Kimono scraps patchwork cushion :: for Mum

Last month my Mum had a birthday, a good enough excuse for me to travel back to my hometown of Melbourne for a family weekend.  It was great, I went alone and relaxed without the children.  I listened to my siblings and their partners talk around the dinner table about their pets. So refreshing, no talk of small people at all!

I tucked a handmade present under my arm when I flew down south.  I made my Mum a cushion - a patchwork of little scraps of kimono fabrics that I had been hoarding for years.  I know she loves pale shades of pink and purple so it just seemed like the perfect project to cut into those lovely fabrics.  I was so pleased at the way it turned out, and Mum loved it too.

Sewing with these fabrics was very much try it and see, there were lots of different fabric types and textures from a stiff kind of crepe to slippery silky ones.  I wasn't sure how they would combine together but it worked out just fine.  As you can see above the layout of the slightly rectangular pieces was four rows of six.  I top stitched down both sides of the long seams to add a bit of interest and to give the patchwork some strength.

The reverse side was three larger pieces using some of the same fabrics. I sewed these together and then just trimmed them with my rotary cutter to match the finished size of the patchwork side.  Again I top stitched along the seams.

I had also been waiting for an excuse to try out using pompom trim so when I saw this mauve trim in the store I knew it was the perfect finishing detail.  I pinned it into the side seams and then machine basted all the way around to keep everything in place before doing the final seam.  There was no way I was going to get a zipper closure into this cushion so I simply stuffed it with poly-fill and hand stitched the opening closed.

This corner was my favourite, a touch of gold on the flower and the dark blue leaves coming in from the edge.  So pretty. 

:: Happy Birthday Mum ::

Vintage doily name plate

I have a little collection of embroidered doilys stashed away for a rainy day and when a friend of mine recently had a baby I picked out one of my favourites to embroider her new daughters name on it.

Here's the drill if you want to have a go at one of these yourself.  You need:

• One lovely doily
• A wooden embroidery hoop (mine was a 15cm one)
• Embroidery floss
• Computer and printer
• Scissors, needle, sharpened lead pencil

First give the doily a good press with your iron so its starting off nice and flat and crisp.  Next, print out the name you wish to use in a font that you like from your computer. I chose Palace Script MT font and printed it at size 120 (from Microsoft Word).  Place the doily over the name printed on the paper, centering the name as you like depending on the embroidery designs on your doily.  You might like to use a light box or a window here to help you see through the doily fabric, but I found I didn't need one.

Take a well sharpened lead pencil, or one of those disappearing fabric markers if you like and trace carefully over the name.  Then take your embroidery hoop and centre the doily inside the hoop, make sure the metal hoop tightener is at the top of your work, this will be where you hang it from when you are finished. Tighten the hoop.  Now you are ready for the embroidering.

After looking through the purple and pink threads I had in my embroidery box I chose a light purple.  

I used a simple back stitch.

 Once you are done with the embroidery, tidy the ends up on the reverse side by trimming them and then trim the edges of the doily close to the hoop frame.

Tada!  You are done.  Hang on a nail or pin board pin using the metal hoop tightener.  

Simple and sweet.

Small, fast and gratifying

I've been struggling a bit with making my new blouse.  It's coming along, just at snails pace, probably because the result I will end up with is still a bit vague in my mind and not concrete like it would be if I was simply following a fixed set of instructions.  To be honest it's kind of annoying me actually.  I need some free time to concentrate on it properly.  A lot of free time I don't have.

While I was cutting it out though the left over fabric suddenly and unexpectedly said "baby pants" to me.  My lovely friend's new baby is already one month old and I had been meaning to make a few baby things for her so I whipped up a pair of basic baby pants and a few bibs from fabrics I had in my fabric stash.  

Nothing like sewing something small as a little side project distraction, then to finish, wrap and pop it in the post gives a satisfied feeling of a job well done.

Welcome to the world Deunan Rose!

P is for...

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.

Slow stitching

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.

Gifts galore for little ladies

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.

Party time

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!

In training

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.

My Creative Space: one eyed

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

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

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!

Doily dress

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

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.

Big Butt Small Pants

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.

Birthday get up

I wasn't going to write a blog entry today - gosh I have had a shocker!  Nothing like having a hamper of dirty laundry stolen from under your house in the dead of night, is there?  Its intrusive, sick and down right creepy.  I am distracted by the mental calculations of what was in the hamper, weirded out by why they chose to knick off with the laundry and leave other more attractive items behind, and just plain frickin annoyed of the extra work created to replace diminished supplies of socks and jocks.  Geeeeeez.  Pissed off!

But no, according to the title of this post, we are not having to get around in our birthday suits in the event of a total wardrobe wipe out...

I am referring to a birthday gift I made for a special four year old who celebrated her birthday on the weekend.  I made her an A line skirt from my Little Bird pattern.  I even finally cut into my matryoshka doll fabric that I have had for some time now and appliqued one onto the skirt. 

I picked up a plain t-shirt at the department store and sewed two gathered ruffles down the front.  For this I followed the super easy tutorial from Sarah at Cotton Kiwi.

I wasn't sure if giving clothes as a gift was going to cut it for a four year old, would she prefer a toy instead I wondered?  Well as soon as the wrapper was off it was off to the kitchen to proudly show her Mum the new outfit, phew!

At it again

Another baby.

Another snuggly bunting blanket.

This one is going far way to this lovely couple.

I have to overcome the making my own binding thing this time though.  A little challenge for my week, hopefully I will get around to it as I am doing a little travelling off to Melbourne soon.

On being afraid of the feed dogs

After many cups of tea and neglecting people/food and ignoring conversations/noise going on around me I have finished this baby quilt.

Its not my finest work by a long shot, but in a way its the most "quilty" I have done yet - let me explain...

The quilt top I made from stash fabrics, all cut to a 15cm x 15cm template and sewn together in a 7x6 grid, all seam allowances the same, of course.  Sounds very basic but I had a terrible problem with matching the seams and there was a LOT of wonkiness at the junctions of the pieces.  I am not being nit-picky people, this was serious, and noticeable.  The funny thing was that around the very edge everything matched up pretty neatly.  This was so very frustrating and I almost chucked the whole thing out.  But then I thought to myself that if I wanted a totally perfect quilt I could go to a shop and buy one made in a factory by a computerised sewing machine.  So I embraced my little bit of handmade wobble and pressed on.

When I finally took the quilt top to the fabric shop to find a suitable backing fabric I agonised with a capital A over cotton vs flanelette backing, and batting vs a second layer of flanelette.  I am totally self taught in this quilting caper and I just can't make the leap to using actual batting (plus it seems you might need superhuman powers to take the enormous with a capital E roll of it to the counter so they can cut you off a relative sliver of the stuff).  There I said it, I am afraid of batting.  I am afraid of putting it in my machine, I am afraid of these things called "feed dogs", they might bite, and I am afraid of wobbly quilting lines.

So the double layer flanelette won out.  I actually "quilted" a layer of white by "stitch in the ditch" down the seams that matched up on the quilt top, and then did the old trick with the pink backing by basting the edges of all layers together and finally binding the edge in white.  And yes, I do a kick butt mitred corner, if I do say so myself.

I think I need a quilting class so I can experiment further in a controlled environment where there is scope for discussion and consultation, and therapy for when it goes wrong.

Next stop...Kent

I told you it was birthday season here.

Tomorrow is not only my own boy's birthday, but two years and a few minutes later a good friend of mine had her own son.  This red t-shirt with big red bus applique is heading his way.  There is a strong family connection to the UK so the double decker bus will not be lost on his Mum and Dad either.

I have to say a big thanks to Sarah from Cotton Kiwi and Gret from A Little Red Ribbon for their assistance with all things t-shirt applique.  After a lot of trembling and trepidation on my behalf they gave me all the tips and encouragement and in the end it worked out beautifully.

Slowly but surely

Little Sofia was born over in the UK a few weeks ago and she has been patiently waiting for me to send her a welcome gift.  A quilt for her has been slowly coming along in the background of all my other sewing projects.  In the bargain I got to do a little stash busting for the quilt top, but I now have 3.5 metres of hand stitching to do to complete the edge binding.  Hello couch and lots of cups of tea!

Tickled pink

We went to a party on the weekend for a little four year old girl who "likes anything pink".  Although this probably describes most four year old girls I took the suggestion seriously and used a Little Bird pattern for an A-line skirt, to sew up a pink polka dot skirt for her.

With a bit of ric rac trim for good measure!

It was the kind of pattern with the helpful instructions to measure the child's waist and subtract 2cm for the waist elastic length.  Now if I was running around daycare measuring waist lines I would probably be getting myself arrested in the bargain, so I took the punt that if the waist was about the same as a pair of size 4 boys tracksuit pants then I am probably not far off the mark. Hopefully I will get the pleasure of seeing her wearing it, um, being a perfect fit, of course.