Beard bib!

I have fallen a bit behind with documenting the things I have been making as part of Me Made May. So here is a look at the first MMM item I made for the Little One...

A BEARD BIB!!

Completed: May 4th (after completing my maxi skirt)

I have already made a few dribble bibs for the Little One, but this time round I made her a long beard bib. Why on earth would I make my baby daughter a long beard bib? Thanks internet, that's a good question! It was so that she could non-verbally celebrate the launch of my friend Stephen Collins' wonderful first graphic novel The Gigantic Beard That Was Evil.

If you click on that link you'll see that the whole book was done in soft pencil with lots and lots of intricate cross hatching, so in homage I chose this excellent fabric from my stash with its scrawly cross hatched design...

...and I drew a beardy shape.

I lined it with some white flannelette and topstitched around the edge, all ready to go to the book launch...

(she was getting a bit grumpy by the time this shot was taken)

You can see Stephen Collins' weekly cartoon in The Guardian Weekend Magazine here (may I recommend this one, this one and this one), his website here and you can buy The Gigantic Beard That Was Evil here.

Celebratory stitchery

Some friends of my sister recently took a trip to New York with their little daughter. One of the things they planned to do was, on a day that felt right, go to City Hall and get married. 

Their friends wanted to commemorate this happy event so my sister commissioned me to do some celebratory stitchery. She asked for their initials, NYC 2013 (because no one knew exactly what date it would be!) and some sort of tying-the-knot motif. 

This is what I did...

I extended the ends of the knot, turning them into leafy tendrils which I felt represented the possibilities for their future while giving a hint of the look of a family crest.

I spent a while experimenting with the design and when I arrived at the one I liked, I traced it onto my fabric using my fancy light box (ie: I taped the design to the window, taped the fabric over it and traced away!)

The design was for a 4 inch embroidery hoop but I stitched it on a larger hoop. I hadn't done any embroidery for ages and it was so nice to do it again - the thread makes a really satisfying noise as it passes through the taught fabric. It's quite tambourine-y!

I used three subtly different shades of blue embroidery floss (you know, 'something blue') the darkest for the lettering, medium blue for the knot and the tendrils, and the paler blue for the leaves. I used two strands of floss except for the ends of the tendrils and the leaves where I used a single strand.

I washed it, remounted it in a 4" hoop and sent it over to my sister in Australia. She wrapped it up beautifully and gave it to her friend to open up once they got to New York. She told me that her friend opened it up on the plane on the way over and promptly burst into tears she loved it so much!

So now I can finally tick "make someone cry through the medium of embroidery" off my list of things to do!

Floral sorbetto

Floral cotton sorbetto with pintucks.

Completed: May 9th. 

For me the whole point of joining up to this year's Me Made May challenge was to kickstart my making mojo. I've had the mindset recently that I don't have the time to make things. While it's true that baby wrangling doesn't always allow me the time to complete a project in one sitting, there are times when I can do just a stage or two of a project. I've not always been particularly good at the little-and-often school of making, if inspiration strikes (and I have all the materials to hand) I prefer to go go go till it's done. 

I have previously made two of Colette Pattern's free download Sorbetto before - pony and plain and put them together relatively quickly, but this time circumstances meant that I had to make it in stages. Day 1: cutting fabric. Day 2: morning- darts and seams, evening- making continuous bias binding (this tutorial). Day 3: morning- pintucks, neck binding, evening- arm hole binding, hemming.

Changes I made:

Originally I wanted to make it with the front pleat but I didn't have enough fabric so was going to leave it plain. I felt like it needed something though, so I stitched these five little pintucks down the front. I also added a bit of length to the pattern. 

Changes I should have made:

I only realsised once it was done that I should have shifted the darts down a bit (the last time I made it I didn't have post-pregnancy bazooms!) The fit is ok but it could be better. 

Usually I would go for a darker, more muted palate but I chose this lightweight floral cotton for a couple of reasons. I was inspired in part by the pink floral print sorbetto that Lauren wore on the Great Brittish Sewing Bee (she added buttons down the back which is a nice touch), and I think I was subconsciously inspired by a little white/blue floral blouse my sister had in the '90s which had pintucks down each side of the buttons (although I only remembered about that blouse when I was stitching the pintucks on this top!) Mainly though, summer is coming and I think I could do with some more light, bright summery options. 

I've worn it out already (with a pale purple vest underneath and a blue cardigan on top, because summer isn't quite here yet) and it was nice and comfy. So it's a handy summer wardrobe addition and a lesson in the value of the little-and-often approach to sewing.

First make of May...

So it's the end of the first week of Me Made May '13 and here's what I've made for myself over the last few days...

This stripey jersey maxi-skirt.

Worn with me-made cowl neck t-shirt,

me-made map bag

completed: May the 4th (be with you)

I've had this jersey in my stash for ages. Thanks to the tag still being on it I know I got nearly three metres of it for a fiver. I had thought it was black and grey stripe but on closer inspection it turned out to be a dark navy blue. 

The skirt was self drafted, although that makes it sound like there was a proper plan - it was more of a make-it-up-as-you-go-along sort of deal. The stripey jersey is quite lightweight which means it flows nicely while wearing it, but it also means that it's a bit see-through, so I added an interlining of black jersey-

(please excuse the wrinkles)

Having so much fabric to play with I allowed myself the luxury of cutting it quite wide at the bottom. The waistband, which sits more on my hips than waist, is 1.5" elastic stitched to the wrong side of the skirt, folded in and stitched again. I stitched the seams and finished off the bottom edge using my serger/overlocker and used my regular machine for the 3-step zigzag stitch of the waistband and hem.

I've already worn it out a couple of times and it's a good, easy, breezy sort of skirt with lots of movement. I think it will get a lot of wear this summer. 

So there, I'm calling the first make of May a success! I did complete another little something for the Little One this week which I will show you in the next few days...

Me Made May '13!

boom! hello spring!

Hello hello! There hasn't been a lot of action on the old blog recently, that's because there's been a lot of action away from the blog recently!

Spring has finally sprung, London is looking all shiny in this new batch of sunshine, first the crocuses, daffodils, blossoms, and now the Magnolia trees have been putting on a pretty stunning show and I've been hanging out with the Little One - Rhyme Time at the local library, galleries and exhibitions, her first swim, hanging out in the park, wandering along the Southbank, discovering the joy of bubbles - it's pretty great!

As a result of all this out-and-about-ness there hasn't been a lot of making going on at home. I've whipped up a few things for my Little One (and a few other Little Ones) but that's about it. Come to think of it, apart from the diamond heist necklace, I don't think I've made anything for myself since I made a couple of Megan Nielsen ruched maternity skirts. And that was aaaaaaaaaaages ago. I'm finding it trickier to find time to make things and so have got out of the habit of making things.

So, in order to kickstart my making mojo, I'm signing up to So Zo...'s Me Made May '13! I participated for the first time last year pledging to wear at least one item of me-made clothing/footwear/accessories every day for the month of May and I completed that challenge successfully - in fact I averaged three me-made items a day which I'm pretty proud of!

Rather than repeating last year's effort, I have decided to tweak the me-made challenge a little this year (I don't think Zoe will mind) by putting more of a focus on the making. And so, without further ado...

I, Emily Botterman of The Botterman Empire, sign up as a participant of Me Made May '13. I endeavour to make at least one item of clothing/accessories for myself and/or the Little One each week for the duration of May. 

For more information about Me Made May '13 check out Zoe's blog, and if you fancy a challenge you can sign up too!

Big thanks go to Zoe for organising this excellent event and good luck to my fellow MMMay-ers! I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with! 

Exhibition: Window 135

If you've wandered along New Cross Road in South East London, you may have noticed Window 135. A grocers in a former life, it is the home of Tim Jones and Meena Chodha, who, for the past 8 years or so, have used the old shop window as a gallery space. 

I have been fascinated by their window for years. Featuring original paintings and assemblages (often of weird and wonderful objects found in the nearby Deptford market) their ever changing displays often stop me in my tracks so that I can take a closer look.

One of their windows was the inspiration behind my something out of nothing necklace, so you can understand how thrilled I was to be contacted by Tim and Meena recently, asking if I'd be interested in having the window for a week to do with as I wished!

After meeting with Tim and Meena over a cup of tea (and a chance to finally get a peek at what lies behind the window. Yessssss!) I decided that I would like to feature the faceted necklace that had its origins in the window, and to expand that out to my recent obsession exploration of facets in general.

I had a lovely morning yesterday setting up the window. I had a rough idea in mind of how I wanted it to look and was very pleased to be able to rummage among the large collection of interesting objects that live behind the window to help fill out my vision...

Faceted necklaces.

Something out of nothing necklace, enormous gold tipped sapphires necklace and recently completed diamond heist necklace...

Big pretendy diamond necklace made with chandelier drops (purchased a while ago from a selection at Jo's toot stall at Spitalfields Market), silver leather, beads and wire. 

And speaking of diamonds, I stitched together a hexagon and various triangles of silver leather to create this baby. Being such a priceless artifact I have put it under a dome (and am considering also protecting it with a network of laser beams - the kind that you'd have to do this to get past)

Leading up to the (cake tin) plinth is a sheet of tesselated leather triangles. I cut nearly 200 triangles from silver covered vegtan leather which I had left over in my stash after using it as soling leather for a pair of shoes a few years ago. The triangles are stuck to some black jersey material (also from the stash) which allows them to crumple and catch the light in a very pleasing fashion. 

(Thankyou to Remnant Gleaning's experimentation with tessellated leather which I found while researching how to achieve this.)

To finish things off and to frame my pieces, I stuck some blue washi tape to the window to give the impression of irregular facets and to tie-in with the blue of the sapphires necklace.

So if you find yourself wandering around New Cross (day or night) keep an eye out for Window 135. My wares will be there this week.

More Window 135 goodness on their blog, on vimeo and tumblr (including a lovely detail shot of the big leather diamond here.)

crochet quickie

Today has been a bit of a crazy day and this evening I felt like I needed a bit of calm. After pootling around the crocheted corners of the internet, I came across this quick and easy pattern for a crochet votive that inspired me to get stitching. I was even inspired to finally wash out an old jar of peanut butter that had been languishing in the cupboard with only the tiniest scraping of peanut butter left inside!

And so, with a baby falling asleep on my lap I was able to whip this up pretty quickly and am currently enjoying watching the shadows dancing on the wall.