A bit of holiday fun: give the kids some washi tape and a pair of safety scissors and ask them to make a little "quilt" on a piece of card.
Mount each one on some matching folded card and you have some super cute gift tags.
January 23, 2012
January 21, 2012
Cap sleeved dress
A little design that's on the back burner is this cap sleeved top/dress. The pattern needs a bit of tweaking but this one in a lovely dot print by Brandon Mably (partner of Kaffe Fassett) is cute enough to get a showing:
Of course, there's nothing like a spot of twirling on a sunny summer afternoon.
January 13, 2012
Cross stitch bookmark and summer reading
I made this bookmark for Cee Cee (who is a big mouse fan) using an adorable iron-on cross-stitch patch made by Katia of Plushka which I've had tucked away for a little while. (As you can see Katia has made some gorgeous bookmarks herself - hence the inspiration!)
I think 7 is a hard age to find good books for if you've outgrown baby books but aren't quite into Harry Potter yet. (I'd be keen to know if you have similar aged kids and have any recommendations about books they love?)
Anyway, here are some of our summer reading picks:
Violet Mackerel's Brilliant Plot by Anna Branford (a gorgeous book which I loved reading with her).
The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me by Roald Dahl (anything by Roald Dahl is good at the moment).
Meet Letty by Alison Lloyd (part of the wonderful "Our Australian Girl" historical series aimed at the under-12s).
Utterly Me (Clarice Bean) by Lauren Child (utterly fab!)
January 12, 2012
January 07, 2012
December 22, 2011
Merry Christmas
Signing out until the New Year.
Hope you and yours have a happy festive season.
See you soon.
December 20, 2011
Christmas circles
Have been inspired by lots of embroidery hoop art I've seen around and decided to make a little Christmas scene of my own with some felt, vintage trim and little house buttons.
The Little Bits Quilting Bee book is an early Chrissie gift to myself. I love the circles quilt featured on the cover. It has a 2 star (easy-ish) rating so maybe even the quilt-challenged amongst us could tackle it?!
December 19, 2011
Christmassy....
This post pertains to nothing in particular, other than the fact that a Telstra technician has finished digging outside our house and assures us that our dodgy cable internet connection is now OK.
So I'm having a go at flickering and blogging to check if, indeed, this is the case. So far, so good....
Anyway, this is a little mock-up pattern cover I put together with some clip-art elements as practice for my InDesign course. It looks a little Christmassy, I think:
Ah, yet more rain in Sydney. What is it with this weather? Hope you are having a happy Monday wherever you may be.
December 16, 2011
Yellow tutu
A certain little girl has borrowed her big sister's end-of-year ballet concert tutu (a serious tutu of the sticking-up variety) and is wearing it here. She looks like a little angel that's fallen off the tree.
I was having a bit of fun with my Photoshop filters again: this one has the "fresco" filter applied.
It looks a little bit like that app (forget the name) that makes everything black and white except for one colour splash....
Last day of school today and a serious amount of Christmas shopping was done!
December 14, 2011
On my sewing table
My internet connection has been totally unreliable of late, hence the lack of blogging. I've been busy, though, drafting patterns and making clothes for both the girls and (get this!) myself.
The Noodlehead sew-a-long got me all inspired to make myself some summer clothes and I've been busy making and perfecting muslins. Sewing adult clothes involves so much more of a time investment, I find, and can be ultimately disappointing as sometimes a pattern just doesn't work at all.
Although I don't have any finished garment pictures to show you yet, I thought I'd share some of the patterns I've made or have on my "to do" list:
This dress is in the Top 10 finalists of the Pattern Review Best Pattern of the Year poll. For me it was a total disappointment. The sleek and simple shift that the cover photo seems to promise was not what I got at all. The smallest size looked like a shapeless sack and pulling it in with a belt didn't seem to help at all.
I tried cutting it off to make a top but it just looked like a maternity top gone wrong. An expensive mistake (the pattern was over $20) which I'll have to consign to experience....
This is a classic and really popular pattern that you can see lots of finished examples of around the blogs and flickr. It's the perfect simple top which, once you've worked out your sizing, you can adapt in so many ways.
I made a pared down version (no ruffles) in a lovely Nani Iro gauze which I'll post some pics of asap.
In the same way that the Simplicity 2599 is the perfect basic top pattern, this one is the perfect A-line skirt pattern. I needed a new denim skirt to knock about in and this worked really well for me.
This one is on my "to do" list: not sure whether I'll get around to it pre-Christmas (though I think it would make a great Christmas day dress).
I chose this because I saw the gorgeous dress Kate made to this pattern a little while back.
I've also made myself a grown-up version of my Raw Edge Ruffle Skirt for girls. I adapted the pattern so that it has a longer A-line piece from waist to knee with 2 smaller ruffles at the hem. An easy-peasy summer skirt.
By the way, I've found the sheer solid coloured fabric from Spotlight called "Bahama voile" and "cotton lawn" to be great inexpensive options for doing test runs of patterns. Those and, of course, the indispensible "Easy Trace" which is so much better than paper for tracing off patterns.
That's all for now! Photos to follow soon....
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