Circus Circus

They remind me of the circus. 

 Bright.

Colourful.

Fun

My favourite grundies yet

Embrace Insomnia

It gives me more hours in my day.  Hours that are uninterrupted by attending to kids every five minutes, constant visitors, answering the phone, cooking and mundane house chores. Don’t get me wrong…I love to have visitors, I love hanging out with my kids, occasionally I love to cook and I do love it when the house is tidy and organised. It’s just that I like to sew without interruptions…I like to be able to start making an item and finish making an item in one sitting before my sewing mojo gets side tracked to some other equally important task.

Up sewing tonight.  B’Day gifts for a wee guy who is three today. caj and Finny are invited to help him celebrate and since one of my NY Resolutions is to gift handmade or recycled I have been creating some funky wee…. oppps …nearly let the cat out of the bag.  I want the gift to be a surprise

So..can’t share right now but I can share a dress I made for Finny between Christmas and NY…..only it doesn’t fit Finny so Flo scored the dress. I am still to make Finny her b’day dress. Maybe in time to wear to her wee friend’s party on Saturday.

Something else to share:

HINT:  Do not try measuring your kids while they are in bed sleeping.  The measurements just don’t work out and the clothing items sewn with those measurements turn out to be way too big for the intended child.

Sneaked a little fabric

into the house.

The back room is should be my sewing room. Instead it is still packed full with boxes and bags and furniture and everything that won’t fit into the house or is still to be unpacked and sorted.

With Finny out of day naps I cleared out her nappy shelves to put to a bettter use. Yep….I sneaked a little fabric into the house. I hate going out at night…. in the dark to the back room… to hunt for fabrics that I may or maynot find. And since I do most of my sewing at night I thought why not have a little stash here in the house.

I brought in some cotton wovens (I  have some dresses on my to do list that need to be done soon) and some cotton/lycra (to help feed my current obsession with making underwear) and folded them tightly to fit into the cupboard. 

I’m amazed at how much I could squeeze into a very narrow (depth wise) cupboard.  Might have to clear out a few more shelves in favour of my stash:-)

Boxing Day Britches in Action

Just a few pics

Boxing Day Britches

I’d been wanting to cut into my stash of cotton / lycra for a long time. Finally, once the stress of christmas sewing was over I was free to start.

First up was for Finny.

With her giving up on her day nappies (diapers for those of you who are American / Canadian) I was having a problem finding wee undies that fitted her well.  If I got them big enough to cover her butt they were gaping at the legs, the elastic was often too tight and the fabric they are normally made out of stretches out of shape with the first wash. Our darling wee girl was having to make do with her big brother’s underwear.

Not anymore

All up she has 10 new pairs of Boxing Day Britches. (So named because they were sewn up on Boxing day)

Once I realised I could sew up knickers that looked ok my mind started ticking away at an alarming rate. After a night of drawing, adjusting, sewing, back to the drawing board again,   it took three prototypes to come up with a comfy pair of undies that I was happy to wear.

The final product is yet to be photographed due to a trial run to check for comfort and fit. I took the best features of the above two and melded them together into one

By now Zel and Flo were begging for mama made undies so another eight were  sewn up.

Yes…I know there aren’t eight of them in the pic. They were sewn up a few days ago and the others are either in use of languishing in the laundry basket.

One sad wee boy was feeling very left out. He’d picked out his fabrics days ago and was waiting not so patiently. Today was Caj’s day to have new grundies.

Bottom left was the original pattern from Ottobre but I was not happy with how it looked or how fiddly and time consuming it was so I made some adjustments to the pattern. All up I made him 5 pairs. The bright stripes are to have yellow binding….need to go buy some yellow cotton tomorrow. Murphy’s Law…I have every colour but yellow. I have an idea in my head to draft a pattern of my own but as that would be another day’s work and I wanted to get these finished in one day I have put it off for another time.

Fabric Score

Wow doing good so far…..second day of the year…second blog.

Visited a beach side gala day today and browsed the stalls.

It was so hot that I needed a sunhat. My friend Taya was there selling her wares and I came away with this one.

A reversible sunhat with a large brim. I prefer the plain side

I also scored some unique hand printed fabric off cuts.

Not sure what these will end up being morphed into but just couldn’t walk on by and leave them sitting there. Although I did say I was stash busting I did not make any NY Resolutions not to buy any more  fabric…’specially interesting unique fabrics.

But I do know what this will become. It is a poly/cotton mix that I am hoping will stretch for a skirt for me. It’s not often that I sew for myself but have a few pieces of fabric sitting here just waiting.

But first I have promised one wee guy some items that he is hankering over. He’s picked out the fabrics and every morning for the past few days he has woken and asked if I’ve done them…so off to sew for him now.

Home-crafted Christmas and New Year Resolutions

Happy New Year  to all my friends and family. (Not sure if any of my family actually read this or even know about the world of blogging.)

Peace, Love and Blessings for the year ahead, 2010

New Years Resolutions. I would love to say a blog a day but being realistic I will settle for a blog a week. Count anything more than that a bonus

Some pics of what kept me busy and sleep deprived the week before Christmas.

These are half of them. I ended up making 15 of them for children and grandkids and one for a Secret Santa Swap. For over a week I pondered about santa sacks and how to morph pillow cases into santa sacks so that they didn’t look like boring old pillow cases. Then one night in the early hours of the morning it came to me (2.30am to be precise when all good ideas are born). I’d make tote bags that could be Santa sacks on Christmas day and then be used all year around. Perfect.  I made up a pattern (with the help of an old silk bag that was long past it’s use by date) , hunted through my stash and got sewing. To tell you the truth…by the time I had half of them sewn up I was well and truely over tote bags so it seemed to take an age to complete them all. I am one of those crafters that once I have made one or three I am bored and ready to move onto something else. Well worth it in the end as they were well recieved and are in use most days.

Hand dyed wool (think it was Jet) for part of my Secret santa gift. Was pleased how this turned out as I am always unsure how the finished product will look.

I took part in three Christmas decoration swaps and for all of them I made the same decoration …. a string of knitted Christmas Tree Lights. I absolutely love them. Ran out of time to make some for our home … a good reminder for me to start my christmas preparation very early .. not a week out from the big day. (tell a lie….managed to get one of these made fairly early in the month)

Now the items I enjoyed making the most and have not had enough of making them yet.(though yet to get back to making more)

Beautiful skirts (yes I am biased as any mother is when they look at their own child) made with a mix of retro / recycled / new fabrics (again all from stash)

And my favourite one of all

This gorgous girl started life as a pot holder. I rescued her from the hospice shop for a mere $1 and for a long time she languished amongst my stash. I could just never think what to do with her.  Finally she has had a makeover and found a new resting place…one that I think suits her very well.

I also made two more skirts…one that is sitting on my ironing board waiting for binding to be pinned to the hem and one that was gifted to my grand-daughter before I thought to take a pic.

Watch this space for more colourful creations. I am declaring 2010 the year of stash busting.

I Just Couldn’t Resist

replacing our old chipped coffee mugs with a few of these ‘Sip One Knit One’ coffee mugs from the local Spotlight 20% off sale this week. I don’t know what it i swith coffee cups in this house. Everytie someone comes around all I can find is broken chipped mugs. Mugs that I am embarrassed to offer to my friends.  Now it feels great to be able to offer them coffee in such beatiful mugs (or is that me just being biased as I have an obsession with knitting)

Gorgous, aren’t they?

It has been one of those frustrating weeks where I have been bsy with WIP (Works in Progress) bt not  alot finished …that was until late this afternoon  when I sewed up some bunting flags for Miss17-tomorrow’s b;day.

A night of cutting the flags, 3 hours of decorating the edges with pinking shears  had me wondering why an earth I’d started.  late this afternoon I got a chance to pt them together and knew why I’d bothered. I jst get so excited with fabric and colour. This bunting has no particular theme other than to be bright and stand out. I’m sure it will look great strung between the trees toorrow at the local park. In the mean time I just had to try them  out so strung them in the house for Miss17 to wake up to in the morning.

I have  a couple of knitting projects on the go at the moment.  Number one on the list to be completed is a Spring Butterfly  top/cardy… designed by my friend Rachel who  comes up with the cutest wee tops for girls.

To finish off…I found this pic lying on the floor ….  not sure which of my wee artists did this but since I have a soft spot for rainbows and bright colours I wanted to share.

Untangled and Lost

in Crafty Blogs.

I am attempting to keep up with nurturing my new found  crafty mojo by taking time out each day .  Todays project was not hard at all…. shouldn’t have taken long at all ……that was until I saw the tangle that the beautiful hand dyed yarn was in.

It took more than a couple of hours to get the yarn wound up into two small balls.  After that it didn’t seem long at all before the yarn morphed into some very girly crocheted squares. I love to crochet…it reminds me of my nana Ruby who taught me to crochet many years ago. I made my first crochet blanket when I was 11/12.  I remember taking it into school to work on it in my lunch break….even back then I was facinated by colours and impatient to put them together to see the finished article.

It was no different this time as I was impatient to see how this pretty verigated yarn crocheted up. Yarn that I had hand dyed a few years ago on a girly/crafty weekend and has sat in my stash waiting for inspiration to strike. Yay for a little more stash busting.

The lighter one reminds me of strawberry yogurt and the darker one of blackberry smoothie.

I have been spending my evenings getting lost in crafty blogs.  All thanks to my friend Sheryl from Shortly Stitches who has signed up for Blogtoberfest.  I followed a link…and then another…and then I was lost and before I realised it was 5am in the morning and the sun was about to come up.

For  those of you who get excited about fabric and knitting and general craftiness here are a few that I have been looking at.

Jo from Crazy Crafter NZ has a give away of an interchangable needle case and some accessories (no..no needles) running. Head on over and sign up and while you are there take a look at  her blog. She has an easy felt needle case tutorial there. Wish I had seen that last week when I made my wee gifties. I just thought it out in my head from a memory of my mum’s one when I was a kid.

I have stumbled upon Humel at I Speak Melsh who creates cute craftiness from paper. Check out her tutorial for a mirror frame. The finished frame is beautiful.  Humel is another that is generously gifting some craftiness away for Blogtoberfest. Check it out here to enter.

ust when I thought I was heading to bed for the night I found my way to  Melanie who has crocheted the most awesome jug cover and is giving away a crochet tea cosy. I haven’t had time to go through her blog yet (bed is calling) but just had to share her crochet with you.  Just looking at that beautiful cover she has made has inspired me to check out some crochet patterns and learn to read them.

Creative Friends

Lately I have had many reasons to be thankful for friends.

My friend Sheryl came for a visit (she’s the skinny one)

Sheryl knits (and she sews)…she  manages to complete so many projects that I am in awe. Now I know her secret. I’m sure she won’t mind me sharing it with you all. She has about 3 knitting projects on the go and whenever she sits down she has her needles in her hand.  I tried this for two days and it really works…a row here and a row there and you’d be surprised at how much knitting has been achieved by the end of the day. Sheryl had some beautiful project bags that I drooled over and now she is running a give away for a similar bag filled with goodies over at  Shortly Stitches 

My friend Kat turned up to my house this week with a simple but stunning b’day cake for Caj who was turning 5. 

With the b’day quilt consuming every spare minute I didn’t even give a thought to a cake. Thanks Kat for saving the day and putting a big grin on one wee boy’s face. Also Kat made some summer pajammas for Caj which he absolutely loves (and I haven’t had time to photograph yet)

And a big thanks to my friend Michelle (no blog as far as I know) who had me arrive and take over her sewing machine, livingroom and evenings (well into the next day) two nights in a row. She encouraged me and shared her skills to enable me to make a very special quilt.