Keep Smiling

Yesterday was a weird day.

I started off taking lil man to school and then I went into Hanley to finish off Christmas shopping. I had great success and managed to finish off all of Rikki's presents.

Then I popped home, had a quick dinner and got ready to go to my friends interment. 

Which was.... well not great. I couldn't find the plot so I ended up being a bit late but I was there for some of the really nice parts. I got to put something in with him, and have one last can of coke with him. That was a really nice touch he always drank coke so someone brought a crate of coke with them so we could all have one last drink together. 

Emotional but lovely. Then I popped to the local pub with everyone to share stories and catch up.

Then I drove home, had a quick tea and was off out again!!

This time I went out with some of the mums from school. Four of us went to the local church for a craft evening. We each paid £3 and I think there was about 7? crafts to do. We didn't get around to doing all of them but we did make.....

Hanging sheep. These were made with curtain rings and wool with lil felt faces!

A snow globe. Mine didn't turn out great as the deer is facing the side rather than front but I still think its pretty cute. I do have some worries about it leaking though!

Glow in the dark hanging decoration. This is just a little glass jar filled with glow in the dark hammer beads. Then we put hooks in the top and put some stickers on. 

Snowman Clothes peg, the lady said these were for on the side of plant pots! Its a white dolly peg with a bead and felt hat, a ribbon scarf and the end of a cocktail stick nose. The nose isn't my work though my friend Sarah coloured it in for me whilst I ate my mince pie!

Pine cone Christmas tree. A pine cone spray painted green and then we stuck on some coloured pompoms and glittered it up.

This was by far my favourite make of the evening! These scrabble tiles [from ebay] are stuck onto a strip of card using double sided tape. then we put some metal hooks in and looped through some ribbon. 

I did my name and lil mans but sadly didn't have time to do Rikki's. Which makes me think I may have to invest in some scrabble tiles of my own so I can make more. 

After the crafts we popped to out local pub and met up with some of the other mums for a night of chatting and drinking! I had a really fun night but boy am I tired today! I stayed out past 12! I have no idea how I used to stay up until 3 in the morning! 

All in all it was a pretty mixed day, on the one hand I had a great time with the mums from school but on the one hand I had to say goodbye to a good friend and that was really hard. 

You see Plumby was a rare example of a genuinely wonderful human being. He was kind and selfless. He was funny, he always had time for people and he was caring towards those people he loved. I don't think in the 20ish years I knew him I ever heard him say a bad word against anyone. 

And most importantly he always had a HUGE smile on his face. 

I'm going to miss him a lot.

Much Love

Frankie 

x

  

Bulbasaur Costume for Children In Need

"As its Children in need on Friday we are giving you the opportunity to send your child into school dressed up as a character from a children's TV show!"

DUH DUH DUHHHHHH! 

Okay so here's the deal, Lil man is not a fan of kids TV [something I thank Jesus for everyday because I cannot cope with Topsy and Tim or Peppa pig]. Instead he chooses to either watch Disney movies [which I LOVE]  or he's a huge fan of sports shows like football and golf and of course for some strange reason he loves only fools and horses! Which left me in a bit of a pickle because what on earth do I send him as? Del boy? A football pundit? I mean the brief said KIDS tv!

Luckily I remembered that a few weeks ago him and Rikki binge watched the first few seasons of Pokemon and he really enjoyed it. We did try and find a ready made costume but the only ones we could find either cost upwards of  £20 or wouldn't arrive till December. So it looked like it was done to me to try and whip something up!

So I had a quick look through my fabric cupboard and found a piece of jersey that's roughly the right colour for Bulbasaur. And set about trying to make something [I started two days before he actually needed the costume because I'm a maverick like that!] 

And to make matters even harder the school had added their own list of specifications! 

1. Children must wear suitable footwear.

2. The costume must be comfortable to wear all day.

3. The child must be able to remove the costume themselves if they need the toilet/have PE

4. The costume must be warm and all children should still arrive at school with a coat! 

No pressure then!

I decided the easiest thing to do would be to send him in jeans [I added a few patches/scales to these] and to make him a simple hoody he could wear over a tshirt and to make the bulb part as a rucksack he could take on and off himself.

The rucksack/bulb is a ball of stuffing covered in "leaves" made from some green fabric I had. The leaves are lined in a salmon colour because that's the colour of the flower Bulbasaur has when he evolves [Pokemon evolve as they get bigger, its like the whole thing in the TV show].

For one brief crazy moment I did consider making it with a flower underneath so he could evolve throughout the day.... But then I realised that would be massive overkill for a costume that's only going to be worn once.  

All of the leaves are stitched on by hand to try and achieve a more natural shape and look. 

The straps are made from some webbing that I had in my stash, luckily It was a dammed near perfect colour match. And after much pinning and adjusting we found a good strap length so that Lil man could take it on and off himself. 

The pattern for the Hoody came from Freesewing.org  and saved me from having to draft a pattern from scratch. Luckily I already had most of lil mans measurements on the website the only ones I had to add were how big his head it and his wrist size. Both of which I had to guess, which is why I think the hood came out a bit shallow. But I just added a piece onto the front so I'd have enough room for Bulbasaurs face. 

I also didn't use ribbing for the cuffs etc like the pattern said because I didn't have any which is why the sleeves are a touch too short. In stead I chose to fully line the hoody with the same fabric [Luckily it was pretty thin so it needed lining to keep the shape] and them to top stitch around the edge. 

The jerseys is from my stash and I;m pretty sure it came from my friends Nans house and the darker patches are from one of lil mans old t shirts that was getting a bit scraggy. I appliqued them on using a zig zag stitch and it took blooming ages! The eyes are made from some small pieces of felt and the nose and mouth are black wool. 

I even remembered to insert some cute little ears into the hood. Although I am gutted that they don't stand up very well. 

All in all I'm really pleased with it! Even more so because it cost NOTHING! Even the zip was recycled from an old hoody! #winning

I was a bit worried that he'd be a bit obscure but lil man was really happy with it and some of the other kids immediately recognised him as Bulbasaur so that's a plus.

Now I just need to start planning for the next costume day! 

Much Love

Frankie 

xxx

Altering Me Mades

Sometimes you make something and yo think "yes this is it I am the queen of sewing, all shall bow before me and feel the wrath of my unpicker!" and sometimes you think "okay so this isn't ground breaking but its not awful" and sometimes you think "This is fugly..."

And every now and again you make something, like it but still don't wear it. And being that I don't have a HUGE wardrobe, no seriously my wardrobe is the size if a postage stamp, that means I have to decided if I'm going to alter it or just bin it. 

And unlike ready to wear clothing its really quite hard to let go of things you've actually made yourself with your own hands. so remake it was!

I didn't make any major changes, quite simply this dress did have a pink lace waistband but the lace was too think and I felt like I had a massive expanse of stomach out. Plus pink lace isn't really my jam! anyway you can read the full post about the original dress here. 

So I switched out the pink lace waistband for a plain one that I cute of the extra length of the skirt. Which seams fairly simple until you realise it involves taking out a zip, and taking out two rows of top stitching as well as the seams themselves.

It did mean however that I could do my gathers more evenly and swap out the zip for something that matched a little better. Even if it is a chunky beast of a thing!

And now I love this dress again! One little change and suddenly I can't wait to put it on and wear it!

In other news, I am BUSY! I'm talking Christmas style busy but in August!!!!

So far since August we've had 4 birthdays, 1 meeting with a registrar, 1 child to prepare for school an Anniversary, A shed load of wedding stuff to sort out and my hen party to arrange! and in September we have 2 birthdays, my hen party, my second hen party, rikkis stag, a big birthday party, my wedding hair appointments, final things to liase with the venue................................. I wont bore you to death but lets just say we haven't had time to breathe!!!!

And would you believe I still have people I need to chase up about invitations? I mean really? How rude!!!!! 

So any moment I can find to sew has been a godsend for my mental health and balance!!! 

Esspecially seen as my lil squidge is growing up so fast!!! We actually went out yesterday and brought him three new pairs of shoes for school! one smart pair, one pair of pe trainers [which apparently had to be all white but omg have you tried to find all white trainers recently? for a four year old? who's probably going to wear them a grand total of ten times?] and one pair of new shoes for day to day use because his old ones were super scraggy and horrible!!! 

So yeah I know I'm going to have a huge cry when he goes to school next week and I'm just going to embrace it and sob away!!!!!!!

Much Love

Frankie

xxx 

Things I made a High School - Part 2

Please don't laugh, or at least don't judge.......

I mean seriously! Right so where to begin?

This was my second project for my GCSE textiles class. It was actually what I made directly after making these [I definitely went downhill]

Anyway the "theme" was geishas, and after about 2 lessons of the teacher trying to convince the other girls that "no geishas are not prostitutes" we finally got around to doing some designing and sewing.

Whilst other girls chose to make bags and tea cosies [yes tea cosies] I opted for this shapeless sack. 

No though in all seriousness I worked really hard on this project and just seemed to flounder. For example I chose to make a pattern by "rubbing off" a dress I already had, which is pretty awesome for a 14? year old. BUT! what I didn't realise and my teacher failed to mention to me was the dress I was rubbing off was a knit fabric and the fabric I had chosen was woven. What a mistake to make. So Problem 1!

My second problem came with seam allowances, I was told by my teacher to add seam allowances, but nob told me what kind or where or why or....... anyway I can only assume I decided to use 2 inch seam allowances.

The third problem was we had to add some form of embellishment, I chose to add a hand embroidered belt, that you know has no use as a belt because its too small! 

There's a nice little gaping keyhole at the back. Not as a design feature, oh no! That key hole is there because I measured my fabric wrong and ran out of fabric to sew on.

But the very best part might be the insides, In fact I desperately wish I thought to take a picture of the inside.

Anyway as it turns out 14 year old Frankie thought that to sew a garment you needed to hem every single edge of every single piece BEFORE! you even stitch them together...

STOP LAUGHING! I'm being completely serious, Its like the worst french seam in the world.

Its just wow.......... The sad thing is I actually got a B for this and felt like the best in the class which just goes to show what everything else looked like!

Right I'm off to hang my head in shame!

Much Love

Frankie

xxx

Things I made at High school - Part 1

So after the heaviness of my last post [thank you by the way for the lovely response I received both on the blog and privately] I thought it might be nice to do something a bit lighter!

This is a three part series featuring thing my mum found in storage at her house!

Okay so this is the Technicolor dream coat that I made for my high schools production of Joseph and his technicolor dream coat. I think I was about 17 at the time and very new clothes sewing!

I think I altered a new look pattern by extending the jacket pieces to make it longer and adding some pretty serious godets! I'm pretty sure it was a panelled jacket and that's why I could use so many crazy colours!

The front closes with a big hook and eye!

The fabric was from abakhans which my mum and dad kindly payed for [to this day I'm annoyed that they weren't thanked in the program, I mean after someones just paid £30 for a costume it seams a bit rude! Especially seen as other people were thanked who did far less]

But anyway! This was my last school production and as well as making this coat I helped sew trim to dancers costumes, helped with set changes, helped back stage and was third cactus.

This is me in my cactus costume, we had to do a dance and everything. To be honest I'm struggling to see how our performance didn't earn us a golden globe or something!

Anyway the costume was cut in a size eight and was made for the sweetest lil year 8 who had a face like butter wouldn't melt. the entire thing is just stitched together, no French seams no finishing. Well actually that's a lie I made sure the seams wouldn't fray by burning them all with a lighter [which made me feel rather squiffy]

I did however put a long strip of Velcro up the centre back seam so the coat could be "ripped" apart when Josephs brothers fight over it. Me and the teacher directing didn't tell the cast so when this thing ripped in their hands their reactions were priceless! 

It was one of the more fun productions I worked on, mainly I think because it didn't take itself to seriously! It was also the production I knitted a baby cardigan during, and the one I went to the pub after every night! Where I happened to spend a good deal of time flirting with a certain bartender [who totally fell for me and my awesome cactus ways]

It was also quite sad really because it was our last one! 

But the coat went down very well and still looks pretty awesome now! Although what on earth do I do with it now? Either I put it up the loft or I see if lil mans new school wants it for school productions ! 

Much Love

Frankie

P.s keep your eyes peeled for part 2 its a corker!!!!

xxx 

Wrap Yoga Pants

This might be the oldest project I've ever shown you. These are the trousers I made during my first few textiles lessons at GCSE. So yeah they are OLD! 

Our lovely textiles teacher brought some of those wrap beach trousers on holiday and brought them in so we could all copy them and make our own versions. Naturally we had to do some changes to fit our body shapes, mainly on the hems and waist, but I also remember a good deal of giggling from us about having to measure our crotch curve.

They wrap at the front and back in a pretty similar way to the vintage top I made.

I was so darn proud of these trousers. I was the only one who went out and actually brought fabric instead of just sing the nasty cotton from the textiles store. I'm not sure what the fabric is but its heavy and drapes beautifully, its also a lush shade of aubergine. 

It also frayed like a mother and meant I was the only girl in the class who got to use the over locker. Funnily enough I had to overlock each leg in a separate lesson because I need "supervision" and in between lessons somebody changed the over locker thread from black to white and my teacher was all like "can't you just use white on the other leg?"

  Um can you just breathe water and not air? Yeah I made her change it, I have standards woman!

I also gathered mine at the ankle because otherwise they flap around and expose your legs.... and nobody needs to see that! They also have little hand embroidered flowers and sparkly bits sewn on. Teenager Frankie was a HUGE fan of embellishment!!! 

I actually hated my textiles lessons, not because of what we learnt or the teacher just because nobody actually cared and I REALLY cared. Even at a young age textiles was such a huge thing to me.

Embarrassingly I actually used to loose it if somebody used the machine I was on and ran the bobbin out. [I'm thinking about it now and I can feel my blood boiling!] And its not even like we didn't have enough machines! there were plenty!!!

But that was NOTHING compared to the cheating that went on!

I can quite safely say I sewed every stitch on every project I handed in, but I think I may have been the only one! So many of the girls in my class left with the bundle of rags they were calling a project on one night and then suddenly arrived with haute couture the next day.

"no miss, my mother/nan hasn't helped me, this is all my own work!"

Yeah love that's why I've been threading your machine for the past six weeks!

Anyway why are these back in my possession! I needed yoga trousers and my mum still had these squirrelled away! [Here's me getting my yoga on being all zen and stuff]

And I've gotta say I had them on all last night and they are pretty darn comfy!

Kudos young Frankie, Kudos!

Much Love

Frankie 

xxx

the eureka moment...

I don't have many bright ideas, in fact my last bright idea might have been not to overfill the washing machine so I don't break another one.

But last night i did have one of my eureka moments, you know the kind of moment where you almost wish you had an audience to appreciate your moment of genius? I didn't have an audience, instead I had a bowl full of pasta bake and teen mom on record.

so anyway my eureka moment has been cut and is ready to be stitched and I am supper excited about it! I was starting to get into a funk with my sewing and I'm glad to see that I've snapped out of it!

I like having eureka moments, in fact during my first gcse textiles class I had a eureka moment, we were asked to design a small case for carrying around essential sewing equipment like needles, pins, and a bobbin. And I made this.

a nice little drawstring bag, with a doughnut shaped pin cushion. why doughnut shaped you ask? well you see you can slot a little bobbin in the middle of that doughnut so it doesn't get lost! Yeah I know right.... EUREKA!

The funny thing is though because it was a textiles class we had to design it before we could make it, and after I'd designed mine and gone to find some fabric samples I came back to find the girl next to me drawing exactly the same design. EXACTLY! I could have cried! Its so rude to copy some else's work! especially when you don't even know what the little doughnut is for! She swore blind that it was original but the fact that she'd chosen the same colours and written the same annotations seemed a bit fishy to me.

Anyway I went home and told my mum , who told me in no uncertain terms that I better work my hardest to make mine better than the other girls. Which I did, and although we stayed friends for many years I never trusted her again.

Anyway I still use my little baggie and I think about that every time!

but know for some more updated news!

- I've had a lovely surprise from my big sister and her husband which I will be blogging about shortly.
-  Me and Mr knitwits nanny planted some marigolds in my flower patch. (even if she was impressed by my gardening spoon)
- the first tomatoes on my tomato plant are starting to ripen!
- I've been doing some super chunky knitting!

- And I've started a custom embroidery! which I'm really enjoying! Even if the teensy tiny stitches are taking ages!

so there's not much to show but its all go!

much love

Frankie

xxx

A Tribute

Today I received some bad news. I did have another post ready but this seemed more important. 

When I was eighteen and studying for my a level textiles I was the only student in the class and I had two teachers, miss Jenkins who was sweet and free and kind. 

And Mrs Leigh, who has recently passed away. 

She was a wonderful teacher and a fantastic person , she taught me how to care about my work and inspired me to be better. 

When you were taught by Mrs Leigh you worked hard, she pushed for excellence. Find your best and beat it.

She was also funny and kind, she made me cups of tea when I had to write my essay (I hated writing then). 

She showed me how to make a collar and how to do French seams. And she taught me that it was okay to like this stuff. That it's okay to knit and sew, to think embroideries cool and to want to spend hours designing the perfect gown. That it was okay to be me, to just be creative and to skip the intellectual stuff. 

She was pretty dammed cool, even if she did terrify me at first. 

I think that the people of this world are moulded by the people that taught them, the ones who imparted knowledge and who gave inspiration. To Mrs Leigh I was probably just that strange girl she taught, that she had to deal with one on one (I'm presuming I was fairly trying some days) but to me she was one of the people that shaped who I am, and who put me on the path to my future. I would have liked her to know that I'm still doing this stuff, and that I always think of her when I clip my corners, fabric wise of course, you did not cut corners with Mrs Leigh, you aimed for perfection.   

I hope that her family can find comfort in her memory just like I do.

X

In the good old days...

I've never been normal, I've always been a little bit quirky, and I've never really gone with the flow, fashion wise.

And this item definitely proves I was never "a dedicated follower of fashion"

This is my school blazer, I probably had it from year seven to year eight, and then had a new one. At which point this happened.

Yeah I embroidered the entire thing, and I used to wear it all the dammed time!

Obviously I embroidered it with some super cool symbols, crosses, wings, eyes, bubbles?

Just to be clear, the teenage Frankie thought this jacket was the BOMB! Seriously why blend in when you can stand out!

Oh a teardrop, lil bit of emo Frankie creeping out there.

I honestly don't know if I would wear this (or even make this again!) but at the time I thought it was brilliant! As you can tell from the wear and tear on the stitches I wore it a lot! But can't actually find any pictures of me in it?

I don't know, part of me thinks that my teenage self has some very questionably taste, but the other part of me wasn't to put it on listen to some my chemical romance and whine about how the world doesn't understand me!

Have you made any questionable fashion choices over the years?

Much Love

Frankie

xxx

You Never Forget Your First!

It's National Sewing Machine Day everybody! Yay! So I thought I'd spare you another picture of a cowl! And tell you about the sewing machines I've used in the past!

 

I'll start with the first (See you read the blog title and thought this was gonna be rude didn't you? Saucy!) The first sewing machine I ever sewed on belonged to my Mother and I'm fairly sure this sewing machine ladies and gentlemen was/is EVIL!

 

Artwork by HarmoniousJosh 

 

Now my Mother will tell you, that it is and always was a perfectly reliable piece of sewing equipment. She's either wrong or lying because that sewing machine couldn't do three stiches without skipping another six, couldn't feed a piece of fabric through without rucking it up and couldn't run for more than two minutes before the machine belt came whirling off ready to impale someone!

God knows I despised that machine. Sadly I don't have an image of my Mums actual machine but I managed to find one pretty similar.

 

 

It's a pretty close match from what I can remember, apart from my mums was cream with brown flowers. Oh those flowers, how I hated that flowered case! If the machine was bad the case was a ruddy nightmare! My mum is still the only person I know that can get the case onto the machine base without wanting to throw the entire thing at the wall! And of course if the case isn't properly attached you can't carry it without losing a toe.

 

My next experience of a sewing machine wasn't much better to be honest (It's a wonder I kept sewing really isn't it) My next experience was at high school. Now we were very lucky to have a group of very talented textiles teachers who were wonderful at maintaining the machines and to say they were being used by an entire school they weren't doing too badly at all. The only problem with textiles class was...... Other people. This is the moment I realised I don't share well. You could guarantee that as soon as you stood up to get a pair of scissors some one had parked their backside on your machine and was using up your bobbin.

 

 

 Which is why when I wanted to get serious about sewing my mum and dad brought me my very own machine as a present.

 

 

It was a Delta and it was treated like a workhorse. This bad boy went over everything, fabric, paper, tissue, wax and many more things besides. Not only did it have to put up with my attempts at dress making it also had to contend with my artistic textiles class. It was a great first machine (of my very own) But boy was it loud! it genuinely sounded like a jackhammer when ever I sewed! However I am happy to report that after a good clean its gone to live with my big sister who I'm sure will give it an easier life than I ever did!

 

Which brings me to my last and current machine. My baby. My pride and joy. The second thing out of the house in case of fire ( Little Knitwit first, Mr.Knitwit can look after himself , and to be honest he'd probably be sobbing trying to work out which games console to save!)

My new machine was a present off my Mum and Dad (again) for my 21st birthday. They came up with some options after listening to what I wanted, a general good all rounder machine. And gave me a choice, Janome or Singer? Now to be perfectly honest my heart said Singer. But I'd never used one before so I went Janome, because that was the type machine we had at school and on the rare occasion I could have some quiet sewing time I really loved to way they worked! (Testament again to the wonderful textile teachers and sewing room support staff of Sandbach Girls School)

 

    

And this is what I got! It's so lovely it makes me want to squeal with joy and I haven't had a problem with it yet.

 

What was your first sewing machine?

 

Much Love

 

And Happy National Sewing Machine Day!

 

Frankie

 

xxx