Options, options: it can be hard to choose, but it is nice to have them.
A soft purple washed silk sash added to a flowery cotton dress. Long enough for a big bow. Washed silk, so it can be popped in the machine on a gentle cool cycle if sticky fingers leave dotty little prints on it.
The high necked cotton voile dress with giant purple flowers. A big semi-circle skirt falls elegantly below knees scraped while playing with her friends yesterday.
A thin self-fabric sash ties the bodice smoothly against her delicate chest.
100% cotton, fully lined with invisible zip at centre back.
Monsoon blues and pretty purples for warm summer days..
..with a v-shaped back to slip over independent heads, letting Mummy steal a few extra winks.
An empire-waisted bodice with an a-line skirt let little legs run free in the garden and over three metres of ruffle flutter softly as she moves.
The exposed seams are clean finished or bound with hand made bias binding to match the dress.
The dress is 100% fine cotton with a soft 100% cotton lining.
A little grey dress with a splash of colour for girls who like to be girlie, but like to stand out next to their friends in pink.
A semi-circle, the skirt flares open from an empire-waist for hours of twirling in the garden, while not opening too high, making sure she is still proper for tea with Great Aunt Maud.
This dress has 100% cotton outer and 100% soft cotton lining with a zip in the centre back. All exposed seams are clean finished. The pattern is drafted by me.
Front of dress
A roomy lawn cotton dress with a nearly hidden pocket for little treasures..
Back of dress with deep v-neck to slip over head
..with no zips or buttons, so it’s easy to put on without Mum’s help..
Clean-finished seams
..and as beautiful on the inside as it is on the out.
Pattern by Burda.
Oh my goodness! I just realised I was boasting about how much sewing I was doing and how I was going to share photos..and then didn’t! Forgive me.
I was sewing. Then I stopped. I decided to get into action (of another sort) and organise a shop. It’s nearly there, so I should be able to share it with you in a couple of weeks.
So for now, I leave you with this small Christmas skirt. It’s made of snuggly medium-weight velvet with a slight stretch, perfect for keeping little legs warm while playing in the snow. Best of all? It’s my own pattern.
I started making this as a quick project. Just a few hours. Then I realised I’d made the fundamental mistake of not having enough fabric for the original pattern.
Determined not to give up, having cut and sewn the bodice, I modified the pattern and added a ruffle.
It’s my first..and I have a feeling it won’t be my last!
I recently had the opportunity to help transform a room for a party.
A large ghastly red door needed to be prettified, so a large piece of grey cotton neutralised the offending colour.
Party-goers helped make the handmade cotton flowers and attach them to thick satin ribbon.
This is a reconstruction..everything was carefully ironed at the time!
A little change after so much pink! A blue so-deep-you-can-get-lost-in-it feather to peek out between gentle blonde curls.
A little girl who wears a long pink dress becomes a princess. A little princess has to have flowers in her hair. A real princess has to have flowers to match her dress.
The stack of fabric from the last post became this: Elodie’s dress.
Pure silk shantung, with a pure silk chiffon sash (a nightmare to sew..) and a silk mix lining. This dress took a fair amount of time to make, but relieved in stress what it swallowed in hours!
(If you are observant, you will see the black stitches along the hem. These photos were taken before Elodie had her fitting.)
I haven’t been around for a little while because I’ve been terribly busy. My latest project is a special dress for Elodie. I’ve made a muslin for her to try on for size before I start cutting these silks. I’m really looking forward to this one!
“What large eyes you’ve got!” she exclaimed.
“All the better to see you with.”
“What large teeth you’ve got!”
“All the better to eat you with!”
Under her red cape, Little Red Riding Hood must have worn a dress like this.
Small flowers. Floppy flowers. Individually cut petals. Hand beaded stamen.
Begging to be put in swept back hair, pinned on a jumper or attached to a bag.
That is, of course, if Mr MacTavish lets them go!
Last year I tried hard to design a template for an elephant – my first ever stuffed animal (plushy). It was all fine, but the belly just wouldn’t work. Eventually I gave up and looked for a pattern instead. Lo and behold, I couldn’t find one!
Then, in a whim of madness (because my French is bad) I bought French Burda magazine this month. And what do you know, they had a template for a sitting down elephant! It took some time, dictionaries and cursing, but Elephant is here.
Mr MacTavish is not so sure if Elephant is competition or not. He thought he’d test him out – by hitting Elephant’s trunk.
That was after he’d given it a good old sniff.
Once upon a time I had a favourite green jumper. Liking it so much, I bought another two, in different colours. One day, many months later, I popped them in the machine that diligently washes apparel and went blithely on with my day. For an hour.
Rushing back to the efficient washer, my worst fears were met: it was on a boil wash.
So beloved were the jumpers, now the right size for a toddler, they could not be thrown away, or even donated to a toddler lacking a felted jumper. They rested, snuggled together in the gloomy back of a shelf, waiting.
After many moons, a cotton-bodied bunny was discovered and a plan hatched. The first born is sleepy green bunny. His woollen body is kept company by Egyptian sateen cotton ears and a baby merino pompom tail.
The pattern is from Wee Wonderfuls and can be found here.
My second attempt at binding. Time will tell who this is for!
Or if I can possibly part with the butterflies. I bought the fabric nearly a year ago at the main fabric market in Cairo and I couldn’t bare to cut into it. It seems perfect for small people and small things. As much as I’d love it for me, I think I may look a little silly wearing it. So, in the name of me being stylish (ok, people who know me, you can stop laughing now!), it’s going to be fore little people.
There has been a new baby in the family. Not knowing whether a little nephew or niece it would be, I decided to hedge my bets and make something for either. It seemed a rather appropriate time to figure out binding.
If you haven’t tried to sew binding before, trust me, it’s best not to figure it out on your own. After a good 8hrs of stitching and ripping out, restitching, taking a break, re-ripping and a fair amount of hurumphing, I decided to spend more time online looking for some decent instructions. I found them and they’re also amusing. Head on over to angry chicken for them, or you can open the vid from here.
Baby Liondre (really no idea yet how his name is spelled, but this is my first bet!) came a week early, so this is for him.
PS – Perhaps worth pointing out that the button selection in Egypt isn’t anything to get too excited about. As I’m heading to Paris (I know, tough, eh?) soon, I will get one from there. Oh, does that mean I have to go shopping? Any bets that I’ll walk out of the shop with more than one button? 
It’s been a few months since spots appeared, so here’s another bag.
I’m half way through writing up a tutorial for this bag, so one is coming!
Isabella is a little girl who was born in May 2008. She is the daughter of my friends Suzie and Ramy. I was extremely well intentioned and began to make something for her before she was born. I thought it was going to be great, then I changed my mind. I started to make something else.
Then Isabella was born. Still unfinished, I enforced a ‘no gift, no visit’ rule on myself.
Stupidly!
Soon it was the summer. Holidays beckoned and I was away for two months. Then work started again, coming to an abrupt halt when I started pondering the problems of using the planned sticks as the hanging frame. Who knows what is on the sticks on the streets here (there aren’t exactly forests to visit for stick-collecting!). That idea was binned.
Notions of wire coat hangers, rods, plastic tubes and wire contraptions tossed around in my head and nothing outstanding came to the forefront.
And then one morning, out of the ether, it all fell into place. I jumped out of bed, started ripping and bending and wrapping, and in a few hours, I had fashioned the hoop.
It was downhill from there and baby Isabella will finally be getting her gift in the next few days.
All the materials used in this were bought in Egypt.
This is Sam’s bag. It’s the first time I’ve ever potato stamped (at least that I can remember), it’s the first time I’ve ever stamped on fabric, it’s the first time I’ve ever sewn with slippery fabric (satin), it’s the first time I’ve ever lined anything and it’s the first time I’ve attempted internal pockets.
Sam let me know the dimensions she wanted. All I had to do was cut.
The request was for fabric that wouldn’t show the dirt. The rest was up to me. Oooh, the pressure! Hmm..not really, it was rather fun. I sketched away for a little while, looking at different decorating ideas. It needed to be something practical dirt-wise as well as something I could do without messing it up too much!
Potato stamping seemed fun, I could get the equipment (Egypt is Africa’s number 1 potato grower AND 2008 is the International Year of the Potato) and the results should be acceptable.
Then came the insides. Pockets were an essential, I thought, and satin satisfied my need for something that feels nice. Yes, at this stage it was about what I wanted I’m afraid. In the hope that Sam would too.
A bit more tacking, a bit of sewing and voila! Sam’s bag was ready.
Sam’s bag is not perfect. Unfortunately, but I guess rather predictably given how many ‘firsts’ were involved. Neither was it sent in the most attractive manner. Unavoidable unfortunately. Sam is, however, a most forgiving friend – the best sort to have really.
A few weeks ago Lynda left a note saying it was her birthday soon. Unbeknown to her, we had already started planning a birthday surprise. I, however, had yet to pick a birthday pressie. Not long after, I made a start. The Spotty Tote was replicated.
And a new one designed. Let’s call it Lynda’s Spotty Tote. A blue front with a spotty lined pocket – kind of like Lynda (cool and calm on the outside and colourful and cheering underneath).
And spotty backing.
PS The photos were taken in a rush, seconds before the totes were wrapped, hence the poor quality of the blue one. It was in fact ironed – I promise!
It’s dark outside. A sleeping city. In the snug corner of our sleepy house my machine and I whirr away.
I felt like making something today, and the sentiment did not extend to a report (something I should have been doing). As if a sign from Above, in catching up with my blog reading on Sew, Mama Sew (all in the name of urm, research..) I came across the Classic Tote Tutorial. A few minor adjustments – nothing wrong with the Classic Tote, more that I was lacking in the fabric department – and hey presto, yet another bag for me to forget to take shopping.
The spots are rather cheerful though.
Mr S wasn’t too happy with the spare bed being covered in scraps of fabric. I can’t say it bothered me all that much – far easier to know what you have when it’s all spread out I say – but hey, I choose my battles wisely. So, time for a scrap bag made from a remnant. I had the bright embroidery thread and was dying to use it on something that would be mine.
I searched fonts online, found some interesting ones (dafont has rather a lot), but then decided to just go for my own scrawl.
I embroidered it after I’d finished the bag. I’ve no idea if that was the ‘proper’ way to do it, but it worked for me!
I know birds are overdone – every crafty blog has some birds on it somewhere – but I can’t help it. I just couldn’t resist these from Spool (free pattern to download in the top left of their page). They started out as a trial for a friend’s newborn, but not sure I can face giving them away.
I love to make things. This is where I record my work and share interesting little things I stumble across both online and in the streets of Cairo, Egypt, where I live.
