Crafting on a budget

  Crafts, such as sewing and knitting, have regained popularity over the past few years. But with that popularity has come a price hike. Add that to piles of cheapo Made-in-ThirdWorld clothes available to buy and you sort of start to wonder why you’d bother making clothes, when a simple skirt looks set to cost you $50. Especially when it’s quite likely you’ll screw it up!

  Easy solution-ditch the shops. Well, the buy new, fashionable shops. And head to your local op-shops and markets, and search out some………..

Patterns-From sewing patterns to knitting and crochet patterns to books covering everything from basket weaving to millinery, they’re all at the op-shop. I myself have a slight addiction to vintage sewing patterns and craft books-if you can’t find any except Eighties ones with massive shoulderpads, you probably live near me. At a maximum of 50c a pattern, and under $5 for books (I got six for $1 last week) you can afford to get a library happening. I nearly had a heart attack when I found out new ones are around $10-$16 each-you’d have to make a lot of each to save $$$ with them.

Fabric and wool-Much of this is ugly polyester and nylon, but good stuff does come up. Pinwale cord is popular, and i’ve made plenty of kids pants from it for under 50c a pair. I’ve also picked up Bendigo Mills wool for $1/200g, and my nanna cleared up at a garage sale, getting two pallets full of wool from a deceased estate for $50. That was four years ago and she’s still using it!

Linen-You must raid the linen section. Sheets give you large areas of fabric-flannelette for winter pyjamas and linings, cotton for….well, everything. You can make dresses from pillowcases, very fashionable in blogland a few years ago. Woolen blankets are astonishingly cheap and make excellent mattress protectors, heat resistant batting and nappy covers. I also have a slight addiction to chenille blankets-I get a rush when finding them, similar to what I imagine heroin would be like. But as they average $3 each, there’s no come-down afterwards.

My pretties………

  Existing clothes-These often just need a bit of imagination to turn them into something new. Last week I helped Lols turn a woman’s tunic into a skirt for herself. As it was already hemmed and had pockets it was pretty easy. You can cut kids pants from the sides of adult shorts/pants, and use the existing waistband/pockets. Woolen jumpers can be felted and the sleeves turned into longies, or frogged and made into something else. Bags from jeans. The ideas are endless. This is a bit of a trend right now, so a search for ‘upcycled clothing’ should bring you plenty of ideas.

  Also, tell everyone you know that you sew/knit/whatever. Lots of people start up crafts then ditch them, and are happy to offload the leftovers in their cupboards to someone who’ll use them. Post on Freecycle asking for freebies, you never know what might turn up.

  Mostly, I stick to craft shops when I need threads and notions. Most have sales and member discounts, so I sign up for everything and stock up when it’s cheap.

  And because of all of this, my kids clothes average out at about $3 per item. And so I can actually afford to dress the five of them in extremely funky clothing, rather than the dregs I would be left with should I have to buy everything now they’re getting bigger.

Oods turns 7

  Please remind me, the next time I decide to make something completely new for a birthday that is fast approaching, that it is a bad idea. This bloody doll took so many hours, and so many hours more than expected. Definitely more hours than the book made out, and by the time I was half-done I was regretting my decision not to make a Waldorf doll (only made because the floods came, and I didn’t know whether the stuff I needed to buy online would arrive in time). 

  So, hello Blossom, as she was christened by her young friend. I made her using the patterns in The Complete Pattern Book of Soft Dolls, and The Fairytale Doll Book, both by Valerie Janitch. I used one dolls head on anothers body. She is about half hand sewn, which I totally suck at, and couldn’t predict from the patterns and instructions-one reason I got so grumpy at them. She was meant to be more of a Feral Sheryl type doll, but on the birthday eve i’d had enough of wrestling with the slippery stuff needed for her fairy outfit so went with the safe cotton option of a pioneer type dress. Doesn’t really match the rainbow dreadlocks, but oh well.

  Luckily she was well-received, she’s carried around a lot and gets taken to bed each night. Oods is not as keen to make her clothes as I thought she would be-she’s having a break in enthusiasm for sewing right now, and has only made her one ribbon skirt.

  She was not as well-received as her other present, however.

An umbrella.

  Yes, an umbrella. Something she had been coveting for months-so much in fact, that when we ran into Santa while out, an umbrella was her request. (Along with a rocking horse and a new workbook from the other two girls-yep, my kids are deadset weirdos. So pleased).

A marble cake, with requested icing writing (also not my forte) was the cake of choice. Yes, we really do call her Oods all the time.

  A trip to the rockpools rounded out the day, with much chasing and capturing the local wildlife, but of course leaving them unscathed (except maybe mentally). This guy was so angry!

Christmas 2010

And i’ve managed to get these up by February-that’s excellent for me!
First up, a tie-dyed t-shirt for each of the kids. It looks a bit ‘crazy homeschooled family’ when they all decide to wear them at once and are sort of matching, but meh.
 

For Oods, a book bag. She is a total bookworm, so now has her very own bag with pockets for her library card and other treasures. Instead of adding her books to the family pile and having us do it all, she does it all herself. And doesn’t she just love it?
I’ve got all the pics for a tutorial for this-i’ll get around to writing it sometime.

I made the boys a backpack each, using the pattern and tute from Indietutes. If I did it again I would line them, but overall it’s pretty good pattern for beginners. All from stash fabric, i’m still attempting to use it all up-I swear, it BREEDS.

The husband gets the credit for these beauties-he’s completely onboard with the handmade now, and made these for the clones. Five is probably a bit old in mainstream terms for hobby horses, but no-one has told them that so they’ve been thoroughly enjoying them.


For the husband, the Bastard Shorts. He didn’t actually get these on the day-he received a parcel of the pieces cut out because he didn’t get out of the house enough for me to finish them. They’re bastards because he made me make them properly-waistband, facing, fly etc ad nauseum. I was just going to elastic waistband them-he told me that he is not a toddler and wears real clothes. Ahem. The Spotlight pattern was terrible and I swore a lot-BUT I DID THEM. Now I can erase them from memory.

The kids made presents for each other too, but I don’t have photos of much without them in it. However, Oods made this patchwork cushion for the husband all by herself, having never done patchwork before. I was pretty impressed.
 
Then churned out a small bag for each of her siblings.

Santa brought a set of Derwents, a box of craft supplies and the Planet Earth/Life boxed set, which we’re still working through. Plus a few little things that we never get them otherwise, like hairclips. We’re not good at frippery, so we’re lucky Santa is.
Then, the food. Oh, the food! Unconventional, but proof you can have a delicious feast without killing anything or putting on 5kgs.

Grissini and crudites with tzatziki and spinach, garlic and feta dips. Lentil balls with relish and vegies baked in cheese sauce. Chocolate pudding and blueberry cheesecake. And lots of fresh fruit. All made from scratch, including the yogurt for the tzatziki, and some of it homegrown. It took us two days to finish it all up, and I was sad when we did.

Christmas craft, day 8–angels again

Outsourced again to the library-I sent them off with the husband and got some uninterrupted work time. Only to be told the like the library’s version of angels better than mine! Ingrates. They can’t hairdress these ones.

Christmas craft, day 5-reindeer

Hands and feet reindeer, always a hit. Especially good for tracking growth-but very sad when I realise my nearly two year olds hands really don’t qualify as ‘small’ anymore.

Yes, there’s one missing-Sparkles hadn’t finished hers to her exacting standards. Shorty, however, gets the prize for biggest buck going by the points.

Christmas craft, day 4-Angels

These are a bit of a tricky project-we did them two years ago and it was an exercise in patience. This year was much easier. They took particular delight into ramming a metal skewer through each head to facilitate easier threading of the halos. Barbarians. 

Frosty decided to pull his all apart halfway through, then the girls helped him reassemble it into Alien Angel.

Hairdressing of the angels was the best bit in their opinions-they have had plaits, pigtails, haircuts, the lot. They’re all looking a bit punkish now.

Christmas craft, day 3

Paper chain. There must be kilometres of this, all around the house, where ever there is something to attach it to and drape it over.

 

Christmas craft, day 2-patty pan wreaths

Cheated, and outsourced…….they made these wreaths today at the local library’s kid session.