Winner of Tardis Top Giveaway

I’m delighted to announce that the winners of the Tardis Top Giveaway are Tegan and her daughter Clara. Tegan said:

That is amazing! My daughter’s name is Clara, named after the most recent companion, and my name is Tegan, who was a companion in the 80’s. To say we are obsessed with Dr who would be an understatement! Clara would wear this top everywhere!

Tegan can you please send me a message with your details and I will pop it in the post to you. Email is : thesedaysarefew at gmail.com

I know your little one is too little to care too much what she’s wearing but I hope you enjoy seeing her wear it 🙂

Good dog

I used to have an awesome t-shirt with K9 from Doctor Who on it, it was black, with a silver K9. I wore it to death, and sad was the day when I had to consign it to the bin.

So then I bought a new, yellow t-shirt from Red Bubble, with a nice big K9 on it, but it was kind of yellower than I thought. Very, very yellow. Almost gold in fact (which is what the colour is called so I kinda should have expected it), and I only wore it about twice. At the same time I bought the t-shirt I bought some amazing striped fabric from Spoonflower to make a long sleeved t-shirt to wear under the yellow K9 shirt, but we know how that t-shirt worked out. This afternoon I decided to hack the yellow shirt and make a new version with the stripes. It’s turned out to be my new awesome K9 shirt. Recognise the stripe colours?

The pattern is Ottobre 5/2008 Raglan t-shirt. I traced the size that matched my bust measurement but when I looked at the pattern pieces they looked too small, so I checked and the t-shirt bust measurement was going to end up with about 8cm negative ease! Being too lazy to trace a new size I just enlarged it when I cut it, placing the pattern pieces about 1cm away from the centre folds, and also adding 1cm to each side of both body pieces. I held the sleeve pieces on my arms and they looked way too small too, so I also added about 2 cm in width to those at the underarm, tapering to the actual pattern width after the elbow. I don’t know what Ottobre were intending but the sizing seems a little weird on this one. My fabric is quite stretchy but I wouldn’t have wanted it cut as small as the pattern.

I had 1m of fabric but the repeat of the stripes is quite a long way apart, so even with that much fabric for a t-shirt, I had trouble fitting it on and matching the stripes. I got them to match at the side seams, but couldn’t make them match at the raglan sleeves and still fit them on. So I shortened the sleeves to bracelet length to fit them on and have them at least match each other. I think they look fine though with the raglan sleeve seams not being colour-matched. I did the neck band in the traditional way of seaming it into a circle, folding it with wrong sides matching, and stretching it to fit, which I like for this shirt but did make it difficult to judge how long it needed to be. It was too long the first time and bagged out at the neck so I had to unpick and redo. I like it now though. I used a double needle to do the narrow hem on the sleeves and hem.

Raglan sleeve seam

Side seam pattern matching

K9 himself has been appliqued using Vliesofix. I cut him out of the t-shirt with a few mm of yellow showing, ironed him onto the striped shirt front, then machine zig-zagged all the way around him with a narrow stitch. I agonised over where to put him but I think he’s ended up slightly too far to the left. Never mind. In case you didn’t work it out, the stripes are the pattern of the scarf worn by the Doctor who was played by Tom Baker. He was my first Doctor when I was a small child, watching the Daleks from my spot hiding behind the lounge!

Subtle Star Wars geekery

Happy New Year! I can’t seem to move on from #9 on my holiday to-do list. So whaddya know, I made another bag. In truth, I have sewn some other stuff but I’m stuck in my holiday casual gear and really can’t be bothered photographing it yet.  Plus I should have been finished with the silk dress but it was a disaster – not sewing wise, that was fine, but the dress was so utterly unflattering the 17yo fashionista fell about laughing when I put it on. I think I’ll cut it up and do something else with it eventually.

But the bag… I picked up some beautiful wool suiting fabric at The Salvos for $6. I  don’t wear suits, my work office is not that formal, but I had an idea for a bag.  It was the week Carrie Fisher died so it seemed a fitting tribute to pair the conservative wool, with some lairy Star Wars fabric as the piping and lining. When my big girls were little I used to do a lot of smocked dresses, which would have mini piping along the collars and bodice, and I enjoyed doing a bit of piping again, it gives such a lovely finish. Ferreting around and using what you’ve got on hand is a bit of a motto around here, although I think it’s really code for ‘too impatient to wait’, so the back piping has a bit of string off a parcel down the middle of it, and the front piping has a bit of red twine I found in my partner-in-crime’s modelling room.

The previous bag I made is a big hit and just proved it’s usefulness on a weekend  trip to Sydney. However the one thing it doesn’t have is a proper phone pocket so I’ve remedied that this time. It’s really annoying not having somewhere in a larger bag to easily access my phone and I’ve been using the zip pocket in the other bag, which means I can’t keep it zipped up with important stuff like lipstick and train tickets! This bag has three zipped pockets and a phone pouch. Not sure why but I really love doing these little zip pockets on bags. I do them by sewing a long skinny rectangle with the outside and pocket lining fabrics right sides together, cutting up the middle of the rectangle, sniping into the corners, and turning the lining through to the inside. Then I just sew the zip into the already lined space.  They’re so neat and nifty and I’m using up some of the heaps of zips I’ve thrifted. The one thing I haven’t got right yet is the interfacing. I bought some super heavy interfacing for this bag, but when I went to use it I realised it was going to be too heavy, so since I was sewing in the middle of the night as usual and not about to wait for the next day to get more interfacing, I just used the light stuff I had on hand. It’s fine, and means it’s nice and light to carry, but the bag is floppier than a similar store bought one would probably be. The strap is off a bag of Laura’s which she was gifted and didn’t like. I feel like a bit of a fraud using ready-made straps on my bags but they do give them a professional look.

And just because, here’s a naughty cat who tipped over Laura’s paint water earlier and was discovered wearing the green paint evidence on his paw! Lucky he’s cute and we love him