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.

Tick, tick, tick!

No, that's actually not the sound of my biological clock ... at least I don't think so?

It's actually the sound of me ticking off three, yes three projects from my ever increasing to-do list. Yippee!

The one that took the most time was the quilt of course. I am still not entirely convinced quilting is for me, patience is not a virtue I am familiar with and I did start to take huge short cuts towards the end because I was getting sick of it and more importantly badly needed the end product to snuggle under on the couch as the weather took a dive toward icicle status.

But...generally I am pretty happy with it, not bad for a first effort I think! And next time I may take a slightly more sensible approach and work to a pattern or standard quilt size or something.

The finished product -
It ended up being about single quilt size and ultra snuggly mmmmm!

So with that big project out of the way, it was time to focus on a couple of kids/baby presents considering I have two friends who have popped in the last couple of weeks. My first project actually wasn't for the new bubba, but his older sister to go with the gorgeous stuff I bought for the new little man. It's a crayon roll, the pattern had a monkey applique on the front, but I decided to go with an applique of her initial instead.

Applique front with ribbon tie

Inside the roll

Close Up

I was quite happy with this in the end, was relatively easy and quite effective. So with number two ticked off, it was time for number three. One of the guys on the HTC's basketball team has just had a little girl and I wanted to have a go at appliqueing a onesie for her. The HTC plays in a team which has a pork related name (don't ask, trust me!) so he wanted a pig applique on it. I must take a photo of the one I completely stuffed up before this one too, not good at all! Bit anyway I did get there in the end and even tried to embroider the 'oink' on it as well. Not brilliant by any means but hey, I gave it a shot!

He does have an eye but it's hard to see on the background pattern unfortunately.

So that's what I have been up to! I actually have an order to work on now would you believe, someone wants a mini owl and duck so I am going to try to get those done this weekend. Kind of exciting really...my first paid job!

But once that is done I think I am going to hang up my sewing needle for a few weeks, we have had two sessions of our photography course so far and it is fantastic but suddenly there is a heap of homework to do for it, so I think I need to focus my time on that for the next few weeks to make sure I am getting the most out of the course.

Efforts on a Sunday

I have no pics sorry because I was too busy trying to get today's stuff done. No easy feat with a 20 month old hanging off one arm by the end of it.

But........today I actually got the whole front of my quilt done! I made sure I set myself up with cushions so my back wouldn't start complaining, and it took me over four hours but the 30 rows are done, all pieced together. Far from perfect but very satisfying I must say.

I also went to Spotlight and gathered all of the materials I think I will need to finish it - not a cheap trip!

But I am excited now I can start to see what the finished product will look like. So I am planning on maybe pressing and trimming the front in the next few days (remember the woeful calculations that lead to very uneven edges?) so once I hit my beautiful work free Thursday I can get started on the border and binding.

Wandering into Quiltland

These pics remind me in the worst way that I really need to get better at taking photos. The good news is that as of next week... I will be! But more on that later.

For the moment my time and focus has been taken up by this thing the locals call 'Quilting'. When I started on this sewing business it wasn't something that was even on my radar, I think I had seen too many horrid concoctions of terrible fabrics and horribly tacky designs. And read too much about measuring being the most important part. And considering that is the part of sewing I am least good at, it seemed a bit of a silly idea really.

But of course my blog roll kept luring me, showing me that just because it is a quilt, doesn't mean it has to look like it belongs at the foot of Great Aunt Ida's bed.

Initially I had decided on a baby quilt as my first project, but that was before I spotted the above jelly roll at Spotlight for 25% off! I am always a sucker for a bargain, even if the HTC does not subscribe to my theory that buying things on special is actually saving money. Hmmm.

So the question became what to do with the roll of lovely fabrics? I searched for a bit but to be honest it all seemed too hard for a starter project, so for some strange reason I decided going it alone would be easier. I wasn't drunk at the time, I promise.

So I decided on a simple step like pattern (I am sure there is a technical term for this but I don't know it), and spent a night cutting the jelly roll into strips for my project. I even did my first very formal looking 'pattern' on computer paper and with a red Sharpie. Impressive huh.

So after laying everything out it was on to sewing the strips together, which was surprisingly easy if not a little time consuming. I must admit, at this stage in my sewing experience, patience has not needed to be a huge factor, considering the things I have done so far have been relatively quick projects. I have learned that those proper quilting people must be very good at waiting in long queues at the bank.

So with strips sewn together it was onto joining up all those rows! 30 in total actually. Apart from because I made up my own 'pattern' and 'measurements', I ran into lots of 'trouble'. Mainly being the rows with half blocks ended up being shorter than the rows with full blocks. And three rows in I had somehow joined a strip that was an inch shorter than all the others. And not noticed it until two rows later.

But nevermind. Having already decided on the 'fly by the seat of your pants' theory for this project, I don't think the smaller block in the row is too noticable. And I plan on making good use of the rotary cutter once everything is sewn together to even the edges of each row up.

So far I have a third of the rows sewn together, I should have had more but am strugging a little with bending over to pin it all. Anyway I hope to get at least another 1o rows done tomorrow.

And the plan from there? I am thinking of maybe doing a border in the white and blue dot fabric from the jelly roll which I left out because it didn't really fit what I wanted. And then finding a backing and binding the thing of course. That will be all kinds of fun I am sure.

I am really hoping by the end of this project that I will have a nice warm quilt for the couch considering it has got very cold here very quickly. That's the plan anyway. Fingers crossed.

Plans for Penelope Part Two

I am hoping Penelope is up to the challenge of all this! I bought my first jelly roll yesterday, super cute fabric and 25% off - go Spotlight! This is it above all set out in colours. I think I am going to attempt a smple quilt with it - my first ever!

I am in love with this fabric, but now can't decide which gorgeous pattern to use it with.

I have narrowed my choices down to this:

Or this, both from here:

And more baby projects for all the bubs that are about to pop! Love my fat quarters.

Which I am going to use to make appliqued onesies like this from here:

And finally, the gorgeous Babushka fabric I am still drooling over:

Which will be used for a modified version of this from here:
So I definitely can't complain I have nothing to do! We have a long weekend for Anzac Day this weekend, so hopefully I can gets lots of crafty hours in.

Plans for Penelope Part One

Yes, after careful consideration I think 'Penelope' fits! The fabric above isn't mine. Unfortunately. But don't feel too sorry for me because I have gone slightly fabric mad recently, not to mention my obsession for PDF patterns. Is there anything cooler than finding the most perfect pattern at 11pm in your PJs while waching reruns of Friends, and having that exact pattern appear in your inbox sometimes just hours later? I think not.

A downside to this fabric and pattern obsession is my declining closet space and bank balance.

But the upside is I now have so many projects ready to go, I hardly know where to start! Very exciting. So here is a rundown one what I am planning on getting up to soon.


I bought this fabric:

To make this monkey crayon holder from here.

And I bought this fabric:

To make this boutique minky baby blanket from here:

And there is much more in the works...so much so I think it deserves a second post!

Quack! # 2

Yes, the Monkey is still obsessed with ducks, and after searching high and low for duck pyjamas I eventually found this gorgeous Michael Miller flanelette and decided to make my own.

The pants were pretty easy, just modelled on a pair she already had and only took about an hour to make. I cheated a little with the top and bought one with long sleeves and appliqued the ducks on top.

She absolutely loves them, and I adore the exclamations of 'Duckies!' and 'Quack!' I hear whenever she wears them.

Very much a case of all or nothing

Trying to get pregnant is perhaps one of the strangest things I have experienced in my 32 years on this planet.

The first time, we threw caution to the wind for a couple of years, and then had a year of 'proper trying' before we were blessed with our gorgeous Monkey.

To say that year in particular drove me, and therefore the HTC, nuts would be an understatement. I was obsessed, a complete mess and convince it would never happen. I know there are millions of people who have it so much worse than we did, and I am still very grateful that we were able to have kids naturally at all, but still, I found it really really hard.

In fact the month I did fall pregnant, I was absolutely convinced we hadn't timed anything right, that I was not going to be pregnant at all, either that month or any month. So much so that even though we had been trying to have a child for ages, it took a good couple of weeks for the shock and total numbness of seeing those two lines to wear off.

Trying for a baby is a unique experience because most things in life we have some control over, can work towards and see when we are starting to get somewhere. Pregnancy is an absolute - you either are or you aren't. And most of the time there is almost nothing you can to to improve that.

It seems strange that such a life altering thing enters your life with almost no warning, and often no rhyme or reason. But maybe that's why it is so special, because it is one of the last things in our micro managed lives that either happen or it won't. It's a game of the highest stakes, that requires almost no skill and absolute luck. But as I sit here with the Monkey on my lap, trying to keep her corn-encrusted fingers from the keyboard, I am reminded in the most eloquent way why we line up again. Because the prize, while almost totally random, is the most amazing thing ever.

Productive few days

To say I have found my sewing groove would be a little bit of a understatement at the moment. I feel so inspired and have a million projects spinning in my head and already way to many fabrics washed and ready to go.

A couple of days ago I made my first modern cloth nappy and I am hooked! It was really fun and very easy to do, and it was great to be able to select the fabrics myself. I would love to go and make a heap more right now, but realistically the Monkey still has a heap of medium MCNs that fit her, and I am not sure if she will be toilet trained before we may need any large ones, so I am going to see how we go.

*cough* I am also hoping I might finally get pregnant again and be able to sew a heap of tiny baby ones. Silly and self destructive thought, I know :( But anyway. *cough*

I also wanted to make a bag to put all of the Monkey's handwashing in, as I have spent quite a bit of money on really nice pieces for her for winter. And so I found a use for the super cute hedgehog fabric I bought a while ago. This is really simple in it's construction, just a drawstring bag really but I was happy because I did it all on my own without any instructions or patterns.

And finally, here is my last own for a while as I feel a bit owled-out! He is going to be a present for Ti, a little boy undergoing cranio-facial surgery that my parents are helping to support.

The Monkey has child care tomorrow so I will see what else I can come up with then! I am dying to start on some baby gifts for the ten million bubs I know that are due in the enxt few months. I also really want to have a go at a set of pyjamas for the Monkey.