Take my hand

"Take my hand, knot your fingers through mine, and we'll walk from this dark room for the last time".

:D

Just keep sewing!

Busy little dory fish over here today! With the Monkey in childcare and me on holidays I decided to take the opportunity to get some more done on her birthday quilt. I am very happy to say I actually got the twelve panel pieces done today - yay!

It went together relatively easy which was great, apart from a small alignment problem - oops! But will think on it and see what I can do the next time I work on it.

I am really glad the more I get into this quilt, the more i am happy with my colour choices. Even the HTC who wasn't sure about the light blue admitted he may have been less than right on that point :)

So next is trying to work out whether the applique panel I have in my head will work or not, I amreally hoping so but we will have to see.

Twelve panels done - hooray!

What are you doing Maisy?

Close up

A friend called Maisy

To say my little Monkey is obsessed with books would be an understatement. To say she is obsessed with Maisy books in particular would be the understatement of the century.

We actually didn't originally own any Maisy books - don't ask me how we managed that considering that the Monkey has so many books they barely fit in her room. But the fact was we didn't, and my first realisation of the girl's Maisy fascination came from picking her up from child care one day a while ago.

Monkey and friends were sitting on the floor reading a Maisy book with their carer, and she was hooked. She got so excited everytime the carer turned a page and she saw Maisy doing something different or a new character. And to top it all off she kept jumping on her knees and saying 'Maisy' over and over like it was her first Christmas. (Well maybe second Christmas, she was only four months old on for the first one and more interested in eating the paper than anything else. )

Needless to say, that weekend I bought the Monkey her very first Maisy book and she is in love with it as much as ever.

So, long story long, when I began sewing and started spending countless hours drooling over fabrics and came across a Maisy quilting panel I nearly died. I immediately knew I had to make a Maisy quilt for my little girl for her second birthday.

And hey, with her second birthday less than two months away *sniff* it was time to get started right?!

So I have been pondering on this for a while with the wonderful input of a gorgeous friend. normally I am not a bold colour girl, and really struggle with how to match such bright colours as there are in this:

The panel that started it all

There were a heap of other fabrics in the Maisy range but all were way too much for my liking so I headed off to the ever faithful Spotlight and grabbed these pieces of gorgeousness.

Ah polka dots ... how I love thee

And now came the hard part - working out what to do! I spent hours crawling around on the floor, putting each and every one of those panels on a million different backgrounds until I was finally happy.

In the end I decided to go with each panel having a wide red polka dot border, and then a smaller light blue dotted border. And today I got sewing the first row of panels and was very happy with the result (after once again working out that Maths wasn't my thing and cursing myself for going patternless yet again!)

Single panel - I am planning on twelve of these all up.

The row of three, which will end up being four rows in total.

After all the angst over colour choice I am really happy with it so far and can't wait to get some more time to get into it in a couple of days.

I do have other plans for a darker blue border around the whole thing and maybe an applique panel at the base but I am playing that one by ear at the moment.

I am so excited to be making the Monkey something I know she will treasure and truly love, there is something beautifully satisfying about that.

A deer little dress

The girl trying on her new threads!

I completely fell in love with this on Samster Mommy a while ago, fabric and all. It was made with a Little Blue Boo pattern for a recycled hoodie and styled into a cute little dress. And I will admit now - I shamelessly copied it but who can resist when it is so darned cute?!

I did first try searching high and low for a lovely sweatshirt fabric that would work just as well but found nothing - even online there were really limited choices.

So I headed on over to Sew Baby to try find the same material but they were out of stock so I gave up and sadly put it at the bottom of my list.

Not long after I saw the deer fabric back in stock at Sew Baby and got very excited! We were back in business!

So finally this weekend I sat down to make the same sweatshirt dress I had fallen in love with. It was my first go at sewing hoods, pockets and proper sleeves but it was relatively easy and I love how it turned out - so cute!

The Monkey seemed to like it as well and even let me take a gazillion photos of her in it for once.

Kangaroo Pocket - so sweet!

She is obsessed with hoods as it is and this one is no exception.

And just one more cause I think she is the cutest!

So sweatshirt dress - done! Very happy Mummy and Monkey.

Baby Gifts

Mini owl and Duck - my first paid gig!

I know my lack of blogging may seem like I have not been up to much lately but really that isn't the case! the truth is I have spent a bit of time sewing a couple of gifts for some special bubbas, including my first paid order!

The above is a couple of toys I made for someone from a forum I vist, her friend is having a bubs soon and she wanted them after seeing some photos i posted - very sweet1 Sewing for someone else was a big job though, I was even more of a perfectionist than usual which is saying something! I turned the little owl into a rattle as well by sewing a jingle bell Christmas ornament inside it - very cute.

I have also finally got around to making a reversible personalised baby blanket. I had plans of making these for a number of babies that have popped in the last couple of months, but hadn't had a chance to get around to it until now. My gorgeous cousin has just had her first little one - a boy called Nate so I decided to give it a go. I am pretty pleased with the outcome actually and even managed a half decent job on the binding!

I also haven't had a chance to do much more sewing as I am slap bang in the middle of my photography course which is taking up lots of time, but will post some evidence of that latest hobby soon :)

And I am pleased to report that school holidays are only two weeks away, and my course will be done then so I am planning on getting lots of sewing done! The sweatshirt dress and an apron for me are high on my priority list at the moment.

Things don't always turned out like you planned

A beautiful angel sent to me by a gorgeous friend

I am struggling with this to varying degrees at the moment. Usually I am okay, but it hits at weird times. I think the hard part is waiting so long for something to have it taken away so quickly, and suddenly you are back where you started, and even less sure than you were before. Because you now know that that first hurdle isn't the only one you need to leap over. And I guess that's hard, when it seems sometimes to take forever to get to the first hurdle as it is.

But we are doing ok really. It hasn't been a wonderful few weeks for our family but we are working out way out of it slowly. And what more can you ask for really?

A difference in perspective

The very first time:

This was the main one, and still gets me today, years later. And don't get me started on the clip.

Coldplay - The Scientist

SnowPatrol- Open your Eyes

And this time:

Mumford and Sons - The Cave

A very big difference in perspective for me, and while the outcome itself will hopefully end up the same, the process has been very different, which to be honest, I am really quite proud of. Yay for me and for us.