A Weekend Distraction

This is neither a sewing-related exercise, or a give-away, but I thought I would share it, in case it gave someone else any ideas for using up broken or unwanted items ;-)

Any mom knows, looking after a sick child is no fun, and ten days into it, I’m feeling very frustrated. I’m bored, the house work is piling up, and I’ve had no exercise. This weekend I felt I needed to do something creative before I really started to feel sorry for myself.

I bought this clock a few years ago. Unfortunately, it was knocked off the wall, and the soft aluminium scratched and buckled, and no matter how much I tried to straighten it out, it just never looked the same again. I just couldn’t bear to throw it out, so it’s been sitting in a cupboard, broken, for about two years.

The favourite clock can be seen in the background. I loved it so much. My husband always said it was awful, but I saw it in a home on Top Billing, so I couldn’t have been wrong!

I removed the clock mechanism, cleaned it up nicely, and a few coats of spray-paint later, I have a new photo frame :-)

It looks pretty good on our wall. Hooray for spray paint!

 

this one’s for the (little) girls

Friends, welcome to my first blog post!

This will be a place for me to share my sewing projects with you, and hopefully a place for me to pass them on to someone who can use them. A lot of what I make for practise can’t be used by anyone in my home, and when I put blood, sweat and tears (figuratively, of course) into a project, it pains me to leave it on a pile to get cut up again later for further practise. I would rather it go to someone who can appreciate and use it, and I hope we can help each other in this regard :-)

This week, I made the little green and white dress in the photo above. It requires a number of techniques I prefer to avoid: top-stitching, proper seam finishings, and gathering.

I used a French seam finish, and if you know anything about sewing, you may have heard them mentioned as “tricky’, but really, they are very easy. You don’t see them much in store-bought clothes. Maybe high-end clothing, but I’d know nothing about that….. ;-)

I like to gather “old-school” – three running stitches, not just one, so it takes three-times longer, but it looks three times better! As for the top-stitching, I think I still need a lot more practice.

The dress is made in 100% cotton, pulls over the head and would fit a child between two and four, depending on her chest measurement (approx. 60cm). It’s knee-length on an average two year old. On a tall, skinny four year old, it looks like this:

If you would like to make something similar to this, you can download the bodice pattern from here. The skirt is just two rectangles 2.5 times the width of the bodice.

GIVE-AWAY NOW CLOSED. Congratulations to Jocelyn Bell :-)

** My projects are given away, free of charge, but please note getting the item into your hands is for your own account, be it collection or postage, from EAST LONDON, SOUTH AFRICA. Items are for your own personal use or gift-giving, please do not re-sell. All images copyright Candice Joubert 2012 **