Little Legs

There are a couple of free patterns online for leggings that I have been using. One is the Flounced Ruffle Capri Leggings and the other the Girl's Capri Length Leggings Pattern No.8.

Both patterns were very easy to use, and the instructions are clear. So a big thank you to those clever ladies for developing these two patterns. They are perfect...

The size I decided to use was Size 4 and Size 5. It was a bit of guess work for sizing as I had no idea if they would fit the girls or not. They keep growing and I haven't seen them for awhile.

The fabric I chose was a green spotty, winter weight, stretch cotton from my stash. The other striped fabric I bought was a stretch polyester fabric. It hooks up really easily, plus it is not very serviceable. This fabric is going to run, it reminds me of thick nylon stockings, it really is a bad choice. Also it was such a pain to sew, where as the green fabric was bliss...
     

Here are the first two pairs I made. I sent them over to the girls for a
fitting. According to their mother they are okay. I hope so because
I have sewn the rest all the same...

Here are the rest of the tights, the girls each got 3 pairs.

While taking the photo's I annoyed a Bumble Bee. Funny how they seem 
to buzz louder when you're nearby. The Leggings are ready to go plus
I'm giving the girls eggs to eat as well.

I used a narrow cover-stitch to hem up the straight leg tights. This worked out very well.

Janome Cover-Pro narrow hem stitch.

I haven't used the Janome Cover-Pro for awhile....So here is an update on
finishing the seam and removing the fabric away from the needles.

So pleased they fitted, thank you girls for the perfect pose....

Time to let go

What do you do when you've got no spare dollars to buy a dress up outfit for school?....You go through all the stuff you haven't been able to let go of........like one white dress shirt from the early 70's (broke my heart to cut it up). The Great Babcia's old scarf......that got the chop too. It was a very pretty colourful scarf but I never wore it,  I just kept it........

It was goodbye to a red and white cotton stripped table cloth that I sewed years ago......I especially designed it for the outside wooden table. It even had a carefully bound hole in it for the umbrella. Except we have no umbrella or table now......Someone left it up all summer and a gust of wind lifted the umbrella up and tipped the table over and smashed all the wood....That was the end of that so the table cloth was given the chop (I did wonder if it might have been useful in the future)....... All of these items were cut up and sewn into a pirate outfit for a little boy to wear to school.

I needed a waistcoat though......so I searched the net until I found one on this great blog here. You can find the download pattern on the Frontier Vest Tutorial....I had some brown suede type fabric, in fact metres of it stashed away for a jacket that never got made. I cut that up into a vest but I and didn't bind it like in the tutorial..

One very proud school boy put on his pirate outfit already for a day of fun at school....knowing the shirt was his Grandads from long ago and the scarf once belonged to his his great Babcia.

The download pattern used for the vest

I cut off the cuffs on the shirt added lace
and elastic to the sleeve....

The legs of pants I ripped and washed to fray....
The pants legs were meant to  be straight
to tuck into black boots
Except I forgot he had none

Gherkins I luv These

As you can see not much sewing is getting done at Eastgate Hill. I think I'll let the fates decide today where my thoughts and actions wander off to....Here is a good recipe I found on a blog called Sew Darn Cute. I've lost mine and homemade Dill Pickles/Gherkins are such a treat, much better than the shop bought ones ( bottling is my preserving method)......Not many calories either if your diet conscious......

Sew Darn Cute: Homemade Dill Pickles: I grew up in a home where we canned everything. I wasn't always a fan of the process, but I am a fan of the results. My FAVORITE thing to ...