Bed curtain out of old duvet cover

I have only something "small" to show to you this time. Last week I made a belt and this is another week that I show to you only "something small". The reason is that I have been making something secretive that I can only put here after next week. So for now to that something small - or is it actually?

Our kids share a room at the moment and they both have loft beds. There is no point in having separate rooms now that they are this young, the company of the other gives a feeling of security. But who wouldn't want to have some privacy every now and then? Daughter is preschooler now and wants to be alone every now and then. Also to calm down the bed time I thought that some kind of curtains would be good.

Then I had an idea, then another one, then I asked my kids and had to change all the plans. Then I was looking for a fabric that would suit, found something else and changed everything again. Eventually I had one ready.

First idea was to make a bed curtain out of nice fabric, or maybe just buy curtains, especially when I calculated how much the fabric would cost. It is insane really, you can buy curtains and bed sheets for cheaper than just fabric!

Then I asked what the kids would like and the ideas were so interestingly weird that I decided not to follow them as they were. But that gave me an idea, how about if they could design their own curtains? I found a fabric that would almost ask for drawing! I bought fabric pens but only my daughter wanted to draw anything and as drawing into fabric isn't as easy as on the paper this is what she came up with:

On top left curtain there is a sun, like any drawing should have. Under it grass and worm (that long pink line) and inside the circle small pond with another worm, some grass and a carrot. She said that she will draw other vegetables there as it is a vegetable patch but we will see.

So the drawing wasn't fun and also the pens were quite light, some stronger colours would probably have been good. Then they found my scrap fabric box! And after careful planning the result looked like this:

My daughter chose the pictures, my job was to cut them and sew them, all the positions are hers. If you ask her what there is you will probably get a very long tale with fairies, ponies, pandas and hedgehogs somehow connected to the vegetable patch. It isn't quite what I had in mind but it is what she wanted and that's what matters. Also she coloured one piece:

My idea was that this side would be visible to the room but of course she wanted to see her own story from her bed so we had another problem as the backside wasn't that pretty to look at. I searched my fabric storage and couldn't find any. Then I remembered that there was one duvet cover that used to be her favourite before getting bigger duvet and is now too small.

The duvet cover was a bit too small but being duvet cover it had co-ordinating fabric on the other side that I could use. Now I remembered why I don't like sewing curtains. There simply isn't big enough table to lay the fabric flat and no matter how carefully you measure the result is something that is close enough, not precisely. Even if you cut them along straight grain, you never know if the other side is few centimetres longer than the other. And I had two fabrics to be measured and with the duvet cover I had to think how to cut it to make it cover the other fabric.

I knew I had to put it on the floor but how to make it stay still so I could fit the duvet cover on it? I taped it on the floor:

Now it would stay still and it was much easier to measure it and see what would work and what not. I think I will use that again when working with bigger fabrics...

The other side is "mum-friendly" and the other side designed by the kid herself. Both are happy. :)

The curtain is hanging next to her bed with curtain wire, like this (pic not by me):

I have another one on the making for my son but not ready yet, will show it too once it is ready.

Another small thing that I made is this:

Last week we got info from school that the kids would have photo shooting for school pictures on this Monday. Naturally, there is nothing good enough to wear. I say no to all characters in pictures, so no Frozen or My little pony, thank you very much.

I have had this cat fabric for a while now and good I had, I could make a shirt for the photo shooting as it was the only fabric that was big enough to make a shirt! I used most of my fabric storage for the outfits shown in this post and haven't bought any since. I know many dressmakers have room full of fabrics but I only buy when I know what I'm going to make out of it - or if it is really, really cheap and I can think of something I can use it to. Not very good thing with few day notices...

The shirt covered but how about the pants? Not a chance that anything in the closet would do. Remember the pants in How to patch knees post? Yep, they all look like that. And now some of the patches have holes in them, as have both of the new leggings that I just made for her. Or at least they look very worn out. She likes to play on the floor on her knees and that's the result.

I tried to look for matching fabric but that's easier said than done! I looked all my shirts that were in my to be upcycled - box and everything but nothing would match!

Close, but not enough. Luckily we had business to the city anyway so I could buy new pants for her. Why not use some of the jeans from the closet that are practically unused? She doesn't want to wear them. :D Leggings are the only pants she accepts...

Good thing was that once I started making the shirt, it was smooth sailing. I copied the pattern from old shirt, just roughly draw the parts on pattern paper, measured a bit that it made any sense and all the parts fit so well together that I was actually surprised. I like the collar part, something different. In the single photos most that is showing is usually just the collar (they do group pictures too and that's a different thing, that's why I wanted new pants too) anyway. The model is very easy to sew too, the sleeve is something close to raglan forming part of the collar so no fitting the sleeve on the armhole. I think I will make a pattern with the same collar for my son too. The boys' clothing are seriously lacking the details overall and I'm always happy when I can find something new.

Now having arms crossed that she keeps her clothes clean until the photo shooting... She goes to preschool tomorrow with an advice not to be on her knees before the photo shooting. What do you think, will she remember? :D

Travelling with kids part 3 - travel tray

Final part of travelling with kids is travel tray. Super useful during long car trips when the kids can play with their small toys on their laps without them getting lost all the time. It keeps them entertained and happy for a long time, especially together with the toy bag and dry erase book.

First, the idea of travel tray isn't mine and for the pillow I used the tutorial by Two Sisters Crafting. Their tray is bigger and I have to admit it is much more neat than mine! They used new cookie tray that was painted nicely. Apparently from somewhere you can buy cookie sheets for 1$ per piece. Not here though. They would be perfect for crafting purposes for the kids but I highly suspect that you won't get an for a price like that here!

As my last post wasn't anything upcycled but a tutorial about getting best result with twin needle and the one previous that new clothes for my kids, I promised the next post would be something upcycled. This one is through and through. Here is what I used:

One plastic tray that was cut half. Plastic is near impossible to cut by hand and I was wondering how to cut it when my brother happened to visit. He said that our dad has that kind of saw that can cut it nice and neatly. Too bad he tried some other saw first and the plastic broke a bit. It was quite neat though after finished with the correct saw but the halves had some sharp points and I used duct tape to fix that (only thing here that isn't upcycled). Not pretty but it gets the job done and stays on. Why cut it half then? I was asked that and my answer was that it is too big. That's true! I asked for ideas how to cut a tray and I'm asked why I want to cut it? Don't you usually want to cut something that is too big to make it smaller? Yes, the tray was too big to fit on the kids' laps with the toy bags resting on the car tables in front of them. I think it would have been too big even without the car tables so it was better this way. And before you ask, the car tables are fixed on the front seat, they can't really be used for playing or drawing as they are too far away for that and if they were close enough, the kids' feet wouldn't fit.

I got this fabric from a relative of mine with words "do you have any use for this?". I didn't at the time but of course I took it. Since then I have used it to make pockets for advent calendars and couple wizard hats:

The material is felt like and it is from a couch. Can you get anything more upcycled than some fabric that is from old couch when the couch was ripped and thrown away? I don't know what it was used for but it has been very useful after that. Only proves that you should always check and re-check what you are throwing away. It is rather big piece and it didn't cost a single cent, hard to find better deal.

But.. the problem with unknown fabrics is that you don't know what material is it. So, when you try to attach something with bondaweb by ironing it, this might happen:

As usual, I was in a hurry to get these ready so I was pretty annoyed when that happened. Of course, I should have realized to check, so it was just my own fault.

Different fabric scraps and patterns for cutting them.

These formed the bottom pillow. There is no need for the tutorial about that, just look at the Two Sisters Crafting link above. Couple changes though. First, I used oat to fill the pillow, second I added some padding so the oat won't poke through. Oat is from old warm/cold pillows that weren't needed anymore and the outer fabric is from crib padding that I ripped here. Like I said, upcycled through and through.

I cut two rectangulars just like Two Sisters Crafting advised to, the outer fabric bigger than the inner fabric and padding same size as the outer fabric. When you use padding like this, it is good idea to cut out the corners, the padding isn't needed there and it will just make the seam too thick.

Everything went well until I attached the pillow to the tray. I only had one type of glue that I could even think would work and that didn't. The glue stuck to the fabric but not to the plastic. There wasn't anything that would have been more suitable in our household and the shops aren't exactly around the corner so I had to use what I already had. Have you noticed that you really have to get creative when you can't just go to the shop and buy what you want? I think it is actually an advantage not to live next to all shops, I have to find new solutions quite often.

The new solution was this:

Small drill-made holes and yarn worked. It is just a yarn that goes through the holes and below is attached to the pillow with small hand-made stitches:

It was impossible to get the yarn tight but it doesn't matter really, it stays put when used on lap and stays on when carried.

Our kids like to play with small figures and they usually don't need much to trigger their imagination. A pillow or blanket can be mountain, stripes in the carpet a river and so on. They usually invent their own plays also in the car but I wanted to help a bit by making a small play mat for the tray. The pictures are appliqued, the cave was their favourite:

It has been used a lot, fits nicely on their laps and can be played on and they can also use it for drawing in the car. It is one of the best things you can have in a car! Overall I'm happy with it but it needs one improvement; the play mat doesn't stay on. Of course it doesn't, I don't understand how I didn't see it before. The felt-like fabric is quite stiff but there is no preventing that the plastic is slippery. For the next play mat I will sew some velcro on it and self adhesive velcro on the tray. I think we will be using these a lot in the future and they will never get bored as I can make more different play mats!

How to patch knees

Before ucpcyling something, it is best to try to fix it first. The time for upcycling is when they are beyond repairing or fixing. If you have kids, this looks familiar:

 I know that many pants end up to the trash bin when this happens (I have done it myself) but what a waste of money and fabric! I know it isn't fun and of course you need to have sewing machine and time. Which I know that many people lack. But even then you can buy iron-on patches, those won't take time that much. So if the pants are worth saving (i.e. there is nothing else broken or stubborn stains), at least get a package of those and you have saved quite a bit of money and nature. Patching isn't my favourite thing and I usually keep postponing things like this. There just isn't the same feeling as in creating new but there were four pairs of these and all of them of course my daughter's favourite leggings. The choice of what to wear had become quite limited for her so it was time to do something for it.

Of course there are several ways to patch the knees but here is how I do it. First I ripped the seams because I sew the patches on with sewing machine. Notice that the pants have over stitches on inner seams so naturally I ripped the outer seams. How you rip the seams is up to you, depending what way you prefer and of  course what kind of fabric and seam you have. These pants had over-lock seams and the needle threat was nicely loose so I cut only the both needle threats between couple centimeters and pulled them away, the rest became loose after that. If you have tighter seam and harder fabric you can always use the tip I mentioned in Bedside pocket for loft or bunk bed.

I ripped just enough to get working space for the patching, in this case something like 20-30cm and I left the bottom of pant leg untouched to avoid the extra work of ripping that too and then sewing it again. Even you left it untouched, you still get enough space to sew.

For these pants I wanted to add nice patches out of scrap fabrics and I didn't fix the hole in anyway, I just covered them as they were rather small. I started by choosing the fabrics I was going to use, measured how big the patches should be, draw the form on the fabric and cut roughly around. Then I ironed them to bondaweb (double sided adhesive) wrong side facing the bondaweb's glue-side. Protect your iron by covering the fabric and bondaweb (fabric and glueside up) by covering it with baking (parchment) paper. You can also draw on bondaweb as one side of it is paper, but I wanted to know the scraps were big enough and that the images in fabric would be in correct places. With bigger piece (or one without images) of fabric you can draw on bondaweb, cut that roughly and iron it on the fabric, then cut it.

So after ironing it looked like this:

The markings on the fabric show nicely through the paper. Now I cut the patches out following exactly the lines I had marked. It is much easier to cut the patches now after ironing and before taking of the paper as they are more solid now, no wrinkling or rolling. Also if you cut them after removing the paper you are in trouble because they are sticky and it is difficult to get the edges neat as glue is quite hard to cut... I have tried it so just warning you. After cutting, peel of the paper like this:

Then iron again, this time the patches on the pants. Now it looks like you have patched the pants and can just close the ripped seam but don't! The bondaweb won't hold the patches on in use, especially not in a place like this. So after ironing, sew around the patches. Now you can close the ripped seam and you are done!

There, four leggings ready to be used, looking even better than they did before!

Bedside pocket for loft or bunk bed

My kids have loft beds with small tables so the books, water bottles and such aren't a problem but clothes are. Either they are piled up on the other end on the bed - or they are on the floor. I decided to try if bedside pocket helps something. The idea is that the clothes that are still ok to wear the next day would be put in the pocket and the dirty ones (at least in a dream world) would go to the laundry basket. In my dreams this means rather tidy kids room. Yeah right. But you never know, it might work.

I found many beautiful ones with many pockets and I considered that too for a while but then decided that just one big pocket is enough. I made straps with buttons to attach it on the bed and used elastic band for the pocket to keep it in shape. Here is a small how to:

As the theme is, everything is recycled, or at least second hand, except the elastic band. Here is what I started with:

Two old worn out bed sheets and one old crib padding. The sheets are in my opinion almost cheating when it is about upcycling as they are similar to use as new fabric but this project needed quite a lot of fabric and in spite of having many things stored, I didn't have anything else suitable at the moment. The crib padding is my kids' old, I have tried to sell it on second hand stores on a whopping price of 2€ for couple times. It seems that since couple of the ribbons used for attaching it on the crib are loose, it isn't even worth of those 2€. I considere to give it away for charity but then decided to keep it for the fabric. Lucky I did, it helds a nice amount of  foam mat that I could now use to give support for the pockets. Then of course, I needed a seam ripper.

The padding was over 3m long and I thought it might take ages to take it apart but I was in luck. The stitch used was long and quite loose. Also there is a handy way to use in the seams like this. Just put the ripper agains the seam with the small ball under it and push along the seam carefully. Nice and fast. This way you will end up with plenty of bits of thread but you can get rid of those easily with tape roller (or just with tape).

Start with cutting the padding for the size you want and also cut two pieces to cover the padding (add the seam allowance and about 1cm extra if you are using thick padding like I did here). Pin them together with padding in middle and sew around.

I don't use that much pins but here you should. The thick padding makes it hard to keep everything in place without the pins. In this picture you also notice that I have rounded the corners, I did that to make it easier to finish the edges later on. Of course, smart move would have been to attach the straps now as well, talk about planning before hand...

Then prepair the pocket itself. I cut mine a little lower than the background and few centimetres wider to give it nice look and also more space. If you want to attach any decorations, now is the moment to do that.

I decided to decorate these with reverse applique. In reverse applique you sew the pictures on the back side of the fabric so that the right side of the picture is against the wrong side. Like this:

I was rather boring this time and made them circles but the form could be anything. I also sew around each picture twice to highlight the border. The pictures are cut from jersey scrabs that are left from making clothes for kids. I use pretty much every fabric to the last bit, literally. I make clothes by connecting some smaller pieces, even smaller ones I use for appliques and the smallest scrabs go to the basket that will be used as a filling for something and is also almost endless source of material for kids' crafts.

Now take small, sharp scissors and cut the actual fabric covering the pictures:

Cut close to the seam but carefully to avoid cutting the thread. You can live 1-2mm fabric, it will just fray a little bit (until the seam) and I think it gives it a nice look.




Then I decided to make free machine embroidery, just circles and loops around the fabric. Nice and fast I thought. Right. Even the fabric is cotton sheet that isn't elastic, still, this might happen (and I should have known it):

It doesn't look nice and this one here, is the ironed version so it wouldn't get any better than this. So I made myself coffee, took my seam ripper again and started taking the embroidery off. Luckily I had used quite long stitch, but even so, I had sewn twice around to make the embroidery bolder so twice as much work. After few cups of coffee and couple chapters from audio book (I like to listen those while sewing) the job was done and I could continue with the actual work. I then did what I should have done in the beginning, used tear-away stabilizer. I haven't bought any "real" tear-away stabilizer as I use the backgrounds of paper napkins and I happen to have a box full of them because I have bought them for decoupaging. Best of all, this is how to use the backgrounds that are left over from decoupaging and I can save the picture layer for decoupaging. The paper napkins often are made with three layers so just separate the layers:

First layer is the one with the picture and two white layers under it and you just need one layer. So one paper napkin gives you two sheets of tear-away stabilizer and one for decoupaging if you need it. Or of course you can use all three as tear-away stabilizer.

Just put your stabilizer on the back of the fabric and attach few pins to make sure it will stay and sew around (on the right size though, just a picture to show it looks like on the back).

Then you can tear it off.

Much better:

Then finish the pocket, sew elastic band on top edge of the pocket and attach it to its place. Make and attach the straps.

Almost ready! I made this green one first but with the pink one I did it in different order that is faster but also might need a bit more experience. With that one I finished the straps first, prepared the pocket, then pinned everything together and sew just once around it. Much faster.






Also the button holes would have been easier to make before attaching here. Now cut bias binding (45 degrees angle to straight grain) and sew it on place. Try it on its place to determine button places, attach buttons.

Ready!

And the pink one as well so both children have their own with their favourite colours and favourite pictures.

Thanks for reading and welcome to follow me on Pinterest!