My busy craft life

Still Alive and Crafting

2013-05-06T08:29:00.000+01:00

Hi everyone!
I can't believe it has been nearly two months since I last posted... I've been super busy with lots of stuff, and have plenty of posts to write about going all the way back to early March so I might have to postpone the Easter one till next year LOL. Just wanted to pop in and say that yes life is crazy right now (not all of it good though) and I'm still here. Once the bank holiday has passed and I actually have some time I will post again soon :)
Until very soon and hugz form London!

Polyjuice First Aid Baggy

2013-03-14T22:31:00.000Z

Hi everyone!
The bag is back! LOL... By now I'm sure some of you know that I love this pattern for a cute little bag. I must have made about 5 by now... although after this one I think I'm done for a while, I can manage the entire thing until I have to add the top to the bottom and that can take days. I'm on the hunt for a new bag pattern!

But not before finishing another long planned project. I tend to carry a first aid kit in my handbag. Nothing major, just ibuprofen, antihistamine, plasters, savlon cream, stuff like that. I used to have a teeny tiny pouch for it and everything except the cream fit in there. It was small, practical, but oh so ugly. So I needed a change, something that would hold the cream too. I'd bought some Harry Potter fabric years ago, like when I moved here years ago. The fabric was blue (so not my colour) but had polyjuice potion print so it was quite cute. Together with some fabric that I won somewhere, it had potential. And it worked! The last sewing bit was done by hand as I just ran out of patience, but this is the end result:

Not my best work, but I like it :) This is it all filled up already by the way, so much bigger than the teeny tiny pouch! I may need a bigger handbag... ;)

The lining is cream polycotton that I had left. It's amazing how much polycotton I used to buy, no idea why but I have loads in plain colours... so most of the lining will now be done with that until it's gone. I used a metal zipper that I bought in bulk for a different project so for a change it doesn't colour matches. I just really wanted to get it done before I ran out of creativeness again! Now to find a project for the leftover polyjuice fabric...

Cross Stitch WIP - Update

2013-03-13T22:19:00.003Z

Hi everyone!
It's been two weeks since my last crafty post, oh my... But I've been busy, lots of projects that I'm working on and for the past two weekends I've been really focusing on my cross stitch project. Something I really wanted to continue tonight but I discovered a mistake that might be very annoying. Nothing major, but damage control needs to be done at the moment.

So far, I've come this far:

See, most of the moon has been done and I've started the house!

Now that there are so many colours I just kind of pick a colour and go with it so it's not all over the place. I'm out of brown for the tree so need to buy more there. That is also the damage control though, so let's see what happens with that... But other than that I'm quite impressed with my progress :)

Fingers crossed it won't be as bad as I'm currently thinking it is, but I'll keep you posted! Busy wave from London :)

Purple Mask Blackberry Case

2013-03-02T21:30:00.000Z

Hello again everyone!
Thank you for all your lovely comments on my Fabulising February projects :) As March has begun, I can start some projects from scratch again. I have a few ideas lined up so let's see how I'll get on in actually executing them ;) I finished one already!

But let me start by the beginning first...

Do you remember the cupcake pouch I made for the Blackberry phone a long time ago? A good few months ago, I realised that it was close to death and really needed to be replaced. So I made another one. This is the replacement I made at the time:

I used some of the fabrics planned for my Halloween quilt for this. I figured a few centimeters missing would not do any harm.

This is the other side. Very purple, very catty, and lined with fleece as usual.

For some reason though, this pouch did not stay in place very well, the layers kept getting separated when I pulled the phone out, and it was just generally annoying me. Until I finally decided that this really was not my best work and another one had to be made.

Meanwhile, we had gone on a fabric shopping trip and I had bought some amazing fabric with masks on it. Together with a purple cotton from the quilt stash, I could make an amazing new pouch. And so I did:

This is the end result! I took much more care into making this, it has 2 layers of fleece rather than one which turned out to be the secret of the very first pouch I made anyway, and I hemmed it with black bias tape to ensure it all stuck together properly this time.

The other side has more of an orangy colour scheme as I didn't want to make it too purple (although, can there ever be such a thing?) and with the orange fleece lining it really works.

I didn't take a lot of pictures this time, but I'm extremely pleased with how this one turned out. And I finally used the mask fabric! I still have a lot of it left, so I have to think of something to use it for. I'll let you know once I finally have an idea! Until then, at least I have a shiny new case (or pouch if you wish) for my phone. Yay! :)

Fabulising February - The Results

2013-02-28T22:00:00.000Z

Hi all,
It is the last day of February and as such my Fabulising February comes to an end. It's been a busy month but I feel like I have an entirely new wardrobe for summer :)

This is the finished pile of most of the items I've finished. You haven't seen all of these as some were just quick mends such as a repaired seam, but these are all things I can now wear again! It's also extremely purple LOL

If you haven't been following all the projects, here is a recap in no particular order:

Purple Ribbon Sweater

Men's Shirt Dress

I'm so pleased with all the results! There still a few things that I have not yet finished such as a red/black checkered dress (sorry Miriam!) and some other small items. But the majority is done and my mending bag is now relatively tiny compared to before whoohoo!

Thank you for following me through this creative month. Now it's time to make some things from scratch again :) I already have some great ideas so watch this space! Though first I need some tea...

Fabulising February - Men's Shirt Dress

2013-02-27T20:13:00.000Z

Hi everyone!
Fabulising February is nearly over and this is the last project I have managed to complete.Tomorrow I'll post a short recap showing all the finished projects. Wanting to go out with a bang, I tackled a men's shirt that the bf bought online many years ago and forgot to return it so I wanted to make something nice out of it. Seems a waste to be throwing away a brand new shirt! Granted, it was white and while probably cotton it was very thick and stiff material. So I dyed it purple. Of course.

Once it was purple, I then had to try and do something with it. Easier said than done! I finally found a cute idea for a dress in blogland (didn't save the link though) and I really wanted to try that. But the instructions were super tricky so in the mending pile it went.

This is the shirt. Much too large even for the bf but purple at least ;) And a bit wrinkled for being in the bag for a very long time.

But with only a little time left in my Fabulising February month, I decided to give it another try. This time, without a pattern and instructions. Risky? Oh yes, but then again it couldn't really get any worse...

I cut off the sleeves and the shoulders, and cut the rest into a dress shape. I sewed the front up so the buttons wouldn't open, and used the collar for straps. I also added the buttons that were at the end of the original collar to make it look more genuine. It came out so cute!

I love it now :)

I made the back of the strap out of the thick bit of fabric that was just underneath the collar. I forgot to take a picture of the back though but surely those will follow once I'm wearing this in summer (it's like 3C outside so definitely not wearing this right now! LOL). The sewing of the top hemline is not the best as I had to adjust it a few times, but no one is really going to notice that. I'm very pleased with this result, it's comfy and cute :) Another summer dress done!

Oscar Party 2013

2013-02-25T23:30:00.000Z

Happy Oscar Night everyone!
We're ahead of the US so the Oscars were on at 1.30am last night. NOT going to happen as I do have to work during the day. Luckily we have reruns! In the spirit of last year, I have spent most the weekend cooking to make one dish per Best Picture nominee. It was a real challenge this year as there were so many countries that the food would be based on, and I only got the final menu set in the last minute. Some dishes are more original than others, but it worked and was yummy which is all that matters.

First: decorations! I made new bunting with updated templates from Hostess Blog

Napkin envelopes were also made again of course

And then for the food! An entire day of chopping and preparing meant that I only had to stick everything in the oven and serve. I had bought lots of gold paper plates to the bling and easy cleanup. It all worked wonders!

For Amour: French cornichons and saucisson as aperitif

For Les Miserables: French bread and red wine as aperitif

For Argo: vegetables with humous as aperitif

For Silver Linings Playbook: crab cakes as a starter

For Lincoln: roast root vegetables as as part of the main course

For Life of Pi: sweet and spicy potatoes as part of the main course

For Beasts of the Southern Wild: southern friend chicken as part of the main course

For Zero Dark Thirty: taboulleh as a side

For Django Unchained: white cake with cherry blood splatters

I even made gold dusted white chocolate Oscar statues! Upon taking them out of the mould I did manage to decapitate some of them so they look a little wonky. But the idea is there and I now have a whole year to practice ;)

Once we had watched the red carpet while eating our lovely meal, we watched the ceremony and played Oscar Bingo, kindly provided by How About Orange. The bunny was the prize, the only golden chocolate I could find!

We had also each completed the ballot and in the end my friend who joined as well won the bingo and I won the ballot. It was all great fun again although I think we have enough food to last us for the next three days. Can you believe I cooked all of this for 3 people only? LOL. But at least I wont have to cook for a while and spend more time blogging and crafting!

Fabulising February - Blue Top #2

2013-02-24T20:46:00.000Z

Heyhey!
Remember how yesterday I told you how I had three of those blue flowy tops? Well, I wore one on a skirt I had amended and it looked really nice. Having some spare parts of the dress-turned-skirt, I decided to make the top a perfect match for the skirt. Let me remind you of the dress turned skirt, you might remember:

This was the dress I got for £1 a long long time ago...

And it turned it into this. So far so good!

Then, the blue top as discussed (the same as yesterday)

With some fabric scraps of the dress-to-skirt project, I added the straps of the dress to the neckline, and some of the sleeve fabric to the existing pocket on the front.

Put the two together and you get this awesome result!

I'm going to be wearing this a lot in summer! It looks really nice together I think :) The draping didn't quite work on the doll as all this is stretchy, but I just know it will be great in person. Another one bites the dust!

Fabulising February - Blue Top #1

2013-02-23T20:31:00.000Z

Good evening y'all!
Ready for another project? I have so many quick fixes right now, I'm loving it! :) Today's project is about this top which has been in the mending bag for pretty much 2 years:

Is it a dress? Is it a top?

Let me explain. This top was on sale at Primark for £2 a long long time ago. It's too short to be a dress but great as a nice flowy top. Only problem with it: it's blue. Yes I would have noticed that when I bought it (duh!) so I had to adjust it so it would fit with more stuff. For a long time I didn't know what to do with it, and then suddenly I remembered this:

I bought this lovely woollen ribbon many years ago for next to nothing. I think I paid 25p a meter or something! There was a huge sale so I got a lot of it. It has blue in it but also a some greyish so adding this to the dress could work wonders.

I added the ribbon to the bottom of the top and also along the hem of the sleeves.

This is the end result. I really like this new addition!

This top is actually super comfy and what I didn't tell you before: I bought 3 of them! And yes, all in the same colour, don't ask me why... I wore one in the summer and it's really lovely to wear in summer as it's quite light. And now with the added ribbon I can match it with so many more things than before :)

Fabulising February - 70s Towel Dress

2013-02-22T22:30:00.000Z

Hi all!
It's time for another Fabulising February project! Quite a while ago, a lady came to the sewing group with a pile of fabric she wanted to give away as she was moving. Within said pile of fabric, I spotted a very odd looking towel fabric with purple and beige flowers on it. No one really knew what to use it for, but I just had to have it. Everyone else thought it was so ugly, they were glad to choose something else from the options given. This is the fabric, for whatever reason I love it!

Totally 70s...

So what to do with it? No, making a towel was not an option. The fabric seemed quite old and not at all nice and soft like new towels. Plus I gave away about 30 towels only a few years ago (that's what happens when two people have a lot of towels and move in together LOL, I managed to find someone who had their entire family flying in for her wedding and was desperate for towels, so I gave them to her. At least it was a good cause!). I searched online for ages for ideas and found some nice ones for a roll-up towel thingy for on the beach for example. I live in London, there is no beach and it's usually quite drab weather so that was not an option.

What was an option though, was a towel dress. Plenty of options to use that! If on holiday (with possible beach), after swimming (even in London), or just after a shower in summer. Yes I liked that idea :) Then I had to choose a design I liked. Also not an easy task but I found this shirring idea that was quite cute and simple so I got started. For some reason it then went completely wrong and ended up in the mending pile.

But not anymore! The problem was that I had just taken the piece of fabric I was given and cut it in half. Luckily I'm not as big as the tube I ended up with so I had to recut and reshir it, and add some straps. The end result is really cute:

This is it! I'm looking forward to summer so I can wear this :)

The top white edge was actually already there, it's the top seam of the fabric and I really like how that part came out :) Since taking the picture I have actually added one additional shirring line. It is sort of empire lined so very full along the waist but it's all meant for easy and comfort so it's perfect. The bf hasn't seen it yet, I have a feeling he may not like it ;) It doesn't hang very well in the picture but it looks better in person. No, unless I'm on holidays I wont be posting that just yet LOL. But I do love my shiny new towel dress!

Fabulising February - Asrai Top

2013-02-20T22:00:00.000Z

Hello again :)
Most of you will not know who Asrai are, so let's clear that up first. Asrai are a Dutch 'girly goth' band that I happened to stumble upon at a festival many years ago. They had one London gig and I bought a really cute tanktop at their merchandise stall. The print was adorable but somehow I never warmed to the design of the tanktop itself. I have another shirt from them which is more of a normal girly tshirt and I wear that one a lot, so I decided to change the top. Of course this decision came waaaay before actually doing something about it, so the whole project ended up in the bag.

The top on the left is another girly top I've had for a while and the neckline bothered me as it was a little tight. The top on the right is the Asrai tanktop. Ready for a makeover?

I cut out the design and sewed it onto the plain top. The neckline still bugged me, so that definitely had to go. So I cut it into a sort of boat neckline and didn't hem it for a casual effect. The result? Check it out:

Cheers!

I really like it now! Sometimes solutions can be so simple :) Plus it's another item finished from the bag, I'm making such good progress :)

Fabulising February - Labyrinth Bag

2013-02-18T22:15:00.000Z

Hello again!
Speaking of Teefury, every few months they have a mystery sale. You just enter your size and they send you a mystery shirt from their collection of the past few weeks. Not exactly sure how it works, but basically you don't know what you're getting. And then there are swap forums etc in case you really hate it. I tried the mystery sale and being a newbie I ordered three shirts. One was great, one was so-so, and the last one put a real frown on my face. Let's put it this way, it had potential... This was the design I got:

(picture from www.teefury.com)

The colour, for starters, was really not for me. Since I bought the girly version, I got the 80s blue one. Not my colour... Apart from the colour, there was another thing that was really bothering me, and that was that Jared actually looks fat in this design! Like proper beer-belly fat. Well, we can't have that now can we?

First I thought of swapping the shirt, but did I really want to go through all that effort, possibly sending something to the US and risking it getting lost or something? Nah... I needed another idea. Then, while making the Hellish Bag, it came to me: make another craft bag like that one! After all, one can never have too many craft bags with all those small projects going on!

I cut a square out of the top, trying to get as much of the design in as possible but with as little as possible of the beer-belly.

I added the press studs like in the other bag too to keep the design

This is the result! I really liked the hand with the glass ball so I made the cut there. There is still a little bit of the beer-belly, but so much less than before! I had some blue ribbon lying around so use to tie it all together. I think it came together quite nicely.

And it's the perfect size too! The Hellish Bag is a little bit on the small side, so this Labyrinth one currently holds my medieval weaving project. But that's another story ;)

Fabulising February - Labyrinth Top

2013-02-17T21:22:00.000Z

Hi everyone!
How time flies, it's been a week since my last Fabulising February post! This week has just been so busy with Pancake Day, Valentine's Day, and the Egg Hunt! But I have my next project ready to show you here. It's been ready for a little while now but the photographing was a bit of a pain. Luckily, today I managed to get a nice picture of the final result, yay!

About 6 months ago, I discovered Teefury. If you've never heard of this, it is a T-Shirt website that sells custom t-shirts for 24 hours only. Miss it and it's gone forever. Well, from their website at least, I have since found many more similar website and all the designers submit their designs to pretty much all of them. But anyway, I didn't know that at the time. The first t-shirt I bought through them was one based on the movie Labyrinth. It was adorable. It showed the little worm and was just very cute. Then it arrived.

The print is cute, right? But you can see that it is all crooked. This was not the way it was supposed to look! The print, while adorable, was not centered and crooked to boot. This was not the plan. So I wrote to Teefury and sent them this picture and they gracefully gave me a refund as they couldn't ship another one since the 24 hrs had passed. I could keep the shirt.

Luckily, I am a very crafty person :)

Next stop: Primark, where I found this long-sleeve T for only £2.50. It was in pretty much the same colour and I thought why not make a longsleeve out of it? It's not summer yet and it will be a nice change with the others (that I subsequently purchased).

So I cut out the print, and spent a good hour trying to get it completely straight and centered as to not make it look like the original I received. Once it was finally pinned to my liking, I sewed it on and taadaa! My extremely unique, one of a kind (which is unique, I know, but I'm emphasizing!) Teefury 'Allo Seasonings' t-shirt :) I am so pleased!

I wore it to my Sci-Fi group last week and no one even noticed that it was not the original design! The colour matches really well and I am so happy with it now. Doesn't it look so much better than the original above with its misprint? Now it is all straight and centered (I'm leaning a bit away from the camera here but trust me, it's centered!) and I can now wear it in public.

One more project successfully completed :) Yay!

Lindt Egg Hunt - The Eggs Are Back!

2013-02-16T22:30:00.000Z

Hi everyone!
Good news, the eggs are back :) Remember last year's egg hunt? Well, I had a lot more time back then and spent a lot of afternoons hunting the fantastic works of art in egg shape. This time, they were only in London for six days instead of a month so I had to be quick. They're going on tour throughout the UK and they will be back but who knows what I'll be up to by then so better safe than sorry! As I also had to work, I had only this weekend to hunt them all down, there were 101 eggs to find this year. Lucky for me, they were all centralised in one location, they were all in Covent Garden. Some were in plain view, others were hidden away. The last one was quite hard to find, but I got them all except the moving egg that is being moved every day and clues are posted on Facebook. But the weather was really nice (at last!) and I actually went outside (though less time for projects). Curious yet about this year's eggs? Here is a selection of the best ones (according to me):

Dora the Explorer egg. At first I was not a fan, until I saw the back. It even had the little backpack! Too cute :)

As this year's hunt was sponsored by Lindt, there was a giant Lindt egg too :) Coincidentally, 'Eggsperts' were handing out chocolate Lindt eggs. Don't mind if I do!

And an Easter Bunny too!

I love this one, very steampunk

This one had a blue bow-tie on the other side. It made me smile :)

The paintings on this egg were just gorgeous

It was so busy! Tons of kids but also adults bought the special booklet with all the eggs in it and you could actually tick off the ones you had found.

Magical egg this one.

Umbrella egg, I love it! Plus it was inside a shoe shop with lots of mirrors, great location :)

While looking for the eggs in Floral Street, I saw these balloon light bulbs, they're so cute!

Very cute egg

Thomas the Tank Engine egg!

I just love this shot more than the egg really, although the egg is also great, very hippy like. Eggcellent dude...

I would actually buy something like this if I'd have the money for it. This egg looked fantastic IRL

But THIS is by far my favourite. I have about 20 pictures of this I think. It is a white egg with drops of melted ice cream on it, and on top lots of ice creams. It is just amazing, am totally in love with this egg. And the picture too actually, love this shot :) *proud* Yes, that is why I put my watermark kind of in the middle, just go with it.

After about 3 hours, I had found them all. The last egg took me about half an hour to find so could have been done sooner. I had to pose with this giant Lindt Bunny statue to show you all my stamp showing that I have completed the hunt. Yay!

These are all 101 eggs (including Humpty Dumpty but excluding Eggbert). Click on the picture to get a better look!

It was great having another egg hunt in London, a big thank you to all the organisers!

UPDATE 17/02/2013:
I actually went back today to find the moving egg (Eggbert) but I looked and looked and found nothing. Oh well, maybe next month when they come back to London. But it was a great hunt yet again!

Happy Valentine's Day 2013!

2013-02-14T21:19:00.001Z

Hello again everyone and Happy Valentine's Day!
I loved my dinner from last year so much, I wanted to have another one like it with heart shaped food. Only downside this year: work is manic at the moment and time is scarce. I just want to sleep right now! Luckily, a lot of you lovely people have posting excellent and easy ideas for a quick and simple yet lovely Valentine dinner. :)

I used the votive holders I made last year of course. I ran out of tea lights but these small candles work as well, I also have them in red so even more Valentiney!

For a starter I did the same as last year and created heart-shaped caviar (the cheap version!) on blinis. The bf brought some pirate balloons to cancel out all the sweetness of the hearts. LOL fantastic!

For the main course, I found this great idea via Pinterest: heart-shaped carrots!

To go with the carrots, another idea via Pinterest: heart-shaped hamburgers! So cute! I just bought quarter-pounders and shaped them with cookie cutters

This is the end result. I made rice with it as I actually forgot to buy potatoes for the heart-shaped mash, but this works as well. It was simple but very yummy :)

For dessert I made a red velvet cake (with Betty Crocker, they finally sell that here!) I also found the Betty Crocker cream cheese icing so it was simple and effective. I found some heart-shaped sugar decorations at Sainsburys so I used those all over. I love it!

And it looks amazing and tastes even better! It's a total calorie bomb but it's only Valentine once ;)

I hope you had a lovely Valentine's too! Tomorrow it's Friday at last so hopefully I will be able to do some more crafting :)

Happy Pancake Day 2013!

2013-02-12T21:01:00.000Z

Hi everyone!
I need to take a small break from Fabulising February to deal with the current February events. Today is pancake day! Remember last year when I had more time to celebrate and went to the pancake races? This year I had to work, but we still had pancakes of course :)

Not my best pancakes, but they were still nice

I literally only ate pancakes today, at work, at home, for dinner, for dessert... I wanted to use my Star Wars moulds to make some, but in the end I chose the easy option and had normal ones instead. With strawberries of course :)

So no crafting today as I need to recover from my pancake intake, but I'll come back with more fabulising projects soon!

Fabulising February - Felted Bag

2013-02-11T20:30:00.000Z

Hello again everyone!
After spending a few days repairing the fleece jacket from my last post, I've opted for an easy project today. I don't actually have a 'before' picture of this project, except on the mending pile. This was a sweater given to me by an ex-colleague who didn't wear it anymore and knew that I loved upcycling. It was one of those diamond-patterned knitwear thingies without sleeves. Not entirely sure what the correct name for those are actually. Oh, you can see it on the original mending pile picture. Hang on, let me point it out as well :)

Yes, there it is, I've encircled it :) This is where I just emptied the mending bag and took a picture, but you see a bit of this top.

So that was it. Not my style although I could see it having some Lorelai Gilmore potential, but SO not my colour. What to do? And then I realised, this is really good quality knitwear, let's use it as my very first felting project! So in the machine it went. Every single load of laundry I did, the sweater would be thrown in. I don't have a dryer so this was the only option. Not like I was in a hurry, so this part of the project took a few weeks of not months.

In the end it came out quite well and was a good bit smaller and tighter. I could have washed it even more but I guess at some point you just have to call it a day. right? Now that I had the felted bit, what else to do? I still didn't like the colour but I really wanted to use it. I had an idea for a bag but not exactly a lot of material to work with. Then, as I was organising many things at the same time, I realised I needed some of those plastic envelope thingies to keep stuff it and how cool would that be if I could make my own. Brilliant!

The end result is not bad, I think. Yes it's still pink but with some ribbon and a cute button it looks a lot better

:) I had one single button with a diamond pattern so of course that had to be used here.

This is it! Looks very crafty yes good enough to even use at work!

I have now also learned that sewing a button hole into a ribbon is not as easy as it sounds as the ribbon can snag a big. But you can't really see that so that's ok ;)

Tomorrow the sewing will have to take a break as it's pancake day! One of the best days of the year :) I'm trying to watch a pancake race again, but given that I actually have to work as well, that may not be possible. At least there will be pancakes for dinner, yumm!

Fabulising February - Fleece Jacket Remake

2013-02-10T23:06:00.000Z

Hi all,
It sure is a busy month! But I'm making good progress on my mending pile so things are looking up :) Today's finished Fabulising February project is technically a piece made from scratch. It still belongs in the mending pile though as it took a LONG time to get it the way it is (finally!). Let me start at the beginning.

Do you remember this fleece jacket?

If you don't, I don't blame you. This picture was from Christmas 2010! LOL. I bought this jacket at a rock festival in Germany many years ago. The zipper was broken so it was only a fiver and I absolutely loved it. After said many years of wearing it, it was literally falling apart. The seams were tearing and the fleece just looked awful. Having successfully recreated my fleece bathrobe without a pattern just by cutting up the original and copying the pieces onto new fleece, I wanted to try it with this jacket too.

So I bought purple fleece (at a craft show in 2011!) and still had some black left. I needed three shades so actually had two shades of purple. I cut the original jacket apart and copied all the pieces. That's when the problems started. There were so many pieces that I couldnt tell what went where anymore... PLUS I cut some pieces on the bias making the whole thing crooked, and I didnt have a zipper in the right colour. So on the pile it went.

Well, not anymore! I have taken it out and I have finally finished it! It has taken a few days, but it's done at last. Technically, it's still crooked and doesnt havent a zipper, but it still looks like the original :)

This is it! This is also the biggest 'duh' moment I've had in a LONG time... Once I had finally sorted out the pieces and sewed the two front pieces together, I realised that it was stripey!! Yes for real... I can't believe I was that silly! It really didn't click at all when I was making it. I could have saved myself so much trouble... But at least the hood is centered and they sort of look like stripes now :)

Angle view, you can see the buttons better on here. I still didn't have a zipper, but since I started this I had bought some plain buttons in various shades of purple so I used those alternately. Looks rather cute actually I think!

LOVE the hood, actually the best part of the whole jacket I think!

Don't look too closely, like I said it is still crooked. I used up ALL the fleece I had for this and had to make a few adjustments. So it doesn't fit 100% and still pulls to one side, but it's done! And I can always use it as a base for the next copy :) Plus having this finished made my bag looks a LOT smaller as this took up quite some space. I'm thinking of wearing it to work to keep warm when the aircon is on again :)

Yes, despite all the flaws, still really proud that I finally finished :) And absolutely love the buttons, much better than a boring zipper. It may have taken about two years, but it's done! Yay!

Fabulising February - Knit Dress

2013-02-06T22:30:00.000Z

Heyhey my lovely readers!
Are you excited about my next project? I am, it's all going quite well so far! My next project in Fabulising February is a knit dress that I bought in the charity shop sale about £1 or £2 a little while ago. This is the one:

Please don't ask me what era this is from, the print screams 70s to me but the size and the style more 80s I guess. It was huge and the guy in the store wanted to sell it to me as a dress (so more expensive) but it's clearly a very large sweater. Nevermind that I was going to turn it into a dress as I'm only a tiny little person ;)

I LOVE this print though, it's a bit psychedelic so this sweater definitely has potential. Of course the first thing I did was cut off that ridiculous collar. It just made the whole thing look out of balance so it had to go. This is knitwear, but I just cut it and hemmed it and it was fine. It did leave behind a ton of fluff, but I shook it out outside and most of it came off.

I'm sure that at this point you realise I'm horrible for taking photos mid-project. I'm always so into the project that I never remember to stop and take any! The next thing to come off were the sleeves. I wanted this to look very 70s and sleeves just didn't look right for that. Again the same thing: cut, hem, shake, done.

And taadaa, isn't this the cutest little dress? The straps are quite the same, the strips are just not lined correctly so it looks like on is much further away than the other. I love this dress, it came out exactly the way I wanted :)

Originally, I had planned to add some black wool fabric on the bottom as it was a bit short, but because this dress is so very stretchy, my 10cm fabric strip nearly came to my ankles so that didn't work out at all. Instead, I wore it with a black velvet mini dress underneath which worked out quite well.

Here it is on its first outing! It's a bit cold here still so I needed long sleeves but I just wore a black long-sleeve top underneath to solve that problem. When it gets warmer I can leave that bit out. It's not the best picture, but it was at the end of sewing group and I was just too eager to show it off to you guys to spend longer posing LOL.

Another day, another project done!

Fabulising February - Purple Ribbon Sweater

2013-02-04T19:30:00.000Z

Good evening everyone!
I'm so excited to actually do something with all these clothes :) It's like I'm out shopping but not actually spending any money and still get to have something new to wear. How cool is that!

Last year, one of the girls in my old job was cleaning out her closet and she found this purple turtleneck. Knowing my obsession with purple, she gave it to me.

It's a lovely shade of purple and it's very comfy, but somehow I really wanted to change something. The turtleneck bit really annoyed me as it was quite tight while the rest of the sweater was fairly loose.

So I put it on the dolly and looked at it for a while. As I was searching through my ribbon box while working on my previous project, I suddenly had it: lose the turtleneck! So I took in the sweater a bit (my friend is one size up from me), cut of the turtleneck, and used a purple ribbon to make the cutest detailing ever:

Isn't it the cutest?

I left the rest of the sweater as it is, otherwise the highlight would be list in whatever other changes I would make to it. So now it's the right size, and has the right type of neckline, WITH detail.

Closeup of the collar. I wove the ribbon through the hemline so I wouldn't have too many lines around the collar. I didnt use button holes as this fabric is really stretchy, and this worked out just great. I'm very pleased with it :)

I've done three items now and already there is a tiny difference in the size of the bag, let's hope I can keep it up and get everything done by the end of the month!

Fabulising February - Hellish Bag

2013-02-03T08:53:00.000Z

Hello again!
OMG today is the London Dungeon Sale! The London Dungeon is a London attraction that shows the darker side of London. They have this great tour about people like Jack the Ripper and Sweeney Todd. It's great! We went there years ago and spent about 4 hours in there. They are now moving to a different location and are having a yard sale. Can you believe it?! Of course we have to go. It's supposed to start at 11.30am so let's see if we can be there early enough or just completely miss out on everything. It is Sunday after all...

But in the theme of the London Dungeon, I finished my next project. You know the phrase: 'been there, done that, have the tshirt'? Well, I have the tshirt! LOL. It's a cute top, but it does raise some eyebrows when you wear this out so I never wore it a lot. And it was quite short as well which did not do it any favours really.

This is the top, it's cute but somehow not my favourite. So something had to be done.

Great sleeve detail on one sleeve...

And more detail on the other sleeve...

With all my sewing projects, I never have enough bags to put small projects in. I have the quilted bag for my cross-stitch, but anything else usually gets carried in a plastic bag. Boring! First of all, I cut the sleeves off the top and cut out the details as shown above. I then cut a large square out of the top showing the main print and discarded the rest. The square without the main print I used to sew on the details I cut out of the sleeves. Are you still with me? The I sewed the whole thing together into a cute little bag. But then what? Zipper/buttons/drawstring? I felt this bag called for a drawstring but didn't want to ruin the print so what to do?

Taadaa: press-studs! (ignore the hemming, it works and that is all that matters). I looped red ribbon through the bag to give a drawstring idea, but sewed in press-studs so the bag can look ribbon-cute but can still be closed all the way with press-studs. I think it's brilliant!

The main print side...

The detailed side.

I now love this little bag, it's so cute! And perfect to carry around some knitting or something in the the tube. A lovely little tribute to my trip to the London Dungeon all those years ago :)

UPDATE 03/02/2013:
I actually wrote this last night and due to a journey from hell yesterday evening, got home beyond late and slept until 1pm. So no sale for me... read in the paper that it was all gone within 30 mins though so I would have to get up at like 7 to get anything. But at least I have my lovely bag and am well rested. Not complaining! :)

Fabulising February - Bat Top

2013-02-01T22:00:00.000Z

Hi everyone!

It's the first of February and that means it is finally time for my February project :)I had a hard time trying to think of name for this project as 'mending month' sounded a bit boring. So I have come up with Fabulising February. What do you think?

You might remember that over the course of last year, I've gathered a serious amount of clothing that needed to be changed in one way or another. Some things just had to be repaired quickly, others just needed to be changed completely. By serious amount I mean one of those giant Ikea bags FULL of stuff. Oh my, where to start?

Yep, this is the lot... it may not look like much, but there are several layers here...

Mending can be really boring and I had lots of new projects on my list but I've finally sat down and started some of the work. During this month, I will hopefully have emptied the bag and shared many of my new creations with you :)

My frst project was an easy one. The bf once gave me a really cute top with a little bat on it and zippers on the sleeves. The sleeves were not lined and the zippers were metal and it was constantly bugging me so I cut off the zippers and made it into a sleeveless top. So far so good... Over time, for some reason, the top had also shrunk and I never wore it again. But the little bat was so cute! So Fabulising February to the rescue!

The bat top is on the left, on the right a black top that I never wore due to the high collar.

I cut out the bat from the first shirt, used something like wonderweb to iron it on the black top, and sewed it on for good measure. I still didnt like the high collar, so I cut off both the sleeves and the collar and this is the result:

The top is sooo comfy now! And much longer so I actually enjoy wearing it now :) Oh yes, this is the sock that I somehow never finished... ;)

First project done, this is looking promising so far. I hope you'll come back soon to see what else I've finished from this massive pile of stuff!

It's nearly time for the big project!

2013-01-31T18:52:00.003Z

Hi everyone!
It's the last day of January and do you know what that means? It's nearly time for my big February project! It's going to be creative yet practical. I can tell you this: it's not a costume for a change and has to do with this:

Curious? Come back tomorrow and read all about it!

Recipe - Peasant Bread (link through)

2013-01-27T17:02:00.002Z

Hi all!
I'm working hard for February's themed month but for some reason this weekend is a bit of a washout and I've been mainly cleaning. So far, I've cleaned the drains, done several loads of laundry, the dishes, AND baked this wonderful peasant bread that I found via Pinterest on this website.

It is amazing!!! I do own a breadmachine, a gift from the bf many years ago, but for some reason the bread is never really yummy, so I wanted to try if I can bake bread without it. I can never get the bread to rise properly and I either over or under knead it. But this bread is a no-knead bread and it is super simple and just so yummy!

The recipe is for two loaves and uses 1L pyrex bowls for baking. I thought that the two relatively small pyrex bowls I own were way too small, so I used a larger one and also a relatively large glass oven dish. I still divided the dough to make two loaves so no harm done, except that one of the loaves was a lot more flat than it was supposed to be. Oops... oh well, now I know for next time because I will SO make this again very soon!

The flatter bread, so yummy!

And the larger bread, it had more time to rise and the bowl was rounder so it looks better. I haven't cut into it yet, but it smells divine! I'm so proud :)

I was considering posting the original recipe here but have decided against it as the original blog post has very details instructions complete with pictures so best to just head on over there. CLICK HERE for the easiest most amazing bread :) Let me know what you think and if it worked out for you!

UPDATE 01/02/2012:
Hi everyone! I've baked this bread again last night, this time in the right bowls and with enough butter. The bread came out looking exactly like the picture in the original post! :) Using the 1L bowls definitely made a huge difference.

The bread rose really high this time! I forgot to take a picture of the dough rising, but even that looked like the original post. *huge smile*

I am so proud!

Romantic Trip to Paris

2013-01-24T08:00:00.000Z

Good morning everyone!
Time is flying at the moment and work and life are both extremely busy. But that does not stop the crafting :) I'm having a huge themed February planned so a lot of stuff will be posted then. Makes me look a tad lazy in January though hihi... This post is actually about our first trip in the new year, can you believe that after a looooong time of hinting, the bf took me on a romantic trip to Paris? It was lovely :) And COLD! When we planned this, the weather was cold but nice. Of course once we got there it got REALLY cold and it even snowed! The Parisians we spoke to ensured us that in Paris the snow never stays. Boy were they wrong... But it was quite magical really, plus I got to visit a few places I never managed to see before:

As you may know, I love movie locations and I always wanted to visit the Louvre, so the first thing on the list was that. It was a weekday still, so not too crowded. Check me out, I saw the two pyramids (Da Vinci Code)!

First stop on the list inside the museum: the Venus di Milo! I've seen this on tv so many times (mostly in Disney's Hercules actually lol) and there it was :)

It was a little crowded and for some reason there was this moment when no one else was around me so I could have this picture showing only the Monal Lisa and me hihi. It's really small actually but still impressive that I've fnally seen it :) I can't comment on the 'eyes following you around' bit coz it was really quite far...

The ceiling in one of the rooms, the decoration in there was quite amazing!

The Winged Victory of Samothrace, I LOVE this statue. I took so many pictures!

There was more to see, but I didn't want to spend the entire day inside the museum and my guidebook had about 7 things they classed as a 'must see', but three were closed to the public due to refurbishment and airco problems, and one I just couldn't find, so we left the museum and went outside into the cold. Of course we had to sneak a piccie in of the outside pyramid as well :)

It was the bf's first touristy visit to France so we did a few of the very touristy things (that were indoors coz it was freezing!), and I brought him along to Notre Dame. I love this church (Disney again!), it's really pretty. These are the 'eyes of Notre Dame' as sung by the preacher in the Hunchback of Notre Dame :)

The inside is of course always impressive.

As we made our way back to the hotel, it started snowing. And not just a little bit!

On the way back we walked past the Museum of Natural History, which had this mammoth outside covered in snow. Makes it look more real in a way ;)

The next morning, this is what Paris looked like. Covered in a thick blanket of snow, with lots of outdoorsy stuff closed. No cemetery visit for us (the Pere Lachaise was closed much to my disappointment) so we just have to go back when it's warmer for that one.

Yes it was this cold...

Sacre Coeur is always gorgeous, but in the snow it really blended it. We even went inside this time to escape the cold. Although we did take the touristy chairlift to get up the stairs hihi...

After a long walk, a quick trip by Moulin Rouge to take the obligatory picture, we somehow ended up in Parc Monceau, which was actually open and completely white. It was lovely :)

One last thing on my list to visit was Versailles. I have seen so many movies with this and never managed to make it here, so this was my chance. The lady at the train station told us it was closed due to the snow, but we called them and the palace was open but everything else was closed. Shame really but with the gardens snowed under there wasn't a lot to see in them anyway. The palace, however, was very impressive. I'm so glad we went! And yes, I love this picture LOL

The first thing you see is the chapel. This is a BIG chapel...

I took a ton of pictures, but this room is the Room of the King. Not very cozy but quite impressive.

The Hall of Mirrors! There is a French movie called Le Roi Danse and there is a big scene filmed here. I was so happy to finally see it!

This the Room of the Queen, allegedly where Marie Antoinette gave birth to her children. Still not very cozy really, I can understand why she had the little hamlet built in the gardens!

After a lovely dinner in a tiny restaurant with a fireplace, we went back to the hotel to leave the next day. The Eurostar was cancelling quite a few trains but we managed to get back ok before it got worse. And 3 hours on the train meant much progress on the cross stitch! But most of all, it was a lovely and romantic weekend :)