“Bigger on the inside” travel set

I wish I had made a Tardis (preferably with The Doctor included – preferably David Tennant) but I made a travel set instead!

We had an upcoming holiday to France. Only problem: Baby is not a light packer… Or rather mommy is not a light packer for the baby. So with a car filled with baby necessities we needed luggage that we could push and shove into the last remaining airpocket 🙂

Enter: the Portside Travel Set by Grainline Studio.

I’m seriously IN LOVE with this pattern. I’ve never been the one to sew anything but clothes but this was the exception. I decided to make a set for me, my husband and the baby (talking about being ambitious)

I could praise this pattern all night long. It’s perfectly drafted, everything matches up perfectly and the explanation is very clear!

I used a brown cotton canvas for the bottoms, a white/navy blue linen look canvas for the upper part and off white canvas for the lining. I opted for navy blue webbing for the straps and a navy blue metal zip (I heart metal zips). This might not seem like the most ‘fun’ bag (I’m totally jealous of the one I made the baby) but I felt great carrying it around and my husband loved it as well. And doesn’t this fabric look like it could be a 10th Doctor suit?

I decided to omit the shoulder strap since I knew I would never use it.
Apart from that I followed the pattern to a T.
Once you get past interfacing the gazillion pieces (seriously, so many pieces! – Note: I did have to interface 3 sets!) this is actually quite a quick sew. The only trouble I had was when I had to insert the zips ’cause I suck at putting them in by machine, so I decided to hand pick them.

In retrospect the only mistake I made is that I didn’t attach the straps like Jen suggested and it ripped in transport, they did look nice though and I love the pockets! (Note: Very easy fix)

I sadly wasn’t able to finish the entire set because I started this only the day before we were supposed to leave. (It’s a quick sew, but not that quick) But I did manage to finish the three duffel (duffle?) bags and those were the most important ones anyway!

But why did I call them “Bigger on the inside”? Because these are HUGE on the inside! I was able to fit an entire week worth of stuff inside one of them (apart from my shoes obviously, but then again, if I had only taken two pair instead of three, they would have fitted inside as well). To give you an idea. My bag contained: 2 small towels, 1 large, 5 dresses, 2 jumpsuits, underwear and socks, a jacket, my toiletries, accessories, a bikini, two scarves, 2 books and all my chargers).

One last thing: Baby LOVES her bag!

The One with the Perfect Scarf

If there is one thing I love, it’s an infinity scarf. They are so easy to wear and never fall off.

I’ve had the scarf on the left for a few years now and I love wearing it in Spring and Autumn. It really makes a solid outfit pop. Only problem is that it doesn’t match a lot of my clothes (yet, I’ve got a matching Lady Skater planned)

So today I was in dire need of a quick project and my precious fabric was the answer. My 9m bolt were actually 2 pieces. One 7,20m and the other 1,80m. I decided to use the smaller piece for the scarf and prewash it to see what effect it would have on my fabric. Apart from the fact that it frays like hell, it got very soft and quite drapey. It is quite thick so making a gathered skirt is out of the question.

Sewing this thing only took 5 minutes. I used the fabric from selvedge to selvedge so I only have one seam. I opted for a French seam because this fabric frays a lot!

I’m happy with the way it turned out, although it is quite bulky. I might make it less wide, but I’m not sure yet.

It does coordinate nicely with most of ‘my colours’.

And it’s not just usable as a scarf!

I’m sure I’ll get a ton of wear out of this!

PS Sorry about the blurry phonepics but I just couldn’t wait to show you this!

The one where I made pillows

Over the weekend we’ve moved our living room downstairs. It’s such a relief, because now I can do all the normal stuff without having to leave the baby alone. Since we haven’t got any doors downstairs yet, it’s basically one giant room so I can get to here so much faster 🙂

I love how bright it is downstairs and the fact that I can both see my garden and look out on the street. I never realised I missed it since our previous apartment only had skylights. I’m actually a bit sorry I took the bigger backroom as my sewing room as it looks out onto a wall and doesn’t have any direct sunlight. Maybe I can convince the husband to switch rooms…

But this is not what this post is supposed to be about.

When we moved our sofas I realised that the pillows we had been using were far overdue. They had been washed far too many times to get all the dust out and they had milk stains all over. Since they were the cheap IKEA kind and wouldn’t match our new interior anyway, I threw them out.

I bought new ‘naked’ pillows and for the first time ever I sewed something for our house. Since we haven’t decided on our paint or wallpaper yet, I didn’t want to spend any money on covers that wouldn’t last long anyway.

I had this lovely blue wool felt in my stash. It was given to me by a friend last year and I had just enough for 3 pillow covers. Which meant I had just enough for 3 monogrammed pillow covers.

I love how they turned out and they feel a lot firmer than the old ones.

Husband comment: They’re so soft!

The One with the Bapron

My baby is a spitter, a cute one, but a spitter non the less. It’s amazing that she grows like she does, considering all the milk she doesn’t keep down.

She isn’t bothered by it and if it were just about extra laundry nor would I be. But she doesn’t like to change clothes, so having to do it 5-6 times a day because she’s covered in milk, isn’t making her any happier.

So I had to think of something. And when I came across the Bapron (baby apron), I felt like I found my answer.
It seems like the perfect solution to keep her clothes from getting soaked everytime and it doesn’t turn around like her bibs do, because she’s one lively little baby 🙂

So despite the fact that the pattern is meant for 6 month old babies and older, I ordered the pattern straight away.
I had to be in town anyway so I picked up some fat quarters and bias tape to get started.

I knew the pattern would be way too big so I took a gamble and scaled it at 75%. It worked like a charm, perfect size for my 7 week old baby. (7 weeks already, time flies!)
Because it was so small I managed to get 4 baprons out of 1 fat quarter. For backing I used a cheap towel in a matching colour.
Sewing it up was fairly easy, I only fiddled a bit with the bias binding.

I love the result and it’s been tested already! Works like a charm 🙂

 

Update: I made two more and I’ve got another one cut out but ran out of bias tape.

Doesn’t she look cute!

As far as sewing for myself goes, I’ve been buying fabric and patterns. I’ve been glueing, tracing and cutting them. But there hasn’t been any actual sewing. It’s just so hard to leave the baby alone to go to my sewing room, even if she’s napping 🙂 I haven’t got a table in our temporary living room so I can do all the prep work but not the sewing itself.

The One with the Very Selfless Sewing

I did some seriously selfless sewing today. Not only did I make something that isn’t for me, it isn’t even a present I’ll be giving. I made a sleeping bag for a baby. A few months ago my colleague bought …

For you February – Project Weekender Bag & Project Pajamas

This For You February post isn’t the most impressive one but I had fun doing it so I wanted to share it anyway.

For You February for my Dad.

It was my father’s birthday coming up and I wanted to give him something personal. He’s a Landrover Defender maniac and he goes away on weekends with a Landrover club a lot. But everytime he has to take one of my mother’s bags and they are all quite feminine. So I decided to make him a weekender bag.

I based my bag on this tutorial for a zippered box pouch. I only made it a lot bigger and added 2 handles. I wanted to incorporate the Landrover logo and decided to carve a stamp. This was also a first and I think it turned out really nice. (I am aware this is technically copyright infringement, but because it was just a gift for my father I thought what the hell.)

He was dead happy with the result and took it to work the next day to show all his colleagues what his ‘little’ girl made him 🙂

Note: As you can see on the close up of the zipper I had a little touch-and-melt between the zipper and my iron. Whoops, didn’t think about the fact that plastic zippers melt 🙂

For you February for my Mom.

Remember the pajamas I made for myself? Well, my mother loved the pants so much I gave them to her. A few days later she called me saying she had a huge problem. She wasn’t able to take the pants off long enough to get them washed 🙂 She wanted to live in them, they were that comfy and warm.

So I decided to make her another pair. This time I went for an off-white flannel. I saw it as a good opportunity to try out some decorative stitches on my new machine. I wanted to try flowers but my mother isn’t really the flowery type so I chose ton-sur-ton thread and went for geometric stitches instead. She loved them and now both pants are on heavy rotation.

I’m really sorry for the bad photo quality on this one, but my mother took these pictures with her iPad.

Note: I have enough of this flannel and the plaid flannel left to make some for me, so yay! 🙂

How is your For You February going?