ella

Voila - I made something!

Ella is one of baby bear's best friends and her mother is a lovely friend of mine. When she heard that I was interested in recycling old clothes and jumpers into new children's clothes, she gave me the softest grey rib jumper to play around with. It had been worn by her mother and her older sister and was in tatters around the cuffs and seams, which was fine because I was able to cut the cardigan pieces out in between the holes! It took a bit of trickery and one of the sleeves had to be cut out in two pieces.

I used my machine to sew the garment pieces and overlocked the exposed raw edges. The edge trim and internal ties are bias tape that I made using my very handy little Clover bias tape maker. The fabric is from a dress that I bought some months ago at the Sacred Heart Mission op shop near me. I had (good) suspicions and they were confirmed at the Stitches and Craft Show a couple of weeks ago by the company's representative in Australia - yes, indeed, it is a Liberty print.

The "pattern" is one that I just eyeballed using one of baby bear's cardigans as a guide. Given the asymmetrical, slightly Japanese feel of the garment, I thought that it wouldn't matter too much is it was a little boxy.

The button, I admit, is new and came from The Button Shop in Malvern. The buttonhole is my first ever.

And the finished garment? I'm giving it back to my friend for her little girl to wear.

This is one of the items that I presented as part of my refashion display at the Stitches and Craft Show. I can hardly believe that it was two weeks ago already. There were a number of contemporary 'indie crafters' there showcasing their wares - amongst others were Angela from Sew Your Own, Kristin Doran, Fiona from Dear Fii, a quick appearance from greenolive and the very lovely Jenny from Amitié. Jenny was great company and I was so impressed by her approach to customers and patchworking - open, caring, make your own rules. If you want to do any piecing or quilting I recommend an imminent visit to Bentleigh.

I'm not sure how well the refashion concept was received. I did get many compliments on the cardigan and many commented "Oh, we used to do that back when ..." but generally they didn't seem to be interested in doing it now. The preference seemed to be for pre-packaged 'it's oh so simple' kits and 'just peel the backing off and stick it down' scrapbooking. In the past I'm sure that people unravelled and reknit jumpers and saved fabric scraps and altered garments because they couldn't afford not to. I believe that environmentally we still can't afford not to.