Delivery from Paris

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



Garden party wrap dress - size 2

Blanket stitch

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.