Order, order!

A new favourite skirt, hot off the sewing machine:

It's the Lisette Market Skirt in a thick charcoal wool, unusually (for me) embellished with lots and lots of ribbons.  I had a very particular vision for this skirt: multicoloured ribbons cut to random lengths all criss-crossing one another in dramatic diagonal stripes around the hemline. 

Then I came to pin the ribbons in place and something in my sewing subconscious said "no". So I pinned them in parallel lines instead, to keep my inner self happy.

I left the right side-seam - the one without the zip - open to allow for easier access to applique all those ribbons. A few would have crossed over the other side-seam, so I left those unfinished and then stitched them after closing it up.

The hem is finished with an Oliver+S trick from the Lazy-Days Skirt: one last ribbon used as a hem facing and top-stitched to the right side.

Look at that stepwise pattern! I really thought the ribbons were placed randomly (within the limits of being parallel, of course) but a pattern emerged despite all my best efforts...

So, this is my order-out-of-chaos skirt, and I'm loving it. As a happy side-effect, my ribbon store is a lot more ordered and less chaotic than it used to be. Perhaps I should listen to my inner organiser more often.

Almost effortless glovelets

Happy new year from runcibledays!

I've started the year with the simplest sewing imaginable: felt and fleece tubes with a hole in the side.

Here they are in action:

Are they fingerless gloves, or just wrist warmers with pretensions? Either way, they are just right for those in-between days in winter, and they take less time to make than a pot-noodle.

Looking at the photo above, I think they are probably just a variation that thing which schoolboys do with their jumpers to keep their hands warm: the one where they pull the cuffs down over their knuckles, and then wriggle their thumbs through holes in the seams. Maybe that's why my boys loved them immediately, declared them to be 'cool', and asked for several pairs each.

 They work for baby hands as well, and are much easier to put on than real gloves with actual fingers...

Yet, despite their many good points, my husband looked dubious when I planned to write about them. "It's not really a pattern, is it?" he ventured (cautiously, given that he was on my territory), "I mean, even I could make them".

He's probably right, but something so simple and practical deserves a place on runcibledays, especially as it lends itself perfectly to using up scraps and up-cycling laundry disasters (I used a felted wool jumper, but socks might work even better). Here's what I did:

I cut two squares of felted wool, long enough to reach from knuckles to beyond wrists.

I folded them in half and sewed down the long side. 

The fabric needs to stretch widthways for a tight-ish fit.

I snipped a little semi-circle about 5cm from the top edge of each glovelet.

(On my first attempt I snipped from the opposite side to the seam, but this meant that the seam ended up very visible on the back of the hands. The seam positions shown above gave a better finish with the seam ending up more towards the palm).

Then I turned them both to the right side...

... and made some more...

... and some more.

So no, it's not an actual pattern, but it's a quick and gratifying project for anyone with access to old socks and a pair of scissors. 

Wishing you happy sewing and warm hands for 2012!

Here comes the sun...

There's something about the Cath Kidston shop that I fall for every time. As soon as I step inside I completely believe in the CK world of eternal summertime, with strawberries for tea and boating on the river - never mind that I'm wearing woolly gloves and boots, and the nearest river is miles away. And then I start buying fabric...

Maybe this print would be better suited to an apron, but even back at home it still has a hint of sunshine about it!  This is my muslin for the lovely meringue skirt from the new Colette pattern book. If you know the pattern you'll see that it's been extensively tweaked: the scalloped hem on the original might have been a bit much with this floral print; and the stiff canvas fabric holds its shape so firmly that I chose to trim a bit from the side-seams to straighten it.

The biggest triumph? An invisible zipper! The book's instructions are so good I didn't even feel afraid, and I'm delighted by its invisibility. Somehow I managed to set the zip too low and had to add a button at the waist, but luckily it was one of those happy accidents that end up looking almost intentional.

Don't look too closely, though! It's still a bit scrappy.

So now I just need to wait for the weather to catch up with my wardrobe...

Happy New Year, everyone!

Herman the cake #2 (and #3, and #4)

It's been a measure of Herman's popularity that since I last wrote about him here he's been baked and eaten three times without ever having his photo taken. This last time, though I was prepared, and had my camera ready as soon as he came out of the oven, still in his baking tin.

This, of course, is Herman #4. In his previous incarnations he's been out for tea with friends, sold well at the school fair, and been the highlight of several lunchboxes. He's also lived up to his billing as a 'friendship' cake: delivering jars of sourdough gloop offers the perfect excuse for an impromptu coffee and catch-up.

In keeping with previous pets, Herman has grown smellier over time and the children have lost interest in maintaining him - whilst expecting him to remain part of the family forever. Luckily, Herman-talk on the internet says it's ok to freeze him in his uncooked form, and that he should recover when he's thawed (not something I'd try with the goldfish). So, we'll cook him one more time, Santa will get a jar of sourdough mix on Christmas eve, and then it's time for hibernation.

Linking and thinking - a small post about the O&S puppet show dress

I've just bought the Oliver+S puppet show pattern - now available as a PDF, and taking instant pattern gratification to new levels. I would probably have bought any pattern which O+S chose to make available digitally, just to encourage them to produce more, but I was especially excited that they chose to start with this one because I've been wanting for ages to copy Janimal's amazing Snow White version.

But, while I wait for my little girl to learn to recognise the Disney princesses (and it might be a long wait, with my husband hard at work protecting her from their dubious influences) I've found another puppet-show-a-like to keep me going. Teal, from the wonderful 'Abney and Teal' wears a long-sleeved version with patch pockets and a gingham trim. Off to look for fabric at once...