Giselle's Coat

I tell you what, long droopy sleeves make coat wearing hard work!

It took a lot of searching before I found this pattern!

Many thanks to Xanthipe for providing the army blanket used to make it!  The binding is made out of an old sheet dyed at the same time as the dress!

I added a lined hood for extra weatherproofness and I debated adding a button at the top but a yellow scarf has been offered and for comedic purposes that might well be a better plan so I'll hold off for now.

I never thought I could love yellow and brown kit so much!

Introducing Giselle!

This year I am playing an elven earth mage paladin.  It's not the easiest of going (worst statline ever), but I do love my new kit.

If you think the dress looks familiar you're completely right.  It's Aurora's, dyed and with a different trim added! The gambeson is new, made to an old pattern (that embarrasingly I don't appear to have shown yet, oops?) and machine quilted and embroidered.

All the inner seams are also bound with yellow and I made greaves and vambraces to match.

It has a detachable hood and it's really very comfy!

Another Sneak Peek!

And here's a quick peek at one of the bits I got at this years Knitting and Stitching show!

So much potential in here!

Oh so pretty!

I have used a load of these already, I can't wait to show you on what!

Sneak Peek!

I got to play with a soldering iron last week!  I'll show you more when we're settled int he new house, but here's a sneak peek at what I was upto.

Introducing Aurora

I NPC'd our High Level 36 Hour larp this year and played 'the good guy' plot dumping NPC.

My sister and I were opposing each other and so thematically we went for that age old look - dark and light!

We each made a  Simplicity 4940.  I used cream cotton, gold ric-rac and a gold sequin star.  We cut it to the knees at the front but let it hang to our ankles at the back.

We also added a lace trim to the collar.  Incidentally, if you make this dress, interface the collar!  it doesn't really stand up if you don't.

As you can see, my 'sister' was a bit grumpier than me!

 Her dress was black cotton with silver ric-rac, a black sequin star and adorable skull and cross bones ribbon in the sleeve.

Here we are demonstrating why the monster crew should never be left unattended! 

Just so you all know, i'm moving house this week, so apologies if I go silent for a while!

Macmillan Coffee Morning

We had a Macmillan Coffee morning at work a few weeks back and made a brilliant £320!  I'm so proud of my colleagues for organising this and everyone who came for giving so generously and  making it such a success!

I made a couple of cakes for the stand!

This is a coffee cake.  I used Mary Berry's Cappucino Coffee Cake, recipe found here.  It was very popular and had disappeared before I left!

This is a chocolate victoria sponge decorated with malteasers because I got challenged by a friend.  Challenge accepted!

And here's an early morning pic of our stand.  By the time the coffee morning started we had so many cakes we couldn't fit them all on there!

Beans

I think it's safe to say Small Bean's birthday present was a hit!

She was very excited to open her present, murmuring 'oh wow, oh gosh' to herself as she did so and immediately wanted to put it on which is of course the reaction I was hoping for!
 

 She enjoys taking selfies with me, dancing round the room and settling down to a nice cup of tea.  That's my girl!

Meanwhile Tiny Bean explored thoroughly and just like her sister before her, got into all sorts of pickles!  Still, you're only little once, right?

Overnight Duffel Bag

Another birthday gift!  What do you make a stylish friend with a super busy lifestyle?  Clearly a bag so she has a way to carry everything she needs!

I made this Overnight Duffel Bag in wool, corduroy and satin.

It was a nice sew, although it did come out a bit smaller then I'd hoped.  I think, if I made it again, I'd make the lining separately and add it in as opposed to how the directions have you do it.

 That said, the instructions were clear, it was a lovely sew and I really enjoyed making it.  Quite tempted to run another one up for me as a new larp bag!

Project Project Project

So, way back when, for my birthday party, I decided (with barely a fortnight to go if I recall correctly), that a really fun idea would be to dress all the pseudo-nieces in the same dress and take a group photo of them.  And then I decided I should also have a matching dress.  Because apparently I don't like sleep...

Anyway, I got all the dresses sewn and we had a great time trying to convince the four of them to pose for photos!

And here we all are!  The children were very bemused as to why they were made to sit on the sofa and stare at all the adults on the other side of the room encouraging them to sit still and smile!

As you can see, the girls fit a range of sizes, from Small Bean here (who's growing so fast!)  all the way down to Starbug below

So I picked this pattern, which has a great range of sizes! And even better, is a nice easy sew.

I customized the girls dresses with different buttons and trim.  My dress trim matches Starbug's, purely because I have loads of blue ricrac....

 The dresses also each have a different colour lining.  If I remember correctly, Small Beans is green, Tiny Bean's is mint. Lizard's is blue and Starbug and I have cream (Starbug's dress took next to no fabric as she's so diddy!).

The girls enjoyed the veg sticks from the buffet a lot!  and Lizard is customizing her dress here in a gorgeous cardie that Ruthwhoisnotablogger made for her.

My dress is a mix and match of two simplicity patterns, largely because I couldn't get one bodice to work, so I switched it out for one that I knew fitted as I was running very short on time by that point!

The dresses all fitted, more or less, which is a huge relief  because I may not have measured anyone before I sewed them!  This may in part be because I slightly surprised the parents of my pseudo nieces by only telling them of the plan a couple of days before...

I'm also pleased to say the dresses did not seem to impede crawling, an important note for those wanting to sew for small people.
 

Starbug was unimpressed by the noise, meaning I had to give her extra cuddles to comfort her.  Such a hard life...

Lizard sat beautifully quietly in the corner so once we'd let the Beans head back to the important business of playing,  we snuggled up for a quick smallest pseudo-nieces cuddle.

It was a lovely experiment and I'm very glad to have friends so willing to allow my to use their children as tiny dress up dolls!  Also, many thanks to Lizard's Mama for taking all these wonderful photos for me!