Tag

I have been tagged by the wonderful Karen who has been sewing up a storm and making some truly gorgeous clothes for her kids which you can see on her blog.

Tag Rules:
A. Each player lists 8 facts/habits about themselves.
B. The rules of the game are posted at the beginning before those facts/habits are listed.
C. At the end of the post, the player then tags 8 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog...

My responses:
1. My favourite place in the world is Italy. I did an Italian immersion course in Italy for 2 weeks and it was the best two weeks of my life! The best part was meeting up with my husband at the end of it (he had been working in the UK) and using my newly acquired Italian skills to speak to hotel staff and bus drivers and to see how impressed he was! :) We visited Italy a lot and I absolutely adore the countryside and small towns.

2. My favourite movie is My Best Friend's Wedding - I LOVE the singing!! I, however, only ever watch it up to a certain point and then the movie goes downhill. The exact moment is when Julia and her kindred are on a boat going down a river and I think they go under a bridge and some schmultzy stuff gets said and I cannot bear to watch any longer. So its my favourite movie up until about 3/4 of the way. :D Luckily all the best songs are done by then :D

3. I love Burt Bacharach songs and have a CD of all the songs he's written (A lot of the MBFW songs are BB).

4. I can be a bit nutty with hand washing.. my daughter has just had gastro so my hands are in need of some intensive moisturising treatment!

5. My favourite sandwich is the American Reuben sandwich - layers of corned beef, swiss cheese and sauerkraut on sour dough toasted bread - divine..

6. I climbed an ice glacier (a little ways.. with special shoes (crampons?) and a pick in Norway).

7. When I have a hamburger, I must drink a Coke with it. It adds to the taste sensation - only ever for hamburgers though.

8. When I was younger, I used to make my own Barbie clothes and Barbie accessories - things like tables and chairs out of ice-cream sticks, houses out of cardboard boxes. I made accessories for my Cabbage Patch Kids and I even made my own Cabbage Patch doll so mine would have a friend (yes, it was a sight to see). I could manipulate anything out of bits of cardboard and fabric and I look forward to crafting with my daughter as she grows up.

I am tagging Emma as she is the only blogger I know who hasn't been tagged yet. :)

Wah-lah!

Guess what I did????????????????????

Hint:


I did a Crabapple Cupcake Bakery Cupcake decorating course!! It was awesome!! See the fab cupcakes I made!

Welcome to the world

Impatiently waiting for clothes...

Black or Blue?

I am being very indecisive tonight! I am going to continue with a felt face for the learning dolls but I am definitely changing the girls face as she could do with a better smile. So now I'm wondering whether to do black eyes or blue.





I have been tagged by Karen -- I will get some answers posted soon!

Fabric Shopping Again (Already!)

I am the naughtiest person in the world and have not been working on the dolls! When I did get some spare time, I went fabric shopping! I don't really need some more fabric just yet as I have enough for all my current projects. Anyways, there is this fab shop that has some great priced quilting fabrics and I had to go there and see if they had anything new. I also came across another shop with well priced fabrics and joy of joys, I found that they had a second level which was packed to the rafters with quilting materials. I have never seen such a large selection of quilting fabrics before - it was absolutely awesome. Initially I thought the quilting fabrics were at bargain prices like the rest of the store but sadly the gorgeous fabrics were priced around $22-24 a metre which is not a bargain at all.. but at least you can buy the stuff by the metre which is one good thing. There were some gorgeous colours and fancy retro patterns -- I will definitely go back at one point and invest the money to make a really, really nice bag.

So here are some piccies of fabrics I bought. I should not be buying more fabrics but it is actually cheaper then if I went to the big shopping centres and bought up on clothes for Sarah. Aye.. there's always a rainbow.. :)

Rose and pink knit fabrics. Some of the EB girls have mentioned working with knit fabrics of late, so I want to have a go with using this type of fabric for some clothes for Sarah. Really good price of $5 a metre although the rose print is dirty and hopefully cleans up OK.



Fat quarters - at $2 each, I thought this was a good price for getting some basic colours to use for some applique designs. I also got this gorgeous "Pooh" fabric and the piggies.







Studio Bambini magazine for children's clothing inspiration and ideas. I bought the purple fabric today.



ETA: I've been working on the dolls tonight and I've run into some trouble. I cannot bear to give the dolls the face that is suggested in the book.. should I go against the book suggestion and try to find a face of my own? The biggest problem with that, is that it will delay this project and I'd just like to see it finished.

Future projects

I like the idea of sharing these projects and kits and eventually making them up to prove I could do it! I have gone with the idea of making a few cot quilts as they seem more achieveable then larger projects.

Pastel Cot Quilt - I absolutely adore these pretty pastel colours.



Fabrics I've picked for a cot quilt and a simple design I've seen. I love the martian fabric - the little creatures are absolutely adorable! It would be a good idea to make one of them up as a softie.



Dolls House pattern and fabric that my Mum bought for me. I absolutely love the idea of this dolls house which is made from fabric and uses applique to embellish the rooms. The house folds up to book-size and is easy to transport. I actually think this would take forever to make so isn't on my current to-do list.

Learning Doll Progress 2

I have been working away on the learning dolls - two trips to Spotlight to pick up various notions (buttons, zippers, fabric, elastic, bias binding), a change in wardrobe for the girl doll and cutting out here and there. See progress so far:

Short note

I am returning to work next week and currently settling Sarah into childcare so have no time at all. I was going to post about some previous crafts but cannot find my old craft boxes in the quagmire that is our shed! I was down at Spotlight today buying some trims for the dolls clothes so I am definitely planning on completing that project as soon as possible. I will endeavour to be back soon.

Dolls Progress & Softie Finds

I have started out on the fun part - making the clothes! This is the boy's shirt and the photo also shows braces that I have cut out for him. I purchased a bag full of furnishing offcuts and have used some microsuede for the braces and will also use it for his shoes.



This is a softie I found at Mum's place. Mum used to make these for school fetes as they are very quick and easy to turn out.



This is my darling playing with my old teddy which I found at Mum's place. There was a Mum and Dad bear and a little baby bear. They came in a little basket and I carried them around everywhere!

Love my Mum!

I visited my Mum on Friday and I helped her clean out some of her cupboards. A great big bag of craft stuff came home with me and another big bag went into the garbage (success!). I came across some fantastic stuff - a "scrapbook" of my mums filled with knitting cuttings from magazines and these were OLD, like 1968 stuff. I was so in awe of it. She even had a picture of Johnny O'Keefe taped to the last page.. hehehe.. very cute :)

Mum found this book with two dolls that she made us as kids. They are called learning dolls and they have buttons and zippers and various articles of clothing with the aim of teaching children how to dress themselves. She made them for us and we absolutely loved them. They are very cute. Mum is still looking for them - she's not sure where they've gotten to. Anyways, I've just spent the past hour (I'm slow!) photocopying and enlarging the doll patterns so that I can make a set of them as well.

I love that Mum is able to share these patterns and craft books with me. Its amazing to go back over what she has done in the past and recreate some of it for my daughter.

Here are some pics which are faves from the magazines and books.

The learning dolls


Kindie dolls (and cute applique on bags)



Very cute little daisy biscuits which might be on my wishlist for Sarah's birthday

Dress in Action

New dress:



I noticed in this photo that you can now see Sarah's first top tooth! No. 3 has arrived!

New dress

Dress in progress (wasn't sure if I'd have time to finish it tonight so was going to post a teaser!)



Finished dress and matching pants (which may or may not be worn with dress)



Sarah wearing the new pants earlier in the week. Note that they are too big for her - I've made everything in size 1.

To market, to market, to buy pretty things..

We went to the markets today and came across the Crabapple Cupcake Bakery stand! Such pretty cupcakes and delicious to boot. I had read about them on the internet recently and was so chuffed to come across them.



I finally found the Mums On the Move stall and checked out their pram snug. I had seen it on the internet a while ago and wanted one for winter but wanted to see the item myself before purchasing. I spoke with the lady selling them who has been making them for a few years. I said I was buying the charcoal one to keep it generic for future babies and she was very nice and gave me a pink star (which is easily removable) to make it more girlie for DD. Thankyou!



Yesterday we were at a 1st birthday party where my friend had made the following beautiful spread! Just gorgeous!

On the Town

I went shopping without DD and bought the following gorgeous light corduruoy fabric which will be perfect for making with my corduruoy dress pattern.



I also bought this Michael Miller fabric which might be good for a bag if I ever get around to making one. I would probably need more fabric though - I got a metre of the flowers and half a metre of the spots.

Ruffled

I am working on a two piece set and have just finished the pants. The ruffle took ages and was a little frustrating but well worth the effort.

Patterns

I am getting organised and want to sew a new dress for Sarah. I've got this gorgeous broderie anglaise material that I want to use. I thought I had pictures of the fabric but I haven't so it won't be seen until the dress is made. I just have to decide which pattern to make the dress with - I think it will be the McCalls one.




(These pictures are using my old camera until the other gets fixed.)

Cripes!

I broke my camera :( I was juggling a baby and trying to format the memory card and I dropped it twice. :( :( Now the zoom won't close and there is a "lens error". I am so upset as it was the best camera and I'd just gotten it for Christmas from hubby and I absolutely loved it.. WAAAAH!

Quilting

I did a patchwork quilting class in the UK. My first ever square was the star in the top left hand corner. The teacher in the class gave me the scraps for it and she charged me for these scraps!



I did the four squares above and then decided that I wanted to do a Stars and Heart quilt from a Naive quilting book that I bought.



This is how far I've gotten with it. I think I have screwed up the stars as they are turning out smaller then the hearts squares. I need to make 17 Heart blocks and 18 Star blocks. So far I've got 5 stars and 9/10 hearts.



Then I found this Rose Quilt kit at a Stitches & Craft show. The really bad thing was that I worked on it for about 2 years. I started doing it in the UK and it wasn't until we were back in Australia and I was waiting on IVF results that I finished it off. So its taken a lot of time and a lot of love to complete this quilt. It is a lap quilt.



This is my first big applique project. All the pieces use double sided interfacing and are all stuck down. I still have to do embroidery on it but I'm not loving it as much as I intially did and am not motivated to get the embroidery done.



I was thinking of taking a photo of all my quilting kits that are yet to be started. Some years I'd go to the Stitches & Craft show and not find anything I liked and then others would have heaps of lovely things so I found it best just to buy them and put them away for a later date. Sometimes I think I'm a collector of pretty things rather then a quilter!

Lamkins

I got this pattern from Funky Friends Factory -- if you go through their website you can buy kits with fabric included whereas I bought my pattern on Etsy and bought the fabric myself. I found the polar fleece so lovely to work with! I embroidered on the eyes rather then using beads.

Work in Progress

I have been sick and Boo has been teething. I have finally found some time to start cutting out some pieces for my latest project: