How to Make Elbow Patches

I have had this cardigan for probably about six years and it has gone through a lot. Several trips overseas, two Montreal winters and lots of accidental felting in the washing machine. It had been on my darning pile for ages due to holey elbows, so I decided to take some time to make a tutorial. It's my first time, so please let me know what I could improve on in the future!

Step One: Cutting out your patches.

You want to make sure that you choose a nice strong fabric for the patches. I have used some upholstery weight crushed velvet from some old curtains. You can be inventive with this part- you could use vinyl, leather, felt, velvet, Mexican oil cloth or even canvas.

The second fabric is for the back of the patch, it needs to be something thin and easy to manipulate, like this lightweight blue cotton I have used.

Depending on how big the holes or weak spots on the elbows of your garment are, you can make the patches as big or as small as you would like. I just used an oval shape, but you could do love hearts or triangles or squares or circles!

 Step 2: Pinning your fabric.

I am a big advocate of pinning before sewing, especially when you are working with two fabrics of different weights. Just pin around your pieces, right sides facing as you will be sewing them together and then turning them inside out.

Step 3: Machine stitching!

Machine stitch around the edge of your pieces- making sure to leave an opening about 6cm long, so you can turn your patch inside out.

Step 4: Pinking or alternatively, cutting notches.

Because I am all for shortcuts when I am sewing, when I need to give my seams a little bit of allowance, instead of going around cutting notches into my curved edges, I just cut them with pinking shears. I find that when I am working with heavier fabric, it provides a more streamlined shape.

Step 5: Turning your pieces.

When you have cut your "notches", turn the pieces inside out, and smooth them down. You will find that the lighter fabric conforms to shape of the heavy fabric.

You will also notice that you still have openings in each patch.

Tuck the opening into itself as demonstrated here:

And pin it down.

Step 5: Placing and Pinning.

Have a look at the area you are patching and place the patch over any holes or weak spots that appear, pinning with quilting sized safety pins.

Step 6: Hand stitching.

Thread your needle with an appropriate (or inappropriate) colour of cotton and stitch around the patch, mainly sewing through the lighter fabric, and letting the heavy fabric sit on top. Be sure to slip your free hand through the sleeve and hold onto your stitching from the back, so as not to sew through both layers of fabric! Stitch around each patch and tie your thread off on the inside of the garment.

And there you have it! 

Now you can lean on stuff with your elbows to your heart's content.

Tasmania Quilt

I cut out the squares for this patchwork quilt when I was about five months pregnant, and put them away because it seemed like such a daunting task to sew them all together.

Recently while cleaning out my sewing desk, I found the box with all of the cut out squares and decided just to experiment a bit with them. I started sewing rows of six which became squares of 36 and before I knew it, all of the pieces had been sewn up and I had 9 big patchwork squares!

When I placed them on the ground, I realised they would probably sew up into a cot-sized quilt. Which is fine for a little baby, but not quite adequate for an almost-12 kilo toddler.

So I found an old touristy Tasmania tablecloth with Australian animals on it and arranged the squares on that. Although it didn't look right. So I cut the squares into circles and it really worked.

I used this tutorial to make my circles extra perfect and neat.

Although if you wanted the circles with less work, you could use this one.

For the backing, I used some children's curtains I bought a while ago at an op shop, they have Australian and African animals on them... so weird!

I used some leftover squares to make the binding on two edges, it worked really nicely, I'd like to use this technique on some clothing one day.

I hand quilted around the circles and the border with crochet cotton, as it was too thick to machine sew. The thing I love most about this quilt is that I have used most of these fabrics in previous projects and I even made the pink felt when I was seventeen. 

Overall it was an enjoyable and enriching project, and I feel compelled to try something a little bigger next time!

Disclaimer: I have never actually been to Tasmania but I have some very romantic ideas of what it would be like. It seems like such a wild place, with lots of wooly beaches and deep dark woods. Someday I'll go and have an adventure there. 

They Call 'Em Love Apples...

 Happy St. Valentine's Day!

I made these mittens out of an accidentally felted jumper this morning. I just traced around my hand and sewed them up. I've seen lots of similar pairs of mittens floating around the internet, so I thought I'd give it a try- they're sweet, I can't wait for frosty mornings in winter with a cup of coffee, walking to school.

 These tomatoes have been going crazy in the garden lately. We have had beautiful fresh tomatoes every day. They seemed to take off slowly, producing pretty mediocre fruit. But then they suddenly exploded with rich, red, delicious love apples!

Vegan Baby Shoes

I don't know if I've ever written about being vegetarian on this blog before. It's funny, because I guess I don't even really think about it all that much. I'm in my tenth year of vegetarianism and Steve is in his fourth -I did not force him to stop eating meat, he was vegetarian when I met him!

Of course with both parents being vegetarian, Casper is vegetarian until he makes up his own mind.

We try to be as ethical and environmentally friendly as we can in our house. Which includes trying not to buy new leather products and use alternative materials where appropriate.

Casper has started daycare recently and is required to wear shoes. He doesn't really wear shoes at home or when we take him out and has only just started walking. Podiatrists recommend that children under the age of two only wear soft sole shoes. I decided to make him some soft shoes out of some upholstery vinyl that I had in my fabric stash.

I used a free tutorial online that you can find here!

I was surprised that my sewing machine sewed so smoothly through the vinyl, it was actually quite easy.

I think they ended up pretty cute, albeit a little lumpy and bumpy. They sort of look like old American footballs don't you think?

Feedsack Dress

I collect knitting patterns. I have since I was about 14. Every time I go into an op shop I go straight for the craft section and flick through all of the knitting and crochet books. I now have an extensive collection of 'Patons' knitting books from the 1920s to the 1980s and then plenty of other publications in lesser volumes. Lately I have been sorting through them and putting them in chronological order. 

Sorting through them makes me very excited to start sewing or knitting something new- and the other day I actually found a sewing pattern catalogue from the 40s with a beautiful design for a bodice with pleating at the bust and a central band in a bell shape. 

So I got to work drafting a paper pattern for a similar bodice on my mannequin. Everything came together rather quickly, and since it has been so hot in Melbourne lately, I decided to make it strappy with a crossed back. The skirt is a half circle and it closes with a zipper.

I really enjoyed making this dress. It was an afternoon job and I will definitely be using this pattern again.

And of course, Casper wanted to be part of the photo shoot too. Cue dramatic baby/mummy shots.

Also, check out our veggie garden in the background, the tomatoes are growing wildly up the back fence!

Parsley Dress with Matching Hat

So I know I have posted about this dress before. It's the first one I made for myself when I was sixteen.

My mum brought home the fabric from the opp shop and I fell in love instantly. Now, it would be safe to say I wore this dress almost every day for a few months and it was my favourite for a few years, until I grew out of it. Now it hangs on a mannequin in our lounge room wearing the hat I made to match instead of studying for exams in year 12. 

I just wanted to do a tiny detailed post because I really am quite proud of my teenage seamstress self. I draped and topstitched the fabric to fit my bodice, without knowing what draping was. I hand-sewed the buttonholes, topstitched pleats lined the bodice and made loop-fasteners with ric-rac. Now it has retired, looking very faded, missing a few buttons and sporting a few tears and smudges, but all in all a very interesting first attempt at construction.

Definitely my favourite dress.

 In a lot of ways I am glad I am not formally trained as a seamstress as it means I would never have made the same mistakes and invented the same techniques and played as much as I have. I remember making a shirtdress in year 12, and one of my friends who was studying fashion at the time said that she had heard sleeves were really difficult. I had not heard that or known if sleeves were complicated so I just did it. And it worked. This is the way I approach most things and I think it has made me pretty expressive and free when it comes to design and construction.

The hat was also an experiment (in procrastination) I remember sewing it in a hurry as I had a lot of studying to do for final exams. But I was enthralled with this project- sewing a giant circular beach hat.

I used a 1920s bathing cap pattern and traced a circle as wide as I felt was appropriate. Then I "quilted" around and around and around the circumference of the brim and put coat hanger wire boning around the edge. The pom pon trim is tucked inside the brim and it is handsewn all the way around. I quickly realised that if I wore it to the beach it would blow off my head instantly and so I attached ties to the sides, which I took off again when I retired her to the mannequin.

I hope to bring a few more of my first frocks out of hiding and write about them in the next few weeks.

  

Fair Isle Toddler Pants

A friend of mine was giving a whole lot of her clothes to the opp shop and told me I could take anything I wanted, which is a very dangerous thing to say!

So I was restrained and took only a few things, one item being a fair isle vest that I immediately saw turning into a pair of pants and a matching hat for Casper.

Let me just say having a toddler and trying to take half-decent photos of clothes you make is almost impossible. See it goes like this...

You start in the garden so they can play and look cute in front of a nice backdrop.

Then they start getting dirty and rolling dead bugs into their clothes. So you take them inside.

A tantrum ensues, they really weren't finished with the bugs. Luckily this is a good angle for bum-detail pictures.

Still angry but wanting something to play with, they get up.

Crawl into every dark corner imaginable.

Climb the couch.

Unclimb the couch.

And find a book on the floor- just in time for a detail shot.

A Horse of Course

There is a horse farm across the road from Sue's place in Warrnambool. 

This guy was showing off and galloping around, kicking up dust. 

Casper thought he was really funny and cool.

He came over to say hello pretty quickly too, he had a curly fringe and kept nibbling Steve's jumper- it was green and I think he thought it was grass.

The dress I am wearing is one that I made when I was 18. It was a reconstructed GIANT t-shirt dress that never made it on the blog for some reason, but hey, I have a lot of things that I just forget to photograph.

Hope everyone in Melbourne is enjoying this cold weather we are experiencing. There was snow in the mountains yesterday!

Granny Knickers

I have been experimenting with making undies today, making use of my new overlocker (!!!) while my sewing machine is in the shop being serviced.

I really like them and they're very comfy and also very granny.

The pale blue lace elastic is so nice and I will be improving my undies-making skills in the future. 

We are driving to the coast tonight and will be back in town on Wednesday.

Beetroot Fettuccine

Happy New Year! We got a pasta maker for Christmas, so my friend Mel and I decided to make beetroot pasta because there was a lack of eggs in the fridge and an abundance of beetroot.

The result was this vibrant hot pink gutsy looking Fettuccine. It was so delicious, we tossed it with garlic, basil, fetta and peas.