Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Embroidered House

Today I have been working on a little embroidered house. Its lovely working on some itty bitty things. The tutorial is from Pimp Stitch - "Little House Ornaments".

Felt to choose..
FeltPile-P1020290

Embroidery House..
EmbroideryHouse-P1020354

Baby boys to tickle..
23SEP09-P1020295 (5 1/2 months)

My Creative Space today

CreativeSpace-P1020334
* scissors
* cutting mat
* felt
* embroidery thread
* coffee
* glasses!!

Monday, September 21, 2009

Felt Hair Tie

This weekend I've followed Vlitjig's Felt Hair Tie Tutorial

Felt-HairTie-P1020281
It took me a while to catch on to blanket stitch but now I love it. I loved making this, its awesome.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Work In Progress

I have a pile of fabric waiting to be turned into fabric baskets. Can't get enough of making these, they are so cute.
WIP1-P1020246

I had a play with making an appliqued tshirt with the following results.
Tshirt2-P1020257

Monday, September 14, 2009

Inspiration

I happened upon the most inspiring blog on the weekend at Vlijtig It has given me so many ideas on things that I can do myself and Vlijtig has created some fantastic tutorials and linked to many other great tutorials on the web. I have done Vlijtig's tutorial for fabric baskets and I am very impressed with the outcome. I think I have used the perfect heavyweight interfacing and it sits really well following these instructions.

Fabric Basket:
Basket1-P1020154

I have also made another drawstring bag - another children's present for carrying around those many little things that children do.

Drawstring Bag:
LittleBag3-P1020158

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Fabric Flowers III

I followed the frayed flower tutorial but folded my fabric in half to get a nicer edge.. so, not frayed at all.
FabricFlower5-P1020136

I bought the Burda EASY 9885 pattern which was used in the Get Creative article to make the following fabulous dress:
Magazine2-P1020148
The dress on the pattern has used a unflattering see-through fabric and buttons which really don't do it justice.. I'm so amazed by the Get Creative article and how if you select the right fabric and make slight alterations, you can turn a dowdy dress pattern into something amazing. I can't wait to have a go at this myself.

The cutest little fabric box

Today's project was making a fabric box. I followed the tutorial from All Buttoned Up.

FabricBox1-P1020140

I put it to good use storing sewing notions as suggested by ABU:
FabricBox2-P1020142

Sunday, September 6, 2009

Fabric Flowers Mark II

Today I am making rounded flower petals from the fantastic Pink Paper Peppermints tutorial.

This is my flower. I'm un-decided on the final colourway - thoughts are welcome.
FabricFlower1-P1020111

FabricFlower2-P1020112

FabricFlower3-P1020114

FabricFlower4-P1020120

For many more flowery ideas, check out the whole 31 days of flowers thread

Saturday, September 5, 2009

Fabric

My fabric from Pink Chalk Fabrics arrived on Friday! I got the fabric during a great sale they were having - I wish I could have got more, its so gorgeous. I also got an Ottobre magazine - I love the thought of having all those patterns at my fingertips and its got some great photos of the outfits inside.

Fabric1-P1020077

Fabric2-P1020100

Fabric3-P1020103

Fabric4-P1020105

Sunday, August 30, 2009

Fabric Flower

FabricFlower2-P1010972

FabricFlower1-P1010961

Simple and very sweet Frayed Flower tutorial.

The flower lasted all afternoon before it was pulled apart by its wearer. We started hearing "ow.. ow.. ow.. ow.." from the backseat of the car.. I turned around to find that DD had pulled opened the safety pin and was learning about sharp points..

I brought a new blade for my rotary cutter.. I knew it needed changing but what a difference it is to have a fresh blade!! Its so much easier to cut fabric - it just glides on through and I only need to cut once! Bliss!

Repurposing metal tins

FabricTinCover-P1010944

Inspiration from here and here I used a baby formula tin and I'm hoping to make a few more of these.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Tissue Tuesday

More Tissue Cases:
TissueCases1-P1010917
I'm going to make a pile of fabrics pre cut for these cases as I love to start off sewing something simple which gives me more confidence and then I can move onto more complicated sewing.. not that I'm up to too much of late.. I have plenty of ideas though.. ;)

I grabbed some lovely magazines on the weekend which I thought would help with some inspiration. It always helps to see what other people are doing and it always inspires me with fabric coordination.
Magazines1-Aug-P1010913

There is a fabulous girl's dress in the Get Creative magazine which I am absolutely in love with:
Magazine2-P1020148

Monday, August 24, 2009

Fabric selection

I just completed the drawstring bag tutorial on the sewbunnybum website. The funnest thing in the universe, to me, is fabric selection - picking matching fabrics and selecting contrast colours as well.. its a challenge and there's so many different paths you can take - love it! What process do you go through? I used some pink Michael Miller (Dandy Damask?) and pink gingham with a light blue ric-rac splash of colour.

LittleBag2-P1010933

The bag is intended to keep a set of figurines in.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Sneezes and Mushrooms

I had some sewing time today and I made a tissue case (Look in list for tissue project). A simple little project and a really good one to get me going again. It is good fun to pick the fabrics to coordinate together!

TissueCase1-P1010881

TissueCase2-P1010876

I also embellished a fabric shopping bag. My daughter started using this bag a few days ago and it had a boring supermarket logo on the side.. so I've made it more kid friendly and hidden the logo away.
Bag-Mushroom-P1010882

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Sewing in Miniature

I love this.. sewing little things.. I actually drafted a paper pattern, ironed out a few bugs, and the first material dress worked out really well. The button holes even worked really easily too - whoopie. I made a very similar dress for DD 2 years ago and was working off my memory of that one.

DollsDress1-P1010839

DollsDress2-P1010847

DollsDress3-P1010855

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Been baking..

On 5th April 2009, we welcomed a very cute little boy into our family.
Jeremy_23APR09_P1000928
(2.5 weeks)

1 day old piccie:
Jeremy1-6APR09-P1000686

Sisterly love:
Jem&Sarah-P17MAY09-1010068
(5.5 weeks)

Beautiful quilt made by this talented lady. Sorry Emma but in those early days I could only get crying (screaming) shots because all he ever wanted to do was feed and laying alone on a quilt is not feeding!
EmmasQuilt-1MONTH-19MAY09-P1010099 (5.5 weeks)

August Birthdays

Every year I make a cake for my niece, Claire. This year she wanted a number '7' and the only cake she was mildly interested in the WW cake book was the photo one with the lollies all over it. So, this was my best effort at putting lollies all over the cake without going too overboard with it. I used mini m&ms for the outline border and a sliced licorice strap for the name.

Claire7Cake-P1010656

I also made a bunch of cupcakes for her to share with her friends. I have used Smarties and mini m&ms and assorted soft lollies. I highly recommend the Black&Gold lolly selection at IGA for cake decorating - they are small bags and lots of variety to choose from.
Claire7Cupcakes2-P1010662

Claire7Cupcakes1-P1010661

Trivia: Niece of 7 went for the face cupcake first and niece of 4 went for the mini m&m flower cakes. Cute!

There's a bear in there

Hello bloggy peeps! I have been inactive for a little while and we have a new little one in our family now. I will post pictures of the new bubs in another post.

For now, I really, really wanted to sew **something**, so I got some material out this morning and just kept pushing myself to go-go-go, no time for contemplation, just do! It means there was dodgy sewing, no pins and no measuring anything out. I used some patchwork squares that I had left over from another project, I tried to incorporate some ric-rac edging (not so good) and its just got some simple flannel backing. So, voila! A little teddy bear quilt for my dear daughter. I need to make a few more and hopefully she will stop nicking all the face washers in the house!

BearQuilt1-P1010789

With a bear in there:
BearQuilt2-P1010791

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Cutie

Cute advertisement for those FP Little Mommy dolls?

Matching outfits! Who does that?! ;) Purely coincidence..

Sarah4_8JAN08_P1000343

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Quack, Quack

Here is the duck appliqued:
Duck3_P1000181

And here is the finished dolls quilt:
Duck4_P1000183

OK, wow, a project completed within a matter of weeks - awesome! I recycled some flannelette sheeting for the backing which came from MIL.. it was nice to use something with a bit of history.