Knitted Clanger- 2 weeks to knit, 7 months to construct!

This toy was incredibly hard to photograph well. Normally I ensure my photos are the right way up and make sense when I write my posts. This time it seems to not matter and when I adjusted one photo I ended up returning it to how it started so please bear with the slightly off photos for this blog post. 

This is a Tiny Clanger from the BBC TV series which despite its aimed at very young kids I still love and have been a fan since the original 1970s series. The BBC released this knitting pattern for Tiny Clanger many years ago and its something I have had on my to-do list for absolutely years. So this toy is made using free pattern I downloaded years ago. It's still free though. The pattern uses 4 ply. I used DK hence my upscaling of the clothing is out of scale. I did ok with the feet I think but not the tabard ( if that's what you would call it?). Maybe Armour is better?

Feet are black felt (synthetic from amazon,) on top but brown underneath cos I didn't want to buy any more so used what I had. It's the same stuff I used for the Easter basket last year. It comes in 50 or so coloured squares per pack. I accidentally ended up with it on subscribe and save and didn't realise till the second pack arrived. Anyway according to the pattern both top and bottom of the feet should be black felt. I added a piece of tupperware for strengthening in side each foot to make them more rigid.

The pattern does not do this but many many years ago myself and several friends got into the Rave movement and I made, for lots of people, velvet baseball caps. To make the peaks I used tupperwares so if you fancied doing that its a cheat way to get a harder but washable strengthened area. It works for the Clanger feet anyway.

You can see here the armour is a bit small!!!

Has to be said though it useful to have two sheets of each colour of felt so if you did buy some with the idea of crafting rather than for children then you probably want two packs. Though the colours are slightly different per pack. Though I received them a month appart so maybe if bought together you get the same mix of colours. The tabard is actually 2 slightly different shades of red. The pattern uses pink but the child this was for chose red. It works. 

The clanger us 100% wool except for the hair. That's acrylic because I had some stashed. The wool was cheaper per 100g than acrylic so I went with the environmentally friendly option. It might turn out to be a mistake. It's meant to be washable but the child who now owns it is 2 so it's likely to need washing quite a bit. 

Small person who now owns this Clanger seems not to care a jot its all a bit small but it is not I beleive going to stand up to play well so I reckon I will ask small person if he would like me to alter it. It occurs to me while writing this I could glue these pieces to new felt pieces which would thicken the rather thin felt sheets and in turn make the armour more substantial. Then just use a sewing machine to sew them together nd cut around each piece to make them larger. 

If you look at the CF panel as well I did the embroidery the wrong way round it should lie the other way so the longer side across the Clanger body not down it.


Anyway the pattern is odd in the way it's constructed and the strange increases and decreases to get shaping buy its easy to knit. It's however in loads if bits. Like each ear has 2 knitted bits plus felt. So I spent just over 2 weeks knitting this then 7 months to finish it. 

Armour/ Tabard is far too small!!!

The tabard is embroidered in gold thread. I bought this when experimenting with using odd bits of yarn. The silver skein was used for my blue aran. Though I still gave enough of both gold and silver for several mire garments. I think its easier to sew with than knit with actually but I am not an embroidered. I am truly rubbish at embroidered so this took ages.

So yes the entire project took ages actually and I am so glad Tiny Clanger finally got finished. Its a project that started to really get to me because it was taking so very long to get her finished. When I began I had ideas to make all 5 of the current Clangers but I don't have the heart to repeat this right now so have just stopped with Tiny. This does mean I still have 4 balls of this pink DK and I am not a pink person so now need to find a way to use that. Hopefully something will come to me because its a good quality yarn. I really don't want to just give it away. 

If I really do want to knit more Clangers I can always buy more yarn.

Ah the yarn is the Drops Karisma that I used for a jumper previously and its a very good prive from Wool Warehouse if you wanted some. Its 100% wool. Red is also Karisma left over from the mushroom season jumper. Black is embroidery thread. Yellow is acrylic from Aldi.

Have a lovely week, thanks for visiting,

Bracken

Notches Kai childrens dungaree pattern - A total rip off!

This is a sewing failure!

It looks OK but read on.................

I bought the Notches Kai child's dungarees pattern about a year ago when it was reviewed on the Pattern review website. It sounded a good deal. Dungarees and trousers and shorts with loads of different options, pockets etc. Because the small people I sew for are all boys the frilly options are of no use but I expected the rest to be good. 

A complete disappointment as well as a waste of money spent buying the pattern and the fabric. Then the considerable time I wasted to get a good finish because its for someone else so I try to make it perfect. As most people do for a gift.

It looks OK here I know but really its not. 

Its awful! 

First problem: the pattern prints on loads of half sheets of A4 so really a waste of paper. I had to lose around half of every sheet yet it appears to be the entire pattern despite its on half sheets ( all lines match etc) so I continue. At this point I contact Notches. They fob me off and say go to pattern review.com where I had bought it. (  Have to say here beware if you buy from this place!) 

Notches reckon the pdf has corrupted. It prints weird on both the 110cm and 116cm so the 5-6years as well. Right now I have no idea about the rest of the sizes. So next anyway I contact pattern review. I have had no response at all from them. It's been awhile now. This all began several months ago so they have had plenty of time to try and sort this out. They simply have not bothered!

So I won't be buying anything again from either Notches or Pattern Review since both gave sh1t customer services. And yes I am mad at these rip off online companies right now! I do not usually swear on my blog even if using numbers in place of letters. I just don't but I want other sewers to be warned and understand how angry I am with this and how ripped off I am feeling, before you buy this or another Notches pattern. And as for Pattern review, well they did not even bother to come back to me at all. So buy if you want but please think how you will deal with a total lack of customer services should you need help.

So anyway this is what happened next. I managed to get the pattern put together despite missing a print off half of every sheet. I found a lovely fabric that appeals to certain small man I am sewing for this time. I went to town with both side and patch pockets. Then having bought this nice digger print cotton I decided to get going and make dungarees. Supposedly in a 110cm so for a 4-5 year old in the UK. 

Even properly interfaced the facings and the top and straps which I admit I often just skip over especially with small children who will wear something for such a short time. This time though I did exactly what the pattern tells you. After all a 4 to 5 year old will test this to its limits when playing so I want it to hold up for every day play for him.

I think I paid 14 Euro for this pattern. It's possibly the most expensive I have ever bought. Single pattern that is anyway. Should have stuck with BTrendy, Burda etc. At least you get decent customer services when things go wrong and they really do try to help. Not at all these two companies!

Its never good when there is a problem but I am used to having some level of customer services and Burda in particular - that is burdastyle.co.uk, burdastyle.de and burdastyle.com have all been helpful at different times. I have not had a pattern problem with Made By Oranges ( Btrendy and My Image magazines) but have had a postage issue and they were helpful too. Thats a good point though. No pattern issues whatsoever with their patterns!

Anyway so I finally get these made and to me they look small and how will small person get into them?

The neck hole seems tight to me but maybe its just how it looks.

Well I have an even smaller person available who currently wears a 92-98cm in RTW or UK 2-3 years and no the dungarees do not go on. In fact I possibly hurt small person trying to squeeze him in! Not too badly and he does tend to object to trying on clothing, but you know the idea was make something nice not an object of torture.

So what to do?

I don't want to scrap the nice fabric. I could remake with normal so buttons and non elastic straps but even then they would be tight I think on top. Not the loose fit I was aiming for anyway. I think trousers will work but for the 2 year old not the 4 year old.

Just to clarify as well I took the smallest possible seam allowance on the pattern that says seam allowance is included. So a smaller seam allowance that the pattern actually reckons it allows for!

Also the facings do not at all fit. I had to draft my own. That's OK I could live with that if the rest of the pattern was right. It's not though.

The pattern is meant for wovens and my reason for purchase was for woven non- stretch fabrics. Summer cottons particularly. Thats what I wanted and why I bought it because I already had several stretch fabric /jersey patterns. However, if this pattern actually has any chance it may work I would make it in a stretch lycra jersey fabric. Just in case it's on your list of to-dos. I might risk some more fabric at some point and try it out. But then why bother when there is a free Sparkle and Roar dungaree pattern that works. Yes I paid for this but it was possibly the worst buy so far. I have only ever made one other pattern so rubbish and that was a long time ago so I ahve maybe so far been lucky but I have to say this experience really does put me off indie designer patterns right now. I like my favourites - How to do Fashion being a very nice one that springs to mind and I used to like Rebecca Page though Rebecca has left the label as far as I know,  but many out there are really not worth paying for. I will probably stick with the small number I currently like now for a while because this has really put me off experimenting which is sad. One rotten apple spoiling the whole barrel as they say.

Right now though I feel ripped off, disappointed and that I have wasted my precious time on a totally cr4p pattern that doesn't print properly and is definitely over priced!

Oh and yes before I cut anything of course I checked the gauge was right.

It's just a completely rubbish pattern so if I was you I would avoid this one. I also will never buy another Notches pattern ever again. What I may have to do though is work through my other small collection of indie designer patterns to see how the rest work because I own loads I have yet to make. Maybe its time to put these indies to the test and see if I prefer the big pattern companies after all. I definitely do not like Notches in case you missed what I have been on about here.

On the positive side I finally finished these as dungarees and I now know what I made and the fact is these can be altered into trousers for the 2 year old who tried them on for me. He wants them. The construction of these has been dragging on since last winter! So at least (once they get cut back into basic trousers which will be fast cos my smallest small person will then get some wear from them at least!) then I will have only stuff for me to make and some of this is on my list for a few years. I have a large pile if washed and ready to cut camo for starters - about 10 different types if camo fabric to be precise that I really want to wear and a long list of patterns sorted to use with this fabric so finally my sewing for others ends for a while. At least the future is looking good. 

Or its looking camo!

Take care and have a lovely week won't you and thanks for reading to the end of this very long text heavy post if you made it this far,

Bracken

Cozy tiger top

 

This is a top I made previously but I did not bother to add the side zip because to be perfectly honest its pointless. The neck is wide so why add a zip you do not need?

Last time I made one of these I did add the zip. I suppose if you wanted to pose like the Burda magazine with the zip open it would be worth having but then the neck falls down off my shoulders so its really not worth having the zip unless you happened to use a very chunky one and it was there just for the look of it - a bit like punk rock bondage trousers. Then it would be worth having. For my purpose though which is to have a cozy warm top - no its a waste of effort and a waste of a zip. So this version doesn't have a zip.

Its been hot for the last few weeks where I live so I was surprised today when I ut this on to realise I was cold because this is a definitly warm cozy top and I am going to like this one I think. I like the previous version but tend to layer it.

I actually began making this top back in January but I decided it would look and work better with cuffs so I ended up waiting to finish it until I had some cuffing fabric. This is sweatshirt cuffing. And they turn back so can be long for winter or shorter as seen on the rest of these photos.

Oh and the jacket itself is the same faux fur as my coat lining. 

You can see the back goes to a point with a high low hem.

Wonderful faithful hound here is my Roger. Hes a GSD x  collie and is now 7 and very lovely.

Well today is the first chilly day for ages and to be fair until I popped this on for the photos I had npt noticed I was cold so no its not actually cold. Its summer in England! 

And really this was made for wearing in winter although I suspect it will get quite a bit of wear the next few weeks if the weather stays dull and chilly so its going to be slightly more versatile than I expected by the looks of it. Have a lovely week and thanks for popping by, 

Take care

Bracken

Muslin check tie front shirt

I bought this fabric yonks ago. Maybe 2013? Really a very long time ago anyway and since I have been stash busting for what now seems like years!!!!! I decided its really time to make something from it. This is just a summery top to protect me from sunburn when I wear shirt sleeves. Right now the UK is HOT!

And predicted to get hotter! 

Still can't complain!

So this is a burda pattern I bought as a download around 2013 to 2015. I made it before but in stretch fabric which I think actually works better for this pattern. Its Burda Style 04/2012#126C. Its fine as a fun cover up for summer but would be far too short as a top in winter. For me anyway. Maybe a 16 year old could carry it off but no, not me!

I French seamed the seams to keep everything neat. It's worked great though I think I never left enough seam allowance to get the fit I usually aim for. Its OK because as a summer cover up this really works. And I have already worn this several times to avoid sunburn.

If I use a woven fabric for this particular pattern again, I would lengthen the body and make bigger seam allowances. But despite this it does work and its a lovely lightweight cover-up which I needed the last few days

I have lots more of this bright cotton muslin still to decide what to make so there might be another item from this if I can decide on something I think will work. Its a transparent muslin though and a single muslin not a double cloth so it would need multiple layers for something like a skirt or at least some kind of lining. Its fine for a cover-up top though as it is.

But either way it does prove you eventually get round to even very bright fabrics. I have managed not to add to my stash for months now and its still massive. Summer dresses next maybe?Something I can use to transition to winter by layering would be good.

Have a fun week and hopefully see you soon with another summery make.

Take care 

Bracken 

Leggings 2

 This is my second pair of basic leggings made in a decent activewear wicking fabric and I very much loved wearing them. Not the best lighting but the mountain behind is lovely. Better photos below!

We went to North Wales for a week and it turned out to be 10degC colder than at home despite being only 3 hours drive away. Shocking. It was apparently really hot at home but just pleasant in Wales. The people were not very friendly though which is disappointing because we are actively trying to decide where in the Uk we want to move. The only people we met who were friendly were Scottish. Since we are both leaning towards moving to Scotland thats a nice discovery. Really I think its a toss up between Cornwall and Scotland so either end of the UK. I would have though seriously of France and Holand or maybe Germany but after the Brexit fiasco we no lonbger have the righ to live there unless we have a huge income and its unlikely we ever will so that is now out. We can in fcat only even visit the EU for 180 days at a time and then have to be stuck back on this island for a further 180 days. What rubbish these brits chose! It is so annoying that people tell me there was a huge number voting to leave but actually it was a 52/48 split with most of the leavers now being dead! They reckon the demographic has totally changed and we would choose stay in now. I hate the fact we are no longer european. I am and always will be but these ancients are convinced we should instead be solo. Makes me unhappy that!
OK rant over!

My new leggings are the same as the last pair just different fabric and I have a 3rd pair nearly finished too. I will show you those once done. All fabric is from Pound Fabrics for I think around £9 per metre. Top was made ages ago. Its quite tatty now even though its a raggy top , its seen better days but I love it. Its lightweight yet warm.

Look at that knee turning right in now. Definitely need a knee op and you can see now by the way I am standing. I cannot help this its just my joints no longer work right so probably its my last holiday before I become cyborged ( two knees and one more hip being replaced!!!). I do not actually mind being cyborged. If the first hip is like the next few joints it will be wonderful to get my life back. Its not they never hurt again though. In the wet which is lots here, I ache in the replaced hip but its nothing to the agony before they did it and I can walk and do everything. I can even sit cross legged like a kid ( or could before the second one went wrong!) and I could not do this before the op. I was an invalid. Its for certain better to be normal than in pain and unable to function which would be me if I refused these ops. The difference between being a disabled old woman or an active middle aged one. I chose a life.

But the hip they already did is strong! I really know that right now. Its all that keeps me walking. Enough of self pity. Leggings!

You can see the colours in this fabric better here. I want some more of this fabric. Just waiting for a tax refund to cash then I can buy some. Nice when you accidentally pay too much tax and get it back. I also made two dry robes for the holiday which I slogged daily for 2 weeks to get made. I have yet to get photos of them but will do so because it cost around £70 for the two instead of  £180 each! 

I would seriously urge anyone who wants one and who can do basic sewing to have a go at making them if you want one. They are very easy. I have lots of making photos too but none as yet of the finished garments. I also have measurements and can help if anyone wants to message me about this. 

And they have no pattern as such and both work really well. I will post my dimensions with the photos once I get them. Sadly never took any on holiday but will find somewhere to take some here abouts so I can share this because possibly they are my biggest make ( and riskiest) in years and I am very happy with them. That will likely be my next post if you are interested but will have to be next week due to time and needing someone available for the photos.

Thanks for popping by and hopefully see you soon with a good blog on my dry robes!

Take care and have a great week,

Bracken