Tuesday 26 April 2011

Scooby-Doo Summer Dress

 

I had a nice trip to Fabricland in Salisbury over the weekend, and my daughter Daisy found some fabric that she fell in love with.  I must admit I was a bit dubious, to me it looks like something out of Scooby-doo, but she wouldn’t change her mind – this was the fabric for her.  And now its made I have to say I agree with her choice.

scoobydress2

She is in desperate need of summer clothes having grown 4” in the last year, so much so that her skirts from last year are now mini-skirts and her mini-skirts - I won’t even go there!!!

 

So this is what I made, beautifully modelled by her. 

DSCF0951

Its not very clear from the photo but the top of the dress is shearing elastic & the skirt is made from three tiers/layers.  The good thing is that I have a bit of the fabric left over, so next year I can add another tier and she’ll yet again have something that fits!

 

Sally

xxx

Wednesday 20 April 2011

Dyeing Blankets : Final instalment

Full of enthusiasm for dyeing blankets, I bought a pink dye and set about dyeing some more blankets.  This time I left out the red blanket and added the following blankets to the machine:

DSCF0921

When I got them out I was so pleased with the colour, the strong pink is gorgeous, exactly as I hoped it would be.

DSCF0922

Very bright and cheerful I’m sure you’ll agree.  Then as the packet of dye had suggested I set my washing machine to rinse, added the detergent & wandered off.  I came back a while later to an error message flashing up on the display – to cut a long story short, one of the blankets had shed masses of fluff and it’s managed to clog up my machine.  Sadly I can’t open the filter so I can’t clear it out myself, looks like its down to the engineer who’s due to come next Tuesday!

Think I’ll give home dyeing a miss and just buy the felt ready dyed – I’m sure it’ll be cheaper in the long run.

Sally

xxx

Sunday 17 April 2011

Giveaway over at Sewciety

Just a quick entry to say that Lisanne at Sewciety is having a pattern giveaway, so hop on over for your chance to win one of them.  Click here to go to her site.

Sally
xxx

Tuesday 12 April 2011

My First Attempt at Dyeing

I’ve had some pieces of woollen blanket knocking about for a while and I’d always intended in dyeing them to make more purses from, but hadn’t got round to buying the dye and then doing it.  Well yesterday after a lovely day at Wilton House Gardens with the children (doing my “good mother” bit!) I decided that the time was right to dye the blankets.

Here are photos of the original blankets, alongside the newly dyed ones.  Can you guess what colour dye I used?

DSCF0913 The bright red blanket is the pre-dyed above, and the cream and green is the original one below.DSCF0916

DSCF0919

(The colours are slightly off on this last photo, the original is a soft yellow and the dyed one is a muddy brown colour.)

Yep, that’s right, I used Ocean Blue!  What I hadn’t taken into account is that the dye in the bright red blanket would run and change the colour of the other blankets!  

I really like the colour that the red blanket has turned out and quite like the purpley shades of the cream/green blanket.  I not so keen on the muddy brown colour though so I think I’ll have to get another box of dye and try again.  This time leaving out the red blanket!  Will let you know how I get on.

 

Sally

xxx

Thursday 7 April 2011

Owl Pencil case

After a few weeks of not adding anything to this blog, today I thought I’d actually share one of the things I’ve recently made. 
DSCF0908
A lovely and cheerful owl pencil case.  I’ve used recycled denim to make this one – it used to be the leg of a pair of jeans that one of my children had outgrown.  Quite a good way to use up lots of scraps of fabric. 

Anyway I promise not to leave it so long again.
Sally
xxx
PS if you are at the Stitch and Creative Craft show in Shepton Mallet over the next few days, go say hi to Lisanne at the Sewciety stand.  I’m sure she’d love to say hello.