Royal Wedding Skirts

Lurking in the remnant bin at John Lewis I found a piece of fabric to commemorate the Royal Wedding.  It cost about £5 and looked to be just enough to run up a couple of skirts for two little princesses to wear to the street party today.

These were such easy skirts to make, and light and comfortable to wear.  It is a very simple rectangle of fabric, joined at the short edges to make a tube.  I then turned over a narrow hem at the top, and did several (6/7) lines of shirring, using the edge of the presser foot as a guide.  I dampened the shirring and pressed, to shrink it up, then hemmed the bottom, adding on a band of organza to trim, and it's done!

Toddler wedding bibs

Here is the only hastily captured picture of the bibs I made for the girls to wear at the wedding breakfast (complete with hotel carpet background).

Indeed this is the only evidence that the bibs ever existed, since they have now disappeared into the ether. Excessive alcohol consumption + chasing sleep-deprived, sugar-fuelled daughters around all day = distinct lack of care of personal possessions. Frankly I'm amazed I even made it home with my handbag and house keys.

Nevertheless, a fabulous day was had by all, the bride was beautiful, the girls just about managed to perform their flower girl duties without taking out anyone's eye with their flower wands, and the bibs were a hit, although nothing short of a miracle could have prevented Bethan from giving herself an ice-cream beard during the speeches.

The bib design was based on one of their current plastic bibs, but made slightly wider and much longer to protect the skirts of their adorable dresses. The fabric I used was a delicate Peter Rabbit toile, backed with a white brushed cotton. They were finished with topstitching around the edges and a satin bow. My intention was for it not to be noticeable that they were wearing bibs, and I think it worked out pretty well. Until they got covered in chocolate ice-cream of course.

Wedding Shoe Clips

From perfectly nice, but rather plain satin shoes...

... to something a little more glamorous, and certainly more suited to the lovely mother of the bride.

As the lone crafter in the family, my mother in law commissioned me to turn the plain jane shoes into something more befitting her fabulous wedding outfit. Pressure!!

Made from matching silk I finished these shoe clips with a vintage Japanese pearl cabochon.

When I emailed a picture of my first attempt to my mother in law to see if she liked them and wanted me to continue, this was her reply:

"The shoe design is marvellous. I love, love, love them! If you can make those I would be delighted. Can you try? You are a wonder!"

What a lovely response! She has been in somewhat of a panic about finding the perfect shoes to go with her outfit, so I think she is delighted to finally solve the problem, with only days left to spare.

The usual recipients of my crafting efforts are the girls, who are most likely to run straight into the garden and cover their lovingly created designs in mud, so I'm basking in the warm and fuzzy glow of appreciation right now...I am a wonder...oh yeah...

Bridesmaid rose hair clips

The most anticipated British wedding of the century is almost upon us**. Yes, my sister in law and her fiance are tying the knot in two weeks time - hurrah!

My two little angels (...please, please let them behave like angels...just for one day) are the flower girls.

They have utterly adorable 50s style dresses by Jasper Conran complete with skirts just crying out to be twirled, satin beaded ballet pumps, ivory butterfly party tights and now finally handmade rose hair clips. I don't know why I put it off for so long as they only took a few minutes really.

The only thing left to do now is to make some sort of cover up to prevent those dresses getting covered in an array of samples from the wedding breakfast. Turns out two and four year olds are pretty messy eaters - who knew?


** Other British (and possibly more Royal) weddings may also be available.

Repurposed shirt dress

Today I'd like to share a repurposed/upcycled/recycled/(*insert preferred term of the moment here*) project.

Roughly following the tutorial from Made I used an old shirt with holes in the elbows to make a dress for Eva.


It felt like I was winging it a bit to cut the basic shape of the dress, but I think it turned out pretty well. Ahem. Who am I kidding? I am completely in love with this dress!

I changed the belt style around, added a ruffle at the hem, and set off the dark colours with a hot pink bias binding around the ruffle, to tie in with the hot pink buttons at the centre of the yoyos at the neckline.

This kind of recycling is infinitely more satisfying than collecting stinky old piles of plastic milk bottles!

Tutorial: Pom Pom Wool Scarf

Genetically speaking, I really ought to be a great knitter. My mother and my grandmothers were all knitters, and whilst they did teach me the basics of how to knit, I think I got too caught up with other crafting activities to pursue my knitting destiny. I'm pretty sure that the only knitting projects I have undertaken have been either blanket squares or scarves, and I can't even claim to have finished many of these.

Despite my obvious shortcomings in matters of woolcraft, when the cold autumn nights draw in I still have some unfathomable urge to knit. One trip to the wool shop and a few evenings of new-project-fuelled fervour later...and my mum has another scarf to finish off.

Not this year though.

Observe: two (TWO!!) complete, and rather lovely scarves, knitted entirely by me, every last stitch.

There has been no change in my (lack of) knitting skills, nor my (in)attention span. I owe my knitting success story to the marvel of pompom wool. Hurrah!

It knits up quickly, looks fancy, is lovely and snuggly to wear, and is surprisingly easy to do, once you get the hang of it. What more could you ask for?

The basic instructions are that you hold the pom pom to the back of the work while you wrap the wool around your needle, and you knit two stitches between each pom pom.

To make it really clear I made a video demonstration to show exactly how to knit with pompom wool, including casting on. You see, I'm such an experienced knitter now I even do tutorials haha!!

Hope you find it useful!

Halloween spider hair clips

Today's 5 minute craft. Think they will catch on for non-Halloween wear? No, I hope not either.

Child's shoe tying aid

Sometimes the simple things in life can be unexpectedly pleasing, and for me this sweet little craft project just hits the spot.

It barely needs explanation - draw around shoe on card, cut out, poke holes and thread old shoelace through - and I even managed to complete it with my demanding 3 year old *helping*, so it must be an easy one.

Even so, there's something about the laid back colours and the shape of those cute little Converse that just makes me smile.

It has yet to actually become useful, however, as Eva refuses to participate in the shoelace tying lesson. Despite my protests that I already know how to tie my shoelaces, the only response I get from her is "Mummy, you do it". I think we'll be buying velcro fastening shoes for a while yet.

Denim wellington boot bags

In view of the delightful British weather today, my post is aptly about wellington boots, or rather the storage thereof.

Once upon a time the humble wellie was a rarely seen creature in our house, venturing out only for the odd summer festival, and again for the annual 3 inches of snow we Brits love to panic over.

Then along came the children. The wellie now enjoys its place in the spotlight, being regulation wear for puddle splashing, leaf kicking, playing in the park and garden, and somewhat more surprisingly being styled with dresses for party wear, or perhaps with just a nappy for a more casual post-bathtime ensemble (fashion decisions entirely out of my hands, I hasten to add).

To make the muddy boots a bit more portable I made wellie boot bags out of a pair of old jeans.
I cut off each jean leg below the knee (one bag is shorter than the other due to the huge tear in one knee of the jeans; then again one pair of wellies is shorter than the other due to their owner being two years younger, so it works out well for now!)

I then made simple drawstring bags, with squared off corners at the bottom to allow for the width of the boots inside, garden twine for the handles, and appliqued wellies, fixed with Bondaweb (Wonder Under) and a decorative running stitch outline.

Practical yet cheerful - just what we needed!