chest hair in Jurassic Park!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Frogday the Thirteenth

Image
I made this little starry eyed frog guy for my friend Rhonwen's birthday! It was tough to let him go... I used some strange green woven patterned cotton for his back with brown corduroy for his belly. All made from scraps of leftover fabric and lovingly hand sewn! Then I filled his guts in with polyester stuffing. A cheapy, quicky project with the hardest part being the darting. Boy am I making myself sound like a big time cheapskate today! Here's a not-so-great picture of his belly to get you back on my side: Awwwww! I don't know why that's cute, but it is. Unfortunately [again] I can't take too much credit for this project as I got the instructions and pattern from here ; I just simplified it very slightly. I would like to take credit for having extremely relevant bed sheets though. This froggy was born with the aid (or not) of a broken heart! Know what else aside from crafting cures a broken heart? New shoes . Oh yes. It's true.
Read more

Repair Cafés at the Green and Thrifty Fortnight!

Image
In February, I had the immense pleasure of being part of the Hampshire Libraries Green and Thrifty Fortnight as a touring Fabric Repair Café. This was an exciting challenge, as although I have been repairing mine and other people's clothes for years (with varying results), in this case anyone and anything could have turned up! The idea was that I was to teach the people who came along how to mend the items themselves with drop in sessions and specific workshops; patching, darning and adjusting children's clothes. Many of the attendees already had some ideas about what they wanted to do so we workshopped those and I taught a few stitches, tips and tricks. I visited Basingstoke, Andover, Waterlooville, Bridgemary and Eastleigh libraries and we had some fantastic results at each one. Here are just a few of my favourite outcomes: And of course I spent some of my down time wisely, by darning one of my own socks: With 45 minutes for each workshop, it was more like speed repairing, bu
Read more

Space Age Reindeer Galactic Future Creature

Image
As Christmas is officially over, it seems like a good time to belatedly tell you all about the various crafty thingys I made for the festive period! First I started off with simpleish embroidered fabric decorations: [And a few paper ones...] These were inspired by classic retro shapes and designs and for the more complex embroideries I took inspiration from Constance Howard's book 'Inspiration for Embroidery'. Most of the fabric, paper and ribbon was salvaged / upcycled. Next I made cards in a similar retro theme: Photo by  LunarApple These featured an Intergalactic Space Reindeer with antennae so that he doesn't miss out on all his important Christmas telly [e.g. James Bond]. I also made cards with Christmas trees on but these seem to have eluded all photography. However, I did manage to knock up a quick reindeer gift bag too:  Here's a bonus picture of my marvellous cat looking splendid under our tree: That's it! Until next time!
Read more