♥Pod

It seems that this year, again, February sees me being drawn to hearts and headphones. I actually made the very first version of this little ♥Pod (or coeur ecouteur, rhymes and sounds somehow more romantic) back in 2008 and, I think, it must have been one of the first presents I ever made for my man. And now in 2012, I made some more as Valentine gifts with our daughter watching every step from her prime spot in the sling. 

Materials: felt or fabric of your choice, little box (a match box would be cute), paint (optional), old headphones (broken ones or the crackling ones you get on airplanes), cotton balls, safety pin, tape

1) pin felt/fabric squares together, right sides facing each other 

2) draw a ♥ on one of the squares

3) sew along the drawn line, leave a generous inch open 

4) turn inside out (a chopstick might come in handy) 

5) stuff with cotton balls one strand at a time 

6) sew the little opening together 

7) poke a hole in the ♥ (a knitting needle works well) 

8) cut one headphone as short or as long as you want 

9) thread the headphone through the hole of the ♥ 

10) tie a knot at the end of the headphone wire and attach the safety pin

11) paint the box, let it dry 

12) cover the little inside pad of the box with fabric & fix it with tape 

13) put the ♥ in the box 

14) give it to somebody you love

penguin

I was sewing on and off on this little Penguin backpack in almost black denim for the past week and just finished it in time for the third birthday of a little friend of ours. It's coming into being turned into a progress report of Little E; while I was tracing the pattern from the book, talking to her about all the different parts, she fell asleep on her blanket next to me, napping for the very first time on the floor. While I was piping the feet she rolled from her belly to her back. While I was busy with the zipper she grabbed tightly around her red wooden play-ring. And when I showed her the final product she firmly reached for Penguin's beak and put it in her mouth. 

The pattern comes from Little Things to Sew and was great to follow. Putting the bird together in so many little steps and with only one eye and a quarter of one's mind focused on the task at hand, really shows when instructions are clearly written; and these are. I had no difficulties sewing the backpack and more importantly finding my way back into the project after every interruption. 

The only mini alteration I made to the original is the added piping on the feet, the beak (cut from an old skirt of mine) and the belly (the latter then also being 'stitched in the ditch'). The original pattern pieces have practical pivoting dots, so it's really easy to add the piping; just cut little notches where the piping will meet the dots to curve the cord along the stitches.

trench suit

How great it is that fabulous ventures such as Project Run & Play exist, whose weekly challenge has this time nudged me to tackle another item on my mental 'baby needs' list (well, lasy week's 'need factor' is debatable) since she outgrew her snow outfit. Just in time I received the spring 2012 Ottobre magazine with this slightly boring pattern:

(viewers of the photo will certainly ask themselves whether this darling baby is a girl or a boy).

Yet, as it turns out simple patterns make for great starting points. To make the overall more interesting I shifted the invisible zipper to the right, and added little pockets with piped edges. And this time I managed to align the stripes, more or less.

Inspired by the flaps on trench coats, I added windbreaker wings (is there a correct term?) on one side and the back, also with piping. To be honest, the blue right side is not an intentional design element. I stupidly cut this piece on the wrong side and did not have enough fabric left to cut a new one. But with time it has grown on me and I like how it plays up the piping which uses the same fabric. Luckily, the material of both the stripy and the dark blue fabric is very similar.

 And for the sheer cuteness of it and since I've sewn so many ears in the past year, I also added some ears to the hood. I was to lazy to completely redesign the hood pattern, so I merely sewed them onto the sides (it's a bit like sewing darts). So far Little E seems to like her new trench suit and be it only because it makes her even more oblivious to the wind than she already is in her sling. The easy in and out with the zipper might help as well. Given the pace of her growing I'm however afraid this outfit will be much too small by the time she can spot the yellow elephant. But then again, by that time we might actually see some sunshine. Even in Scotland..

the jabara dress

Ever since I laid my hands on Tomoko Nakamichi's Pattern Magic 2, I wanted to make a dress for Little E with ball-shaped accordion (jabara) sleeves. There are lots of other pattern ideas in the book, equally unsuitable for children's clothes, that looked like a great challenge to try out, but the puffy sleeves seemed especially marvellous. And then I saw this stunning jabara version on rastacuero and knew I had to give it a try as well. Ignoring any sense of practicality and spending the middle of a couple of nights tweaking and twitching little piecs of fabric, I was quite conscious of the fact that, - let's face it - this dress will presumably not be worn a lot. It's a size 1, and by this time E will probably have entered the district of crawling-almost-walking and a bubble dress with enormously sleeves might not make the cut when faced with serious competition by (also Mama-made) more practical dungarees and T-shirt pants. But I wanted to try this design and so I did. The instructions given in Pattern Magic are all rather on the minimalistic side, Nakamichi gives you just enough to get your head racing; seamstress tangram! But I had a lot of fun figuring out a pattern and since I was in learning  mode I thought it might be nice to try my hands on a bubble dress while I was at it.

I didn't have a bubble dress pattern for this particular size but there was one size 100-130 cm in the originally Japanese 'Joilies tenues pour fillettes coquettes', a beautiful book despite it's unfortunate French title. Looking at the instructions I figured out the basics of a bubble dress (as I understand it in a nutshell; make it wide and add a shorter and thinner lining). These are really easy to sew and if you have a blouse or simple smock pattern you can make it bubbly in no time.

At the moment I'm following with much admiration and awe the super talented creations over at PR&P and since they have a sew-along competition each week I'm tempted to enter my jabara dress. However, part of me feel like this would be cheating as the challenge this week was to choose a decade and design a children's outfit based on the fashion trends during that era. Basically, this dress is an utter mess when seen through the lens of fashion history. The accordion sleeve might place it in the Mary Stuart life guard category, the Peter Pan collar reads 1920ies, the bubble dress came along in the 50ies, and then the colour, very much 2011. If this was not just me playing around with a bit of cheap fabric I could see Tim Gunn peeking over my shoulders being concerned about my 'editing', or more to the point the lack thereof. 

rainbow spool rack

Shortly after I started sewing almost three years ago my clever man made me this pencil spool rack which has a prime spot in our living room and usually catches a compliment or two from first-time visitors to our flat. Needless to say I'm still terribly smitten with it no matter how many times per day I see it or how many times I've taken spools back and from its rainbow pencils. No wonder we thought that our friend who got my old sewing machine when I went Swiss last year (would it be of interest to some if I wrote a more detailed love letter review about my Bernina ?) would need a mood-enhancing spool rack to accompany her on future sewing sprees. 

And so last minute, mere hours before our friend arrived for Christmas dinner, a spool rack was made. In case you want to build one yourself, or subtly make someone build it for you, here is how you could go about it: 

Materials needed: 1) hammer,  2) drill, 3) paint,  4) wood rasp, 5) pencil,  6) saw, 7) coloured pencils, 8) paint brush, 9) nails, 10) measuring tape/rod, 11) wood glue, 12) lath.

Start by making the rectangle structure for the spool rack. Cut the lath in four parts, rasp the ends and hammer them together. Then you prepare the rows for the pencils. Cut as many parts as you want (my big version has 5, its little sibling only 3) and rasp them. Depending on how many spool you want the rack to hold, mark and drill little holes for the pencils. Next hammer (or drill) the rows inside the construction. Pick a colour that you like and paint the rack. You don't need much paint so any odd leftover will probably do. 

And now to the spool pencils. Match pencils and spools. Cut pencils into your desired length and rasp carefully. If the colour on your rack is dry stick the pencils inside the little holes you've drilled. Many might stay fix and firm all by themselves, but a little glue makes matters more solid. 

And you're done. Easy right? Although to be honest if I would attempt to make one it would probably look terribly tatty and fall apart if you did so much as shyly look at it, like one unfortunate bird house I made in third grade...

table manners

Someone needs to work on her table manners, but until then I made Little E a bunch of neckerchiefs to put an end to her, albeit lovely smelling, milky neck and this little cheese factory she regularly develops in the many folds of her chubby throat. She runs through 3-6 a day, so the pile below shows only the half that was not residing in the laundry basket.

I merely gauged what the neckerchief should look like, drew a triangle with a slightly round curve for the neck and stitched some animals on the front fabric before sewing the soft jersey back (old T-shirts) right sides facing to the über-absorbent front fabric. If you are looking for instructions check out this Kristin's bib tutorial. To sew a neckerchief instead simply modify her pattern a bit by creating a triangle and lengthening the ends 3 inches or so on every side so that you can tie a knot and need no velcro. And if you have a messy baby like me, it might be preferable to use a spongy fabric like terry cloth for the front fabric.