Tussah Silk Fish Salvia

Okay, today I would like to present something that has to do with fabrics but did not involve any needles from my side. Still it was quite an exciting project.

Being into baby wearing and beautiful wraps I bought a tussay silk wrap, Didymos Tussah Fische, some time ago. While the golden / bronze tussah fish are charming as they are, I still felt it was not really my colour, so I decided to dye the silk part of the fabric with blue food colour. I was a bit at loss as to how much I would need, so I got 20 ml of pure E 131. When I dyed it in a plastic tub it turned out to be a bit too weak, so I added 3 easter egg colour tablets. The result looked good in the tub, I just made a mistake in rinsing it immediately after before I put it in the oven to fix the colours. In the end the desired petrol/ blue did not show but instead a faint blueish green. Reminds me of pictures of Didymos Jim Salvia, so here are my Salvia Fish:

With a Medium sized blue sling ring so that I can tie my  favourite wrap job 

against the cold

Yes, it's cold again here... So it kinda makes sense to show the blanket that I made for our youngest in the bike trailer. The pattern was a free pattern from kallou france - they have now removed it and you can only get a paying pattern, so I was lucky.

Unfortunately the whole blanket was too thick for in the car seat, but it worked well in the bike trailer.

strawberry baby shoes

Strawberries were the theme of our birth notifications and baby gifts (doopsuiker) almost one year ago. Now our youngest is busy crawling and standing up so finally she needed leather shoes - following up the strawberry theme:

The leather I got from  manu-faktur.eu, where you can get all kinds of sizes and colours.

I used bra-straps of an old bra of mine as elastics...

The colour scheme is just adorable, I love the red combined with blue and turquoise and they just look awesome with this body dress:

recycled babywearing coat - diy tragemantel

This coat, about 20 years old, a present from my grandmother (but not hers, I don't want to overdo it here ;) ) has saved me in the wintermonths of my two pregnancies: Baggy and cosy. Non-pregnant, however, 'baggy' is not exactly what you would want for your coat, hanging shouldercaps (here just above the elbow) make it even more baggy and cumbersome to lift your arms.

 On the other hand I have always wanted a babywearing coat for cold winter days. Something that can be worn with but also without baby on the back. So here I went, courageously cutting my way through the coat. First I adapted the shoulders,cutting away lots of material, which in the end was missing lengthwise at the sleeves. The lining had to be adjusted and mended, which was at least as cumbersome as adapting the outer shell of the coat. I used checkered cooked wool for the inserted piece and also for the cuffs:

There are two horizontal zippers from each side to the middle and one vertical. the other vertical zipper of the same brand and length is sewn between two layers of cooked wool of the insert piece. I just found out that it also fits to my fleece jacket, so if ever I want to wear my little one belly to belly and I need a jacket, I have this option, too!

  The insert piece is somewhat egg-shaped. I applied elastic cords horizontally and around the head-support bit (it's not really meant to be supportive for a sleeping baby, but at least it is a good protection against the wind.

Horizontally I added a flap to have some more protection against cold and wind while wearing and to cover the horizontal zippers when I wear the coat without my baby and without the insert.
Actually I had wanted to pimp the coat a bit more with this berry coloured cooked wool - lovely material! - but then other projects came up... But I guess this is the reason, why I didn't post this earlier ;)

I still need to take some pics of the coat without the insert, hopefully soon... 

Shirts for a swap

For our youngest we still needed a nice high chair, since the oldest doesn't want to give up hers. So I was quite happy when somebody from my Belgian forum offered to swap their wooden chair for two shirts and a hat for her boys coming from under my sewing machine ;)

The hat, another wendezipfelmütze, pattern by klimperklein

Here's the shirt for the younger boy. I used my own pattern and Janeasworld Zwergenwelt fabric.

The shirt for the older boy, pattern: Ottobre 1/2012, mahpee, fabric: Janeasworld

I hope they are happy with their swap! Our youngest at least likes her new chair!

Lucky me

I was picked to test a new (still to come, otherwise testing wouldn't make sense) e-book by klimperklein! It's a brilliant tutorial for a babyshirt with American neckline, definitely to be recommended! I always learn something new with these tutorials!

Here it is:

American neckline

Hem

Detail sleeve appliqué

model pics

My baby girl has mostly size 74 at the moment and I made size 80, which is still a bit too big but not enormously, I would say. So fitting is fine!

Luisa body dress

In German sewing blogger circles there is a blogger, Schnabelina, who writes awesome tutorials, designs wonderful clothes and other items and just gives these tutorials to anyone for FREE! Some tutorials you can find on her blog, others will be sent to you by e-mail, but still for free. Recently she asked for a voluntary contribution via an amazon voucher, since she wanted to get some software for creating patterns. It was good to see that many people chipped in and she had the software quite quickly.

Her most recent tutorial is the body dress Luisa. It is actually a very thorough tutorial showing and explaining lots of variations and on top of the dress also a pattern for some trousers.

I started off with the trousers in red knit velour, which also fit perfectly to the retroflower baby set. I will show pictures of them later on, they were in the washing machine, when I took pics of the body dress.

So here it is, a combination of two fabrics from Janeasworld with red jersey and pink borders.

The body piece

Neckline

My first rolled hem with the W6 overlock machine. Not perfect all around, but with a bit of practice...

I'm quite happy with the result and will certainly make more of these for summer. This one I might still pimp a bit and show you the pictures then.