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Sorbetto.

I've been watching the Great British Sewing Bee recently - and have really been enjoying it.  For good, or bad, it's inspired be to do some more dressmaking.

I've been trying to concentrate on doing crafty projects that involve using stuff from my stash (whether fabric or yarn), and also not to buy any patterns.  I did slip up and bought a pattern for a dress for Frances - but on the whole I'm doing OK.  I was poking around on the internet and found the Sorbetto pattern - a free pattern by Colette Patterns for a very simple sleeveless top.  I also found the 7 days of Sorbetto where sew weekly makes 7 Sorbetto's in 7 days.  She added a sleeve to her tops and provided a copy of what she'd used for the sleeve, but after a bit more poking around on the internet I found a better drafting of her sleeve.

And the result?

I know there are three photos, but I've ended up with 2 tops... I used an old sheet for one, which I then dyed to be a greeny colour - unfortunately the dye didn't take properly in a couple of places, so in came a few appliqued trees.  And the tree one is from an old cot duvet cover I found at our local Brocki (so not really from my stash, but I think I can live with 4chf) .  I made my own biased binding, added the sleeve as mentioned before and altered the neckline so that it's a bit more of a v-shape.  I also graded between 3 sizes so that it fits better - it's quite loose fitting, but I think looks fine and is comfortable to wear.

Now, back to my quilt (that you can see in progress in the background) or some more dressmaking - let's see what the GBSB inspires me to do this week...

Planting seeds

Last weekend the kids and I planted some seeds.  We planted:  Hollyhock, Dahlias, Tomatoes (San Marzano), Sweet Corn, Habenero Peppers, Runner Beans, Pumpkins, Carnations, Aubergine and Artichoke.  We've already had some germination, but I suspect the viability of some of the seeds won't be great as the seeds are quite a few years old - one of my plans for this growing season is to plant as many of the seeds we already have so that we can start fresh next year. 

I'm looking forward to having a proper growing season here, rather than the stunted Finnish one - unfortunately we have no garden, but we should be able to make good use of our balcony space.

Travel pillows

Also for our upcoming trip to Vietnam I've made a couple of travel pillows for the kids - hopefully so they can sleep on the plane and be all daisy fresh when we arrive... ha ha ha!

I used this tutorial and pattern and stuffed them with polyfil.