Happy 1st Birthday!

Rowan turned one on Wednesday!

It's a cliche but this has been the fastest year yet.

I've just returned to work too so hopefully I can work on my blog a bit easier now!

Recent makes...

Recent makes

I thought I'd do a round up of the recent making that's been going on around here, all baby related I'm afraid!

First up a toy bucket, a basic rectangle on a circular base, in Ikea fabric with some batting inside

Next up Bucket Hat from the Oliver & S 'Little Things to Sew' book, this was much easier than I thought and I'm really hapy with how it turned out. The red fabric is from Witney Sewing Shop and the dots my Mum picked up from the FoQ last year.

A Clothkits for Rowan, apart from the button-holes this took 1 day to put together, I love how simple they are, literally cut and go! I got this from the Sewing with Pleasure at the NEC.

Big stack of re-usable wipes, I raided my stash for old jersey,fleece, towelling & cotton flannel and cut into rough squares. Some I hemmed together with zig-zag, some I tried my over-casting foot on, looks weren't important as long as they were functional.

I'm using the wipes solution from Amanda Blake Soule's 'Handmade Home'

1tbsp Almond Oil

1tbsp Dr Bonner Baby Soap

1 drop of Lavender Oil

1 drop of Tea Tree Oil

3/4 cup water

I dip the cloths into the mixture in a jug, squeeze out the excess and store them in a tupperware, any leftover solution gets put into a jar.  When soiled they go into the nappy bucket and get washed with the Motherease cloth nappies (I'm a recent convert, I got some on eBay recently to try and am hooked, wished I'd tried them earlier. I recommend using Eco-balls with nappies as I was having to repeatedly rinse after washing to get the bubbles out)

Lastly, we have some baby bubble pants from Anna-Maria Horner's 'Handmade Beginnings', made from some blue corduroy (men's trousers from the charity warehouse £1) and lined with more of the Ikea print!

These were really easy, like her maternity tunic I got a bit bogged down in the text instructions, think I'm more of a follow the pictures type! I'm eager to make more of these as with the cloth nappies, all trousers are now tricky to fit! Rowan is a chunky but at 8mths for trousers/leggings she's in 12-18mths to get them over her large botty!

So making is happening here, slowly, but getting round to blogging is the hard bit, it doesn't help that our laptop is getting older & slower,  I'm seriously thinking about returning to work only to get my hands back on my mac and having access to a colour printer!!

Happy Jubilee Weekend

 Happy Jubilee Weekend

Hope you've all managed to have some Jubilee fun (in the dry!)

Bibs & Badges

 I've been making a few of these dribble bibs.

Rowan's a monster dribbler, she got her 1st two teeth at 5mths but is still constantly drooling and soaks through her tops very quickly.

I made a rough triangular pattern and used up some of my fat quarters and for the backing used those cheap towels I got from Ikea and also some old terry towelling sheets I got from the charity shops.

 I really like them, I even use them for feeding as they look nicer and get in to the folds of her pudgy neck!

My other latest project is badges!  

I'd been watching badge makers on eBay and finally got one with lots of the actual badge parts as well, it's a London Emblem one and does 55mm badges and I love it, it's really easy to use and I'm currently experimenting with different fabrics/papers to put together some nice badges to sell, as I'm trying to think about putting together an Etsy shop!

Vintage Fashion & Textile Fair..belatedly

 Here are some of the goodies I picked up from the Vintage Fashion & Textile Fair at Chipping Sodbury last February, my Mum & me had a good time even if we did have to pay a £1 entrance fee :( 

A sign of the times?

I ummed & ahhed over these buttons but couldn't resist, I picked up a plain white baby dress and I'm thinking of adding these and some large patch pockets....

 I was on a mission to get buckles and I struck lucky on several stalls

More umming & ahhing but I've been after a good tablecloth for a while, this was from Cowboys & Custard

As a bit of competition, around the corner in Chipping Sodbury there was a rival vintage fair, I'm a sucker for a new corsage!  There was also a fantastic lady who'd painted small pebbles into animals and the detail on these tiny stones were amazing, I got two small guinea pig ones which I must hunt out of the children's bedroom and take a snap of.

Chipping Sodbury also has a real lovely toy shop with lots of good quality wood toys:  Purple Parrot

so we were able to get Rowan her own name set, as both the older girls have theirs on their bedroom door.

 

This Saturday I do believe it's the Vintage Jumble in Rangeworthy,  it's a bit too much of a drive for me, we're off to the NEC on Sunday instead for the Sewing for Pleasure show. Hope to do some fabric shopping! Anyone else going?

Blow away the cobwebs

Well it's been a while, I lost my crafty & blogging mojo for a bit.  Too much real life getting in the way!

But the sun is out, I've been a busy housewife and want to get back to catching up in blogland.

Today Rowan's been mostly doing:

New dress from last weekends NCT sale, leggings from eBay and complimenting the Hungry Caterpillar quilt which I finally finished last month!

I really enjoyed it but found that machine quilting (esp. free motion) is NOT as easy as it looks!

Will be putting my new Janome through it's paces and doing some more practice.

Looking forward to a trip to the NEC on Sunday hopefully (without kidlets too) for the Sewing for Pleasure show ...will try and remember my camera

Sewing Mojo

The mornings may be colder but you can't beat a sunny winter's morning.

I think I must be solar-powered, as it really get's me moving!

 You may have caught a peek at my Christmas present (to myself!) in the Dolly Sling post..I'm sooo happy to finally have a fully working sewing machine!

I've got a Janome DC3050, from eBay for £180 and she's lovely!

I've got feet and stitches I don't know what to do with but it's the basic's I love, the ability to feed material through with no pushing or pulling and having adjustable speed control - it's effortless.

So after feeling nervous about actually using her instead of gazing wistfully at her, I jumped straight in, not worried about technique or looks, just getting down to some simple sewing. You know that feeling where you don't care how it turns out as it's the actual process of doing it that's the fun bit?

Which is fortunate as with the project below, I forgot to leave the opening for turning out and had to unpick and (hurrah!) do More sewing!!

So firstly I've finished Rowan's Christmas present!

The rectangle of knitting has now been backed with this gorgeous giraffe safari print and I added in a few ribbon taggies around the edges.

I've had a go at making a dribble bib, using a hungry caterpillar fat quarter and an old terry towelling cot sheet. Used one of the machines fancy stretch stitches for it as it didn't feed properly with a straight stitch.

 

A last minute project is a Kirtle! My daughter is having a Tudor day which requires a costume, so I found on the Hampton Court Palace website an actual pattern for a girls tudor style bodice dress.

I'm only loosely following the instructions as it doesn't need to be accurate. I got the green fabric from the charity shop for £3 and also bought a child's dress for the net underskirt for £3.

Lastly is my largest project, still in progress, the Hungry Caterpillar quilt, I got this from the Festival of Quilts in August and have just started it, hopefully it will be a play mat for Rowan.

It's really simple, the hardest part for me is cutting straight lines with my rotary cutter and too-small cutting mat (bigger is definitely better!) and then sewing a straight line! It's harder then it looks, would love a 1/4" foot for the machine!

Still I'm enjoying it and I think it'll look great when finished.