Crafts

Sewing a Harry Potter Dressing Gown – Simplicity Pattern S9002

June 19, 2020 by Penny Leave a Comment

Making a birthday special in lockdown is hard work. But when you have a child that is a massive Harry Potter fan, you’re planning a new Harry Potter themed bedroom for her, and then you happen across a sewing pattern for a Harry Potter dressing gown then you have to make it as a birthday present. Even if you are somewhat up to your eyes in home schooling in the middle of a global pandemic at the time!

Harry Potter Dressing Gown

It’s ages since I’ve done any proper dressmaking, but with added confidence from watching this series of the Sewing Bee I figured I should be able to manage a dressing gown. Originally I’d seen someone sharing an Instagram post of a Harry Potter cloak that they’d made, and I then ended up down an online rabbit hole that took me to *Simplicity Pattern S9002 for these house themed Harry Potter dressing gowns, or robes as they call them in America.

I think the last time I made something from a proper paper pattern was actually back in secondary school, yet I have a whole collection of patterns that I bought not long before I left my ex-husband that I’d never got round to doing anything with. There’s also a whole box of vintage patterns somewhere in the garage that also need some love and attention. I figured that I had to stop being so scared and just get on and make something.

Fabric choices

For this dressing gown I decided to make it in fleece fabric as I know my daughter loves that soft feel to a dressing gown. I ordered my fabric from Empress Mills who have an amazing selection of both plain and patterned fleece online. With everyone in lockdown at the time it was a fair while before I actually got the fabric, but lots of people inform me that they normally have a much quicker turnaround.

Sew on patches

I chose an obvious black fleece for the main body of the dressing gown and then, as my daughter is a Gryffindor fan, went for a red wine colour for the edge, hood and sleeve bands. I found a *Gryffindor sew on patch on Amazon which was perfect for the front of the gown. It’s worth noting that this isn’t included in the pattern and there are no hints on where to buy one from. Amazon seem to have a *wide selection of Harry Potter sew on patches though that should work for the four different houses.

Following the pattern

The pattern itself was relatively easy to understand, with good clear instructions and diagrams of each step. I found laying out and pinning the pattern pieces incredibly hard work, especially as I don’t have a big enough table, so was working on a deep pile carpet (80s style!) on my living room floor. It made cutting the pieces particularly difficult, especially as the fleece is really quite thick when folded double.

Luckily fleece is so much easier to sew than it is to cut. It’s also quite forgiving in terms of having a bit of stretch so that if you pin pieces together well you can always stretch one piece enough to line up notches etc. if your cutting has been slightly off.

The part of the project that I found the hardest was the contrast cuffs and edge bands. For all of these you apply iron-on interfacing to one of the band pieces before attaching it, and then you have to attach the other piece of the band and have one edge of it pressed under. It’s relatively straight-forward, but the problem is that fleece doesn’t exactly press nice and neatly, and it certainly doesn’t hold the press. To finish the bands off you’re supposed to stitch in the ditch, catching the folded under edge neatly on the other side so that the finished result is all neat. Let’s just say that the fleece didn’t exactly help to make this happen. As I said before though, fleece is luckily quite forgiving when sewing, and I ended up having to sew a few bits by hand to make sure the edges were caught under neatly.

Finished result

I’m so pleased with the finished result. And incredibly proud of myself for getting it finished, without needing to call anyone on FaceTime to help! Admittedly it’s not absolutely perfect, but it is far better than I expected it to be. If I were to make it again, I’d probably go for a less firm interfacing as the bands and cuffs are a bit stiffer than I’d like, but that really is a minor thing.

And the best news is that my daughter absolutely loved it when she opened it on her birthday morning.

What next

The whole project has certainly given me my sewing confidence back. Probably a good thing, as Master C has asked me to make him a dressing gown for his birthday in September. He’s already chosen the pattern he wants (*Simplicity 3575) and I’m hoping that it won’t be too tricky. I might just have to find a more amenable carpet to cut the pattern pieces out on this time!

Disclaimer: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. All marked with a *. If you click through on these links and buy anything then I receive a small commission, but it will cost you no more than usual. Many thanks to those of you that buy things via my affiliates links. Your support is appreciated greatly.

Sandcastle Bucket Hat – Made By Jack’s Mum

April 26, 2020 by Penny Leave a Comment

One of the challenges of lockdown with a small child is that they grow. You suddenly find that their clothes either no longer fit them, or are no longer appropriate for the weather. That’s exactly what’s happened with Tube Stop Baby.

Lockdown seems to have coincided with some gorgeous hot weather here in the UK. Almost like nature taunting us after all that rain we had earlier in the year. We’re incredibly lucky in that we have a back garden and enough space for the kids to get fresh air and exercise each day without having to go anywhere. What I did realise though is that the youngest member of the family didn’t really have any summer clothes, and definitely didn’t have anything to protect her head from the sun. Not really wanting to buy online and with the only shops selling kids clothes being supermarkets I decided that this was the kick up the backside I needed to actually get my sewing machine out again and so that’s exactly what I did.

Choosing a Pattern

There are hundreds of patterns available online for hats, but after asking for recommendations on Facebook several people pointed me towards the pattern for the Sandcastle Bucket Hat by “Made by Jack’s Mum“. Now this wasn’t a site that I knew at all, but it seems that I’m pretty much the last person on the planet to actually discover it!

Specialising in easy pdf patterns, Made by Jack’s Mum aims to make sewing accessible to everyone and that approach seems to be incredibly popular with a whole Facebook group full of people sharing photos of their makes from her patterns. The Sandcastle Bucket Hat is actually a free pattern and it also fulfilled my other requirement of only needing a couple of fat quarters to make the size I needed.

Following the pattern

The pdf pattern was printed out over four pieces of A4 paper. I then simply stuck these together with sellotape before cutting out the pattern pieces for the size I was making. There are different coloured and drawn lines for all the different sizes and it’s easy to follow the size you need.

The pattern is accompanied by an amazingly detailed set of instructions, with photos at every stage. They were incredibly easy to follow. The only practical difficulty I had was attaching the top circle to the ring of fabric that formed the sides of the hat. It just took a bit of re-pinning to get it lined up correctly and was probably due to my lack of practice recently.

The morning I spent making this hat was a perfect way to get me back into dress making and re-familiarising myself with my sewing machine. It certainly helped boost my confidence no end, and my final result was also a brilliant hat for my daughter.

My Sandcastle Bucket Hat

I’m really pleased with the end result. The fabric I used was from a bundle of floral fat quarters that I picked up Aldi a life-time ago. They have just been sat in my sewing stash ever since. It’s great to see them finally in use, and fulfilling a practical need too. I went for a floral fabric for the outside of the hat, and a pink spotty fabric for the inside. But, one of the beauties of the Sandcastle Bucket Hat is that it’s reversible meaning that we can choose which side to show off each day.

Now if only I could get her to actually keep the hat on her head whilst playing in the garden!

The Sandcastle Bucket Hat pattern is available online here.

September – the month that…

October 8, 2019 by Penny Leave a Comment

… vanished without a trace!

Somehow we’re in October. Worse than that, we’re already a week into October and I only just got round to swapping my calendar over from September this morning!

The last month (and a week) has been utterly crazy in so many ways. It was a month in which I celebrated our first wedding anniversary and Master C’s 7th birthday. Both seem somewhat unbelievable as time is going so fast.

It’s also been a month in which I’ve twice been over to Copenhagen with Bonn whilst he’s been working out there. The first time was mainly so that I didn’t have to spend our first wedding anniversary at home on my own, whilst the second trip was with the aim of gaining enough material to allow me to write several travel posts on both Denmark and Sweden. I certainly gathered everything I needed and visited loads of different places that I want to write about, I just need to find the time to actually do so now we’re back.

In addition to Copenhagen and Malmo I’ve also been up to Liverpool and the Wirral and enjoyed checking out charity shops at various other places around the country. We’ve been on the lookout for vintage board games in particular, but also other toy and game bits that we can use for a bit of a new business venture into the world of re-selling and reducing landfill. More on that over on Penny Plays when I get round to writing about it!

There’s also loads that I haven’t managed to get done in the last month – possibly because we’ve been away so much. The house hasn’t got much further forward over the last month, but at least I can now say that the downstairs loo is finished. Or at least it will be when the very final picture is returned to the wall. Once that is done I can finally take some photos and share the transformation with you.

The other thing that is hanging over me are the Clothkits kits that I bought when Tube Stop Baby was just six months old and that I planned to make for her first birthday which is the middle of November. I’ve now got just a month left and really need to pull my finger out and start working on them. I’ve managed to squeeze in a couple of craft book reviews, but finding time to actually craft is another matter entirely.

I’ve also been putting a lot of effort into my online blogging and social media work over the last month. Not as much as I would have liked to, but as much as I have been able to manage whilst still reserving a few hours every night for sleep. On the travel front I’ve started off my writing on Copenhagen and Malmo with details of how we managed to pop over to Sweden for dinner during our first Copenhagen stay earlier in the year. I’ve also teamed up with Three to write about how I make the most of their App when I’m travelling so that I can always work on the move and stay in touch with my kids.

Over on Penny Plays I’ve been desperately trying to catalogue and play all the vintage board games that came our way during the summer car boot season. Once we’ve played the games we’re looking to either keep them if they are ones that we can see us going back to again, or otherwise selling them over on our new ebay store. It’s early days yet, but we’re hoping this is a way to keep our board game stocks to a reasonable level so they don’t completely take over the house (and garage!). On the blog itself I’ve been writing about everything from a pre-electronics teach yourself chess game, through to Ghettopoly – a version of Monopoly set in a US ghetto. Somewhere in the middle I also wrote about a vintage Spears Game in which you are supposed to name things that begin with a certain letter of the alphabet – Tell Me. It’s certainly been varied.

In addition to all this I’ve also been trying to put some work into the Vintage Board Games Facebook group that we set up earlier in the year. It’s slow work, but with Facebook you need to really put the effort in to get the results out. I just need a bit more time for the effort part!

And lastly, but not at all least. Over on Penny Reads I’ve relaunched Ladybird Tuesday! This is probably one of the achievements I’m most proud of this last month or so. I’ve really missed my regular delves into my vintage Ladybird book collection and after losing various physical possessions during my divorce and subsequent house moves they are one thing that I am so glad to still have in my possession. There’s a huge body of work ahead of me to try and move all the original posts over from Being Mrs C, but I’m sure it will give me something to keep me out of trouble whilst the winter weather keeps us at home. The posts I’ve included this month vary from an original Uncle Mac book that I received for my birthday, through to a Learn to write workbook from the 1980s and the recent Climate Change book that was partly written by Prince Charles. Also in there was the Ladybird book about Denmark. It seemed somewhat appropriate seeing as I’ve spent so much time there lately.

What is nice though at the end of a busy month is sitting down like this and looking at everything that I have managed to achieve and not focussing on the things I failed to do. I’ve been pushing myself a lot lately with daily to do lists and sharing them on Instagram stories with the #KatyKicker hashtag to help make me accountable a bit for how much I get done in a day. It doesn’t always work, but what I have loved is reading Katy’s own monthly aims on her blog. One of the reasons I started blogging in the first place was as a way of making myself actually do things. Time to get back to using my blog like that and set myself some (achievable aims) for the month ahead.

Recycled Sewing

March 13, 2019 by Penny Leave a Comment

A very rare event took place in our house last night. I got to watch the Great British Sewing Bee live. So unheard of that I struggled to know what time it was actually on. Let alone what channel it was. (9pm, BBC2 in case you’re as ignorant as I am about live TV these days!) Normally I manage to pick it up on iPlayer the following day whilst feeding Tube Stop Baby.

Last night’s episode is worthy of further discussion though.

The theme was recycling with it being tagged as Reduce, Reuse and Recycle week. Normally there is a weekly transformation challenge when something is plucked from a “charity shop” for them to repurpose into something else. This took it to a whole new level though. It also brought out a couple of key statistics from Patrick that made me gasp.

Firstly, the average person in the UK throws away 15kg of clothes every year. Let’s just think about that for a second. Has our disposable attitude to clothes really got to the stage when so much is being ditched? And is it all really clothes that have worn out, or is it just things that are no longer “in fashion”? And where are all these clothes going?

When talking about the history of more “disposable fashion” they talked about Biba and how in the 1960s people were ready for something different after the war years and rationing. I can understand how those that had lived through such austerity would celebrate no longer having to, but have we just gone too far now?

I really struggle with the idea of shopping (especially for clothes) as a hobby. I honestly can think of nothing worse. If I need new clothes I pop to the shops, go for exactly what I want, buy it and get out of there as quickly as possible. The idea of spending hours just browsing rails of clothes not looking for anything in particular brings me out in a cold sweat!

The fact that so many clothes now are priced so that people can buy them as an impulse purchase may well be part of the problem. If they can buy clothes on a whim, them do they just get rid of them on a whim too?

The second statistic that made me gasp was that 30% of the fabric that home sewers buy, ends up not being used. OK, I understand that depending on what you making and patterns on the fabric you are using, it might be the case that cutting out isn’t always as efficient as it should be. I suppose the question is, what happens to all that fabric?

I’m pretty sure that most sewers that I know would never dream of putting off cuts in the bin if they can be used for something else. A dear WI friend of mine Emma, runs her own dress-making business, specialising in fantastic reproduction dresses (Oh Sew Vintage – look her up, her dresses are amazing!) and as a result has a lot of off cuts. There is no way that they are all destined for landfill though. Instead Emma makes the most of every last bit. Some she passes on to other people, or into our WI crafting supplies, but many are reused into smaller projects. I’ve seen some used to make small purses or make-up bags. Some used to make things like rag rugs or even rag fairy light garlands (like I did at Wine and Wigwams a couple of years ago) which look gorgeous. There is absolutely no reason for them just to go in the bin.

Last night’s Sewing Bee was excellent at highlighting just how much waste there can be – both in terms of unwanted garments and also when sewing at home. It showed how home furnishing items can be reused to make clothes, but I still think it can go further. Not all of us are yet at the stage of being able to make a dress from an old duvet cover (as much as I want to learn to) but something like a rag garland or wreath or even a simple patchwork blanket is achievable.

What we now need to do is show people who aren’t at the Sewing Bee level of sewing skills what is possible. Give them ideas and instructions as to what they can make from scraps of fabric that might otherwise go in the bin. Make them think more about those items of clothing that they no longer want to wear, and try to see them in a new light.

At the end of the day the idea of 15kg of clothes and 30% of sewing fabric being wasted is just criminal!

My own first steps towards all this is going to be trying to actually finish the million and one sewing (and crochet and knitting!) projects that I have in an unfinished state. They include the cot bed quilt that I originally started for Little Miss C all those years ago. I’ve found all the fabric and even the old blog posts from 2010 that I was following to help me and I’m determined to get it finished before Tube Stop Baby moves into a full size cot. Watch this space!

Photo by Dinh Pham on Unsplash.

Halloween Crafts – Halloween Hama Beads

October 22, 2018 by Penny Leave a Comment

If you follow me on Instagram you’ll have seen that my Halloween crafts are back decorating the house again this year and one of my favourite bits has to be the Halloween Hama beads that were partially inspired by the selection that CraftMerrily included in a Bostik Bloggers box a few years back. It’s time to share what I did back then with the Penny Blogs audience.

Pumpkins (or Jack O Lanterns as they’re called in the US) are one of the most obvious Halloween symbols to me, so they were the most obvious place to start with my Halloween Hama Beads. The urge to make them was so great that no only did I use up all the orange beads I could find in the house, but I also placed a separate order for more of them!

After making one large pumpkin (pattern found on Pinterest – and pinned on my Halloween board there) I then moved on to a smaller design with the aim of making some Hama bead bunting. Ideally I would have made more pumpkins, but to be honest I just ran out of orange beads! As I made them I lined them up on the bottom of the big mirror we have in our lounge and liked them all there so much that I just didn’t have the heart to move them when I finished.

Whilst waiting for an order of orange beads to arrive I tried modifying some cross stitch patterns that I’d found to create some other Halloween characters.

I started with a simple skeleton – not too bad for a first attempt.

Then I totally depleted my white bead supply with this cute ghost. There’s no way you could describe him as scary but I am completely in love with him!

The thing I’m fast discovering with Hama beads is that no matter how many of them you seem to have in the house, you never have enough in the right colours to make exactly what you want to make when you want to do it. I’m coming to the conclusion (whilst I wait for my next order to arrive!) that buying in bulk and having lots of storage boxes (and you can even buy ones designed for Hama beads these days) sorted into colours is the way forward.

Disclaimer: This post was originally published on Being Mrs C as part of my work as a Boston Blogger. It contains affiliate links.

Plastic Poppies: A Remembrance Day Craft

June 15, 2018 by Penny Leave a Comment

It used to be that all Remembrance Sunday or Remembrance Day poppies all looked the same. Occasionally you would get a handmade one, but they generally just followed the same uniform design. Then it seems the internet came along. The combination of sites and apps like Pinterest and Instagram seems to have coincided with more people making (and showing off) their own creations.

I’ve crocheted my own poppies before, but this time round I’m making plastic poppies as part of a piece of work that my WI is undertaking for a local event. I’ve set up a bit of a kitchen table production line to make plastic poppies which can be done very simply from plastic bottles. Here’s how.

What you need

Plastic drinks bottles – any size will do
Stanley knife or similar
Fine sandpaper
Red acrylic paint
Black acrylic paint or black sharpie pen
Paint brush

How to make the poppies

Firstly, use the knife to carefully cut the bottom off a plastic drinks bottle. I suggest cutting just above any dimples on the base of the bottle. These give the finally poppy a bit more shape. The remaining part of the bottle can be recycled.

Once you’re bottle bottoms are detached, use either the knife or sandpaper to remove any sharp edges. If you’re planning on doing this craft with children you might want to do everything with the knife before getting them involved.

Paint the inside of the bottle bottoms with two (or more) coats of red acrylic paint. Experimentation told me that two was sufficient to give complete coverage, but you may need to do more depending on the plastic bottles you are using.

Once the red paint is dry, use either black paint or black sharpie to colour in the centre of the poppy. The texture of the original bottle may mean that one method works better than the other.

And there you have it – plastic poppies, made from recycled drinks bottles. An easy, yet effective, Remembrance Day craft, that also makes use of plastic that might otherwise end up in landfill.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links.