corduroy blue dress

Finished.

I never thought it would happen. I spent most of the weekend unpicking and then resewing this dress as my 'alterations' to the original design were proving a little more problematic in practice than they had seemed in theory ;) Then would you believe it? ...with approximately 7cm left to sew on the hem I ran out of thread!!!

brain age

Today's brain age = 35.

stretch body suit

I've been wanting to have a go at stretch sewing for sometime and finally I plucked up the courage to do so.

My first attempt at making a red body suit for Ms. M was a disaster - I have limited experience with stretch sewing and I wasn't concentrating on the pattern's instructions very well.

Not to worry too much - it is now a lovely piece of apparel for Master E's Zeddy.

My second attempt is much better - in fact it is rather good :) ... especially considering that I don't have an overlocker.

cap

I just finished making a cap for Ms. M.

Doesn't she look cute and cheeky in it?

after the rain

This celebration may be a little premature yet judging by the grey clouds outside.

nintendo DSi

For Mother's day last month my partner gave me a nintendo DSi and the brain training game... I'm trying to whip my baby brain back into shape.

When I first started my brain age was 60! I'm not going to share with you what my actual age is, BUT I can tell you it ain't 60!!!

Today's brain age: 45

sweet kiss

screen printing

Today I attended a screen printing backyard workshop. It was awesome, just myself and the facilitator Kathleen from Strumalum Screen Printing. I had so much fun, learnt so much and walked away with this little creation for my little man Master E.

Those of you who know Master E. well will also see the significance of the motif ;)

wet weather play

Sometimes you just gotta get out of the house.

cake mix flautist

the end result = a very small cake

pincushions

I recently started sewing when I 'inherited' a box of fabric remnants. The pieces of fabrics were from my mother and intended for my toddler son and his crafting. Master E., with only a little help from me, made a series of cards from the fabrics - a birthday card for his Grandpa (Poppa) and some mother's day cards for his Grannie and Grandma.

I too became inspired and decided to get my sewing machine out of the cupboard and practice sewing using the fabric remnants. It soon became apparent to me that an essential sewing item is a pincushion... so in the wee hours of the morning I quickly made this pincushion out of old curtain material. The pincushion's greatest strength is it's accidental ergonomic design - it is so easy to hold and it nestles into the palm of my hand. Regrettably the disadvantages out number the benefits - its greatest fault being a point of function - the filling is so tough in sections that the pins don't actually stick into it!!! (A very serious flaw indeed for a pincushion).

So the time had come to make the time to create a functional pincushion - and it occurred to me on Monday that this could be a good way to put the piece of fabric from my Nan to good use. I found a pattern for a pincushion and here it is...

... its not quite finished. The pattern calls for ribbon and a button - but I didn't have anything suitable on hand. Nonetheless I'm pretty chuffed with it and it is wonderful to have a bit of Nan with me on my sewing adventures.

Special to me.

for allie

Allie, who is just over eight weeks old, is the smallest person I know at the moment, but undoubtedly not for long as by all reports she is growing fast.

I decided to make her some winter warmers with fabric remnants - hope they fit.

fabric ghosts

Rummaging through a box of incomplete sewing projects from long long ago I found these pieces of fabric. They belonged to my Nana - a napkin and a sewn doily or armchair cover. I'm not really sure what to do with them...

... I want it to be special.

poncho

a garment to keep Ms. M warm this winter

where did that time go?

ms. M - 6 months old

yay!

Finally - my first Enid Gilchrist pattern book arrived today.

wrap jacket

Now that the weather has taken a cool turn I thought it timely to have a go making a little wrap jacket for ms. M. It has been a very long time since I've done a blanket stitch... my memory tells me that the last time I gave it a go was in primary school!

Master E. chose the button...

... beautiful.

waiting waiting waiting...

I'm not sure that e-bay is for me afterall... waiting for all my parcels to arrive is driving me crazy! I've bought loads of Enid Gilchrist pattern magazines & some vintage fabrics too. The sound of the postman's motorbike makes my heart flutter, I eagerly make my way to the letterbox only to return to the house glum and empty handed... :(

animation

this is my first attempt at creating an animation - no audio at this time - I was just mucking around today while the children were sleeping (it is so rare that they sleep at the same time I didn't know what to do with myself!) In total it took no more than thirty minutes to create... now my mind is buzzing with ideas for more :)

while Master E. is sleeping

Before heading off to bed tonight Master E. announced that he wanted me to make him a hat and shoes like those I've been making for his younger sister Ms. M. Prior to jumping in the bath I traced his foot to get an idea of his size and formulated a very rough pattern. Since I didn't have any fabric especially for the project & my fabric stash is quite small & meagre I used fabric that in a previous life had been cushion covers. While he was bathing I cut the pieces and by the time he had finished reading his last bedtime story with his father I'd almost finished one shoe.


I used the opportunity to try out a new hat pattern that I'd recently acquired and actually made improvements too (the original pattern didn't use interfacing in the peak and the finished product was rather rough around the edges as it wasn't lined - what the?) The finished product is a bit rough as I was eager to try the pattern out from an engineering perspective rather than pay attention to good sewing... still not bad for a couple of hours work?

summer ensemble for Ms. M.

Finished another ensemble for Ms. M. today. She won't be big enough to wear it until summer. I only bought 30cm of the floral fabric because I wanted to use up some black remnants that I had, still I managed to have some left over for cute cloth shoes. The sun hat is lined with white Ikea curtain remnants - which is actually really good material to use for hats as there is no need for interfacing.