My Pregnancy Pledge - Seamless Pledge January 2013

Thank you @elenacresci for this button!! Click the icon for more details.

I, Bundana, am taking the #seamlesspledge until August 2013.

 

I, Bundana, shall ONLY make, upcycle and thrift the clothes that I wear during my pregnancy.

This includes:

• Maternity jeans
• Maternity tops
• Accessories
• Dresses
• Jumpers, Cardigans and Coats

This does not include:

• Shoes
• Underwear (including socks)
• Swimwear

In celebration of my pledge not to line the pockets of the high street with my hard-earned, I have been shopping and have successfully bought today:

Skirt, with stretch for €2. This is REALLY long, thus has loads of fabric! I am going to turn this into a shorter skirt and use the rest of the tartan fabric for maternity jeans waist support.

Beautiful woolly jumper €6... It still had the price tag on (?!) and it was a whopping €75 new... It's size 18, I'm size 8, but I am going to wear it the leggings and sandals (and bump) for a casual but co-ordinated look in SS13. 

Buttons to quirk up some booties that I have knitted and a Chanel inspired t-shirt.

Some Tweed Aran Wool to knit or crochet a cardigan for bambino. A nice heirloom Irish piece this will be for us to keep forever. 

Also have on-route... jersey fabric to make a loads of Megan Nielson long sleeve tees. Crochet needles. Quilting cotton. Burda GroBag sewing pattern.

I have loads of fabric to be utilising, I have too much of a stash as it is. I must admit it's 'nice' to have a load of fabric to use at your will, but now is the time to get using and wearing! As well as fabric, I have enough buttons, elastics, threads etc to keep me going a long time!!

I hope you enjoy reading about this journey as much I will do making my way through it!!

Know any good but (very) beginner knitting and crochet patterns for newborns? Please let me know!!

Until next time...

Bundana

X

Valentine's Oven Gloves... How I did it!

I made these oven gloves for Q and I took pictures as I went along as I *think* I found some quite interesting methods of doing this! I got given this fabric on Freecycle and used red stitching and bias tape as its a luuuuuuuurve gift! I do dressmaking, not generally stuff like this... But I think that a shirt, like other seamstresses seem to have gone for is a bit beyond me right now (both ability and time!)

First off, I drafted a pattern, not rocket science or anything- just the main body of the gloves, which I cut on the fold and the glove part which I made slightly larger at the wrists so Q can get his hands in!

I cut out 4 gloves of wadding and one main body in wadding. For the fabric I had 4 gloves and 2 main body pieces of fabric.

For the gloves I sandwiched 2 of the fabric pieces between one of the glove wadding pieces.

For the main body, I made a sandwich of one glove wadding and one main body wadding... then used the fabric as the bread! I did this to protect a bit more against heat by adding thickness.

 After pinning my fabric sandwiches... I then used my quilting ruler and using the white horizontal line on the fabric and angled the ruler 45 degrees... 

... Then I used 2 pieces of tape on that 45 degree angle and then got the old sewing machine ready...

... then I sewed on each side of the tape!

I kept on moving the pieces of tape and sewing... then again using my ruler I found the opposite 45 degree angle and sewed some more.....

Quilting, quilting and more quilting later......

Huzzah!!

I then bias taped the bottom of the glove and then attached the gloves to the main body by stay-stitching....

I then bias taped the whole of the edge of the gloves.... yes, I was that determined to make something nice for Q!

Then.....

.... DONE!

Reflections....

• Bias taping is still an art-form I have yet to master. T'was my own fault for making the thumb part of the pattern. It was really was hellish to sew and tape around.
• He loves them, but loves them so much he doesn't want to use them!!
• It took ages! Ladies and gentlemen who make and sell stuff like this for a living, I take my hat off to you. This was a day job from drafting to quilting to bias taping, I was exhausted!

Q has been great these last few months, helping me pin my clothes, turning up my hems, bringing me copious amounts of Diet Cokes and snacks and hours spent on his own when we used to be chilling out together. He deserved something nice and seeing as cooking is his 'thing'... I thought, why not?! 

OK, back to dressmaking... Onwards with the Clovers. I now have the pattern traced and altered. I'm keeping original patterns intact now and tracing off them. I like it for preservation, thrift and making my mates clothing! Just need to decided on the fabric of my wearable muslin now.... hmmmmm. I'm still thinking 'Dresden'.

                                              Bundana

                                                   X

Time Taken: 6 hours

Pattern: Bundana Original

Make again? Yes, but probably miss off the thumb bits and just make it more streamlined for an easy peasy bias experience!

Cost: €3