Sleep Tight?

Fun fact: In the olden days mattresses were held in place by ropes. Over time the ropes would slacken, the mattress would start to sag in the middle, so the ropes had to be tightened. Hens, the expression : Sleep tight.

Sleeping tight can sometimes be a challenge, especially at cheap inns and motels. Is that ....stain supposed to be there....? And what is that faint smell? Mildew? Gun residue from the drug bust that went down last May? Is there a forgotten garbage bin somewhere?
Even if the room looks perfectly clean, I sometimes suspects the linen to host more bedbugs that I'm comfortable with.

The solution is simple and weights almost nothing: a thing cotton sleeping bag.

This one is made from an old, super-soft, sheet, and a summer curtain grandmother gave me. 

Folded up it is the same size as a clutch bag. 

Doesn't it look cosy and inviting? Even when I stayed in a room with a pigeon nest outside the window (aka-lots of bird poop), damp walls and no ventilation, I slept like a carefree baby. As long as what is touching my skin is fresh and clean, I can sleep in almost any surroundings. Almost. 

I made the opening with buttons, not a zipper. 

You can of course buy these, but they tend to be made out of polyester or other synthetic materials. I like to sleep in cotton, something that is soft and breathes. AND easy to wash, ready for the next adventure. 

Nothing to Waste

What do you do with all of this?

 

Scraps, strips, small pieces of fabric. I never throw any of them away, just save them all in a big chest for later use..
Don't get me wrong, I'm no hoarder, I can't stand clutter. Feng-Shui has robbed me of any desire to collect and gather. It's like that Chinese saying: If you own more than 10 things, the things own you.

Fabric though, it is too precious to be discarded. It would be wasteful to throw away velvet, wool or silk. Regardless how little or small.

Used in the right way, all these tiny pieces can become marvellous things. A baby quilt, a sofa pillow, a patch on your favourite cardigan, or a quirky fabric basket. Like this one!

I rummaged through my fabric-chest and selected a variety of fabrics. 

What we have here is a piece of a shirt, a blouse, a cloth napkin, garden table cloth and the left-over fabric from a dress I made last year. After being ironed, sewn together, measured to fit the basket pattern, I was left with this cosy thing: 

You need the strips to form 5 squares, 4 sides and one bottom. You can either line the basket with 5 additional squares or make the sides taller than the bottom and simply fold them in to make the lining. That is what I did with this one. 

In the basket below I made the lining out of an old table cloth that had frayed at the edges. The main fabric is hand-woven tweed. Ahhhhhh. 

Once done the wee basket got shipped of to Glasgow as a surprise mid-week present to the person who always, always makes me laugh, every single day. Laughter deserves gifts in all shapes and forms. 

Flowy or Flattering?

 Not everything needs to be super fitted or mega tight, but there is no need to look like we are wearing a big tent either. Just because a blouse is loose fitted, doesn't mean it can't have any shape at all. What puzzles me is when a top is tight-ish, but it doesn't come in at the waist. Square and tight is simply not a good look.
The solution: take it in.

Don't take it in too much,  you don't want to mess with the original shape, but just enough so the shirt or blouse becomes flattering and fitted. You can make darts in the back, take in the side-seams  make pleats in the front, wherever it would be most appropriate. The cashmere top above simply got taken in at the side-seams, imagine a thin moon-shaped seam at each side. (Like the red dots.)

Sew and try it on, inch by inch. I have destroyed a few tops by taking them in so much that the buttons refused to close. One blouse got taken in way too much at the hips, I forgot the hips are quite a bit wider than my waist........ So just try and see, it really doesn't take much before outfit starts to take shape.
Here are a few other tops I've taken in:

This is a knitted sweater. Tight arms, fitted, but again no indication of waist....Peculiar. 

A cute pussy bow blouse. Fitted in general, but no shape to speak of. I made 2 pleats in the font (starting right under the breasts) and 2 pleats in the back. 

A standard black cotton top from GAP, same dilemma as the red sweater. Fitted, but in a square shape. Good thing we can sew. 

Another pussy bow blouse, but this one was really a tent. I had to shorten it, take it in and make pleats at the back. It's still nice and loose, but without looking like I'm in my first trimester. 

One of my most treasured sweater (£2 at a thrift store), is my knitted Picasso sweater. It's long, warm, AND flattering. Why? Because the brilliant designer (H&M) knows that women are not shaped like boxes. It was already sewn with a female shape in mind, not a fridge. 

In almost all of my Picasso pictures, he is wearing a version of this sweater. I'm so glad I have one too, and that I didn't have to lift a needle before I could wear it. Ready to wear means having time for all the other things in life. 

Fit for a Princess

This looks like a lesbian wedding picture, but it' actually me as the maid of honour and my best friend on her wedding day. 

It was a truly memorable day, starting with swimming in the loch and drinking champagne for breakfast. After swimming, eating, make up and hair it was time to put on the dresses. I had bought a tailored vintage dress for the occasion, £40 from a local charity shop.

Do you know why it is so great to shop at thrift shops and charity stores?

1. The money goes to a good cause

2. Reusing clothes is a really fun way of saving the planet

3. You have the chance to find a real treasure

This dress was a treasure for sure. But, it was too tight. Really tight. I looked like a badly stuffed hay-ball. 

After wiggling my way out of the dress, careful to not rip any seams, I turned the dress inside out to see if I could take any of the seams out. 

I could! Vintage dresses, especially tailored ones, usually have plenty of seam allowance. What a relief! 

I paid for the dress and took it home, ripped up a few seams and sewed the dress out 1/5 inch in four different seams. The result: 

This gem of a dress is over 50 years old and is still going strong. They say people had smaller rib cages before, and that's why the dresses are so tiny. I don't know, I think we are fatter as well, but regardless the reason, don't despair when you can't fit into your favourite vintage outfit. Just take it out a few inches. 

Mad Men Coat

I got this coat at a charity shop a few years back. I saw a "All coats half price" sign in the window and came out 15 minutes later with a winter coat from Noa Noa, fall coat from Top Shop and this Italian silk coat:

I liked it, but it was missing something....When I need inspiration for a total makeover I google Vintage fashion, Mad Men style, 50s style icons and so on, and then browse through all the photos until I see something I like. I found a picture that inspired me to redesign the coat to look like this:

Basically shortened it, shortened the sleeves and folded the lining around the outside to make the contrasting edge, used the leftover lining from the bit I cut off to make a bow, and top-stitched with bright orange thread. 

Now it is a proper Mad Men coat. Again, it really doesn't take much, and it's really, really fun to transform something kind of boring to something Mad Men Look Alike. 

Ode to Bias Tape

Sometimes a spade is called a spade. Bias tape is called bias tape because the fabric is cut diagonally.
And why is this so?  Because fabric cut diagonally, or on the bias,  is more stretchy than  fabric cut in a straight line. And why is this important? Because when you want to fold bias tape around necklines, collars, armholes, hems, curvy edges and corners, you need the fabric to follow the shape of the garment and be sewn into place with the greatest of ease.

You can buy ready made bias tape, but obviously you can make your own. Rule of thumb: if you can buy it in a store you can make it yourself.

With a little help of bias tape (that I made from an old summer dress) I transformed this rather Plain Jane jacket to something fun and fresh. I don't have a before picture, but it is easy to imagine what this jacket would look like without this beautiful red and white floral border.

A bit more sporty, don't you think? Even the back looks better. It really doesn't take much.

Now it's one of my favourite spring/fall jackets. It literally has an edge to it, it no longer looks like an anonymous office uniform.

Adorned with this jacket and earrings from a street vendor in Camden, I'm dressed without being dressy. 

AND I reduced my already massive carbon footprint by fixing an old jacket instead of buying a new one. 

Go upcycling! 

Little Black Dress

What do you do with all those cool clothes you never wear? I have a closet full of treasures, treasures I never wear but are too good to throw out.

Like my little black dress, the one I was going to wear everyday when I moved to Paris.
It was time to bring out the inner designer and come up with a new and better use this ignored dress.

Turning a dress into a top is really easy. Just cut off the bottom. 

 After I hemmed the bottom edge, (with my new Overlock machine!) I removed half the fabric up the neckline and put in an elastic band. Now it doesn't slide of my shoulders all the time. (Probably one of the reasons I didn't wear it so often. )

Finally I decorated the shoulders with big, white bows. What a pretty top! It goes with skirts, jeans, anything at all really.

The transformation of the dress doesn't stop here. The bottom bit I cut off got attached to a black sweater that had shrunken in the wash. 

To make it a bit more interesting I sewed on a row of mother of pearl buttons on the back. 

Finally I attached a strip of lace at both sleeves. 

Not bad for a shrunken sweater and an unused dress. 

Phone Cover

I'm  always looking for ways to use those tiny scraps of fabric. I can't stand throwing them away, they are all so pretty.
A while back a made an iPhone cover from a gorgeous fabric with French design. I'm so smitten with this fabric, it makes my day just looking at it. It has an old-fashioned rustic quality to it. I makes me think of  a quieter life filled with lavender fields, home made bread, sun sets and a sleeping cat in the corner.

I find it very challenging to hem little projects with the machine, I just can't get my eyes, fingers, and machine needle to cooperate, so I sewed on the bias-tape by hand. Since I was sewing by hand, I might as well throw on some beads as well. It takes less time than you think, and it is very calming and soothing to take a break from the machine now and then. 

In order for the phone to fit better, I made those corners that we make on billows and tote-bags:

Now the phone is safe and protected from all the loose objects in my handbag. And more importantly, I get to see my favourite fabric every single day, several times a day. Brilliant. 

Lunch time.

Even a plain sandwich should be a joy to eat, a treat, a little mini feast. We are not pigs or cows, eating out of troths or grazing away mindlessly. Or are we? Do we really savour our food, noticing every spurt of flavour, enjoying every bite? I try to, but at least now I notice when I don't notice.

A lot of it has to do with presentation and visual illusions. People actually think wine served in an expensive looking bottle tastes better than the same wine served from a bottle with a plain label.
Food served on white, round plates tastes sweater than food served on dark plates.

Personally I think food served on any pretty plate, at a clean table, maybe with a vase of flours and a candle burning, tastes far superior to something served out of a plastic bag.
How to achieve this nice setting at lunch time? I've never been a big fan of modern, multicoloured, lunch boxes or plastic lunch bags, so what is the solution? A cloth bag of course.

See how snug and lovely that is? Not only is a cotton lunch-wrap a far superior choice to a plastic bag, both form an environmental and esthetic point of view, it is also a great thing to make from leftover fabric. 

After use you can just shake of the crumbs, and if it needs a wash I just throw it in the machine with my other cotton items. Easy. And good for the Mother Earth. And makes lunch-time feel like a little picnic.