Friendship Bracelets

I've been playing with making some friendship bracelets in the last week. My daughter now has a lot more jewellery! For a brief run down - the pink fattish one with yellow beads is elastic thread (done on a knitting nancy), the colourful one with sections of knotting, plaits and 3 beads is embroidery thread.



There are a few here that are elastic thread with beads - silver with red beads, red with red beads and red with green/red beads. And below, there is a stripy knotted one, and a group of three including a knotted one with flower beads. The flower beads one is also down the bottom.



I'm pretty pleased with them all. They're great for kids because the beads aren't just threaded on, so wont all come off if the bracelet breaks. The elastic ones just slip on and off, and I've worked out a way to make the knotted ones (that you traditionally tie on) easier to get on and off. It has surprised me how many variations are possible!

Now I just have to find a source of elastic thread!

Another wool dye day

I "had" to dye some more wool today because I was adding info about wool dying to my main website and needed pictures. Was going to tidy the house, but as this had to be done, the house tidying got put off! I did the blue/green/yellow one. After starting I wished I'd diluted the colours more, as their a bit dark and black looking, but I did the two balls still, and they match enough (will have to swap balls every few rows for blending as they are different enough that the ball change will be obvious otherwise).

The knitted bit in the other pic is to show how lovely the other wool from a few days ago is looking as it is knitted up. Its turning into a nice spiral, which should look good for a beanie. I'll have to think more about what to do for a matching jumper - solid colours with the main body red and the yellow in trim, or variagated like the hat. Hmmm. I'm also going to make matching red velour pants for my little girl. Hope winter doesn't come too quickly.

I made my first ever friendship bracelets today - just for my kids. Did some easy quick crochet ones. Haven't taken pics yet but will put pics up here sometime.

That's all for now!

Okay, so that's my whole catch up done - for general sewing stuff. I'll put nappy sewing stuff seperate but will have to do that some other day.

Thanks for reading here!

Hemp Butterfly Skirt

So I sewed that piece of hemp from my last post into this very simple skirt, and it looks great! It is just a seam down each side and elastic at the top. I even just overlocked the bottom rather than hemming it properly, but I think that looks good sometimes with hemp fabric and the tie dye type look.

My first play with new fabric paints

This is a piece of leftover hemp/cotton jersey that I did with the "new" fabric paints. Its one piece, but I just wanted to put in a couple of closer up pics.

I don't know if you can see this, but down the bottom are flowers/leaves, then butterflies, then a sort of mottley effect (done with rock salt).

Did I say that I love this paint yet??

Kids' Artworks Made Into Cushions

I sewed the calico squares that the kids painted into cushions. Kept it simple and just did plain turned sides - no fancy edges. The kids love them, they look great, and they're so nice and soft. I think this sort of thing is great for kids.
A couple of years ago, when she was about 2, I did a similar cushion with my oldest. We did hand prints and other finger painting with fabric paint on a table (on plastic) outside, then I laid the fabric on it to make a print. It was sewn into a cushion and is proudly used often. She loves that she made it. Its nice for them to see stuff they've made displayed, and even better, used.

Kids' Artworks - Fabric Paint

I love these new paints! I've never come across this technique before. Some time down the track I'll tell you about the paints and the method, but for now I'll just say that the kids did these themselves - with me just helping by showing them the technique. Its great, because its so easy to get really good effects.

I'll be adding these paints to the craft sales that I hold as soon as I can!

Organic wool dyed with food colouring

This is organic wool from Treliske. I dyed it with the help of my daughter using food colouring (craft grade, in big bottles), and it has worked beautifully.

The first two balls we did using purple, yellow, orange and red. We used the colours very strong and the purple turned out more black than purple, except for where it mixes with the yellow. After two balls of my daughter saying that she didn't like the black, we decided to leave it out and add another couple of balls to the line up of wool to be dyed. So we have three lots of yellow, orange, red wool. I call it fire.

Next time I would probably dilute the colours a little. Although I like the brightness, it used an awful lot of the dye, and the orange really looks more red.

I've just started knitting the three colour ones up into a beanie as a tester before starting on a jumper. It is looking beautiful as the wool seems to be spiralling up the beanie. I'll post pics here when its finished.

This was great fun and definitely something I'll do again. I'm looking forward to trying something with blue, green and yellow colours, or maybe a light purple/blue combo.

2005 catch up finished!

Okay, so that was my catch up from 2005. Now to start on the new year, and perhaps I'll even give a bit more info about how things were done etc, because I'll be entering pics and info sooner after creating. This can become more like a sewing diary, rather than just the pics of what I've been sewing.

2005 - Transfer Hemp Singlet

I made a heap of hemp/cotton blend singlets, and put iron on transfers on them. For the transfers I just printed out clip art onto transfer paper and followed the instructions.

On hemp, which is reasonably rough for t-shirt type material, the transfers look really great when first done, but crack and deteriorate quite badly after just one wash. Still, the kids love chosing pics for their t-shirts, and they look okay from a distance! And they are good for wearing to bed once they are not quite as nice looking.

We did dinosaurs, a photo of a truck, a photo of the kids in Christmas clothes for wearing Christmas day, a couple of different butterfly ones and fairy ones and a ballerina.

2005 - Tie Dye Hemp PJs

I made quite a few of these PJs/outfits for kids in the extended family for Christmas. They are made from hemp/cotton blend jersey, and have been tie dyed just using RIT dye that is available in some Chemists and places like Spotlight/Lincraft. The pics here show the two different colour schemes that I used - both with the red as the last dye bath, but some with blue before that and others with pink. Next time I don't think I'd use red and pink on one outfit as it was a bit of a waste - would be better with one of those colours teamed with yellow or something.

2005 - Peasant Skirt

I love these peasant skirts because they are so easy. They do take a lot more fabric than you would expect, and for an adult one, I would buy at least 3 metres, although I would have enough leftover for a child's one too. The problem is that with each gathering layer, you need fabric a lot longer for the next one, so by the time you have 4 or 5 layers in an adult skirt, they are very long strips of fabric.

What makes these extra easy to make is my gathering presser foot for my sewing machine. It gathers as it attaches the two pieces together. Its a pain to use, and doesn't do the neatest of jobs, but for quick skirts like this it is fine, and really speeds things up. If I was making something with expensive fabric or that was to be really on show, I'd gather the "old" way - sewing a couple of rows of loose stitches, pulling the gather, sewing the fabric together.

2005 - Boys' Shorts

2005 - Gather dress

2005 - Dress with Pleats

Another nice, summery dress. This one always looks nice.

2005 - One Piece Dress

This is a one piece dress - with two identical pieces of fabric sewn together around the edges for the outer fabric and a liner layer. Its a great dress - always looks good, and its summery and cool, as well as being really easy to make. It just wraps around and does up with a button on each shoulder.