Maika

PS, I love you

2012-02-09T22:21:00.000+10:00

At our house we have a thing for the Ikea PS arm chair. When we moved to Brisbane early last decade we bought one of these chairs, and proud of it we were too. A nice neat style, fitting right in with our Klippan couch, removable and washable cover...and then one day we thought we would get another (not sure why, maybe to keep the other one company), so we trekked out to Ikea and what do you know, the PS chair was discontinued, not more chairs, no more covers, nothing.

Again, for reasons that I can no longer remember we then turned to searching them out on Ebay. They were, and still are, very hard to find but about six years ago we found a pair being sold in Sydney with synthetic sheepskin covers (picture above). We bought them for a few dollars and then paid heaps to have them transported to Brisbane. It sounds totally stupid, it was, but we really love our PS chairs.

Late last year, in our new house and everything (and probably something to do with that thing called the "nesting instinct") I decided that our PS chairs needed fresh new covers. The fake sheepskin look was on one hand kind of retro, but on the other hand they had lost their best and were marked and worn and starting to disintegrate. See the picture, kinda gross with suspicious stains...

You can buy covers for these chairs from the Bemz website for about $35, but with nearly $30 of postage and four week wait for delivery why wouldn't you try to make your own for the cost of materials only? Well, why not, I say. One day I took one of the covers off and grabbed my seam ripper and started to rip that cover right apart. I made a few notes about what bits were stitched to what to get the order of assembly of a new cover right, and then traced around all the individual bits and pieces to make a pattern. I just set to making a new cover with no idea if it was going to work, and it worked absolutely perfectly. I'm pleased as punch!

Out of our three chairs I have so far covered two. One in a furnishing fabric from Spotlight, this one lives right now in our lounge room but would also be at home in our bedroom.

And one is covered in an Ikea fabric - this one is in the littlest boys room for night time feeding but it would also look good in the lounge room (not necessarily along side the floral cover though).

The third chair is in a corner in our bedroom with clothes all over it (a chair-robe if you will), but I do have plans to cover it in a plain white (or slightly off white) fabric so that it will go with either of these patterned ones. Sometimes if we have guests staying we have two of these chairs in the lounge so there is enough seating for everyone.

I'm so pleased to be giving these chairs a new lease on life, and without breaking the bank account either. Bravo!

P is for...

2012-01-31T21:18:00.000+10:00

I had limited time, like one afternoon to whip up a handmade gift for a visit that evening to a friend with a new baby. What would I make? Clothes? Nah, didn't have any suitable fabric in the stash. Bibs? Nope, likewise didn't have everything I need to make them straight away.

You could be mistaken for thinking I settled on a softie "pushmi-pullyu"...which actually would be a fun thing to make - but I digress.

I sewed it up, did some pressing and pushing and primping and plumping...

...to end up with a playful puppy softie.

Perfect!

And how exactly did I get myself the time to pull this task off?

Why, play-doh pirates, of course!

Find the pattern here.

The week that was

2012-01-27T16:17:00.001+10:00

This time last week I was all for getting a bit more snappy with my blogging - I'd only made four posts in January so far, I was really feeling like I wanted to pick up the pace with the beginning of the school year imminent. I had spent Thursday making a little softie for a new baby and even managed to wrangle the increasingly geriatric DSLR into taking some pictures as I went along.

And then last Friday the smallest one wasn't well and needed my care and attention over the weekend...and before we knew it it was Monday already and time to do this with the five year old.

The first day at school - a momentous occasion for the parents, maybe not so much for the boy. He was keen to go and no tears were shed on the day. We shed a few together the night before at bedtime. He confessing he would miss me as we went over again the fact that it was a five day a week deal, me just crying about the enormity of it all and not really wanting to let my little pre-schooler go to the next phase of his little life. Ahhh, if you think about it hard enough and reflect on all that you have done over the last five years to get your kid to this point then you are bound to have a few tears trickle down your face. I'd be surprised if you didn't.

And then it wasn't just tears coming down, it was rain. It's been bucketing down in Brisbane, everything is soggy, we can't walk to school anymore, the washing won't dry, the bathroom and the laundry smell and I am starting to see the dreaded mould popping up in a few places. My new hang out has been the laundromat for the services of a clothes dryer.

Gosh, if it doesn't rain, it pours. I've written this past week off and am looking forward to a better one after a recovery weekend.

Overpants, not underpants

2012-01-16T16:09:00.000+10:00

After looking like I was doing a rather disturbing recycling project with on old t-shirt last weekend I am now back to report on my first foray into sewing with knit fabrics.

I have to admit that I didn't entirely enjoy it, but it wasn't a complete failure either. I did a bit of reading around on the internet about sewing with knits before I started. This great post on Prudent Baby went through a whole lot of basics, including info for those that don't have an overlocking machine. I used my walking foot (rarely sew without it anyway), put in a ball point needle and used the stretch stitch on my machine. OK, deep breath and away we sew...first seam I did the material disappeared in a tangle down into the to bobbin compartment under the needle. There was no unpicking this, there was just yanking and cutting. I picked my sewing ego up, dusted it off and tried again and after a few goes was sewing straight seams, avoiding doing the back and forth sewing at the start and end of seams drastically reduced the risk of the machine eating the fabric (seams don't seem to unravel so all good!).

I had chosen this very simple pattern and tutorial for a nappy cover from Made as my starting project.

Half way through making them I was already a bit over sewing with the temperamental knit fabric and was pretty sure the whole thing was going to end in the bin. But I did persevere and a rather nice, soft pair of red stripey overpants was a pleasing end point. I actually didn't bother to sew up the gaps I left for threading the elastic - one attempt at that ended in another fabric eating situation so I just quit while I was ahead and went off to tickle baby tummy instead.

I am going to make a few more of these in good old familiar regular cotton while I think about where to go next with knits. Anyone else out there sew with knits on their regular machine? Any top tips or advice to share? I'd love to hear it.

Holy t-shirt!

2012-01-08T17:14:00.000+10:00

I've been having a problem with my t-shirts - I've been getting little holes in the front of them. After a year of angst, last week I figured out the cause - it's a combination of the metal button of my jeans and the stone island bench top in the kitchen. Fabric caught between them just slices like it was butter. I've blamed the washing machine, I've blamed a particular pair of pants that I threw holus-bolus into the wheelie bin in frustration, I've analysed the front of all my trousers again and again for any sign of sharpness, I've literally thought I was going to go mad. The relief I have at knowing what has been causing the holes, and consequently being able to change my habits in the kitchen (especially not leaning in at the bench to wash the dishes while wearing jeans and t-shirt, which is most of the time) is a massive load off my mind.

Some of the t-shirts only have tiny holes and I still wear them, some have bigger holes and are unwearable. Even if the holes are not that noticeable, sometimes I just feel downright daggy knowing there is a hole in the front of my t-shirt. So to make myself feel better I made sure this particular number was completely unwearable. Ever again.

I've started to experiment with sewing with knit fabrics.

And no, I have not in fact gone mad, these are not for me...

A bowl of beans

2012-01-03T22:36:00.000+10:00

This summer we grew beans, purple beans, they grew well on a tripod in the garden, nothing seemed to bother them except for a small nibble by some grasshoppers and we have just picked a whole bowl full.

Some of them are handsome and straight, others are twisted and kind of ugly.

I cooked some up for dinner, steamed them in with the potatoes and pumpkin. Funnily enough when I opened the steamer the beans had turned green, a regular green bean colour. I noticed later that the steamer water had gone a pinkish, purpley colour. They were delicious, quite sweet tasting actually, but we left some of the beans on the plant too long as some were too stringy to eat, so now we know to pick them before they start to look too lumpy in their skins. Now as an added bit of fun we are going to experiment with the mature beans, we've left a lot on the plant on purpose to see how much further they develop and in the mean time I have to go and discover what we can do with them...

A tale of two skirts

2012-01-02T22:33:00.000+10:00

I've recently made two long skirts for my summer wardrobe. If you've been reading along you will have already seen one being made from an op-shopped dress in a few posts from late last year. The final result was this:

It's nice to wear, very light and summery, but its unlined so I am aware of the fact that it is a little see through in certain lights...it's still great for wearing around the house on hot days, or wearing at the beach. If I get too self conscious then I could whip up a little petticoat to pop underneath I suppose.

The second skirt I made with a voile, which is a new fabric for me to sew with. I was reading a blog post over at MADE that talked about how a lot of sewers are caught in a "cotton rut" and don't often venture to sew with other fabric types. I thought, gosh, that's me! So I decided to branch out and try working with something new. Yes, voile is a cotton fabric, but its a sheer cotton, quite slippery and drapey, not at all like the standard or quilting cottons that I am used to sewing with. I made a "Flirting the Issue" skirt using this tutorial on Anna Maria Horner's blog.

Because voile is rather sheer I lined the skirt with a light pink cotton lawn. Both of these fabrics are so light it surprisingly doesn't feel like too much total fabric with the lining in there. If I did this skirt pattern again I would actually use less fabric than suggested in the tutorial, its perhaps a little too full for my personal liking, but only by a whisker.

The elasticised waist is great, a lot of sewing around and around to create the four channels to thread the elastic in, but the end result is very, very comfortable. The first time I wore it out a lady stopped me in the supermarket car park and asked me where I had got my skirt from, she thought it was very pretty and I was very flattered!

It's years since I have worn long skirts on a regular basis, and apart from the occasional tangle factor around the legs I am enjoying having something a bit different to wear this summer. I'm also thinking of making a few pretty voile tops if I can find the time. I seriously have to get out of the habit of wearing boring t-shirts all the time.

Sweet treats

2011-12-24T17:58:00.000+10:00

Christmas baking was somewhat curtailed today as not a can of condensed milk was available in the supermarket yesterday. But hey, we've probably already consumed enough sugar in the lead up to Christmas - last weekend I went to a Christmas dinner with friends toting along a cheesecake, a trifle and Christmas themed chocolates.

So today we did some low key cookie baking - most especially because Santa will need some sustenance on his way through our corner of the world tonight.

Last night I also whipped up a batch of these felt cookies for the food play set. Absolutely perfect if you are watching your waistline - look and play, but don't eat - maybe I should leave these out for Santa instead?

And of course, we will be leaving a few of these out for the reindeer (on the finest English china)...

...so in reality you know what I am going to be munching my way through before I head off to bed this evening...not one my favourite vegetables, but I'd better do it with a smile on my face, hadn't I, in the spirit of the season and all that.

Happy Christmas to you all!

Growth spurt

2011-12-15T14:38:00.000+10:00

[Warning: gratuitous baby photos!]

My little rotund, smiley, nearly four month old has graduated out of his newborn pants to a decent sized pair of Big Butt baby pants. I've been hanging out to make a pair of these for him, they're an easy and fun project and I think I'll be making plenty more pairs of these for the young one. You can get the pattern from Made by Rae.

Taking a picture of your baby's but is kind of a strange thing to do and I quickly realised I wasn't going to get anything better than this...

...so a spot of impromptu tummy time let me get a pic of the back of his pants.

And now that I have covered the sewing commentary, I'll finish with a picture of the baby because I just can't stop taking pictures of those blue eyes!

Sunday shop update

2011-12-11T15:08:00.000+10:00

It's a rainy weekend here in Brisbane, looks like its going to be a rainy Christmas, although the combination of warm and rain really isn't that bad. As a result of the weather I've spent plenty of the weekend at home which has meant being able to finish off a couple of things for the shop.

A green and white size 5 sun dress made from a vintage sheet - I just love the way this fabric feels, so soft, floaty and summery.

And a blue and white size 3 cross back pinafore top - all new fabrics for this one.

Hope you are enjoying your weekend where ever you are!

All kinds of crazy

2011-12-10T22:41:00.000+10:00

I confess, I went to Ikea on a Saturday - crazy I know. I didn't only go for fabric, but I did buy a metre and a half of this lovely spotted fabric. I love how you can cut your own fabric at Ikea, it feels nice to roll the heavy bolts across the measuring table and reach for the scissors to slice into it. As a result of my trip to the great Swedish furniture warehouse an industrious session of chair cover making is going down in the sewing room at the moment.

I'm also sewing a few things for the shop, using a lovely organic cotton a friend gifted to me (she hung some on her wall and gave me the left overs, how nice is that!).

And a new pair of pants for the babe because when I was standing in the queue at the fabric shop to buy half a metre of blue cotton there was a blue checked seersucker remnant going for 20 cents that went perfectly with the blue, and well I just planned myself another sewing project right there and then. Crazy, I know.

My new waist

2011-11-29T11:24:00.000+10:00

Now where was I? Oh that's right, making a skirt. The weekend was hot, I should have finished the skirt and been wearing it, but it's still in the sewing room...

So in my last post I was encasing the raw edge of the waist of the skirt with bias binding tape. The shirring elastic alone was not going to cut it in terms of keeping the skirt comfortably on my waist so I needed to add a bit of stronger elastic too. Guess what? The binding tape doubles as a casing for a piece of elastic. Remember this lonely piece of elastic that came out of the dress when I unpicked it?

It went straight back into the casing at the waistline and hey presto, waist band of skirt finished and very comfortable.

Now because the new waist band used to be up around the bodice part of the old dress the skirt is naturally too long!

To approximate how long a long skirt should be on myself I rather inexpertly dropped my tape measure from my waist down towards the ground and rather expertly (if I do say so myself) held it down with my toes while I documented it photographically - can you read that? Its about 40 inches.

The skirt is currently about 42 inches long from waist to hem so it looks like I have a few inches to chop off the bottom before sewing a new hem. I'm sure there's a way more professional method of working this out than the way I did it!

Hopefully I'll soon be able to show you some pictures of me wearing it rather than sewing it.

Little tricks

2011-11-23T22:21:00.000+10:00

Pick, pick, pick - I unpicked the skirt from the bodice of the dress and discovered that they had been sewn together and overlocked very close to the edge of the fabric. Also surprisingly out came a length of elastic that I didn't know was in there. Ahh, the tricks of the garment making industry.

Now I had the skirt part separated but with a raw (and fraying) edge very close to the shirring elastic. The material is a fairly light and thin cotton and the edge needed encasing somehow. So I pulled a little trick of my own - finishing the edge with bias binding. I went to rummage in my draw of bias tapes - I had pink, green and yellow - I chose the light yellow.

I sewed the binding on the usual way: opened up one side of the tape and sewed it to the right side (outside) of the skirt edge. As the material was gathered from the elastic I had to pull the skirt fabric out under the binding tape as I sewed, pull and sew, pull and sew, all the way around. Then I flipped the binding tape to the inside of the skirt and sewed it down, again pulling the fabric as I sewed. And there you go, one encased edge. Tricky? No, not really.

Op shop re-fashion

2011-11-21T14:07:00.000+10:00

So I found this long dress at the "op shop" recently (opportunity shop, or second hand shop for those readers not from Australia). Some people I know are immediately going to wonder if I have gone mad shopping for $15 dresses from a second hand store, but I really liked the fabric, OK?

I did have another motive though because after sewing a long skirt for myself last week with four strands of elastic through the waist and nearly going cross-eyed with all the machine sewing involved in creating all the elastic channels, I immediately saw an opportunity to add another long skirt to my summer wardrobe without needing to do a repeat of all that sewing. (What's happening to me? Since when did I want to cheat at sewing??) Well, as I said, I liked the fabric.

Why don't you follow along this week as I try to re-fashion this dress into a skirt. Shouldn't be too hard.

Immediately I picked off this hideous trim at the bust line (looked like some industrial metal factory left overs had made their way to the garment factory in China). There's actually no way I am going to use the bodice part of this dress, its a size 10 and in no way remotely fits a breastfeeding mumma! I am going to dunk the whole thing in a bucket of soaker for a few hours, just to freshen it up, don't want to soak the metal bits though so in the bin they go.

My plan is to unpick the bodice from the skirt at the line of the shirring elastic (see pic above), make some kind of a waist band there, and then adjust the hem length as neccessary. I hope it works!

Babies

2011-11-20T22:47:00.000+10:00

This summer we are again experimenting with a few edibles in our garden. This year we are wiser and have a more elaborate possum proofing enclosure over the plants they like to eat (and the ones we suspect they would enjoy a nibble at) and are elbow deep in an ongoing battle with orange stink bugs on our citrus trees. So far we have (prepare yourselves for some scintillating pictures folks...):

Baby limes

Baby lemons

Baby avocados

And baby olives! Aren't they cute? We are very excited that some of the olive trees in the front garden are fruiting this year.

In the ground we have baby radishes

and baby tomatoes...

...and some purple beans, a blueberry plant, two passionfruit vines, a rosella plant, some sweet corn and a thriving patch of herbs.

We don't expect to get success with everything we have planted, but its lots of fun trying and learning as we go.

This is more like it

2011-11-17T20:14:00.000+10:00

A little bit of beach action on the weekend - so good for recharging the batteries. Most importantly it got us all out of the house and out of town.

We shopped at the Eumundi markets and then drove onto Noosa for a body board and a swim (and a spot of reading and lying out on the sand for me).

Thought this post was entirely devoid of anything crafty? Well, look again. See that skirt? The second one made by me from this tutorial. I made it reversible so at 2m of two different quilting cottons it was more expensive than I usually spend on fabric for garment making, but it really is two pieces in one.

I have to admit that I made this skirt some time ago, just never got around to taking any photos of it. The wind at the beach couldn't have been more helpful in showing off both sides of my skirt.

Oh, and that's baby M too, at almost 12 weeks. He's starting to be called Mr Porky around here, he's getting to be a solid little boy!

Tired

2011-11-08T14:17:00.000+10:00

So many things to show you, so little time and energy to do so! Well that's life with a little baby. Its not that I have been idle, just co-ordinating the taking of photos and the typing of text and having two hands available for working the computer etc., etc. - well, I'm stretched a bit thin on the ground at the moment for all that.

We had such a lovely weekend just gone - my gorgeous other half took both the boys down to the local farmers markets on Sunday morning which meant an hour extra in bed for me in the beautiful cool silence of our bedroom - it was bliss!

Later that afternoon this was happening in our backyard - I wonder if my boys are trying to tell me something? Maybe they need a holiday? Or they're just thinking of some peace and quiet of their own?

Channeling sunshine

2011-10-29T22:39:00.000+10:00

Still trying to bring on the springtime sunshine here, but it's more often than not overcast.

Working outside with gorgeous yellows and oranges should help, a bit.

Mmm, I feel better already.

It took me all day

2011-10-18T22:53:00.000+10:00

All day to load this dress onto the shop today.

Everytime I sat down at the computer I had a baby in one hand and could only do reading using the mouse with the other hand (let it be confirmed I am doing a lot of reading on the computer while feeding the baby!). Eventually I cut and pasted and finger prodded my way to getting the listing completed - phew, what an effort.

That said, I did get some great weather for photography this morning, overcast but bright enough, and enough breaks in the wind so everything didn't blow around too much.

And, (yes, there's more), I got some new sewing machine needles and another roll of black thread from the store.

Small work, but feeling satisfied I got some of the little jobs ticked off my list today.

Lemon-aid

2011-10-17T13:10:00.000+10:00

The weekend's been and gone again. The weather here fluctuated between heavy black clouds bringing driving rain, and hot belting sunshine with airless humidity. Yesterday we were sweltering and seeking any shade we could find at Brisbane's annual multicultural festival, today its back to grey skies and rain.

In an attempt to channel more of the sunshine and less of the rain I'm going for sunshiney yellows in the sewing room this week - first up is a lemon and mauve custom order. This little pinafore was requested to have an Easter theme. Yes, you read correctly - Easter. I'm quite happy to pretend we skipped over Christmas and came out on the side of Easter for a few days while I am sewing with these lovely soft colours.

I'm also dying to cut into an outrageously yellow vintage sheet to make a little top, probably my brain is getting ahead of me there right now though!

Perfect

2011-10-13T15:11:00.000+10:00

I've had tonsilitis this week, so I've learned to be a woman of few words.

The pants.

And the toes.

That's all.

I'm playing over here today.

Free at last

2011-10-06T22:34:00.000+10:00

I've lately been through a weird patch with my sewing - making under pressure. Even though I have had practically zero time to do any sewing at all I have managed to complete quite a few projects that were either hanging over from before the baby made his surprise arrival, or were requested shortly after his arrival.

I've managed to finish making a cover for an Ikea chair (my late pregnancy foray into upholstering shall be the subject of another post, another time), I made two little pinafore dresses that were requested by a lovely local customer and I also made a baby blanket that was requested through the shop.

Phew - exhausting, yes? Now that's all out of the way I feel more of a lightness and a freedom to start creating again without any timelines or pressures to finish something by a certain date, or because I promised someone it would be done. I feel like my slate is clean.

Now there's a half finished toddlers dress in the sewing room, and there's no pressure to get back to it until early next week when a sleeping baby and a five year old at kindergarten allows me some breathing space to snatch a little creative time. I'm also starting to get a list of things I want to make ticking through my mind again, which is a good sign. All I need is time.

More creativity over here.

Pants

2011-10-01T12:22:00.000+10:00

This weekend is all about pants for the boys.

At the start of the year I made shorts especially for my son to wear to kindergarten. But no, I'm not doing that again now the warm spring weather sees him back wearing shorts. The reason is "the digging patch" at kinder. It sounds quaint but it may as well be named "the great big, dirty pit of brown, stinking, staining mud". It has been totally wrecking havoc on my son's clothes, requiring lots of soaking in buckets, scrubbing and washing to get them clean week by week. I also expected a pair of newly bought tracksuit pants to last longer than a 10 week kinder term. I admitted to the kindy teachers that I fully intended to throw his track pants in the bin at the end of the term and they said, "Oh, dont! He's still going to get dirty next term." That got me thinking about kids and mums and dirt - an often fraught relationship. The kinder teachers were so right in pointing out that kids need a set of "dirty clothes", something I had lost sight of in this sanitised and clean upbringing that is now the norm - kids need to get dirty, mums need to relax more.

So I've changed my attitude to dirt and washing, am not throwing out the pants, and am not going to be overly fussy in washing them. I did this:

Trackie shorts! I didn't measure anything, just made sure I cut this bit at the knees off:

You can already tell from the top photo that one leg might be a bit shorter than the other. I'm banking on nobody noticing that when they're being worn. I'm going to zig-zag around the raw edge, turn under a centimeter or so and do a double seam to keep it all in place. And there you have it, shorts for dirt play.

I'm also dying to have a go at making these baby pants from Made by Rae for my new boy.

With some gorgeous planes, trains and cars vintage seersucker that a friend gave to me.

Just now, while the babe is asleep, might be my moment to pin and cut! I'm off then!

Delivery from Paris

2011-09-26T22:15:00.000+10:00

Since the new baby came into our world and the big boy turned five we have had post from Bulgaria, Holland and the United Kingdom - its been quite exciting getting all these international packages, even if they are all for the youngest members of our house. But one morning last week a parcel was left at my front door from "La Poste" - this one was for me!

I've made enough money from my selling my wares online to have a healthy enough Paypal balance for me to treat myself to a new bag. I wanted a bag that could function as a baby bag, but not look like one, a bag of modest size and one that I could adjust to either sling over my shoulder or over the pram. Finally, while I like to use tote bags a lot of the time I am always losing my stuff at the bottom of them, so some pockets for organising "stuff" (babies and mine) were a must. I found the perfect answer at a French Etsy store called Ikabags.

I opened the postage box to be treated to a beautifully presented purchase.

A package wrapped up in green paper and ribbon.

Neatly folded and tied with string and business card.

My new bag - blue/grey and cream stripes, with a cream lining and adjustable strap - perfect!

Handmade of course - the construction and finishing are absolutely faultless, very high quality work.

Filled with a few baby things - wrap, blanket, nappy/wipes wallet and the like - which I realise are majority handmade :)

I know I'm going to be using this bag for a long time to come, and when I make more money, perhaps I'll be buying myself another bag, in another colour - you can't have too many, can you?

Old towel, new tricks

2011-09-12T11:51:00.000+10:00

At the back of the linen cupboard I found an old towel. An odd sized, well used, pale green towel with a few stains here and there. I washed it and cut it in thirds.

I went to the fabric store and bought half a metre of flanelette for $3. I cut that into thirds.

I ventured back down to my sewing room and in a few stolen moments during the week I sewed towel and flanelette segments together (sewed the stains on the towel to the inside!). Now I have three lovely and functional "burp cloths" (not that I set much score against "burping" my baby). They're certainly not the neatest sewing job I have ever done (a bit of speed sewing required to finish off seams when baby started crying), but they're perfect for putting under his little head in the pram, over the bed sheets, on my lap or over my shoulder after a feed. Baby can now have a little dribble or overflow of milk and I stay clean and dry and then just throw these little cloths in the wash when needed.

But of course, sometimes he misses the cloths, and I get sicked on, and thats OK too.

Finished size if you are interested: 50cm long and 25cm wide

Meet Mateo

2011-09-02T17:03:00.000+10:00

Born 1:54am on Wednesday 24th August 2011, taking everyone by complete surprise at almost three weeks before his due date.

He's really a spitting image of his older brother - full head of hair, similar birth process, born on the 24th of a month. Our big question is: will he have blue eyes like his brother and mum, or brown like his dad?

After the hectic hustle and bustle of the hospital we are settling in at home beautifully. Thanks to everyone for their well wishes and congratulations.

Stopped

2011-09-01T18:04:00.000+10:00

Wow, no blog posts from me since early August. Where did I go?

Over the last month I have felt like a clock winding down. Strangely and slowly I stopped spending time in the sewing room and visiting blogs online. I finished a few projects in the works and despite having a million ideas in my head of things to sew I just didn't find any get up and go to start a single one of them.

I finished a custom request for a cuddle owl.

I finished one pinafore for the shop.

I finished making a pram liner.

Then I turned my attention to bugging my husband into getting a shelving unit from Ikea so I could organise the baby things in it. Mum and Dad came around to help assemble the cot and re-arrange our bedroom funiture to fit it in.

Then last week my waters broke...

His 'n' hers

2011-08-08T22:30:00.000+10:00

Two cuddle owls in progress today.

A "his" version:

And a "hers" version:

These take so much polyfill that I ground to a halt with my making yesterday and I had to go out for fresh supplies today.

My boy is totally smitten with his, he said "Mum, you can make anything!". Well, I do try...

Scraps: all things to all people

2011-08-07T17:16:00.000+10:00

I'm softie making this weekend - one made to order for a friend, and one for my little mister because he's been begging me to make him an owl "just like I made for Scarlett".

Mostly I make these kind of things out my stash and scrap bag. Finding little bits of suitably co-ordinating fabrics and of just the right sizes is part of the fun of making softies this way. I like the way I have to look at colours and really notice their hues, and decide things like "this blue matches nicely, but this one is the wrong shade altogether." You stop and realise that sometimes blue is not just blue, and yellow is not just yellow, and so forth.

But the mister saw something entirely different when I brought the scrap bag up onto the back deck for sorting through. He stopped his scootering to make a closer inspection of play possibilities.

At first he fiddled with winding bits around his feet...

...then he discovered that superhero like wrist ties were really the way to go.

So far these bits of fabric have also been police handcuffs, a collar for a toy dog, flames of a fire and probably another dozen things I haven't been privy to over the weekend.

Lucky I have a big bag of scraps to suit everybodies purposes!

Slicing

2011-08-04T14:06:00.000+10:00

After a lovely breakfast out on Sunday morning the family inevitably ended up in Avid Reader bookshop down in West End. While my husband did the required reading to the little one in the kids book section (I can no longer get comfortable down on the floor to do that!) I had no other excuse not to wander off to the craft section and see what was new.

I ended up browsing through the new sewing book by Nicole Mallalieu - You Sew Girl! A host of great projects and lovely photos were between the covers of this lovely book, and also a great section about sewing techniques and equipment. Call me a nerd but I really like reading about those kind of things in sewing books (not all of them include them though) as I always learn something new or see how I do things the same or different to other sewers. Nicole was writing about how much she used her rotary cutter to cut out patterns. This had never occured to me before, I'm a bit scared of the good old rotary cutter, I do all my cutting with scissors. I do have a cutter though and have used it for limited straight line cutting a few times. I really thought of it as a quilting tool, not a dressmaking tool.

So this week I tried it out - using plenty of pressure on the cutter and pressing directly down as recommended by Nicole in her book I attempted cutting out the curved shapes of a softie pattern. And it worked, it worked really well. An exciting revelation in my sewing room, faster and smoother than using scissors, and only a little bit scary. Although I have to find a surface to use it that is not down on the floor because as I mentioned already, I've got a problem with the floor at the moment!

My creative space: Production line

2011-07-28T15:54:00.000+10:00

This week has been all about baking and hardly at all about sewing. My husband's birthday necessitated a chocolate mud cake early in the week. Then some batches of muffins and a fruit loaf later I was up to a double batch of chocolate chip cookies today.

Why? Baking for the Red Hill Kindergarten Fair this weekend.

After lunch the little man and I set up a cookie production line.

Yummy, buttery, sugary batter...

Teaspoonfuls ready for baking

Ten minutes later - warm, buttery, chocolatey goodness...

That's what fifty chocolate chip cookies look like in a pile.

All packaged up ready for sale.

But don't worry, the double batch means there is plenty left over for the family. I'm not going to all that effort just to give them all away!

Recipe was straight off the packet of chocolate chips:

125g butter

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup castor sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

1 egg

1 1/2 cups SR flour

3/4 cup choc chips

Cream butter and sugars until light and fluffy.

Add vanilla essence and egg, mix well.

Add flour until all combined, lastly add chocolate chips.

Drop teaspoonfuls onto baking paper lined trays, leaving space for spreading.

Bake in moderate oven for 10-15 minutes.

Place on wire rack to cool.

Makes approx. 30

Sharing over here today!

Friday shop update

2011-07-22T14:52:00.000+10:00

I've finally had time to add two more garments to the shop.

The apple top has been a few weeks in the making (sooo many other things to do!), the wrap dress I made some time ago and just decided to list it. Both are size 2, actually my most popular size funnily enough. I've been battling non-stop windy weather and dull winter lighting in an effort just to take the photos - this shop caper can be time consuming!

Red apple reversible cross back top - size 2

Vintage fabric reverse of apple cross back top - size 2

Garden party wrap dress - size 2

Blanket stitch

2011-07-21T21:04:00.000+10:00

I've discovered a new passion lately - making baby blankets.

It all started when I made one for the silent auction for the kindergarten fair. I really enjoyed the evenings sitting and stitching the binding by hand in front of the heater and the television (knitters and crocheters I'm sure you can relate).

I was really sorry to give it away in the end, I love those fabrics (more Denyse Schmidt fabric love over here, and here).

So I got to and made another. I had the patchwork top in my stash (made from a doona cover I had as a kid) and teamed it with pink flanelette and white binding (keeping it on the shelf at the moment in case I want to own something pink in 8 weeks).

Right now I'm on blanket number three. I attacked some vintage sheets, hopefully a more uni-sex yellow and blue combination. I'm making my way through the sewing of the binding - I even took it along to swimming lessons this morning...crafting in public...gasp!

Playing along with creative spaces today.

Found

2011-07-20T13:52:00.000+10:00

One crocheted rainbow granny square blanket.

Soft and snuggly.

Perfect baby size.

Perfect lap size.

Just showing it off so you can admire it too!

Coconut ice

2011-07-18T22:46:00.001+10:00

I've just completed my first custom order for my shop. I had a request to make a dress like this:

...but in a size six and with no doily feature.

I had the same main fabric to work with, but none left of the darker pink of the sleeves, so I went for white and pink florals on the sleeves and a white hem ruffle instead.

After talking baking for the kindergarten fair with the kindy mums in the morning all I could think about when sewing this pink and white creation was...coconut ice. Strange, I've never even made coconut ice! Its kind of appropriate though as this dress and another will be shortly winging their way to mid-summer in the UK.

Painting progress

2011-07-12T17:16:00.000+10:00

A lovely day spent outdoors today - both painting and sewing.

The red paint is as fabulous as expected, two coats on and I think one more tomorrow will complete the job. I really wanted to use a roller for a smooth finish but the one I had was just rolling really unevenly and leaving fluff everywhere so I gave up and used a brush instead.

In between coats of paint I had a little go at making a cover for my change mat. The patterned vinyl on it is hideous with a capital H. I don't know why I didn't cover it last time it was in use! I made some very dodgy calculations, cut my fabric too small, had to add on a couple of strips of extra fabric to make it big enough again and then after all that its still a very tight fit. I plan to make two more so I'll have to re-think my maths.

It was too nice of a day to get myself in a twist about these little things. I just enjoyed being outside in the gorgeous winter sun.

Swapping pins for paintbrushes

2011-07-11T22:17:00.000+10:00

Hello there! I've been busy getting a bit nesty over here at Maika. So busy I kind of dropped the ball on blogging for over a week while my headspace was crammed full of other thoughts and ideas. I've been spending too much time on Etsy and Ebay, handstitching binding on baby blankets, thinking about sprucing up five year old baby equipment by sewing pram liners and change mat covers, getting increasingly pre-occupied by my own aches and pains and the increasing effort to get through the day to day, what's to come in about eight weeks as this pregnancy draws to an end....as I said, too many thoughts.

My project of the moment is a spot of furniture rejuvenation. I've been washing down, taping edges, undercoating with primer...

...and I am super excited to start using this cherry red paint tomorrow. The colour spot on the tin doesn't do it justice, cherry red is not the right description, its a fabulous bright red. No pinks or blues around here at the moment. At the moment, anyway.

More than $9 worth

2011-06-29T20:27:00.002+10:00

Recently I took my little guy for a trip on the train to the BrisStyle Indie Twilight Markets in the Brisbane city square. It was a great way for us to fill a Friday afternoon and early evening. The colourful pavement lights, the statues in the city square and the train ride home in the dark were a big hit with the four year old and of course I got to check out the lovely crafty offerings.

We only made one purchase - a soft cube kit from Voodoo Rabbit. My boy was very excited about it as there was a little tinkly rattle ball to sew inside, the fabric to make the cube had cute drawings, and seemingly a story...but I quickly noticed that the story was not in a language I recognised at all.

I had a stab at it, maybe Turkish, I asked? No, the lady at the stall revealed it was Hungarian text on fabric printed in Japan. I bravely promised my boy that his Dad would be able to work out the translation for him.

The cube kit sat in the sewing room for a few weeks and we got it put together over the weekend. We bought stuffing, little fingers pushed in volumes of the stuff to fill the cube, in went the little rattle ball (this was a very exciting bit) and eventually when all was ready I sewed the opening closed.

And the story? Not one to resist a linguistic challenge my husband has worked it all out. Its not really a story, more some statements about the pictures - things like "Hello Elephant, what are you doing?", "Balancing on the ball!", "How clever!".

This soft cube has been belted all over the house, tossed, caught, thrown in faces, almost knocked glassware off the bench...all this entertainment for the three of us for $9 was a real bargain.

Slow stitching

2011-06-26T16:11:00.000+10:00

Its getting harder. Getting on the floor to cut out fabric, or leaning over a table, standing at the ironing board - I'm getting tireder, slower and more awkward.

So I'm glad this weekend of sitting around doing a lovely lot of meditative hand stitching. I'm sewing the bias binding around the edge of a baby blanket. The blanket is not even for my own use but I am loving the look so much that I think I will make myself one exactly the same, and whip up a few more from materials in my stash. I'm starting to daydream a lot about what a room for our new little baby is going to need and look like. Stitching and daydreaming, too good. With about 4m of hand sewing for each blanket making a few of them will keep me out of mischief and happily ensconced on the couch of the evenings.

I was going to get a picture up of me wearing my lovely new maternity skirt this weekend but today my man is sick and my boy is recovering from sick so I've not had much time for anything but housework and Lego. Maybe I'll get a chance to snap myself with the self-timer during the week. But for now the little Mr and I have to take a trip out to find something yummy for our dinner tonight.

Hope everyone had a great weekend.

Quick fix maternity wear

2011-06-23T11:41:00.000+10:00

At the moment I am attempting a sewing project for myself. I don't really know why actually - being six months pregnant means any sewing project comes with severe difficulties in the fitting department and the cold weather is not exactly conducive to wearing what I am making. Never the less I am forging on ahead mainly because having something new in my wardrobe is a very attractive proposition right now.

Cue one black maternity skirt I kept from my last pregnancy - I really only bought it because of the woollen floral embroidery around the lower edge. I really do hate the style though, its got little pleats around it that make it kind of full and boofy. Having wide shoulders (by nature) and ample bosom/large stomach (at the moment) I already feel big enough on my top half, I don't need a full style skirt making me look bigger around my lower half than necessary. I'm an A-line girl, I'm going to make an A-line maternity skirt out of a piece of black and white Ikea fabric.

And I'm going to use this length of vintage bias binding to hem it. Yes I am.

I've ripped off the cotton rib waistband from the old skirt, I've measured and measured again my "waist", some of my existing skirts and the old maternity skirt...and I'm just going to take the plunge, cut it out, sew the sides and put the elastic waist band on and hem it. Sewing on the edge here today! I figure if it doesn't fit I can wear it post-pregnancy. Thats how I figure, anyway.

Bunting to make you smile

2011-06-22T12:10:00.000+10:00

Why do little strings of flags make you feel happy? The colour? The movement? The fun of hanging them up? Whatever it is, it's one of those suretys of life.

They're so fun and easy to make too. All of these were cut out from the contents of my scrap bag, but strangely the scrap bag seems not to have shrunk as much as I would have liked! At least it's back in the cupboard now rather than strewn over the floor.

Four strings of double sided scalloped flags in boy blues, girl blues, pinks and purples and lemon and white are now available in the shop.

To market, to market

2011-06-20T12:35:00.000+10:00

This last weekend I spent a lovely Saturday morning attending the BrisStyle "Markets 101" information session down at Hamilton. I rugged up tight as the old church hall and a cold Brisbane morning were not a winning combination, but a few cups of tea during the talks did a lot to keep me warm and the lovely morning tea items on offer kept my blood sugar and my interest levels up!

Since opening my online shop a lot of people have asked if I will start attending markets. Maybe yes, maybe no, any market aspirations are in the future though as I would need to invest in some "hardware" like tables and racks and signs etc. and besides, in 12 weeks time I will be welcoming a new baby, so one thing at a time I say!

Never the less, this post does have an alterior motive...I am actually helping to organise a market at the moment (on the other side of the table, so to speak). The Red Hill Kindergarten annual fair is on the 30th July at Woolcock Park, Red Hill. This is the major fundrasing event of the year for the kindergarten and the Fair is a fabulous community event attracting thousands of local residents. It's a serious business - BBQ, drinks, cakes, carnival entertainment with rides and animals and kids activities are all on offer, and that's just the start of it! Typically the Fair has around 40 stalls operating on the day that sell all manner of crafty items like jewellery, bags, clothes, toys and stationary. There are still a few stall places available if any Brisbanites fancy joining in and holding their own stall on the day. Interested? Simply contact myself, or email redhillfair.stalls@gmail.com for an application pack and details.

My creative space: out of the scrap bag

2011-06-16T13:56:00.000+10:00

I made a nice mess. I emptied my scrap bag onto the floor of the sewing room, sorted out the different colours into little piles, then left it there for a week or two. As I said, messy.

I've now started to work my way through the piles looking for pieces that are big enough for making into a few strings of bunting.

The scraps that are too small for bunting? Probably they'll go back in the bag for now and one day I'll cut them all into strips and sew them together. I'll admit it, I'm totally a scrap hoarder. What about you?

More creative spaces here...

Gifts galore for little ladies

2011-06-14T10:56:00.000+10:00

To start this week off just a quick post about my favourite reason for sewing...for gift giving of course. Birthday presents for two little girls, Molly and Scarlett (such lovely names!) one just born and one turning four.

Here's the result of the cuddle owl that I posted about last week. This was one of those projects where things just fell into place - a perfect sized scrap of magenta cotton was waiting for me in the remnant basket of the fabric shop for the edging, and I had a great reason to cut into a vintage pillowcase to make a crazy floral backing. Slow and steady sewing produced a great result. I was very happy with it, and so was the recipient!

And a little matryoshka softie from a Blinking Flights pattern I've been hoarding up to try for way too long.

Sometimes one just needs the perfect excuse to try something, and that's worth waiting for.

Brooch finished

2011-06-10T17:17:00.001+10:00

My brooch for the Flower Press brooch swap is now finished!

Making this brooch has really challenged me, mainly to do with turning something that is essentially a piece of fabric into something that's got a structure.

My strange list of ingredients for this brooch included:

scrap of navy blue cotton
edging of a doily from my Mum
beads left over from my wedding dress
trim that came in an old sewing box I bought last year
cardboard from a packet of bias binding
the lens cover from the camera as a circle template
felt
glue
brooch pin
sewing cotton

The finished brooch is perhaps a little chunkier than I expected and I probably could have used a thinner cardboard, or tried leaving it out altogether. It was useful though for something to set the fabric around a smooth curve shape. That aside, I'm pretty happy with the result!

I'll package it up with a few small goodies from Kikki K and it will be ready to post when the post office re-opens for business next week.

My creative space: hoot

2011-06-09T09:10:00.001+10:00

A departure from the usual here today - going for construction of a rather challenging softie. I'm finishing the easy part (the front face, wings etc.) and then its onto the edging strip that's got kind of mitred corners around the ears...oh its too complicated to even talk about. I might be needing a little bit of luck on this one that it turns out OK for a party on Saturday.

If you want to see what I'm on about you can see the tutorial for the Snuggly Owl over at Sewing Republic.

If you want a real hoot then head over to Our Creative Spaces!

Hot cake

2011-06-07T13:53:00.000+10:00

A sudden "cold snap" in Brisbane today. The sun is hiding above the cloud layer and the temperature is refusing to budge more than about 17 degrees. AND BEFORE I hear any whining from you southerners I would like to point out that I am not acclimatised to weather much colder than this, and that Queensland houses aren't built to deal with cold weather either, the warm air from the heater dissipates out the walls and windows faster than you can actually add it to your rooms, thank you very much.

This considered it was lucky that I started last night to prepare the following recipe for Irish fruit loaf, perfect timing for a warm slice of fruit cake and a hot cup of tea this morning. Its one of my grandmother's recipies, a strange combination of ingredients, lots of sugar and flour, but no butter....you put that on top, when its hot out of the oven, you know.

Irish Fruit Loaf

375g mixed fruit

250g brown sugar

add 1 cup of warm tea to the above ingredients and soak overnight (or the best part of a day)

The next day add:

2 tablespoons of marmelade

1 egg

500g self-raising flour

Mix well and divide between two loaf tins (greased or lined with baking paper, however you like to do it).

Bake in moderate oven 50-60 mins.

Leaping off, diving in

2011-06-06T15:08:00.003+10:00

When I first started this blog about two years ago I am going to outright admit that I did so because I fully intended to sew and sell. I knew my way around a sewing machine and had recently re-discovered a love for sewing and I naively thought I could make stuff and folks would buy it and it would be a fun thing to keep a new stay at home mum occupied. But not one to jump into anything until I am sure of how deep the water is (obviously) I quickly discovered that "out there" the handmade market is an entire ocean that needs careful and considered navigation, and that like real life I would much, much prefer to sit on the sandy beach in the sun rather than have cold waves breaking over me. Its taken me a couple of years, many changes of mind and a heap of procrastination before finally deciding to wet my toes.

Instead I have gone the long way around and spent the last few years at my sewing machine making my way first through things like bedding, simple curtains, cushions and bunting, moved onto making softies for the best part of another year and lately have been increasingly dabbling in clothing. This whole time I have been gaining skills, self teaching, experimenting, amassing little bits of sewing equipment that make the job easier and the results look better. I have made and made and made for friends and relations and loved the buzz of deciding on what project to make, what to make it out of, the making process and of course the giving. I have slowly slipped into an ongoing philosophy of always giving handmade rather than store bought. I have given everything with a kind of shy and bashful "Yes, I made it" admission, hoping that nobody thinks I'm cheap or daggy for doing so and that they appreciate that my time, and my skill, and materials have been chosen and given by me personally to create a gift just for them. I think I have done OK with it as I have continually knocked back suggestions from friends that I set up an online shop to sell what I make. What exactly to sell? How much time should I put into it? What kind of marketplace to sell goods at? The whole question of originality and uniqueness bothered me, or rather petrified me for a good long while. I didn't want to give up the pleasure of creation and give in to the (perceived) drudgery of making the same thing over and over again for the purposes of selling. I didn't want my blog to become focused on a shop, or markets, or sales because I personally don't dig blogs that are an after thought to a shop. I have instead been spending my time blogging to my hearts content, reading countless other blogs, and commenting and participating, making great friends and loving every minute of it. I have read the posts here and there about this online market place versus that online market place, the posts about copied work and original ideas, the posts about pricing, the posts about why some folks sell and others swear off it entirely, the posts about whether all the work is worth it...and after two years I finally feel ready.

At this moment I have time on my hands, I have better sewing skills, I have a better sense of colour, a better knowledge of fabrics, I take better photos, I have appreciation of the handmade market place, and I don't sweat the small stuff any longer - I have relaxed into a good head space to be comfortable about making a handful of items to sell. I've chosen a format that makes the most sense for me - two days a week dedicated to sewing work, creative freedom to make what I like when I like and the integrity to use materials and styles that sing to me and that I am proud to make and sell using a small shop platform where I don't feel lost and out of place or intimidated, I just feel like me.

So if you're a regular visitor over here you have probably noticed the little "shop" link on the sidebar. Its been there about a month and I haven't even blogged about it, I'm already hopeless about self promotion! I do admit though that I announced it to family and friends first (who generously supported me and bought out half the shop necessitating an immediate re-stock!). And now its your turn. What's over there? I'm sewing some simple clothes for kids from sizes 1-6 under the label of Maika. I'm combining new and recycled fabrics and trims, all items ready made, one of a kind or very limited quantities...and it feels great. I'm having fun and am keeping expectations low key, going along for the ride. And I'm still going to blog about whatever and whenever and not talk shop too much, probably once a month, and that will be enough about that.

My creative space...brooch progress

2011-06-02T14:23:00.000+10:00

I tipped my scrap bag upside down and sent the contents spewing onto the craft room floor on Tuesday afternoon. I sorted the scraps into piles according to colour and in there I also came across a few pieces of doily. It struck me immediately to do something with them for the brooch swap.

I have cut off a little piece of edging and machine stitched it down to navy blue cotton with a bit of trim along the cut edge. I'm really like it so far, but I do have to sort out how this is going to become a structural brooch, and what shape! I think a full circle is going to be too big, so maybe a half circle? Must find that thinking cap and put it on for a while this afternoon.

You can find more creative spaces over here.

Red's leg is ready for bed

2011-05-31T15:03:00.000+10:00

Red was one of the first things I posted to this blog back in 2009.

Red sometimes goes to bed with my four year old, but mostly spends his time hanging about on the toy shelf. Much to the consternation of the four year old, Red developed a bung leg.

So today I got up to a heap of "finishing off" jobs and Red got his long awaited repairs.

He bravely endured having his internal stuffing re-arranged and being jammed under the presser foot of the sewing machine (looking a bit like he is under the spotlight of the operating theatre, yes?). The hole was sewn shut and the fabric re-inforced all in one step, and he had a little preventative surgery to the other inner thigh while I was at it...

...and now he's "red"y.

Thinking brooch

2011-05-29T15:58:00.000+10:00

Now that June is nearly upon us I've begun to seriously think about what I am going to create for my part in the Flower Press brooch swap. Last night this consumed many hours of flicking around on the internet for inspiration, and of course taking a long hard look at my swapee's blog. I have an idea but whether this idea will play out in reality will have to be seen next week.

I have to say that I love wearing a brooch, I often reach for one of the above on the way out the door, especially at the moment when I seem to be wearing the same few maternity t-shirts and one pair of jeans over and over again. At least I can vary my brooch, my shoes and my handbag still!

It pretty much came to this

2011-05-25T16:47:00.000+10:00

Our first experiment with food growing this year has had only small results, but satisfying none the less. Three types of tomatoes bore fruit and the green ones are slowly ripening on the kitchen bench. One type was called "Black Russian" and these are turning a kind of unattractive purple colour - yet to find out how these will taste. The little cherry tomatoes were definitely the most prolific, and the plant went nuts and grew upwards and sideways and all over the other plants.

The basil, mint, lemon balm, sage and thyme all continue to grow, but the possums are partial to the parsley and dill and regularly nibble them back to their stalks. The capsicums never grew at all, zucchinis grew beautifully and flowered mostly male flowers and then died, the butter beans gave out one lot of beans and then turned their toes up and died and the rockmelon flowered a lot, made a few melons and then also just suddenly died. It seems we have a lot more experimenting to do before we are successful at a crop of anything other than tomatoes! In the meantime home grown tomatoes on pizza is on the menu tonight.

Weekend bake up

2011-05-22T21:41:00.000+10:00

That just seemed to be one long weekend. Singularly responsible for entertaining a four year old is pretty mentally taxing. I was craving that down time I get when he usually goes for a bike ride with his Dad, those snipets of weekend time that just allow you to de-focus on everyone and everything I find pretty important. I think I have earned my "time off" thanks to kindergarten this coming week.

My little one did suggest "making shapes" as a weekend activity and so I cleared the kitchen bench and rumaged in the pantry, he insisted that we both don aprons and away we went amusing ourselves for a couple of hours with the ritual of making basic biscuits.

He's done this activity many times with his Grandma and a few times with me and he's getting very proficient with mixing ingredients and handling dough.

I just let him go with it in terms of rolling dough and deciding what shapes to cut and just hovered a bit making sure the dough was rolled thin and even enough, helping with the flouring of fingers and equipment and getting the biscuits from board to tray (and of course the actual cooking).

And then when we were all cleaned up we had a little biscuit feast (pity he didn't offer to make me a cuppa as well!).

And we were happy!

My creative space: citrus

2011-05-19T10:42:00.000+10:00

Today I am loving all things citrus.

On the tree, lemons slowly ripening in the colder weather. We have lost a few lemons lately due to some creature that loves eating lemon peel - possums? rats? I'm hoping I don't lose all my meagre crop.

In the fruit bowl - mandarins, lemons and grapefruits.

I didn't want this beautiful grapefruit from the market to go to waste so I juiced it this morning - I prefer orange juice, but I'm sure a dose of sour citrus juice was good for me somehow!

In the sewing room, its all been about yellow this week too.

For more juicy creative spaces, click on over to here.

Brave new world

2011-05-17T16:40:00.000+10:00

After recently seeing a beautiful dress creation by Sewpony, and the mention that the pattern came from an Ottobre design magazine, I decided to get online and order myself a copy of one of these Finnish sewing magazines (don't panic, an English language version is available). I had heard of the magazine around and about on the internet so it was time to find out more. I told my husband not be be suspicious if there was a credit card payment from Finland on the bank statement, I wasn't up to anything at all dodgy!

Yesterday my copy arrived in the mail and I have to say my assessment of it is that its kind of like a combination academic/fashion magazine for sewers. Its really beautifully done, there are glossy photos of adorable models wearing adorable creations.

And in between the photo pages there are all the instructions for each project, this was the academic part. I was amazed that I could understand and visualise most of what they were talking about in the instructions, it was just the right level of technicality for me. There are no illustrations of how to construct the garments so it helps if you have been sewing from patterns for a while and are cool with basic sewing techniques and terminology. I would call some of the patterns definitely more advanced, but there was definitely do-able projects for both boys and girls. But look at these patterns!

They are almost like abstract artwork. There are three double sided sheets of them, the size of four A3's each and they are all colour coded and printed over themselves. You have to kind of blur your vision and squint to make out where the pieces are that you are after. Its not hard, its just...strange. I've never seen anything like this before. You'd probably want to get hold of some decent sized tissue paper and clear the dining table and get tracing for the pieces you need in the particular size you want - and you have to add seam allowances. I'm keen to try, but I'd have to clear my dining table first, and thats no mean feat in itself!

Party time

2011-05-15T08:36:00.000+10:00

Today the boy and I are off to a party. Well, a party of the kid kind so I'll be chatting to good friends and he'll be running around with good friends and eating party food.

As a welcome change of pace from all this boy sewing I've been up to I turned my hand to making this little dress for the birthday girl.

I bought the fabric from Spotlight this week, its a cotton weave called "pique" (pronounced "pee-kay") which gives the fabric a beautiful texture and smoothness. It frays a lot at the edges though so edge finishing exposed seam allowances was a must. A bit of cherry coloured ric-rac finishes it off nicely.

Sorry about the slightly washed out photos, I've got to use the little point and shoot camera for the next two weeks as my othe half has gone traveling with the digital SLR. I feel like my right arm has been cut off!

Just got to dress the two of us, wrap gift, write card and drive across town. Right, better get to it!

My creative space: Aaargh

2011-05-12T17:02:00.000+10:00

The Kids Clothes Week Challenge continues and besides, last week I did promise some pirate action - and here it is! The Jolly Roger shirt. The pattern for the skull and crossbones (with heart shaped eye sockets no less!) comes from The Boy Trifecta blog (I downsized the template for a smaller sized shirt).

And yes, those are the pants that were the subject of my creative space last week, and the ones I've been going on about lately.

Show us the front.

Show us the back.

That a boy!

For more creative spaces head on over to the coolest new blog on the block - Our Creative Spaces.

Pantalon inferior anterior

2011-05-11T16:48:00.000+10:00

While pinning down some pattern pieces yesterday I noticed the words "panatalon inferior anterior". You can see in the picture that this means "lower front pant" in Spanish. But it struck me how funny it was that if you twist English and Spanish together a bit you might as well be describing the inferior front side of a pair of pants - which is exactly what I was dealing with yesterday - in other words, a dodgy crotch.

I ended up sewing the inner leg seam three times - making two adjustments to the front crotch that was both too wide and too long. It was very educational actually to see how my self made pattern needed adjustment to have enough room in the seat of the pants and less room at the front, nobody wants a bum bulge at the front do they now! I think I've got them fitting right and there was much excitement about trying them on now there were no pins involved, but my "nino pequeno" fell asleep in the car on the way home from kindergarten and the light for photos for today has gone.

I'm getting on with making some cordouroy trousers for him using my Burda 9793 pattern. I've decided to re-visit my self made pattern at a later date.

Kids Clothes Week Challenge

2011-05-09T23:31:00.009+10:00

This week I am participating in the Elsie Marlie Kids Clothes Week Challenge. Its pretty self explanatory - the challenge is to spend at least one hour a day sewing clothing for kids for a whole week. This is perfect timing for me as I was just doing a heap of kids sewing and this challenge will help to keep me focused until all my jobs are done.

Today I made a couple more appliqued long sleeved t-shirts. I just used some pretty simple designs, a white lightening bolt on blue, and a red star on black. Took up a good hour of my time from start to finish though. Instead of hand stitching like I did with the dinosaur tee, I machine stitched using a straight stitch on a short stitch length, used a walking foot and a ball point needle and got the stitching as close to the edge of the applique as I possibly could. I was very pleased with the outcome, and so was my boy.

It was supposed to be a more serious sewing day today but bad weather and a list of necessary erands kept me from the sewing room. Tomorrow is the very serious business of finishing some pants, and starting some new ones. Not all in one hour though.

My creative space: ripping it off

2011-05-05T08:59:00.000+10:00

Seeing that the latest royal wedding dress is fair game for "designers" to copy willy-nilly for their own bridal gown collections (isn't this whole copying concept disturbing?), I really considered nobody would hold it against me for using a pair of Target tracksuit pants in a little pattern drafting and pants experimentation session of my own.

I found a great tutorial for sewing basic pants for boys using an existing pair of pants as a template. Actually the MADE blog has a whole section dedicated to sewing for boys - click here to check it out.

After studying the tutorial many times and comparing the shapes I traced from the tracksuit pants to a Burda commercial pattern I eventually bit the bullet and started constructing these pants out of blue cotton drill with contrasting navy exterior pockets (the interior of the front pockets are red, just some fun detail for the wearer).

I managed to squeeze in one quick try on session with my little man - the sight of the pants bristling with pins made him pretty nervous. I had the pins on the outside so there would be no ouchies, but it just looks worse like that to a four year old! The waist looks like it will be touch and go but as this is the final step I won't know till the end if its all OK or not. Nothing like a bit of a surprise at the finishing line.

After using tracksuit pants as a template to make pants that don't end up looking like tracksuit pants (note distinction from wedding dress situation...), my boy still said to me, "They look like tracksy dacks". Sigh.

For more creative spaces, head on over to Kootoyoo.

Dinosaur day

2011-05-04T17:39:00.000+10:00

Its got a little cooler and I went over to the local Target store to stock up on some tops for my boy. Seems like everyone else needing his size had the same idea in mind - they had no stock at all of anything half decent above a size 4. Super frustrating! Nothing like a crappy department store experience to get me fired up about sewing. Hence, this week is dedicated to making for the boy.

I ended up buying a few cheap long sleeve tops in plain colours, but really you have to admit that plain is boring. This top found itself attacked by a dinosaur - GRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

It was pretty easy to do, the hardest part was drawing the design, then I just used double sided fusable interfacing to set the shape onto the fabric, then blanket stitched around it by hand with two strands of embroidery thread whilst half watching an evening of television. Both meditative and satisfying.

Next to come is an experiment in pants making and something to do with pirates...

Picnic dress

2011-05-02T17:32:00.000+10:00

And there we go!

front

back

All stitched back together again, ric-rac around the neck and hem - picnic anyone?

I had just enough fabric left over to make a cute pair of baby booties too.

When your cup of tea saves you

2011-04-30T22:25:00.000+10:00

Project weekend is to make a little dress from an op-shopped picnic tablecloth.

Friday I took the red gingham tablecloth with ric-rac trim and embroidery detail, about 90cm square, from the stash cupboard.

Wish my unpicker really did work by itself...

My heart wanted to be lazy and cut out the dress pattern without removing ric-rac trim. My head told me that was a bad idea so I duly picked off the trim - and that baby did not come off easily, took nearly half an hour of stitch by stitch unpicking. I even decided to dunk the trim in a bit of bleach just to make sure it was nice and white for the finished product.

For some reason I left the gingham fabric (now sans trim) on the kitchen bench while I was cooking, I opened a tin of tomatoes and of course tomato juice sprayed on most things in the kitchen, including me, but somehow mysteriously missing the fabric. After a quick inspection in poor light I decided the fabric had missed serious damage and I removed it to the more safe location of the dining table.

I spent Saturday morning negotiating the tricky business of cutting out the dress front and back with reasonable placement of the embroidered sections of the tablecloth. The dress front was OK (you have to start somewhere), but the dress back piece eventually had to be made of two separate panels with a joining seam down the middle. I cut one side out, then pinned the pattern for the other side and was just sitting back for a sip of my cuppa when I realised...at that very moment I was just a few seconds away from disaster. I had forgotten to flip the pattern for the second dress back piece! Whoa! I still cannot believe that all lightbulbs and alarm bells went off in my head at that exact moment - I say thanks to my cup of tea. Maybe there is something about those anti-oxidants and what not in tea afterall? Another cup anyone?

My Creative Space: the last scraps

2011-04-28T09:34:00.000+10:00

Not to be deterred by more wet weather in Brisbane I headed outside between rain showers yesterday to photograph the front panel of a wrap skirt that I am working on this week.

I'm finding wrap skirts pretty good while being pregnant, well at the moment anyway they add a little variety to my wardrobe. With the onset of cooler weather I am going with adding some black to my wardrobe, I actually like wearing black but its not a very Queensland colour, I think I like it so much because I was bred in Victoria.

The reason for the stripes? I love that flower fabric and I am down to using the absolute last scraps of it!

For more creative spaces, pop on over to Kootoyoo!

Easter eggs (real ones, from a chicken)

2011-04-22T11:21:00.001+10:00

For the second year running one of our lovely Bulgarian friends here in Brisbane has hosted Easter egg dying and decorating at her house. From after work onwards last night eager small kids and perhaps maybe less eager adults crowded around a small, slightly wobbly table laden down with bowls of warm dye, lit candles and hot, freshly boiled eggs. The potential for disaster was high but apart from someone trying to set a cotton bud on fire in the candle and getting dye all over our hands and down under our fingernails everything went without a hitch.

I'm not sure where the dye sachets can be purchased but they are obviously either German or Greek origin, and they come with full instructions if you want to try this yourself. You simply mix the dye sachet contents in about a cup of hot water and add a splash of vinegar and you are ready to dip in your boiled, warm eggs. This way you can get nice solid colours...but the real trick it seems is to know how to make some fancy designs. Many techniques were discussed and demonstrated amongst the attendees, everyone seemed to have a traditional family/childhood "how to" for egg decoration.

You can dip a stick or cotton bud in candle wax and draw over the egg before dying (the wax stops the dye being taken up by the egg shell).

You can add a splash of oil to the dye and this creates a lovely swirl pattern across the shell.

Or my personal favourite is to place a piece of foliage against the egg, pop the whole thing in the end of an old stocking, tie it in as tight as you can and dip the whole thing in the dye. Very pretty.

Or you can just be silly....

We'll be cracking these open on Sunday - you knock them together and the person who's egg shell stays in tact gets the most luck. They're perfectly edible if you like cold, slightly coloured eggs...

Happy Easter!

Photo interrupted

2011-04-12T17:43:00.000+10:00

I've been making away, down in my little sewing den. Well kind of. My mess has been migrating slowly upstairs as I am finding its a whole lot easier to get some work done in the living areas of the house rather than in a designated (and isolated) area. Downstairs at night its very, very quiet and I miss the noise of the telly and chatting to my other half - but now that I have a little sewing space set up I also feel that sewing mess in the dining room is not really supposed to happen anymore. I know nobody cares where I do my sewing, I figure its OK as long as I clean up after myself every few days (which is more than can be said for the mess of cottons and offcuts I have made on the floor downstairs!).

So I was trying to photo a few of my creations against the wall of the house this afternoon (the hot water system provides the perfect place to hang a coat hanger off), and the little man insisted on being included in some of my shots. It's unusual for him to actually want to be photographed, so I was happy to oblige.

End of the season

2011-04-04T14:49:00.001+10:00

Not the world's most exciting post today, really all I did was make a drawstring bag. My favourite way of making them is to use this tutorial from Kootoyoo.

A carry bag for all the small plastic beach toys - just in time for the end of summer.

Why I didn't do this earlier to facilitate carrying toys from car to beach and back to car is really beyond me. Better late than never I suppose.

The sun and the rain are taking random turns at dominating the weather conditions around here lately. Just when you think how lovely it is, its bound to start to rain. I'm just hoping for a last minute fling of beachy weather over the Easter break. Its only a few weeks away now.

In training

2011-03-30T11:29:00.000+10:00

I'm popping this little guy in the mail today - off to Melbourne he goes.

I made one of these for a friend last year and she told me that her baby just loves to have a suck and a chew on the pointy ear things. So while I was photographing him I thought I would double the photo shoot with a training session to get this guy used to the idea of a bit of ear action...

...and he got a bit upset with me.

Lucky for him he's going to a newborn so it will be a while before the ear chewing thing kicks in.

Ripe

2011-03-27T14:30:00.004+10:00

I picked a lime off our tree.

I had my doubts about ripeness - but it was beautifully juicy and fragrant.

Only one thing to use it for really.

Disclaimer: in my current state, I unfortunately was not able to partake.

Thanks to Nic for THE INFORMATION.

How does your garden grow?

2011-03-25T14:32:00.001+10:00

In February we cleared and dug.

Then we planted.

We watched...

...and waited.

In March we are discovering...

...bunches of tiny tomatoes that already smell so good...

...butter beans almost ready for picking...

...that rockmelon plants really do want to take over your garden...

...that zucchini plants are huge and you really should space them about 60cm apart...

...that rosemary has purple flowers...

...and that we have no idea how to tell if a lime is ripe.

My Creative Space: one eyed

2011-03-24T14:00:00.000+10:00

I finally made it to joining in on My Creative Space this year. Despite all good intentions my usually prolific crafting vibe has been taking a back seat to.....sleeping. I'm finding the need to sleep debilitating at the moment, mental strength to concentrate on sewing equals none. I feel like I am operating with one eye open and one closed most of the time with my head in a fog and a body that needs dragging around. It's all for a good reason though - I'm just busy incubating my second child. I can still hardly believe it but I've seen it on the ultrasound, there's definitely a baby in there.

So speaking of new babies, I'm slowly sewing this little toy for my best friend from University who sent me and SMS a few weeks ago to announce the birth of her second son. It was sure a surprise for me because due to a lost and never received Christmas card I never even knew she was pregnant! She lives in Melbourne so we see each other rarely, but its the kind of friendship that it doesn't matter how many months or years in between actually catching up we can just pick things up where we left them last. Friends like that are the most precious, don't you agree? You know how we met? We sat next to each other in a lecture theatre at uni orientation day back in 1994. The most simple beginning to a friendship ever.

Once I get this little fella's other eye sewn on and give him a bit of stuffing I dare say he will be a lot more perky than I am!

For more Creative Spaces, pop on over to Kootoyoo.

All pretty...unsure of it

2011-02-27T10:17:00.000+10:00

I am sailing off into unchartered waters with this little skirt. On the outside it looks great, I am super happy with that gorgeous purple fabric...but I am giving this skirt as a gift and I am really, really uncertain about its fit and ease of wearability. I have a deep down gut feeling that its all wrong.

I made it following an internet tutorial and downsized it to smaller dimensions. I was happy with my downsizing calculations but when I actually made it I realised that it was probably going to be too minimal around the waist and subsequently be restrictive around the wearer's legs as its essentially a straight up and down tubular construction through the skirt with the ruffles sewn into it. If you check out the tutorial and you will see what I mean.

I have sat and stared at this itty-bitty skirt and considered picking it apart and re-modelling it, but I'm not sure I can made any really serious improvements for the time and effort it would take.

I am going to pop it in a gift bag on a wing and a prayer, and with my fingers crossed. Maybe two year olds are smaller than what I can remember...

Brain bender

2011-02-22T20:23:00.001+10:00

I can't believe how long it took me to downscale a skirt pattern from size 5/6 measurements to size 2/3 measurements.

Being all scientific I was sure that it could be done with a calculator and my jotter pad. I made a lot of crazy calculations over the space of 12 hours, both in centimeters and inches (go figure why I was doing that, I don't DO inches). Then when I thought I had the answer I used the "phone a friend" option and asked her to measure up her almost two year old. My little model had a waist measurement of 50cm (vs. my 48cm calculation) and a waist to knee measurement of 28cm (I was spot on, yeah baby!).

Enough of this mathematics caper. Tomorrow: fabric!

Progress

2011-02-20T08:47:00.000+10:00

And on Saturday I finished painting and moved in. Still some more embroidery hoops to hang on the wall, and I hope to get some shelving installed in the nook on the right hand side...there's all sorts of pattern papers and books that need a home, but the mess of them is conveniently out of shot!

I can't tell you how happy my heart is to see this little space finally coming together. :)

Friday arvo

2011-02-18T15:58:00.000+10:00

Reclining on the day bed on the back deck having a meditative stitching session.

Creating a little bit of decoration for my new sewing space.

And thinking about the fact that I had better get a move on with it all as I have to make a gift for a birthday girl for next weekend.

Patchwork

2011-02-12T20:08:00.000+10:00

Don't worry, I haven't suddenly turned into a home renovations blogger! I promise, fabric does feature in at least one photo in this post...

I tried to set up my sewing machine on the built in desk downstairs - but the melamine top of the desk was too thin and flimsy and putting something heavy on it like a sewing machine made a decidedly nasty sag in the desk. All very wobbly and not functional at all. So, the desk had to come out.

I raided the tool box and got down to work. I thought it was just screwed into the wall with big dirty nasty screws, but I realised that if all the screws have come out and the desk still won't move then it must be also glued to the wall. I selected a few more tools and with some elbow grease I prised the desk from the wall. To my horror the glue ripped the paint and plasterboard wall, but it isn't such a disaster after all because two things called spakfiller and sandpaper will fix the wall up like new. I should soon be ready to paint over the patching and install my own desk.

I've also got a "gentleman's wardrobe" that I restored a few years ago ready for organising my gear into. I piled the fabric inside, but it needs some shelves to be ideal for fabric storage.

Hopefully I'll be making good progress on my little room in the coming week. Then I'll need a sewing project!

Trying to resume normal programming

2011-02-01T16:56:00.000+10:00

Me on the back deck, my sewing space is going to be in the "granny flat" underneath

January has come and gone and its time I got back to my poor neglected blog. My crafting gear is sitting downstairs also waiting for me to pay it some attention. I feel tomorrow will be the day for plugging in the machine and having a play around in my new space.

January has been a tiring and exciting month filled with cleaning, sorting, chucking, keeping, packing, unpacking, connecting to essential services etc. - our new house is about 90% unpacked, still got tasks like hanging pictures and getting rid of a few last boxes of "stuff". We have plans for a few simple improvements, mainly changing things to our own taste, not because there is anything inherently wrong (except for very dodgy television reception). And we have spent time getting to grips with...gardening. As renters all our lives so far gardening was mostly a hack, chop and mow job around the time of real estate agent inspections. Now we have a beautiful garden that has olive, avocado, grapefruit, lime, lemon and guava trees along with a few herbs so we hope to be able to expand the herbs and grow a few vegetables in the garden beds as well. Bearing the responsibility of looking after the garden from a "not a natural gardener (black thumb)" kind of background has been capturing my attention these last weeks. Gardening over sewing? What ever will I do next?

A whole lot of nothing and everything all at once

2011-01-14T10:31:00.000+10:00

Have you noticed? No crafting going on in this space right now. I've hardly had the urge to touch the sewing machine this year and the task of making a simple drawstring bag for my son starting kindergarten next week is the only reason I made myself sit at the machine last night (I even started by sewing a right side to a wrong side - sigh). I haven't even been reading blogs for a few days, I just had a peek and I have a lot in my reader to catch up on!

The reasons: lots on my mind, lots on my plate, and lots of damn water.

Thanks to those lovely people who have checked in on us to see if we are OK. Thankfully we live in an unaffected area, up high and dry in a nice old Queenslander too. Thats not to say everything hasn't been very wet, soggy and increasingly mouldy (and the cabin fever - aaaaargh!). We haven't had to pack up and leave but this week we have been doing a lot of packing for an entirely different reason altogether - we are in the throws of moving house. Moving in the middle of Queensland's worst flood disaster over 100 years is no piece of cake. For the first part of the week there was so much rain that we had to run boxes out to the car only when there were short breaks in the severity of the rain. Now the rain has stopped entirely and we are hoping that the furniture removal truck on Saturday (a) was not flooded at the depot or something in Toowong (b) has enough petrol (c) is not diverted elsewhere. Not that I would complain loudly if any of these things happened, I have to keep myself grounded as plenty of people don't even have furniture anymore and will be spending this weekend sorting through the ruins of their homes. There is a certain amount of survivor guilt that we are spending this weekend moving to a beautiful new home of our own. I am hoping that we can donate the things we don't want to take with us in the move to where its needed locally.

Thank you to those participating in the Qld flood appeal auction. You're simply ace.

She knits

2011-01-11T22:44:00.000+10:00

In the B&B, a basket of wool and needles and an invitation to knit.

I can knit, a bit.

A few rows of grey, and then a change to red to amuse the small one.

He "helped".

Maybe you can too?

I didn't get to do a whole square, but I did my bit of knit.

Christmas, Evandale Tasmania

2011-01-04T22:15:00.000+10:00

We went travelling on Christmas Day this year. A lot of water and a bit of a cyclone in Queensland sent the Brisbane airport into chaos on what we expected to be a very cruisy travelling day of the year. We made it to Tasmania just fine though. Before going campervanning we had booked in to stay our first night at Blenheim historical house in Evandale, close to the Launceston airport. We discovered a very beautiful and stunningly photogenic place with gorgeous hosts who also run a glass gallery and antiques store on their property. I just wanted to share a few of the photos I took while visiting this magical place.

Flowers in the garden were in full bloom and buzzing with acutal bumble bees.

The real thing for Christmas time! A holly tree (green berries still though).

A beautifully presented and scrumptious breakfast, just how I would love to wake up to breakfast everyday.

Poking around in the early morning sunshine I discovered many hidden and delicious corners in this courtyard.

The entrance to a walled garden.

The outdoor table that had hosted a family Christmas feast the day before.

A storeroom.

And a laundry! Where else do you keep your plates and pitchers?

Thanks to our hosts Victoria and Robert for a wonderful stay.

Just been up to...

2011-01-03T18:06:00.001+10:00

...a bit of campervanning around Tasmania. Believe me the romance of what it sounds does not match the gritty reality. Adventure none the less!

The good:

having your own lounge room and kitchen in tow where ever you go
sitting in your "lounge room" in Salamanca in Hobart eating cream cheese and Tasmanian smoked salmon on fresh bread rolls (erstwhile people watching)
grilled cheese on toast when ever you want it
gorgeous sun filled evening in a beautiful heritage town for the last day of 2010
not being able to play kids music on the stereo as the speakers are only in the front
the kid is a long way behind you
when the kid finally drops off to sleep in the top of the van you can do nothing but read a good novel until you too pass out

The bad:

the roaring 40s nearly blows the van off the road
the road is always sickeningly windey when its my turn to drive
repeated head injuries from low clearance in the van for adults
making the kid wee into a baked beans tin in the middle of a freezing night
needing to get out of the van to toilet yourself about 20mins after the hearing the sound of weeing in a baked beans can

The ugly:

cold showers at the camping ground amenity block
slipping over in the shower cubicle, crashing into your child who is bravely enduring the freezing reality of camping ground showers and then discovering that the door does not hold your weight (I'll leave that scene to your imagination)
falling over in the dark camping ground and removing skin from hands and elbows and getting a large bruise to the knee (and buggering my watch)
nary a vegetable has been eaten (do baked beans count?)

Alphabet Tuesday: Z is for Zebra

2010-12-21T15:06:00.001+10:00

Well there he is, a little zebra to complete my Dick Bruna alphabet panels.

I only started this panel yesterday, I had an "Oh my god, its Monday!" moment and hopped straight to it. I hadn't had a close look at the illustration before then but did have some half ideas in my head about how it was going to go together. I realised with some dismay and absolute resignation that it could only be done piece by piece, all 23 of them alternating black and white to hopefully end up with a correct representation of the original. I cut out all the little pieces yesterday (with a stiff wind blowing though the house = mistake!) and last night spent considerable time shifting the pieces around the backing fabric to get just the right placement. Yes, I had to move 23 pieces everytime I wanted a slight adjustment up or down, or left or right. Then hunched over the kitchen bench under the bright halogen lights I started to sew all the pieces down. I finished this morning (after quitting and going to bed, I didn't sew through the night) with aching shoulders and hopefully not a permanently hunched back from sitting at the kitchen stool. Looking forward to a good yoga session tomorrow to straighten myself out again.

Next year I have the task of getting all these panels together into a wall hanging for my son's room. Happily we are moving to a new house next year, finally our own house. Yes, we will be home owners (gulp!). The timing couldn't be more perfect for this project. Don't worry, after setting myself up again after the move I'll be updating how the project is coming along and it will eventually be completed - rectangular? horizontally long? vertically long? The choices! I'll have to see what fits best in the new house.

Thanks for following along this year, I couldn't have done it without the accountability factor of posting it to the blog!

The finish line

2010-12-20T17:55:00.001+10:00

I am looking at the finish line for my alphabet series. I am aiming to be done before the end of 2010 rolls around. We will be off to Tasmania at the end of this week, and I really don't fancy taking any sewing with me on this holiday, its time for a break for sure! So tomorrow is the last Tuesday of the year that I have left to post about this project.

If you've been following along, and even if you haven't, I think you know what the picture for Z is going to be.

Its complicated to recreate in felt though, so lots of little bits of paper template and felt scraps are piling up on the bench. Its like an ultimate two colour jigsaw puzzle to put together, hopefully it will be all stitched down by tomorrow.

See you then!

Alphabet Tuesday: Y is for Yawn

2010-12-14T19:43:00.000+10:00

Does this make you yawn? Or does just thinking about yawning give you the urge to yawn?

Did you? Go on, admit it.

Happiness is...parcels, coffee and a stolen hour

2010-12-14T13:39:00.000+10:00

Yesterday afternoon I took some time out.

It was very humid weather, I had done all my jobs for the day, and the little one was asking nicely to watch a DVD, so I let him and headed out to relax on the back deck with an armful of goodies to kick back and catch the breeze.

I had just re-filled my coffee bean tin at Merlo coffee, taking home my complimentary coffee in my Keep Cup of course, feeling good about re-usable packaging here. Coffee is a bit of indulgence for me, I don't drink it regularly any more.

I had two lovely parcels to open, just for me! One was full of goodies from a close friend, including some delicious Christmas biscuits. Mmmm, they are tasty and disappearing fast!

My second parcel had just been picked up from the post office. The post office queue was huge and everybody seemed to have a red parcel pick up slip. I asked the lady behind the counter if they had missed a delivery or something due to the bad weather (it did look like the whole suburb was turning out to pick up mail) but she looked at me amused and said, "No dear, its just this time of year!". Silly me.

My parcel was from Nic at Yardage Design with my copy of Handmade Living (devine publication!) and a print of her bunting panel, and a cute little elk decoration. (I have a moose that is similar, I must dig him out and they can be friends.)

So I drank my coffee, ate some biscuits, read through my new book and felt very chillaxed, well as much as the humid weather would allow for.

And then the DVD was over and it was time to do something else. I hope you also manage to squeeze in a relaxing hour here and there during this busy time of year.

Rest with the best

2010-12-12T16:35:00.000+10:00

Sheets for rest time at kindergarten next year.

I was putting all the effort into making these thinking why, why, oh why? The boy doesn't do rest time, hasn't for ages, he's a twelve hours a day go, go, go kid. Enforced rest time is boring, but the powers that be say there will be rest time so sheets are needed, in their own drawstring bag no less. So you know, if you have got to have them, you may as well have the coolest.

Doily dress

2010-12-10T10:51:00.001+10:00

Let me present the finished dress from yesterday. I stole a few photos in the last afternoon light yesterday, the dress has already gone to its new home. I only have the doily pinned on in these pictures, I hand stitched it to the dress last night.

This peasant dress is a super easy pattern from Libby Lu's Boutique (on Etsy).

I thought I knew better than the instructions when it came to the sleeves, and it turned out I was wrong! The instructions say to sew the seam of the sleeve first, then do a very fiddly turn under and stitch to create the casing for the arm elastic. I thought that was unecessarily complicated and turned under the long edge of the sleeve to make the elastic casing first, put the elastic in, and then sewed the arm seam. The difference is hidden raw edges if you follow the instructions and a not so neat looking raw edge and elastic ends showing affair using my method. Grrr. Lesson learned.

I added a litle tag to the back using some floral ribbon, just so the recipient knows for sure which is the front and which is the back when getting dressed.

Speed sewing

2010-12-09T10:57:00.000+10:00

Just trying to get these made up into a little dress. I have been hoarding that embroidered doily for some time, now I have the perfect use for it.

But I'm very busy, its going to be a case of speed sewing (not sewing on speed though, don't worry).

Must get on with it! This one is going to be my first 100% recycled fabric garment.

Alphabet Tuesday: X is for Xylophone

2010-12-07T21:35:00.000+10:00

Have you ever seen an alphabet chart without a xylophone representing the letter X? Its a bit of a pet hate of mine because the spelling of the word is hard and the sound of the X is really more a Z.

So I wondered today if there was a good alternative. I looked up X in my pocket dictionary, there were about 25 entries in the X section (none of them X rated). There were other X things - xenon, x chromosome, x axis, xerox, xylem, X-ray, even Xmas - so no, all very scientific. I had to concede that xylophone is the most recognisable for children.

X doesn't really mark the spot, does it?

Big Butt Small Pants

2010-12-06T15:01:00.000+10:00

We had a quick stop visit from a close friend over the weekend so I got back to the sewing machine and whipped up a pair of baby pants for his six month old son. The pattern for these "Big Butt Baby Pants" is from Made by Rae. Just a few clicks and a very small payment and the pattern dropped into my email inbox - shopping should always be that easy! It was a quick afternoon project with very satisfying results.

The pants are designed for cloth nappy wearing babies (hence the big butt name I suppose) so as the instructions suggested for a disposable nappy wearing babe I made a size down (size I made were for three to six months), and cut to the length for a six to twelve month. It sounds complicated but its not really. They are made of soft blue flanelette and I added an up-turnable cuff that enclosed all raw edges so that the pants can be adjusted as the wearer grows by folding up and then letting down, the pattern is very generous in the leg length.

The little bloke in question has already been wearing these colours from me, which he has now obviously outgrown! He should get lots of wear out of these pants.

My Creative Space...Doodling

2010-12-02T14:20:00.000+10:00

I haven't been up to doing any sewing for a little while, but the break away from the machine has enabled me to concentrate on one task that constantly gets pushed to the bottom of the "to do" list, or placed in the "too hard" basket.

I am attempting some drawing. To have a little image of my own to be able to print on some cards or make into a little web shop banner in the future. Nothing like a few aspirations for 2011.

Problem is I don't draw very well. I don't have a very artisitc brain in that way. I was listening to an interview with the illustrator and animator Adam Elliot on Radio National yesterday and he said that at about the age or nine or ten a lot of kids tend to give up drawing because their desire for their drawings to be realistic does not match their ability to actually do so. This was certainly the case for me, I actually hated art classes at school with a passion, I preferred to be collecting data in the science labs.

So while I doodle away today I will no doubt get frustrated when my ability doesn't meet my expectations. I must try to tap into my inner six year old and draw like it doesn't matter what it looks like!

For more creative spaces, the last lot for this year, click on over to Kootoyoo.

Maika in store

2010-12-01T21:28:00.000+10:00

I did mention not long ago that I was lucky enough to be asked to sew some gifts for pocket money. Well the end results are now for sale at Nest Nappies in Paddington, Brisbane. Let me tell you, Nest Nappies is the best one stop shop for modern cloth nappies and accessories in town.

Bunting, small and large pencil rolls and super hero capes are listed for sale in their web shop, or for direct purchase of course if you pop into the shop in person (15 Latrobe Terrace, Paddington).

Recovery

2010-11-28T13:31:00.001+10:00

No, I haven't just fallen off the planet. Or been abducted by aliens.

I had to make a snap decision about going into hospital for some surgery. For peace of mind I decided to go for it. Laparoscopy is not too pleasant a procedure, but the outcome was a happy one and whilst I am very sore I am on the mend, making the most of a weekend spent in bed being waited on hand and foot.

The house is "bloke standard" clean and tidy, and with some encouragement a load of laundry made it into the washing machine. I was also surprised to discover that my other half had only a half an idea of how to put the dishwasher running...

I won't be making it back to the sewing machine for some time yet, I'll be spending my time catching up on blog reading instead. A laptop in bed with wireless internet connection really is a gift from the technology gods.

Sheet find

2010-11-17T23:38:00.000+10:00

Come and share in my admiration for this vintage sheet find.

So much beautiful fabric.

Projects galore will come out of this one.

Just because

2010-11-15T16:11:00.000+10:00

I have been making myself try some new things in the last week. I have been making peasant tops for myself, so I had a go at making a peasant dress for a girl. Love this daisy fabric.

And I have a few wrap dresses in my wardrobe that I like wearing and I looked at the construction of them the other day and I reckon that I could make one just by tracing the pieces. To get my head around how one is constructed I had a go at making a size 2 wrap dress. Starting small with this project obviously.

Now, onto other projects that are awaiting my attention. I've almost got too much sewing to do, but thats a nice problem to have, isn't it?

Red meet Purple, Purple meet Red

2010-11-14T21:33:00.000+10:00

Our beloved little purple monster has a new friend - little red monster.

As soon as Red was finished he was up and about and chatting away to little Purple.

They became good friends and had so much in common. Look at them there, laughing away like a couple of old fellas.

Cheeky too!

Red is off to Pip this week, but little Purple is staying behind because he's pretty important around here (and has a slight war wound on the left arm that needs care and attention).

My Creative Space: at the coffee table

2010-11-11T13:50:00.001+10:00

Today I am making a big mess. But thats what vacuum cleaners were invented for, right? Little bits of fabric offcuts are falling to the floor to be trodden underfoot and carried around the house stuck to said feet...

I'm making this mess rather centrally by sitting at the coffee table. This plonks me right in the middle of my son's play zone so he can chat to me and play around me, he likes to watch the pinking shears do their little zig zag cut.

I have been very lucky to get a commission to sew some simple gifts for a friend's shop. Bunting is the first thing on the list of jobs. There will be some very simple one sided triangular flags, and some more fancy rounded ones. I've also been experimenting with incorporating some doilies - the end result is pleasing me very much.

For more creative spaces, head on over to Kootoyoo.

Alphabet Tuesday: W is for Whale

2010-11-09T17:04:00.000+10:00

Splish splash, here comes the whale. Don't get too close, he's watching you, see?

Deconstruction, reconstruction

2010-11-08T17:40:00.000+10:00

These fabrics used to be stitched together in the form of a doona cover. Nobody loved it anymore and donated it to the charity shop.

I bought it, washed it, and set to picking and ripping my way through the seams and I now have four lovely pieces of fabric, and a nice harvest of cream buttons.

I got distracted after that...and I am already wearing some of it.

A happy sewing day.

My Creative Space: Monsterous

2010-11-04T10:12:00.000+10:00

In my creative space today I am turning my attention to making a softie for the Mirabel Foundation.

I am drawing inspiration from this dude. His name around these parts is "little purple monster". He's a bit of an ugly duckling but he certainly gets a lot of love, I think its partly due to his small size, perfect for a fistful of take it anywhere, anytime comfort. Bigger is not always better you know when it comes to monsters!

I'm going off to rummage for some fabric and felt to make my own little version of monstery love.

Happy creating today in your creative space - to see them all head on over to Kootoyoo.