Bibs and Bobs

I dyed the bamboo terry and fleece that I boughht through the EB nappy co-op a couple of months ago, the results were mixed, I didn't think the 'scarlet' was very scarlet, but the yellow came out nice and strong.

Most of it is for nappy making, but I used a couple of bits to make some bibs for the dribbly one. I thought the red and yellows would also be particularly useful for those first foods - you know, carrots, sweet potato, pumpkin...

They are loosely based on the nested pattern, but I think that I was supposed to enlarge the pattern before printing because it looked tiny and I ran out of ink so I freehand drew a similar shape. Instead of binding the top of the pockets I folded a piece of fabric in half, and put a piece of interfacing in between to make it stiffer. I turned and topstitched the top halves of the bibs, but not the pockets so that the bibs can be reversible.




I also made up a batch of nappy free time mats. One cheapo shower curtain and a scraps bag of fleece and flanelette from Spotlight. Total 11 dollars for 3 mats. They're not totally waterproof but better than wetting the carpet everytime.

Pram Liner

I have been hankering after Milly's Tin Whistle Pram Liners for a while, but no pennies at the moment, I've been spending too much, so I thought I'd have a see what I could do myself. I traced around the seat, before putting it on the pram (we've had the bassinet on so far) and sewed together the fabric, a cheap towel and a layer of polyester wadding. I was pretty pleased with the result. No where near as professional as Milly's but not too bad for a couple of hours work. I think I will be making a couple more so I can have one in the wash and one on the pram at least.

Thanks Milly for the inspiration.

A Cupcake Swap

I have signed up for another swap.

http://hmmdesigns.blogspot.com/2008/09/cupcake-swap.html

I'm quite excited about it actually.

hehe...

check it out if that's your kind of thing.

Red Dress

So, I'm going to a wedding, and this dress has to be finished before we fly, I'm reasonably happy with how it is coming together so far but have a couple of questions.

I really fancied wearing a dress and I couldn't find anything I liked in the shops that I would be able to breastfeed in, so I decided I would make something myself and have constructed this around a nursing bra so that the clips are in place already.

The top is pleated, so I have sewed the pleats down (wider in the middle, narrow at the back to allow for the curve of my boobs (which are not inconsiderable at the moment). There are darts under the bra cups which almost give it some shape - I think it will hang a bit better once it is all sewn in place as the top is just pinned at the moment.

I'm thinking that I need to put some darts in under the arms as well, but worried that if I make it too tight under there I won't be able to unclip the cups.

The skirt is just a tube of fabric and I elasticated the top and sewed it straight to the bra. I might be better unpicking some of it and putting darts in there as well though as I look a bit still pregnant in it, any thoughts?

and then there's the question of length. I liked the idea of a long dress, but I'm not sure I like how it hangs at the bottom. I have enough length to double the fabric up and sew what is currently the hem into the waist band (as in the short dress pic) making a kind of grown up version of the bubble dress... Or I could just chop in and hem it, might be neater.

This is the detail of the pleating on the top

The top fabric is a Robert Kaufman Asian print and the red is a poly crepe from Spotlight (which incidentally I have to go back and pay for because they didn't charge me for it. It's probably cost me about $35 for the dress (when I pay for the fabric) plus the bra of course.

I'd love to hear your thoughts?

Quilty Success - First completed quilt project

So I've finished my first quilt. OK, so it's only a little one, but we all have to start somewhere.

The design is all my own and I'm pretty pleased with the result.









The butterfly and binding fabrics were some of my loot recieved in the Pink Themed EB Newbies Quilters FQ swap for July.

The Backing is from Sandi Henderson's Farmers' Market Range.

It was basically a chance for me to have a go at different machine quilting techniques with my new machine which is fabulous.

I used the great Heather Bailey binding tutorial as recommneded by the EB quilting girls and I learnt lots of things including the fact that you need to add at least 10cm per corner plus an extra 10cm for the join when calculating the length of your binding (you'll notice my binding changes colour part way around).

Here's one I made earlier

I bought a cheap ironing board a year ago, and although I don't iron very often the foam is so thin that every time I did I was getting the wire from the bottom of the board sticking through and making criss cross patterns in whatever I was ironing (and since I only iron when I'm sewing I really don't want that). That and the fact that the old cover is covered in the sticky remains of fusible webbing... oops...

So I made a new cover - two layers of thin cotton wadding, and a half yard of some funky fabric from Anna Maria Horner's Drawing Room range with some elastic to hold it in place.



It only took half an hour and I was pleased with the result, and now my ironing has lovely sharp creases and is nice and smooth. Not sure it's going to convince me to take up ironing seriously though...

Something that makes me happy!

OK, so most of you probably wouldn't understand (although I know that there are some who would - you know who you are) but THIS





is something that makes me happy!

(Especially when yesterday the drawers were totally empty and the bucket was full - and my hubby put them all away which is even better.)

September Already...

I can't believe it's September already. Wow this year has gone so fast.

My baby is already coming up for 4 months old!



and it looks like she's going to be keen on reading and crafy things like her mum



I'm making small progress on my projects. Here's a pic of my new baby in action...



I've not got the hang of the free motion quilting yet, and am still skipping stitches, but I think it's more to do with how smoothly I'm moving the fabric rather than anything else. Looking forward to going back into the shop for a lesson in the next couple of weeks if I have time.

And just to show off my Sandi Henderson Farmers Market fabric, I couldn't resist piecing the charm sqares that I recieved last week (and it all went together so fast with the new machine).



I'd have to say it really is as beautiful as it seems in all the pictures! This one is for me... I think I'm going to add a wide white border and plain white backing and then use it as a practice piece for machine quilting. It will have to wait until after our trip to the UK though as I have lots of other bits and pieces to get done in the mean time. At least the passports have arrived so we can actually go now!