Fabric Flashbacks

What do you do when you just want to test a pattern before cutting into more expensive fabrics? Raid the local op-shop of course! Both of these prints remind me of rather daggy 90's leggings. They did a good job of testing pattern and fit though, on this maternity t-shirt (roughly drafted from an existing top) and basic premmie nightie (a combination and modification of patterns in 'Kwik-sew for babies'). The nightie is not super tiny, perhaps 0000 or 00000 and meant for a 33+ weeker who is stable enough to be in an open cot in the special care nursery. After testing the pattern I made a handful for my hospital bag, just in case the next bub decides to make an early entrance like the first one did! If they aren't required I will donate them to the nursery communal wardrobe, for people who find themselves with a premmie and aren't prepared for it, and need to use hospital clothes in the early days.
This fabric has been in mum's stash forever. It is now destined for really thick flannelette for winter PJ bottoms, and a cotton sari-style print for summer PJ bottoms, both for me! The tops will be t-shirt style, but won't be made until the baby bulge is out of the way!

Catching up again

Hmm, I'm really not too sure where July and August went. I have squeezed in quite a bit of sewing and crafting but not a lot of blogging. I whipped up a simple velcro bib, a nappy wallet and a toy bag for my friends beautiful baby boy back in July and that seemed to get the sewing bug going again. Around the same time this hoodie was created for my own little boy using a combination of fleecy knit and some groovy retro inspired MM fabric. The colours go really well together. The hoodie is made from scraps and there simply wasn't enough fabric to make it with out the inserts anyway!
Meanwhile I have had several weeks off work on sick leave to rest and do my best to not have a premmie baby yet. You can't see the computer in the pic, but I am both cruising blogs and chatting on the phone all while keeping my feet up!

Alterations and a fun day out.

You may recognise this t-shirt. I appliqued and puff painted round the star and used it as a summer t-shirt, but now winter is here it has been modified. The PJ pants are recycled flannelette and the t-shirt sleeves have been lengthened with other recycled fabric. More PJ's are in the pipeline but this is the first pair for winter.
We spent a lovely day visiting the Halls Gap Wildlife Park & Zoo recently. It was just perfect for our 2 year old. Not so many things to be overwhelming, but definitely enough to fill a few hours, get up close and personal with several animals and have a lovely picnic lunch and a play afterwards! There was a nice mix of native animals and several exotic species. My favourites are always the beautiful peacocks. And all the friendly deer, wallabies and young kangaroos who love to eat out of your hand as you wander around checking out the other animals.

Finally Paying-It-Forward!

New books-My long awaited Christmas present! I love it, thanks H!

A while back I saw this idea on Karen's Blog

Here's how it works...
I will send a handmade gift to 3 random people who leave a comment on my blog requesting to join this Pay It Forward exchange. I don’t know what that gift will be yet and you may not receive it tomorrow or next week… LOL… but you will receive it within 365 days, that is my promise! The only thing you have to do in return is pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog.

What a lovely idea! I decided I wanted to do it but it's taken a little while to get from thought to action!
I'm not sure yet what I will make for the random winners but it will probably be a little something from my new books 'Bend-the-Rules Sewing' or 'Last Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts' ...because I really need a good excuse to make some stuff out of those cute patterns!
Any comment on any post between now and 25th January 2008 might just win a prize.

So come on and be part of the fun, leave me a comment!

Last minute party outfits

We had a lovely few day visiting friends and COMPLETELY FORGOT about the fancy dress theme of 'Uniform' for a friends party until the morning of the party. Oops. Luckily I love a challenge and have an interesting collection of crap, I mean, bits and pieces, (stuff I save because it might be useful in the classroom) to help me out. Hubby was easy, his Kenny styled 'Splashdown' uniform was mostly out of his wardrobe. All that was needed was a VIP tag (Thanks Publisher) and a 'Splashdown' logo for his hat. (Scrap of black fabric stitched onto hat, words written in Puff paint).

My son was a bit trickier, but my easy pants pattern came in handy, and the sailor style collar was a bit fiddly, mainly because I didn't have quite enough trim. Dont look to close or it will become apparent the stripes are made from bias binding, ribbon and twill tape...lol. I even managed a hat but he wouldn't wear it!

And for myself, well by this stage it was 7pm and party time was in one hour. Take one old bedsheet, upsize the easy pants pattern, and create one very basic top requiring only side seams and a tiny bit of a neck facing and what have you got? Scrubs! Yay, so easy and finished within the hour. Accessories from the dress up box.

We all had a great night too.

Packing up Christmas 'til next time

As I was packing all our christmas stuff away I was pleased to see the handmade stuff is multiplying every year. And the Christmas UFO box is gradually emptying!

This funny little nativity was a kit Mum bought for me from a discount store years ago, and it finally made it together this year. The intructions called for lots of gluing but it was so slow and messy I substituted sewing wherever possible. The Holy Family have already survived being ripped off the tree for cuddles by a toddler.

Also completed this season was another discount store kit from Mum, this funny looking angel, in front of our very simple cardboard advent calendar.

These are a mixture of crafts from this year and past years, experimenting with different media! A few years ago everybody got fimo angels with their gifts. I remember making heaps of ornaments with fimo and was surprised to only find six amongst my decorations. Then I remembered I gave most of them away and my parents have a vast collection of fimo for their tree!

This is a half finished Christmas card holder from Handmade Magazine a few years ago. It's the only thing not packed up because I want to finish it while I've got the bits out. The embroidery was a lovely portable project and much of it was done in the car between Christmas visits to relatives (hubby was driving!).

Ah, our wreath! It's a work in progress. It was started when I moved into my own flat about 8 years ago, and has been added to each year. It's evolved quite a lot since its first outing.
Only about 320 days 'til I can unpack it all again, I wonder what will be crafted for next time?

Christmas Mitts

Thought I would get in on the oven mitt action!

I started with the tutorial from The Longest Year blog, then altered it to suit my needs. I traced the shaped from a comfy mitt I use at home and I was going well til I reread the instructions and realised she recommended special wadding. Suddenly doubtful about the insulating qualities of my wadding I doubled the thickness in the second and third pairs, but only on the palm side. This made it necessary to indicate the thicker side, so I assigned each glove to the appropriate hand.

This little project gave me the perfect excuse to use up some of the fat quarters I've been collecting in case I get into quilting in a big way (LOL) and especially to use up several ugly ones on the inside lining!!

One of a Kind T-shirt Designs

These shirts were very cheap and a nice blank canvas to try out some techniques!The first time I tried freezer paper stencilling the paint bled in spots around the edges. Perhaps because it was on thinnish woven fabric? But no such dramas this time. The car has a lovely crisp outline and the paper didn't lift or leak at all.

The star was vliesofixed on the second shirt and I traced puff paint around the outline and coated it with glitter while still wet. Once dry I puffed it with the iron.

The last one has fabric sewed on.

The middle set is Christmas PJ's and the other two are play shirts. Hopefully handy for daycare next year. And a bit different to everybody elses, just because I can!

Baby Born Gift

A little bird told me a niece might be getting a Baby Born doll for Christmas and if we wanted to be the winner aunt and uncle, then BB accessories were the way to go. That was a great tip, but my budget stretched to a mere 2 items! I bought the BB jacket because I thought it was gorgeous and more fiddley than I could be bothered with, and the bootees weren't BB but are hopefully the right size.

So I raided my stash to bolster the pile with as much as I could manage in a day to get it in the post ahead of time!

Applying the KISS principle with my deadline in mind I added:
*doll doona and pillow
*summery top and knickers
*bib
*pants to go with the jacket

Its kind of pink overload, but I don't get to sew much pink around here!

Toy Bag Gift

One of our little friends just turned one. Along with some sandpit toys we gave her this biggish drawstring bag, for dolls or toys or clothes or swimming gear. Hopefully she finds it useful for years to come!

Boys Clothes and Toys Clothes

It seems like a long time since I've had any sewing to post about. This a collection of bits and pieces from the past couple of weeks. Nothing very significant, mostly just necessary! The weather was very warm on Saturday which highlighted the lack of shorts and t-shirts in DS wardrobe. Fortunately a couple of pairs of last summers shorts still fitted! The red and the blue shorts were from fabric in my stash, as was the stripey t-shirt. The Grey t-shirt and denim shorts are recycled cast-offs from our wardrobe! The little dolly is actually Mum's design but included because I made a dolly outfit using the clothes pattern for this doll's clothes. It was supposed to be quick and easy.... Guess it is when you've made lots of them. It was fiddly and annoying when I hadn't used this pattern for about 15 years. (At least the naked dolly from the Toy Library won't be cold now. Thats who the outfit was for!)
Also on the subject if dolls, I made a hat for this vogue pattern doll, to hide her bald head. My son has taken a shine to her and likes to carry her around giving her cuddles. Very sweet.
And it looks like our scrawy, half plucked chooks are keepers!

Baby Bear

Any day now a new niece or nephew will be arriving. I made the big-brother-to-be a bear when he was born, and this a a slightly smaller sibling to it. I love this pattern and this is the 3rd time I've made it now. He is so darn cute! It was initially intend to be for my little boy, but as I still have fur left over, and several eyes, noses and joints so I'm sure he'll get one eventually!

Some pig

My son needs a doorstop as his bedroom door has a tendency to swing shut on its own, and the door handle is WAY above his reach. The house came with a heavy weight at this door for this reason. It's functional but ugly. And as I was painting a farm scene for his walls I just knew what he really needed was a pig doorstop. Of course! A quick search of the internet didn't bring up anything suitable, so it was a case of back to the drawing board! I already had a suitable test fabric, stuffing, felt, pellets etc. So here is my test pig:
His snout is a little wonky, and he is not quite heavy enough. I planned to insert the weight into the base of his body, but a last minute change to the foreleg design didn't allow enough room for this. His weight from the pellets is enough to keep him sitting upright. I think he needs to be made from a heavier fabric to handle the weight inside too.
Still he is rather cute, and now I have to urge to embroider a spiders web onto a cushion for Charlotte to join him...

New Purse!

I was checking out the Flickr group of 'Bend the rules sewing' and was loving the purse/wallet designs. They were all so cute but didn't have enough space for my bits and pieces, and I don't have the book yet either, but I was inspired to tackle a new purse anyway. My old one is pretty shabby.Here is my finished purse. I added the metal clip, in case I want to attach my keys to it in future
I sewed on some clear plastic from Spotlight (that was left over from another project) to make the pockets for photos and frequently used cards!
I carry quite a lot of cards, so here is the opened out purse, with about four cards in each pocket, and a pencil, just because I had room for it! I put in the hook and loop to prevent the whole thing opening during day-to-day use, as the cards in here are only needed fortnightly or less.
I needed to have a space for notes as not all our shops here have eftpos available so its good to have cash as well. The only thing missing is a really secure place for coins. We'll see how it goes and I may need to modify it later.
I kind of made it up as I went along, using whatever scraps I could find in my stash. I'm almost embarrassed to say that the fabrics are an old skirt and a cheap sheet (too cheap to ever have been slept on).

It certainly kept me busy last night and this morning. I gave it a test run at the shops this afternoon and so far, so good.

Some completed projects

It seems blogging a few incomplete projects has helped a bit. Typing out what needed to be done really emphasised how close to finished some items were. So here is the completed cushion, sitting on the newly recovered chair. I called it my Cinderella chair as it is covered with a random patchwork of scraps! My folks came to visit for the weekend and Mum brought a pattern book with her. It was 'Kwik-Sew -Sewing for Toddlers', and once I got past the lovely 80's styling I found some great basics. I have been looking for a simple raglan t-shirt and there was one in the book. Unsure of the sizing, I traced off and made up the smallest shirt to work out the fit. It does fit but I think I will use the next size up for his Summer clothes. Still, the mock up turned into the perfect PJ top to go with last months froggy PJ pants! (Just don't look at the three quarter length sleeves!. My mistake, I think the pattern allows for ribbing to increase the arm length! Good Spring length anyway don't you think!!) I am also looking forward to making the 'hoodie' jacket.
Mum solved my stretch fabric pucker issue when she helped me fit the walking foot. I haven't taken it off yet as it is just so handy with all the funny little projects I've got going on!

Pyjama-rama

And here is the finished product. My machine is a pretty basic 23 stitch Janome, yet I mostly use straight stitch and sometimes zigzag! So I decided to have a play and try out a few of the other stitch patterns. I think this bumpy stitch looks nice round the applique sheep. I would love to know how to sew the stretchy fabric without getting the puckered-up look though(where the sleeves join). Any tips??

Some sewing

From last year - I had fun making the bassinette cover to hide the cane basket that was showing its age. I also custom made the mattress to fit. Then we discovered everyone got more sleep if we were all in together! Oh well, it still got used for a few days sleeps...

From this year - The play clothes are an example of sewing on my very small budget. All the pants in the bottom row are made from our clothes that were on their way to 'clothes that don't fit Heaven'. These were repurposed when the weather suddenly grew cooler and shorts were no longer appropriate attire for my little man. He was also 'between sizes'.

There are several bonuses to this style of sewing:

*It's almost free! This is great while I am at home and money is tight. I did buy some elastic though.

*At his age clothes don't last long, and get messy quickly. Lots of pants are a good thing and if they get ruined noone has to moan about how much they cost!

*He is too young to know or care whether the pants he has on today are the trendy ones from that special kids clothing shop or the ones made out of mum's old cords!

*There is plenty of fabric to make size 1 pants while avoiding all the pockets and stuff in the original pants!

The pants and top in the top row are made with fabric from my stash.

I don't have a good pic of the PJ's. They are already well worn in too. Maybe I'll post when I finish the new PJ's!

Oh Dear...

Hmm, Ok so these have turned out very dodgy. However they will be warm and that is the most important thing in this weather. And as they are fully recycled I won't be too upset when the new improved model comes along to supercede them.