A Boy's sunhat

This holiday it was all about hats for me. After making a sunhat for my little girl, it was my boy's turn to get a new hat. As I didn't have any boyish fabrics, I had to buy a quarter meter of some fabric, suitable for boys. I went to a local fabric shop and came across this "elephant" one and thought it could be made into a hat.

Although it looked simple to make I must confess that I had to make two tester hats before I got the size right. 
Now that the sunhat is ready I keep thinking that it would have looked better if I included a strip of white fabric or white piping to make the hat more attractive.

The thing I like most about making this hat is that it's something very practical and I'm sure it would be worn a lot during summer.

Easter ornaments

The last few months I have focused on sewing garments, rather than things for the home. There was time when I used to unlash my creativity by making ornaments, accessories for the home, but since my daughter was born I rediscovered my love for sewing clothes. My affinity for children's clothes has been growing since then. Little daughters could be such inspiration for mummy sewers.
This Easter I was busy making sunhats, but I thought I might share some of the Easter creations I made a few years ago.
Here is little hand emboidered bird house

For their making I have used natural linen fabric, polka dot pastel fabrics and jute string. I just love the combination of them.

and here are some polka dot chicks and a bunny

 And finally a linen table runner with four placemats, all hemmed and embroidered by hand. I gave this to my mom as she adored it.

Have a happy Easter!

Making a sunhat for a first time

Being in a warm and sunny place where sunshine is not luxury has inspired me to sew my first sunhat for Eva.
Two weeks ago I was looking for sunhats for my children. I came across this lovely girl's hat in Asda, but there were only large sizes left.

 I grabbed one with the intention to use it as a model for constructing a similar one which would fit my little girl's head.
It's definitely not a difficult thing to make, but maybe because it was the first time I made a hat, I could see that I had made a few mistakes, luckily not so noticeable.
These are the two tester hats I made. I made this one first

then tried adding some flares and that was the result

I decided to use the flared shape for her sunhat, as it looked more girly. Now I think that I might use the first shape to make a hat for my boy as well.
My fabric choice for the hat would be something neutral, like the one from Asda, which would match most of the clothes. I went to two local fabric shops to hunt some fabric, but priced at 15-18 euros/ metre seemed two much, so I went back home and looked again at the very few fabrics I had kept at my parents home. Finally I picked the one with blue flowers, although it wasn't neutral (If you have been following the blog you would have seen this fabric before here and here)

"Tiny flowers" summer tunic

I love summer clothes. They are more comfortable and also easier to make. I could't wait for the weather to start warming up so I could begin to plan out some new additions to the summer wardrobe of my little girl (and  if I get the chance for me as well).
As we are heading to a warmer place for the Easter holidays I thought I would make a short-sleeved blouse/tunic for Eva.
It all started with this..

and ended like this..

I used two of the fabrics I had bought on my recent trip to Goldhawk road fabric shops. They were pure cotton and very easy to work with. Despite that, the whole project took longer than I thought as folding all the little pleats evenly turned out a fiddly job.
The other task that usually delays my work is handstitching the hems prior to machine stitching. It's time consuming, but it makes machine stitching much easier and straightforward afterwards.
Not long ago a friend of mine mentioned to me that she was watching The Great British Sewing Bee on BBC2 every week. The series followed ten amateur sewers who faced different challenges every week. Shte thought it might be interesting for me to watch. And indeed it was, but it made me realize again just how slow I tackled my sewing projects, which made me feel a bit cringeful. I really have to try to be more organized and concentrated.

And this time I couldn't do without a flower accessory. Initially I planned a hairband with a flower, but once the blouse was finished I thought it might work better if placed on it.
It could go either here

or here

Which look do you prefer? I will attach the flower permanently as repinning it might damage the fabric.

And again the most difficult part were my attempts to take photo of my little daughter wearing the blouse. After half an hour chasing her around the room with the camera and telling my boy for a hundredth time to stay out of camera's view (I didn't want his blue pyjamas showing in the background of the photo) I ended up with an empty battery and lots of blurred pictures.

Another Peter Pan top

It feels so nice to see your project finished and to be pleased with the result.
A few weeks ago I asked a friend of mine to draw a top or a dress she would like me to sew for her daughter as a present for her approaching birthday. She told me she liked the Peter Pan collar (from "Crazy Chevron" top) and that she also loved that blue fabric I had used for the "Ocean blue" dress. I had a little bit left of the fabric, just enough for a top. That's how this project started.

Her pretty daughter turnes five so I had to grade down from size 7 to size 5. This was the first time I practiced grading. I wasn't quite sure whether it would work well, but it turned out it did. The only correction I had to do was to raise the neckline.
To complete the look I made two fabric flowers. If you have been following my blog you probably know that I like to make matching accessories to the garments. It is weird because I like accessories, but rarely put any on, as I am usually in a rush and don't have time to rummage around.

The initial idea was to make one flower with one layer of blue petals and another layer of smaller petals from the other fabric on the top. But when I started making it, it failed to produce the look I wanted, so instead I made two separate flowers.
They were intended to be used for hair, but while I was taking photos of my friend's daughter, she came up with the idea to accessorize the top with them. I love it when something happens to be so versatile.

My unfinished bright quilt

 

The last few days I've been working on another top featuring Peter Pan collar, which I will add to the birthday present of one little five year old lady. My progress on the top has been so slow that I still can't show you a finished garment, so I thought I'd share with you another project of mine which has been waiting patiently on my 'To-do' list for nearly two and a half years. It's a quilt, which I started making and still haven't finished.

 

It all started nearly three years ago when I was browsing Emma's Fabric Studio online shop and admired the lovely printed fabrics there, trying to choose which one to buy. As there were lovely bundles as well, I decided to pick a bundle. After much time spent on looking and hesitating which one to pick, I chose "Happier" by Deena Rutter. At that time I still didn't sew clothes for kids as I had only a boy and somehow sewing boy's clothes never looked that appealing to me as sewing for girls (sometimes I feel guilty because of that, like it is not fair that my girl only gets handmade clothes, so I try to compensate that by sewing other things for my boy).
I thought sewing a quilt for the cot would be a good idea - functional and brightening any bedroom. I have always liked bright colours, but when I started joining the pieces for the quilt, I found it too bright and chaotic looking than I actually wanted to. I liked the fabrics separately but when mixed together, there seemed too many different prints on one place. So that was how it ended up being abandoned.

Now I plan to finish this quilt when I get the chance. I don't think I will use it as the kid's room has been recently painted in blue and pale pink tones. It feels a bit sad to make something that ends up being unusable. I hope I will find someone who will like it the way it is.