My Pop Spring Wrap Skirt

Finally I can move this post from drafts to published. It includes photos of a fabric card that I send to my swap pal MarthaG from Ravelry and I didn;t want to spoil the surprise. Especially since her package arrived first and I got to know firt that we were  were the same, upstream and downstream partners. Ok,so here we go with this one.

It’s no secret that I like IKEA fabric. Not all of it, but most of it, yeah, I could marry. I was searching through my fabric stash for a happy spring design to make the Craft magazine wrap skirt. And when I saw this, I had to give it a try. I was afraid it might be a bit too “happy” but, hey, it’s spring right?. Well the wrap skirt came out pretty well, here it is. I made it using the basic craft pattern for advanced sewers, but without the pockets ( I rarely need pockets when I’m wearing skirt) and with my own closure system, two pop-till-you-drop buttons and two invisible snaps. I also made 1.8 bias tape from an orange fabric scrap and used it at the waist. I would love to add some pipping as the pattern called for, but I couldn’t find any color that I liked at the sewing notions shop (they were out of orange or green pipping, seriously).
So I just topstitched the hem with orange thread. Very happy with the result, very easy and fast to sew pattern, I’d like a second one now with more different colors.

these buttons were from an ebay lot of buttons. they were screaming out of the button box “pick me pick me”.

Then I needed to make a card for my swap buddy at the Ravelry Caffeine Addicts Swap. Ans as always I make my little fabric cards using my favorite fabric scraps (which I never throw away, do you?). And my favorite fabric scrap for this month, was…guess…right!
It’s very easy to make a fabric scrap card.

• Take a colorful paper (I use A4 folded in half most of the times cause there’s plenty of space to write your staff inside).
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• Then cut your fabric scrap a little bit smaller than the half A4 (that’s an A5 right?).
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• You could use it like this but a like my card a bit sturdier, so I take a craft-weight fusible interfacing and iron it on the fabric.
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• Then take your pinking shears and trim your piece of fabric nice and well.
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• Now you can glue your fabric on the paper, but I won’t. I prefer to sew it around. Take a nice embroidery thread and needle and stitch all around with even spaces. Be sure to start and finish your stitching at the top side of the card.
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• When finished you can use the thread that remains for attaching beads, buttons or mini crochet flowers or whatever your imagination (and your crafting stash suggests. In this case a added a simple crochet flower and two beads. I stitched some more beads on the fabric and decided it was enough.
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• All you have to do then is add your wishes and love words on the inside.

 

4 things to do with a kid’s duvet cover

And I asked myself, why do the kids always take the cool fabric designs?
Why not make an adult’s garment from kids fabric?
I spotted this design in the IKEA fabric/duvet cover/sheet section from far away. I runned into it hoping that it would be available as a fabric per meter too, but it was just a kids duvet cover. But still I had to take it and figure out later what to do with it. And the idea came when boyfriend asked for pajamas. He was a bit surprised when I showed him the fabric, but hey, one can wear whatever he wants inside his home, right? Just to be sure I measured the fabric and just so you know, it’s enough for a man’s LARGE size pajama.  (pattern called for a medium, but seriously, who likes a fitted pajama set?)

So here we are: what can you make out of an duvet cover. Let’s go:
a. Pajama set

b. Bib as a gift to your newborn nephew (from the pillow cover)

c. Moth repellent sachets DIY

d. Tote bag with remaining fabric (WIP – will post when finished)

Everything is used now, even the scraps.

 

Moth Repellent Pillows DIY

I hate to throw away scraps of fabric that remain after pattern cutting. Not to mention it’s that time of the year when you have to store away all your winter clothes and protect them from moth (at least when you live in Greece, it’s that time…). I wouldn’t buy any chemical moth repellents, and instead of buying the natural thing, why not do-it-myself, anyway? So I decided to make homemade moth repellent sachets to store with my clothes and yarn this year. I already had a big jar of homegrown lavender and lots of thyme my parents gave me last summer. It was harvested in the wild by them at the island of Kithira.
For filling your little pillows you can use: lavender, thyme, cloves, rosemary, mint, cedar, cassia bark to name just a few. I used about one cup of lavender, one cup of thyme and 3 tablespoons of cloves. You should use “fresh” dried herbs to take the best out of their aroma and lots of clove. Clove is good, insects hate it.
Step by step guide:
1. cut small 4×8 rectangle pieces. (or your choice of size)

2. Place good side on good, sew the three sides together. Use the narrowest stitch of your machine. This way no herb powder can escape from
your pillows.

3. Turn good side out using a chopstick.

4. Take some time to just smell the herbs. (unnecessary step but a delightful one)

5. Fill your pillow at 2/3 with a small teaspoon.

6. Fold the top inside at about 1cm, pushing the herbs backwards.

7. Top stitch twice (for leakage safety) from edge to edge taking care to hold back the herbs. You don’t want herb powder inside your lovely sewing machine, don’t you. If you feel uncomfortable with this, hand stitch the pillows first and then go on with the sewing.

8. Ready.

Variations: You could make other forms, like triangles, circles, little moth-fighting monsters or stay with the form of your fabric stash. Yeah, you could do that if you haven’t spend the last three hours in front of your sewing machine finishing that pajamas set. Oh, and be sure to have lots of herbs stashed, so that you don’t run out of filling, when you’ll start getting all the good ideas…

 

Bibs from IKEA fabric

Last Monday I’ve visited my cousin who now has a six months old boy. I’ve felt quite guilty for not visiting the baby for the last six months (hey I was there the day he was born… at least) so after some thinking I’ve figured out it’s the perfect age for bibs. They say parents need lots of them, so I made four, two small ones and two bigger, to fit him at all stages. I used my stash of IKEA kids fabric. It’s washable at 60 degrees Celsius, so that laundry wouldn’t be a problem for the mom. I used a free pattern I’ve found on the internet, tweaked it a bit at the neck though. And very easy to make, first apply the bias tape on the pocket piece then sew together the two pieces of fabric (good on good with the pocket in between), turn over, topstitch around and…basically that’s it, the end.  Oh and I took these pictures before sewing the snaps on (and before getting rid of that extra-thread too…)

See them separately inside…