Hogwarts House Banners

As all regular readers know by now, hubby and I are massive nerds in so many areas. One of my nerdy loves is the magical world created by J. K. Rowling. It’s so extensive, so complex and full of fun things. Our wizardingworld-themed Halloween party has become an annual thing, and I continue to add to and improve the decorations from year to year. We even have a sort of back story of who we are supposed to be, so that the decorations will make sense: just your ordinary wizarding family, so magical cookbooks, the more common potion ingredients, wands, Pepperup Potion and weird plants abound, while Polyjuice Potion, Time Turners and Marauder's Maps are absent.

Last week I really felt like knitting a Hufflepuff scarf for myself (because according to Pottermore, my knowledge of myself, and our backstory I was in Hufflepuff), but as I didn’t have the yarn, and this is a work from stash-year, that project had to be put off indefinitely. Then the designs for the House banners in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child showed up in my Facebook feed, and I was intrigued by the Hufflepuff banner. For some unfathomable reason the colours seem to have been changed from yellow/black to yellow/brown, but that would never do, even if I’m still not quite over having to look like a bee if I want to wear house colours. I looked through my stash of wool scraps and soon found some mustard yellow and black pieces that were big enough. I copied the design off of the picture of the banner, scaled it to a size that would work with the scraps I had, and set to work.

 I ironed on a piece of interfacing to the black wool, drew the design on the interfacing, cut it out, pinned it down carefully, and began attaching it with small blanket stitches, with black cotton at the back of the banner for stability. When that was done I completed the design with wool embroidery. I cut out the banner, bound the edges with more of the black wool, and made a channel at the top so I could hang the banner from a rod. 

 

 Then I set about making a banner for hubby’s old house Ravenclaw, also sorted by Pottermore, and fitting his personality brilliantly. That banner had even more issues than the Hufflepuff banner. For one, it was made in the pretty and since the films often used, but wrong colours of blue/silver, when in the books it’s described as blue/bronze. I asked hubby what he’d prefer and his response was that the books wins every time. Good man. So I looked through my stash for blue wool, and a nuance of brown that could pass for bronze.

Then I had to make some adjustments to the banner design. According to the books, the Ravenclaw mascot is an eagle, but by more casual fans it’s often believed to be a raven – that the films made it so didn’t exactly help either. On the design of the Ravenlaw banner I thought it was a bit unclear – it might have been supposed to be a raven, but it didn’t look much like any raven I ever saw. Still, the eagle I tried to make didn’t end up looking much like one either - served me right for being a snob. 

 For the embroidery I had to pull threads from the blue fabric, as I didn’t have any yarn in the right nuance. 

 Once the banners were finished, I began making the rods they would hang from. The banners are quite small (27x19 cm), of a size you’d hang over your bed while in school, so the rods holding them didn’t have to be all that sturdy, more for looks than anything else, really, as I’ll probably pin the banners discretely to the wall, making them look like they were attached with a Sticking Charm. I had thin round rods I got at the craft store last year, and wooden beads with big enough holes to fit the rods. I just cut the rods so length, and glued the beads to the ends.

There, finished House banners!

George Pig, a Soft Toy

Sometimes I sew completely different things from what I usually do. My youngest turned two recently, and as he likes to watch Peppa Pig, and likes George Pig especially, I decided to make him a soft toy George. I found a pattern and step-by-step online, and though it was in Portuguese, it was clear enough for me to follow. 

The pattern called for felt, but I had to use my stash, so plain cotton it was. Luckily I had large enough scraps of the colours I needed, except for a slightly darker pink for the cheeks. Considering the materials I had to work, I had to make some minor changes, but they are hardly noticeable on the finished toy. It was all hand stitched, as I’m still without a working sewing machine.

One thing I changed completely was the tail. I wanted a really curly tail, so I drew a new pattern for it, and attached an elastic almost at the tip of the tail before I turned it right. After I’d stuffed the tail a bit, I pulled the elastic a bit, and the tail curled nicely. I believe the tail is Little One’s favourite feature, trying to hang poor George up by it all the time. 

I made the mouth and nostrils using embroidery floss, and when time came to make the eyes, I was running really short on time. Instead of making them from fabric as I’d originally intended, I decided to make them from buttons, one white and one black for each eye. 

 If it turns out that Little One can’t keep from trying to pull them loose, I’ll replace them with safer fabric eyes later – so far he’s far too fascinated by the tail to care about anything else tough.

It was an appreciated birthday present, which makes me happy.

The Blackberries-in-Cream Dress

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Medieval Inspired Prettiness

Since I recently weaned Little One I can suddenly fit into dresses that didn’t fit in the bust area before. I managed to wriggle into the embroidered dark blue medieval-ish wool dress I made about 15 years ago (it even laced shut!), but never had nice pictures of myself wearing it. 

 I had also planned to have my hair cut, but first I wanted to take pictures of it long, so with these pictures I killed two birds with one stone.

I wore my hair in two long plaits, with ribbons braided into them, inspired by the 12^th century fashion. I also wore a linen veil for the start of the photo shoot, but later ditched it, and in the end unbraided the hair too. 

The whole photo series have a rather Pre-Raphaelite medieval-ish feeling to it, which I confess I’m rather partial to, even though I’m usually all for historical accuracy. This is all about pretty, but I think that can sometimes be an object in itself. To accentuate the fairy tale feeling I edited the photos to be really vibrant.

 It is nice to finally have pretty pictures of myself in this lovely dress, but now I hope to sell it. It would look better on a slimmer figure, and I don’t really have any use for it.

 

And I did cut my hair that same afternoon; 40 cm (15 ¾”) was chopped off, so now it only reaches to below my shoulders. Much easier to care for, if harder to put up in fun hairstyles.

A Blouse From an Old Dress

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A Simple 1920's Dress

I have never really liked the fashions of the 1920’s, having mostly seen the latter half of the decade, with its severe, skinny, almost masculine lines and boyish hair. Though some women make it look smashing, it’s not “me”. I like soft lines, traditionally feminine hair, and longer skirts. At the same time, I remember when I was given a low waisted dress as a girl, and feeling like the girls in Astrid Lindgren’s “Alla vi barn i Bullerbyn” (“The children of Noisy Village”), with all of the perceived romance of history, though of course I had no words for my feelings then.  But as we are invited to a 1920’s themed birthday party this summer, my imagination was caught. After looking at lots of fashion plates and photos of real women of the early 1920’s, I’ve come to appreciate that part of the decade. Not sure if the unfitted, low-waisted silhouette would work for me, but at the same time feeling it would most likely make a very comfortable dress for the days when my usual dresses with their tightly fitted bodices doesn’t feel tempting, I decided to make a very simple one, working both as a trial run and an everyday house dress.

Inspired by the dresses worn by the farm wives of Bullerbyn, I used a checked cotton fabric that my mum gave to me many years ago. I used the sketch by Jen Thompson as a starting point, but changed it to my measurements. I also made it all in one piece by removing the shoulder seams (inspired by several dresses in period photos), and made darts at the shoulders for a little bit of shaping. I made it front opening, and made the sleeves longer. 

I trimmed it with the dress fabric cut on the bias, and added pockets to the side seams, because having pockets is a good thing. The pockets are easily hidden in the pleats on the sides of the skirt

 The bias trim at the waistline continues as ties in the back, as I wanted something to take focus away from my too-big-for-the-1920’s behind. 

  Most of this project went smoothly, but for one thing. I was ready to start on the buttonholes late one night, but very wisely decided I was too tired to safely begin such a project. You can imagine I was a bit annoyed when I still managed to mess up the top buttonhole the next morning. After some thinking I managed to mend it tolerably well, but it’s still visible if you know what to look for. Ah well. The buttons were scavenged from an old, worn out cardigan.

 The whole dress was hand sewn, as my sewing machine is still out of order. I doubt we’ll have the funds to repair it this year, so The Greatness of Hand Sewing is the working theme for 2016.

I did not make a period appropriate brassiere at this time, but might do so in future, as it would greatly improve the look. Not that I look particularly wrong; there are plenty of pictures of ordinary 1920’s women with visible curves and a non-flattened bust. It would seem not everyone could afford or be bothered with being that fashionable.

  

Getting my hair in an acceptable style for the early 1920’s took lots of looking at period photos, some thinking and experimenting. My hair reaches past my tail bone at the moment, so it had to be one of the long-hair-posing-as-a-bob kind of styles. These are also abundant in period pictures, and noticing the similarities and differences was fun. I tried to comb the front of my hair really far down my forehead, but it would slip back again. Over all, I think it turned out all right, though I might need some styling product to make it stay longer than for a short photo shoot in my garden. The shoes was an old charity shop find, probably from the 1990’s, but a decent mimic of 1920’s styles.

  Having seen how it looks on me, I’ve decided that I sort of like the early 1920’s. Even though it’s so loose and completely unfitted, not something I usually find flattering on me, I did feel nice in this dress. There just might be more 1920’s for me in the future.

Cushion Covers for Spring

As spring was approaching I wanted new covers for the sofa cushions. With this in mind I had eyed an old apron that I made many years ago when just starting out making historical clothing, but has since been demoted to the fabric stash for not being period enough. It had a print of green checks on an off-white base, with flecks of beige giving it a "rustic" feeling. It just didn’t cut it as a 19^th century apron, but I thought the green would work well for spring cushions. Said and done, I cut down the apron, stitched up the covers, and added three green buttons from stash for closure on each. That sorted the two larger cushions, but I had three smaller ones that needed new covers even more. 

 I raided my stash, and found a piece of cotton blend upholstery fabric that I was given a while back. There seem to have been a problem with the loom the day it was made, as the woven in flowers are rather ugly – I have another piece of that fabric, where the flowers look as they should, but I have other plans for that. I don’t mind; in this age of wastefulness it feels good to put all fabrics to use, even the imperfect ones. The colour worked well with the green check, picking up the off-white and beige.

 

  I made the covers with a deep overlapping in the back so they would look nice even without additional closure, as I didn’t feel like making more buttonholes. As I only had just enough fabric for the covers without the deep hems I wanted, I faced the openings with strips of beige check cotton fabric left over from lining the bodice of my insanely pieced dress a few years ago. Though it doesn’t really show, a detail like this makes me glad.

 The fabric had a few heavy dark stains that wouldn’t go away in the wash, and I didn’t have enough material to cut around them. As a solution I made a self-fabric appliqué flower with an orphan button from stash as the centre. The placement is a bit odd, but it’s way better than the stains.

 So now our old sofa looks pleasantly light, airy and ready for spring, just in time for Easter. 

The beige theme continues, as I'm working on a checked white and sand coloured 1920-23-ish house dress. More on that later :)