From Top to Bottom(s)

From this:

One nice red top with plenty of stretch. Received it from Freecycle and, well, I figured it would look better as undies than a top!

To this: 

3 pairs of undies all cut out and ready to go. Using old clothes, whether they come from the wardrobe, Freecycle or the op-shop is turning out to be a great way to find good quality knit fabrics. 

Only problem I have with this fabric is I realised after cutting that it is polyester not cotton so I'm not too keen on it going on my little boy's bottom. If I'd noticed earlier I would've used it purely to make the leg and waist bands as it has a great stretch to it. I will still make the undies up, they can be spare undies for my bag, the car etc. 

A perfect blog-post would now have a pic of the finished undies, but, heck, I'm not perfect. And I think I've done pretty well given it's just 7.30 on Sunday morning :)

Making Life Simpler

Or the big wardrobe clean out lol

In an effort to make my life that much more simple, I am trying to declutter. A cluttered house leads to a cluttered mind, and all that... Plus the less stuff you have, the easier it is to put away and generally keep the whole house neat and tidy (and tidy and neat - any Mr Men fans lol??).

Here is what my wardrobe looked like before (and yes, I am embarressed to be posting this!):

And here is what I managed to declutter:

11 items sitting waiting by the door for someone from freecycle to come and pick them up.

That's just stage one of the cleanout...stage two happening soon.

Hoo Hoo Hooo!

Once upon a time I was quite into card-making, I don't do it very often any more, but a very good friend's birthday prompted me to get out the supplies and see what I could come up with. Nothing very fancy, but I was very happy with how this came out. The owls were cut out of some scrap fabric I got on freecycle, which makes me like it even more :)

Mr Fun Pants!

Don't these pants just shout "fun!" to you?

They're fun to walk in

Fun to explore in

Fun to dance in

Fun to hide in

And fun to go adventuring with special friends in.

I got the fabric from an op-shop and used this trusty pattern again - size two. My boy is only little so I've had to shorten them quite a bit. I however shortened the pattern a bit too much meaning I had to do a small small hem on these pants. I got inspired and googled "rolled hem foot" and found this youtube video. It made it so easy!  I'm having a bit of trouble with length at the moment as sometimes DS is in training pants and other times in undies. He was obviously in undies when I made the pair of test pants and this caused me to cut the pattern too short. I wouldn't have thought the training pants would make much of a difference, but they do shorten pants by a couple of centimetres.

I really love these pants. They weren't on my to do list, they were a spur of the moment thing and were all the more fun to make because of it! DS also helping sew - he lifts the presser foot lever and lowers it for me at the beginning/end of every seam. He also 'helps' feed the fabric through :)

Sewing Swap - What I Received

Yay!! I got home from my busy morning out to find a parcel waiting for me!! It was a couple of days late, but it was worth it :)

This is what was waiting for me!

There's a beautiful facewasher on the left - I LOVE this fabric, I keep looking at it and wanting to buy it, but didn't know what to do with it. Now I don't need to lol. J will love using this at bath time. He is right into his animals (maybe b/c he's been to the zoo seven times this year?!?) so it is sure to be a hit.

Here's a shot of the 6 coasters (sorry not the best photo but I wanted to blog straight away). They are all reversible and as it so happens I think both sides will look great on our table.

To encourage J to put his glass on the table (as opposed to tipping it on the floor or throwing the whole thing overboard!) we introduced coasters a while back. It has worked a treat, indeed now if he doesn't have one at his seat he will point at the table and say 'coaster, coaster'. So we use coasters all the time. Only, to date we have been using some plastic Winnie-the-Pooh ones. So these are a massive improvement!!

Thank you so much Kelly :)

Sewing Swap - What I Made

I recently participated in a sewing swap on EB. It was a great swap as each person listed three or four things that they would love to receive. My partner had a bag as one of her options. So I decided to be brave and go for it! Here is how it turned out :)

Showing the inside. Sorry the photo is the wrong way, don't know why but blogger seems to have turned it...

LOL I have no idea what Blogger is doing to my photos!

Undies!

New undies for my little man.

These will be a part of his birthday pressie - he's two next week (where did that time go?!?). I used this link over at doityourselfec.blogspot.com I have used this pattern before but it was a looong time ago. They were so much easier this time round (I hadn't been sewing long when I did them the first time).

Here they are next to a shop-bought pair of size 2 undies. They look huge! I made the size 1 - 2 years. He still fits in the size 6m - 1 year I made last time but I figured this size would give him more growing room. I didn't think they'd turn out this big!!

But they are actually ok on. A bit on the baggy side, but they look so cute! Plus, they will be easier for him to get up and down himself if they are a bit looser. And of course, they will last longer!

What do they look like from the back?

Like this!!

I will definitely be making more of these. I've got enough fabric to do another set in reverse colours to these. FWIW, the red fabric is an old t-shirt and the black is an op-shop find. They go so well together (plus we are Bombers fans in this house).

And, for my future reference, I did the seams with the serging/pine leaf stitch on my machine. Here's hoping it holds together well.