Recycling that old Salwar kameez

This blog started with this post where i converted a dupatta of mine into a watercan cover, yes i repeat, you buy any brand of these water cans, and they are the most hideous looking bottles you can ever imagine, dont ask me why have i not shifted to a water purifier yet, well iam lazy and thats it!

Since then these are always nicely dressed in covers made by me , and i have started making sets of microwave top covers and the bottle covers. I make it out of a salwar suit or an old bedsheet etc.

This one was an old old old suit, but one of my favs , especially the dupatta. I dont know why would i ever think to recycle it, but man i did it, i regret it till date, but d only solace is when people ask me, are tumne banaya kya, nice :D

This is my day 7 into the December Marathon Blogging. Follow the rest of the marathonners here and the posts in [Blog Love [07-12-12] - Day 7]

Baby Hairbands for the little angels!

Its been ages i have used the sewing machine for something good. All i have been doing once in a while is some napkins or some stupid alterations when i did swear that this machine is solely for hobby purposes :) . Well one good thing i did in between was made some pretty hairbands for kids of a few frens. Love baby girls , dont we all love them, there are so many ways we can dress them.. so many accessories  and what not.  I so wish someday i have a cute lil daughter :)

One of them was blogger fren Saee's (of My Jhola) daughter, Avnee. I met her in August and fell in love with her. She was a sweetheart, in a party of 10 plus adults she managed to have everybody's attention and keep us all attracted to her. Miss you darling. I hope i get to make many more of these.

This is a pic saee clicked for me. Thanks Saee.

This is my day 5 into the December Marathon blogging . What to checkout what others are into : check us out at the Marathon Bloggers group and the post [Blog Love [05-12-12] - Day 5]

Baby Blanket, Pillow and Spread

We had been planning a surprise get together of frens for the Best Buddy for a long time, to wish them luck before the most important day of their lives... I had also been trying to stitch nice stuffs for her, as iam really really excited about she expecting, this is going to be my first hand experience of being a local Masi to a Kid... many of my friends have had kids by now, but most of them have been in pics alone, this kid is going to be the first one to whom i will be the active local Masi :) ...  

I wanted to make something special for this kiddo.. i have always loved the idea of sets of clothing's, or accessories, or add ons for kids, matching boots and mittens, matching bibs and mittens etc, and my favorite of it all has been a well matched set of Baby pillow, blanket and spread. I had this fabric, which i guess was not enough but , was a neat combination to try out this set, so eventough i was sure i didnt have enough fabric, i went ahead and made this cute looking set, 

Baby Blanket : 36*40 inches 

Baby Spread : 30*36 inches

Baby Pillow : 12*16 inches

I did some random patchwork to make the stuff look cool, and iam pretty impressed with the outcome of my first set. Manna also loved it and i was super happy, she was a sweetheart to mend a few stitches that were wearing out, but overall it was a happy ending... :)

Baby Boy Onesies

Yesterday was the last day i had to stay alone, and i had not created something very substantial until now, had 10s of patterns lying in my bag :D well lazy me, what else to say.

My favoritest outfit for infants is the onesies... i so so so love them, they are such a comfort wear, definitely adter the jhaplas i say ;), i really wanted to try these, and had found this really nice pattern , and am totally in love with the pics in this post, super cute d kiddo is. So my onesie turned out really well.. but i realised it a bit late that i was attempting a 6 month olds pattern, so i dont really have a taker for it now, but big deal, it was fun making this one...

The good thing is i have learnt how to attach the binding, and i wish to explain the technique someday here.

The not so good thing in this one was, my fasteners are not attached really well.. but it looks cute.. 

No Scratch Baby Mittens

This last one week was such a pain for me, Garg was out of town for a week , at times i feel i need the me-time, blah, but boss, this last one week was such a mess, iam so so so dependent on him, it was so boring without him around, i hate cooking for myself, so for a week, i was having couscous and masala oats all along, it was getting boring , but hey... :)who cares... well , so i had all the free time, i tried my hands on these cute looking mittens, whosoever invented this idea, to save kiddos from scratching themselves, these no-scratch mittens are a bliss,  

I did a very short cuttish version of mittens, but this one is a nice tutorial on mittens . I am yet to master the art of stitching the elastic properly, and yet to find a good tip to do it quick and easy, so for now, this not so near version of it... :)

Baby Bibs

Okie , remember the 1st time i was starting to get into the josh of sewing, didn't have a sewing machine,  and had cut out this bib patter , and in this wierd kind of fabric, it was a t shirt kinda material of cloth. Well people make sure that they get thier hands dirty first on cotton fabric, to learn sewing, to get your hand well versed with the machine but hey, i end up trying the most complicated things in the begining, i didnt even know how to make the pipings, and yeah , i started stitching this bib, and it was such a messssss... i have started using that one for cleaning purposes, else a look at it wud have been fun, finally i tried it again, and this time it was not all that bad.. so heres the outcome. My stuff doesnt look very inviting, but, i see these 2 sites, with nice patterns, and good instructions.

1. Free bib Patterns

2. The Best Bib : And this one is indeed the best bib i have seen so far..

And then i tried a few more, the one below, that bow is stuck there to hide on of my sewing messes :)

And this is my fav so far, tried my hands with the pretty stitches my machine has, and this looked awesome...

Another Jhapla

I have got some nice baby print fabrics , and cant stop myself making these cute lil jhaplas.

Baby Jhapla

I kept wondering what should i call these , sleeveless tops , sleeveless shirt, etc, umm , well then i realized, that it did have a name and very commonly used when we were kids, and yes these were called jhaplas, the most comfortable thing, in lines of the onesies, i have seen indian kids, and all my cousins wearing.

I remember my cousins dressed in this and those triangular diapers , well i guess it used to be the need of the hour in such hot and humid climates of north and east of india. The most comfortable thing a kid can get in winters.

I used the same baby kimono pattern as the previous post and just omitted the sleeve , and made the neckline a lil bit deeper. Thats it, quick and easy jhaplas... now i need to make speghetti tops for myself on the same lines :) Now that will be fun... it looks easy, guess will have to try it.

Baby Kimono

So there will be this whole lot of baby stuffs coming up in my posts... a small disclaimer, me making these  tiny ones coz 1. they are the easiest to start with, 2. yeah i have many good frens going thru that wonderful phase of their lives... i feel like making these tiny ones as they seem to be the best gift i can create now for them... and be part of their happiness...AND not coz iam expecting or planning for a baby or whatever... Well this disclaimer goes directly for my aunts and a few other crazy people with this crazy thought... :) so the first complicated sewing attempt of mine was.. this baby kimono . I followed the Martha Stewart Baby Kimono step to step , one doesn't need any other instructions, its the best tutorial one can get for Kimonos... 

Hey i totally  love the fabric and color combinations used in the martha stewart post, they are so much fun , and perfect for kids... iam not investing on fabrics right now, let me get myself easy on the machine first... 

The Sewing machine happened to me.

Its been a while that a few of my best buddies are all expecting their first kids at the same time. :) ... yeah its fun and at times an overload of information. So currently most of the discussions revolve around newborns, the preparations , etc. Well iam the eldest in the family after Anna... I have seen almost 8 pre and post childbirth periods very closely in my maternal side.

One of the oldest memories i have of the times when my aunts were expecting their kids, was the diapers, rugs, blankets and similar things were stitched at home. So yeah, with this best buddy i chit chat almost everyday, i started discussing what all can be made at home for the newborn , well given we indians have this tradition that newborns are supposed to be wearing home stitched or old clothes and not new stuffs bought straight from the store. Well there are many theories attached to it, but yeah , the crux is that it needs to be done, home sewing, for the newborns... In the process i landed into such beautiful blogs, with awesome ideas for kids, and it was all so tempting... i wanted to try out everything, one day i too a print of one of the bib patterns, and hey i realized , not everything can be stitched, you definitely needs a sewing machine if you want to try these. The patterns werte cut and set aside, to test myself, that lets see, will the urge be still there, should i really buy a sewing machine... will it be worth it. Garg , the husband was the victim to all the wrath, for the continuos pestering, of should i buy a machine or not.

In the end of Feb, Garg was going to go to his hometown for a week, then there was this Uk trip getting planned and i was getting paranoid that what will i do for two weeks behind him, all alone, well sewing was still there on my mind... oh yes in between i saw this besty buddy , well lets call her BB for now, she had stiched a cute owl and a cube .. hand stitched and super cute, one day i will post those pics here... they were super cute. ... and mumma continues with her stiching, stiching stuffs for Gargs cousins kiddo... he is Kiwi.. super cute.. so all along i was being tempted to try these things myself too...

So one day , well i guess the date was 1st of March 2012, Garg was fedup or maybe he simply understood that i really wanted to pursue this, so he took me to the Singer outlet and got me my first sewing machine, a cute looknig Singer Sewing machine , a Talent 3231. As usual , i was super excited, felt like making everything in a day, but had never used a sewing machine earlier, jsut once i had make these cotton inners, with the help of mumma, thats it!...

The machine has some cool features, the most intresting one to me till date is the picco one, so my first creating were these napkins, simple handkerchief sized napkins , piccoed at the corners with a contrast thread and they looked neat. :) totally loved playing with my new toy... :)

Dupatta to a Water Can Cover

Its been ages i havent written in my other two blogs Chatkhor and Cafe Talkies. Time constraints , lazyness, blah , but yes the fact remains all that iam doing is getting lost, restricting itself to my mailbox or my personal FB page, and no link back, no relink, and i cannot work quick on it again coz its a memory gone.

So here Iam , using this page as a scratchpad for all things sewing and knitting, so that its safe and intact and useful . Hope i continue. :)

I want this to be a place to display all the beauties my mother in law creates too, shes creative, works wonders with the sewing machine, but hey, where does it all go, lost! So The yarn bit, peeps, will be a contribution by Mumma.

As for sewing is concerned, as a kid i used to love making cross stich arts, had made 2 table cloths, a few handkerchiefs, but never thought i would like to pursue it as a hobby, a passion, coz as i was growing , i found it as the most time consuming , and not so satisfying a thing. I used to wonder where do these ladies get all the time and energy to put into such thing, one should go shop and buy the best fitting things, why stitch, why waste time doing it yourself. :D ... well well , i never knew i will grow up, not be a spendthrift for every petty thing, and even otherwise, there isn't everything one can buy, there are somethings you would really love creating it yourself :).... yeah the change of mind with age i guess... (Am i already sounding like a granny, 50 something... disclaimer: Iam not yet 30, well approaching :D)...

So, one day we shifted to an apartment, where we could no longer use the water straight from the tap for drinking purposes, we were still lazy to get a aquagaurd fixed, and it needs regular cleaning , who will do that :P... so we started getting these canned 20ltr bottles which suits are needs best till date. But the local vendor, has an art , to pick the W.OR.S.T looking bottles to our house, which makes my kitchen look no less than a roadside food outlet, or better, one of those Sagar restaurants... well both were not acceptable to me, my kitchen needs to look like my kitchen ! Period. I picked one of my old Dupattas, cut it into a rectangle, and round, used the braided corners of the dupatta as a decor joining the top and sides, it has a fabric fastener at the bottom, to tie it around the bottom. I hope someday i will make another, and then add more detailed instructions here. Till then. Ciao....

OH ok... one short note... before my dear Chatkhor, disowns me...

My Dear Chatkhor,

Please dont think that i have forgottten you or something, you are and will always be my first love, i will be back, sooner or later, but i will get back. Till then, ciao. You take care, i see people still referring you, and that feels good buddy, we are still remembered. Thats the beauty of the blogging world, you stay, you stay forever. :)

Yours,

Swati