9th March, excuse the mess

Yes, I must tidy up the craft cupboard, things are tumbling out of it.

Me made top Simplicity 3835. Me Made trousers from Sew U book.

Little I has a friend coming to play this morning so time for a quick tidy. The friend has a baby brother so I have been dragging out some baby toys and hiding the playmobil, small lego etc. The blue knitted thing in my hand is actually a knitted whale made by a friend for Little I when she was a baby. I made this top last year using Simplicity 3835 and some fabric from the charity shop. I think it was sheets or possibly curtains. I am not sure if I like the top or not, though it is very comfortable to wear. It is just a bit too patterned for me. But that is one of the things I like about doing these MeMade months - it makes me get out the things I don't often wear and try them out again.

I want to tidy the craft cupboard in the top picture and do a post about it. Both cupboards there came out of a skip at a school. They are really good quality wooden cupboards. I just don't understand why they were being thown out. One day I will round to tidying them up. The little school chairs in the photo were given to us on freecycle when a local infant school replaced all its chairs. Bonkers thinking on behalf of school budgets, but benefit to me (that's BTOBSBBBM if you want a Sigrid-style acronym for the day).

8th March

8th March - Mad March Hare jumping. Me Made T shirt (Sew U Home Stretch), Me Made Tate skirt, refashioned cardigan.

See what Me Made March is doing to me? After dropping T at school I stopped the car in a country lane and set the camera on the roof. Little I watched in amusement as I jumped up and down. Partly I was just excited by the lovely sunny days we are currently having.

I also discovered an extra bonus of the pockets in this cardigan - I can fit two hen's eggs in each pocket when collecting eggs.

7th March

As mentioned in the last post I found this lambswool cardigan in the charity shop. The buttons on it were not very nice, they just made it look tooW.I., formidable-bosomed old lady. I didn't have 9 matching buttons in the stash so I decided to try mismatched buttons. I like it better than expected. It is really tricky to get a shot of all the buttons in detail.

Me Made Tate denim skirt, re-fashioned-ish cardigan. Very old Boden sale boots from back in the day when I had a disposable income (a distant memory now).

A rare outside shot as a very rare event occured today - I went out for coffee with a friend and no children, so I had an assistant photographer with age in double figures! Look, I am blinking in the sunlight like a troglodyte emerging from hibernation.

5th and 6th March, and Pocket Love

T designed his own Thank You cards post birthday on paintshop.

6th March - possibly the most comfortable outfit so far this month. Me made t shirt (Built by Wendy Sew U Home Stretch book), Me Made Trousers (Sew U book) charity shop cardigan with altered buttons.

Saturdays are not my best day of the week and I didn't get to take any photos. I wore a Me made top blogged here. The day was filled with buying trainers for T, taking T to his swimming lesson, going to a talk about new national swimming lesson structure, washing and ironing school clothes, blah, blah. Good news of the day was that after almost a year on the waiting list Little I finally has a place at local authority swimming lessons. She has already laid out her costume in anticipation. (only 2 weeks in advance) Yesterday I made a rapid dash into the charity shop opposite the shoe shop and scored this size 10 lambswool M& S cardigan (with pockets, yippee) and two tennis balls. I have been cold a lot in March so far and this is warm and toasty. I will blog soon about the button alteration. I don't think button altering counts as refashioning, does it?

I also have to blog about the trainers, we let T choose from a selection of four pairs, he finds decision making hard. But he managed, and he chose some with flashing traffic lights on. They are growing on me. Mr Minnado and I both liked the tasteful brown trainers but then we are not eight years old, so obviously what would we know?

Frequent pocket occupiers, those essentials are car keys, lego man and lip/skin balm.

Hurray, hurray I made pockets for the sack dress. I used this fabric scrap to make two pocket bags, unpicked the side seams for the pocket length and sewed them in. I love this fabric, it came out of haul I bought back from Devon. Sadly there was only a small scrap. A larger piece would make a fabulous dress.

Finished pocket on Sack Dress

4th March

4th March - I refashioned this shirt from the XL polo shirt pictured above. I found the shirt on tuesday when I took a bagful of donations to the charity shop. I liked the colour of the shirt, it's a deep red.

I cut the shirt using the Sew U Home Stretch T shirt front and back pattern pieces as a size guide. I cut out the sleeves and ran a gathering stitch along the top before putting them back in as slightly puffed sleeves.

I added lace, changed the buttons and sewed the front neck piece back in as a yoke. It still needs a bit of tweaking as the front neck comes a bit too high for my liking.

The skirt is one I made in December, using the Sew U skirt pattern, I sewed the facing onto the outside and added bias binding and two tabs with buttons. I had originally hemmed it very badly and lumpily so last weekend I re-hemmed it using some grosgrain ribbon, with a much smoother result.

At the time of making, I didn't put in any pockets as I thought it would spoil the line of the skirt. I wish now I had and am considering unpicking the side seam o fthis skirt and the sack dress to put in pockets. I love pockets!

3rd March

Me-made top from Simplicity 3835, originally blogged here.

A strange top in a way as it has such strong horizontal lines in the pattern and these can make me look quite wide.

I struggled to get dressed today and the first me-made shirt I put on had a huge grease stain right in the centre front.

I had a fringe cut before Christmas and think I need to go and get it re cut with more fringe. The hairdresser made it a bit too wispy and half hearted and I keep adding to it with nail scissors...probably not a good idea. It is currently kind of half a fringe. I need more fringe to hide the wrinkles.

Me made march day 2 and a birthday

There's lots of chocolate cake left over. Sorry I cannot offer it via Internet.

Jellies...you cannot have a birthday without jellies

The boots - missed out of the main photo. My every day boots, love 'em.

Ahhh, that first cup of coffee....

I am not sure how long I will manage to keep up daily postings - not long I expect. This is my black sack, sorry shift, dress from the Built By Wendy Dresses book. I have come to like this dress as an everyday dress. Today I decided to try it with a belt as it is quite roomy and can give me that "Is she, isn't she?" pregnant look. (No I am not!) I have a few charity shop belts and need a bit of a kick to wear them. Could March also be Accessories month?

The helium balloon in the photos is left over from T's 8th birthday which was on Monday (hence the jellies). I cannot believe he is eight. My Mother in Law loves these balloons and buys several every birthday. I HATE THEM. I fall over them. We already have enough crap to trip over in this house. But the kids like them. I just think they will end up in landfill, choking some small animals. They seem so pointless. Am I a killjoy? BUT surprisingly my M.I.L. has offered to have them back after a suitable time period, she will deflate them and store them as she has...wait for it...a helium cannister to refill them on birthdays. Seriously, this woman has everything.

Any thoughts on helium balloons?