finished

The applique has been finished for some time now and finally I have finished sewing the buttons & hemming the dress.

The dress is made from calico - I made the dress because I wanted to test how the felt applique lasts after being washed multiple times. The entire garment has been an experiment.

ensemble for Ms. M

a denim & floral ensemble for Ms. M

I'm really pleased with this number. My first attempt at cloth shoes has been a raving success. I lined both the hat and the shoes with fleece so Ms. M will be nice & warm this winter. I've never seen a fleecy lined hat and I'm pretty impressed with my idea - warmth & sun protection in one!

I'm now planning to give stretch sewing a go and make a red long sleeve body suit to go under the dress. Stretch sewing is a bit intimidating and at this time I don't know much about it. Still worth a go - bobysuits for babies tend to be pretty 'cute' and pastel.

uh-oh... I've discovered e-bay

I can't believe it has taken me this long but I have finally discovered e-bay!

I suppose that I have stayed away due to fear - a great apprehension that I will become addicted and buy too much. My first purchase has been a modest one - 6 metalic buttons and 1 pretty vintage button.

There are a lot of wonderful commodities out there to buy...

ms. M's first shoes

Ms. M wears her first shoes - booties made by me.

I can't begin to tell you what a thrill it was seeing her wear them. She looked so adorable (nothing new there) & I was so utterly pleased with myself.

my first booties

the first booties I've ever made

pattern parody

Check out these patterns that I discovered in the discount bin today...

... and just so that cat lovers didn't feel left out...

This appron design is rather fetching...

...but my personal favourite (and now I am just kicking myself that I didn't buy it) is this fetching number...

winter arrives

Winter has finally arrived.

We spent the day indoors today. We amused ourselves for sometime creating with play-doh. Master E. really enjoyed himself, together we made a sunsmart elephant.

...sunsmart because we made the elephant a hat. Pity there was no sunshine to speak of in reality.

very experimental design

Out of the blue (or should I say orange) I decided to try my hand at fabric stenciling. The project was to print orange elephants onto pieces of Ikea curtain remnants and then make them into a hat. I suspect I was inspired by the Jessica Jones' blog How About Orange, or perhaps it was picking loads and loads of oranges that weekend and the subsequent OJ overdose.

I also decided that little footprints might be a cute touch on the hat's brim. The experiment wasn't a complete disaster and I certainly learnt from the exercise but there is unquestionably scope for improvement...

accidental gardeners

We threw food scraps into the garden pre-worm farm figuring it would do the soil some good... and would you believe it a rockmelon vine sprung into life. Tonight we harvested our first melon. Yum.

It has been a rather fruitful weekend :)

oranges

We started picking the oranges from our tree today. The family has been so busy lately that we hadn't noticed how laden with fruit our tree was.

We will be drinking a lot of orange juice for a while.

stitches

Basting stitches on a mock-up of a dress pattern that I'm making. Been using some old calico to experinment with different aspects of the pattern.

instructions

Instructions written by my mother many moons ago showing me how to thread my sewing machine. Back then threading the machine literally terrified me. Amusing in retrospect.

fabrics from the past

My mother has recently been cleaning out her home of all the junk that she has hoarded over the years. As a result a rather large parcel of fabric off cuts she has kept over the years, and can't bring herself to throw away, has come to me.

I made this dress using the off cuts of material that had been used to make my father & brother t-shirts during the 1980s.

virtual birth

Virtually Sally is virtually born.