Arizona green tea dress

What do you do six hours before the airport shuttle picks you up?

You make yourself a new dress.

Of course.

A lovely soft jersey. Lovely, but difficult to sew.

And since the fabrics reminds me so much of the Arizona green tea packaging, I'm calling the dress the Arizona dress :-)

Oh well ...

You know you're old when you no longer understand current fashion.

Well, I'm officially old.

Because I cannot possibly imagine why anyone would want to wear these camel-toe cloven hoof boots...

Or this, for that matter. Seriously? Project Runway challenge gone wrong.

Monkey leggings

One of the Christmas presents I made this year were leggings for my ne(w)phew.

I've had this monkey fabrics at home for a while and it was just perfect for the occasion.

Sorry for the poor quality of the photos, I was really in a hurry.

Homemade Angry bird - Blue tit

MiniMojcek Nr.1's best friend, albeit 8 years old, is a keen bird-watcher. He celebrated his birthday in the woods, watching birds with his friends.

Now, what could be more appropriate for the birthday present as an Angry bird? An angry blue tit, his favourite bird!

I fortunately had fleece in all the right colours at home but - I had no pattern and no sketch, just the photograph. Oh, did I mention I had no time?

 I just cut the fabrics... and hoped for the best.

It looks like a ninja-angry-bird :-)

I forgot to sew the eyes and the beak first so I had to handstitch them. Not perfect but good enough.

Two hours later the bird was finished.

  I'm actually quite happy :-)

A simple skirt

Although summer seems to be over, it's still time to write about a skirt I recently made and happily wore in the second half of the summer. A very simple simple Jersey skirt, just the side seams and an elastic band, but it's the pattern that makes the skirt one of my favourites.

I've been wearing it with a blue T-shirt and a Maori necklace :-)

Green Ninjago T-shirt

Just in time for MiniMojcek Nr.1's sixth birthday I finally managed to finish the green Ninjago T-shirt!

Starting with two identical white long-sleeved T-shirts, I dyed one green. I just couldn't find a suiting plain green T-shirt in the shops.

Then I cut a "bib" out of the white T-shirt and sewed it on the inside of the front of the green one, creating the V neckline.

 Carefully cut the front...

And stitched it again.

Then it was time to start painting: first the additionall collar, then the silver pattern with black crosses, finally the belt.

But one should not forget the golden snake on the back!

Now he has a Kai sweater, a Zane T-shirt and the new Lloyd T-shirt.
He's happy.
For now.

Seeing blue

You know how it is - when you have LOTS of VERY important things to do, you do something completely different. My excuse it that I had pretty high fever over the weekend and wasn't able to do any intelligent work (like plan electricity for the house or write a textbook), so I opted for sewing.

When buying a laser distance metre last week, I made a small detour to a fabric shop and immediately fell in love with this Smurf fleece. I made a hoody for MiniMojcek Nr.2's daycare friend. While I was at it, I made another one for MiniMojcek Nr. 2. Sure thing. I may make something similar for MiniMojcek Nr. 1.

Ninjago Zane T-shirt

With Ninjago-mania of course came the request to make Ninjago T-shirt. MiniMojcek Nr.1's favourite ninja is Kai and he already has a Kai sweatshirt. So this time the request came to make a Zane costume. The white one. And what can a mother do than fulfill the request.

Zane's emblem is a golden lion. This is a just a rough sketch I made to check the size of lion's head.

 And the finished lion:

 The T-shirt has a fake belt (stitched on the T-shirt, but not all the way so that one can still tie a knot) and a stitched-on thingy at the neck.

 

I'm not quite happy with how the ropes turned out ... hmpf ... Let's just hope that MiniMojcek Nr. 1 likes the shirt.

But perhaps I can correct this the next time: I already have a request for the green ninja.

Angler fish!

Best friend of MiniMojcek Nr.1 was celebrating his 7th birthday and he needed a present. I posted the first clue last week. Combining this with the next clue: a LED, a tiny switch, two batteries and an aluminium wire to hold the construction.


Still no idea? The third clue. His favourite colours are blue and orange.


And the final result: the anler fish!


See the angler fish in action.




MiniMojcek Nr.1 loves it and so does his best friend. I'm happy.

Four Arms costume

It's this time of year again - when all the sewing moms in this part of the world are extremely busy. It caught me a bit by surprise that MiniMojcek Nr. 1 had to wear the costume on Friday (and not on Tuesday as I expected it) so it was a bit rushed... but nevertheless, a success!

He already has the casual Ben 10 T-shirt and Ben 10 jacket, but now it was time to transform into Four Arms:


I started with two red and one white long-sleeved T-shirts, a pillow, a pair of gloves and a large grayish button.


I was hoping to use the original Ben 10 T-shirt but I realised that Four Arms wears a slightly different one. Oh, well..

I cut several tapes of black fabric (yes, I always have a bit of black Jersey at home) and sewed them onto the T-shirt. A large button was used as Omnitrix and painted accordingly (and yes, I always have a bit of black paint for ceramics, glass, plastic ... at home).


The additional arms were made from sleeves and the gloves, stuffed with the pillow filling, and attached to the white T-shirt.


But the arms just hung there, so I connected them to the primary arms :-)


In order to be able to wear a parka over the four arms, the connection had to be removable, so I used a pair of tiny plastic carabiners. Here I was just adjusting the length.


The hood was made in a rush, just two pieces sewn together approximately in the shape of the head with a black ribbon and four yellow eyes.


And a pair of black joggers and MiniMojcek Nr.1 was happy. So was I.


If I had more time, I'd also make the proper shoes and gloves.
But I didn't.
Oh, well.

Boy's trousers

MiniMojcek Nr. 2 gets almost all of the clothes from MiniMojcek Nr. 1. However, at this age all his trousers had either small or large holes on the knees - so MiniMojcek Nr. 2 needed some new ones. I made a pair about a month ago, and another pair today. That was quite a challenge: cutting the fabrics with one hand while holding MM2 in the other; sewing with MM2 repeatedly switching the sewing machine on and off; and MM1 occasionally stepping on the foot control ...


Funnily enough, once I made the trousers, I realised they were exactly the same colour as one of his favourite books. Here they are together:

Baby cap

We have a cap for MiniMojcek Nr. 2 but it is made of cotton and it is too cold for winter. So I copied the pattern and made a cap from polar fleece, using the remains of the fleece from the buggy blankets. A simple pattern, the side pieces cut 4-times and the central piece twice.


The finished product:




I could not resist putting the ears on the cap :-)