Testing times

Doing: ...Finally testing out the very first batch of soap I made by hand, way back in July. It has been sitting on a rack drying ever since I made it, and whilst I rotated it every few days to ensure even drying, it never seemed quite dry enough to use (I could see that the edges were slowly getting much lighter). The last thing I want is for it to go mushy quickly in the shower! I guess it's because it was made in winter, so it took twice as long to dry as I was expecting?

Anyway, the official test was this morning. It's vanilla and oatmeal (that's the darker, lumpy bits you can see in it), and I thought it could do with a fair bit more scent, but then DH is also using it and he doesn't like scented soap at all (especially not 'girly' smells ;-). Otherwise, I was pretty happy with it!


I was looking for something to store the rest of the soap in in the vanity and I found a small drawstring calico bag that was a freebie with something, and it seemed to be the right size. I thought briefly about doing some pretty embroidery on the front - but then decided my time was better spent since I won't actually be able to see it in the cupboard LOL. A quick label scribbled with a texta sufficed, so that DH can find it (in theory ;-)

Must be time to make a new batch of soap now that the drying rack is free!

Making: ... After having had it bookmarked for weeks, I finally got around to having a go at the Oliver & S Lazy Days skirt pattern today. I made two, one each for Miss 3 and Miss Five. The first one I made (the pink one on the right) is the skirt as described in the pattern. Having made it quickly and easily, I got more daring and decided to alter it a little.

My mum recently gave me a huge stack of kids fabric from her stash (yay!) and one is a pretty blue gingham with flowers printed on it. However, it's a very flimsy, see-though fabric (you can tell I am new to sewing because I have no idea what they are all called LOL) which would be too light for a skirt by itself. I also found a co-ordinating fabric with a tiny white dot on it though, so I figured I could line the gingham with that. It turned out quite well, if I do say so myself!


I simply cut two skirts, one shorter than the other, and sewed the side seams of each one together. At that point I decided that two lots of ribbon on the hems would be too much, so I hemmed the shorter one by folding it over twice (about 1/4" each time) and sewed over it with a decorative stitch on the sewing machine - my first time ever of using anything other than straight or zig zag! Look out, I'm branching out ;-) Then I basted the tops of the two skirts together and proceeded as for just the one skirt (i.e. sewed the top seam, threaded the elastic and finished the bottom hem with ribbon).


Then to finish off, so that Miss Six wouldn't feel left out, I whipped her up this dress :-)


I did cheat though. *Ahem* I dropped in at Spotlight yesterday as they had 20% off everything and I wanted elastic and ribbon for the skirts. While I was there I noticed a couple of rolls of ready-made shirred fabric; I didn't know such a thing existed? I grabbed about 60cm of it, so all I had to do was sew up the back seam and the hem (I could have left the selvedge at the bottom I suppose but it had holes in it), and add a bias binding tie around the neck (to stop it from sliding off on the trampoline ;-) Ten minutes work, and voila! All done. More expensive than shirring it yourself but cheaper than buying a new dress, and since I've never done shirring before, I figure I'm doing OK.

Phew! Now what's for dinner? Anyone for sandwiches?