Craft stall makes

Scrunchies (25 of them)

Earrings (a dozen)

For my charity craft stall in May.

Soft Stripes

Also from the remnant bin this lovely soft fabric has made a really cosy turtleneck in some of my favourite colours. It'll work well with either my coral or duck egg fleece tops I bought in the sale.

New Look 6735 with sleeves lengthened by 4" and a deep cowl neck added instead of the neckband. These are great in the winter.

 It is not really looking like a SWAP is it?  hmmmmm
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Ok I think I have it now.

I have got two SWAPs going and I can't really mix both together.

One is navy, white and something else (spring green perhaps).
The other is closer to my original concept board it has coral pink and duck egg blue mixed with ivory, stone and taupe.
Perhaps we'll see which gets the furthest? My favourite is the coral/duck egg blue/neutrals though.
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Jungle January : Leopard print tee

I'm not quite sure how one joins in with Jungle January, but here's my attempt to do so.

I've used my usual favourite knit top pattern, New Look 6735, and lengthened the sleeves by 4" to make them long sleeves.
I think this is a leopard print. It is maybe not that easy to see but the background is off white rather than cream or tan and the print is taupe and dark brown, so a less obviously warm toned animal print.
It is a very fine jersey print which I handled with great care, and avoided any stretching in the wrong direction. There was a section of fabric without the darker colourway, that went into scrap filling as it didn't look good at all.

The fabric was pulled from the remnant bin at the local roll end shop on Saturday afternoon, so its been in the stash under a week which is good.
This is the same bin from which I pulled the navy marl print I used for this top. Which I love and wear a lot.
However its also the same bin which provided the fabrics for the magical shrinking stripe top and the magical growing ribbed top as well as various fabrics which ran in the prewash etc, so very much hit and miss, at bargain prices. Hoping this one is a hit.

There seems to be a navy grouping, a neutrals grouping and a duck egg blue grouping. I have plain bottoms planned though not yet sewn so maybe it'll be OK?

Ottobre Autumn Winter 5/2014 Hoodie no 9

Here's Ottobre Autumn Winter 5/2014 Hoodie number 9 in the navy/white/silver shooting stars print. I made a size 46 flared out a bit at the hip.

 front

 back

 side showing the split hem

The line drawing

This is such thick cotton fabric I have had to replace a needle in the overlocker and the one in the sewing machine as they were totalled by this fabric.
It was supposed to be a neutral to wear with navy jeans, but it is quite a strong print. 

Navy and white shooting stars tee

This is actually cut from the scraps after I cut out the Ottobre Autumn Winter 5/2014 Hoodie number 9 which will be coming tomorrow hopefully.

So in the meantime you have the usual New Look 6735 tee with the short sleeve lengthened slightly.
The fabric is white printed with the navy/silver design so I have used white thread in the sewing machine, overlocker and coverhem machine for the construction.
This wasn't originally planned to be in my SWAP but in may end up in it depending on how things go.
This year I am allowing my inner child a bit more creative leeway to choose what to sew next, because I need it to be fun and not too planned.

Blue and white floral sweater knit

Here's a top from a blue and white sweater knit I bought on Monday.
It was absolutely lovely to sew, so will have to see what it is like to wear.

I think this could be really nice with jeans or anything navy. There is some left over so I am thinking about a colour blocked sweatshirt for the weekend. I seem to be slightly more drawn to these florals at the moment though I am not sure why.

Here's the gold stripe top on the dummy showing how it drapes at the side when worn.

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I bought some new brown leather boots and want to sew some things to co-ordinate those with things I have previously made. The inspiration fabrics from stash are all animal prints and mostly sweater knits, so would not go with each other, but would work with existing plain pieces and the new boots.

So for example one sweater knit has a cream background with grey and brown print, this would let me wear my grey Vogue 2989 ponte skirt with the new brown boots.

This is always the tricky thing for me. I come up with the SWAP plan and start on it then get distracted by shiny new things.
Do I stick to the plan to prove to you that I can do so, or do I follow the current inspiration of fun things I want to sew?

My current approach is going to be stay with white thread and sew things this week using that. I'll try to do as many SWAP garments as I can in that time. I've already rehemmed two white curtain sets so it has been useful.

Then give myself permission to switch over to ivory thread on all the machines, sew some SWAP garments and also some of these new animal print items.

Then move onto navy thread, make DBFs travel robe and my navy based things.

After that I will go to another thread colour and see what I need to sew next.

Navy components

I've been thinking about a navy set using the dirty denim for some jean leggings, sewing two tunics or tops, a Cardigan and a hoodie. Maybe a denim skirt if leftovers permit.
Only the dirty denim jeans are in the plan at the moment.

So fabrics are
Navy and white stripe knit
Navy knit with star print
Navy white and silver star print sweatshirt fabric
Navy and natural dirty stretch denim.

Duck Egg Blue 3/4 sleeve tee

New Look 6735 tee, from a lovely white and duck egg blue print knit bought from the Monday Market Man a few months ago.

This is the first item for my SWAP.

I am keeping the SWAP to pieces I am sure I will wear and are relatively straightforward to sew as this year during SWAP I have a very busy workload with multiple go-lives plus I am away for three weeks on holiday near the end of the SWAP timeframe.
So in order to actually complete the SWAP and all the items sewn be things I really want it is going to be quite heavy on knit tops, trousers and cardigans. There will hopefully be a skirt and jacket as well but that is by no means certain.

I found this top which I made last March but has not yet been part of a collection. I think I might include it as a previously sewn item instead of the one on the top right.

When worn it ruches up on the longer side and gives an interesting effect.

I think it would be a bit boring if I made all my knit tops from the same pattern so I think the mint/pink/taupe print can be the Kirsten Kimono tee, the other duck egg print top will be the top from Simplicity 2977 with sleeves added.
The pink top is still to be decided, but probably won't be another plain scoop neck, perhaps I'll try a new pattern.

Starting on the SWAP plan

Now that I've finished with my fleece scraps and then  switched over to white thread to hem the sewing room curtains so they finish above the radiator I can move on to anything in the SWAP plan which could be sewn up in white.

Here was my original SWAP plan, I am hoping to stick to it as closely as I can for once, let's see how that works out over the next few months.

Four4 of the knit top fabrics have a white background so I think I will start with them whilst I have white thread on the machines. I will probably also throw in some non SWAP sewing using white thread, probably PJs, laundry bags and other simple projects.

Monthly Magazine Make - Fleece Hats

I had an idea to make something based on instructions/pattern from a sewing magazine every month during 2016, I'm starting a few days early to use up some fleece scraps.

Based on this fleece hat pattern from Sew Today magazine December 1995/January 1996

I have sewn 4 hats from fleece scraps left from the cardigans cut from blankets, though I didn't have enough for the turn up at the bottom, they are just little fleece beanie hats of various sizes based on the scrap size.

A great way to use up fleece scraps, mine will be for sale for a few pounds on my charity craft stall in May.

Faux fur cardigan

Using the basic shawl collared cardigan pattern again and a large plush blanket I made 2 of these cardigans.

The other one is slightly longer and has hemmed sleeves instead of cuffs and was a Christmas gift for my friend in the choir, it was sewn, wrapped and given away before it got photographed.
There was enough blanket left over for me to make a second one for me which is above.
This is such warm fabric that you could wear it instead of a thick fleece or wool sweater so not sure how useful it will be for either of us given how mild it is at the moment.

Monthly Magazine Make 2016

I am planning a Monthly Magazine Make from my new and stashed sewing magazines in 2016.
The idea of this is to make something for my charity craft stall, a gift or to wear myself which is made from a magazine.

This will of course include Burda magazine but I wanted to also allow myself to explore MyImage, Ottobre, SewingWorld and various others I already have. Other than buying the monthly Burdas I probably won't buy many new ones but hope to mine the things I already have.

I'm thinking mittens, hedgehog pincushions and suspect I will be generally erring towards the simpler items. I will share pictures of the patterns or links as and where I can in case others are inspired.

You can download the pattern from Burda.de here. Link to Pattern Download.

Red sparkle top

For Christmas sweater day tomorrow (if I'm brave enough).

This knit top from the usual pattern has a turtleneck, cuffs and is sewn from a red knit with lurex sparkle on the right side.
It was a remnant from the local cheap roll end shop, pulled from the stash as I don't go there anymore having had too many run/shrink problems.

Update

Dear Sewing Friends, thought you might like a bit of an update.

It is not that I have not been posting my sewing projects, I just haven't been doing any new ones.
Work got busy, I joined a local church choir and I've started working my way through a large series of novels (Matthew Bartholomew books by Susanna Gregory.)

I still try to read sewing blogs and occasionally comment briefly and I pop in and out of SG.
I have not been in the sewing room for a while and am not doing anything with my SWAP at the moment.
I dare say at some point that will change, but hey at least you know I am not ill nor have left the country!

Cheers Ruthie

Christmas Fleece Cardigan Jacket

From fleece blanket throw

to fleece cardigan jacket

in one evening.