Lincoln's notebook and pen roll holder

Amelia's best friend turned four recently. Amelia thought they were like twins now because they are both four. :-) Isn't that cute. Anyway, we decided Lincoln needed one of my notebook and pen roll holders since both his older sister's had one and they use them all the time. I haven't made a boy one before though so I wasn't sure what kind of colours or fabrics to use.

Amelia picked out the fabric. That made my life easier. It looked a little plain so I added the felt circle on the front with Lincoln's name stitched on there. I really like the way it turned out. I think if I make anymore of these with the plain fabric, I will have to add some stitched felt on top.

I have to make one for his little sister now. Her birthday is at the end of the month. Nothing like a deadline to get some motivation! I just hope I can get it done!

Dresden Plate

A couple of months ago, I signed up to receive a newsletter that I came across on one of my regular reads, One Crafty Mumma. It is called Teapot. You can read all about it and sign up for it over here.

The first issue included a tutorial on making a Dresden plate. I have seen these around but didn't know what they were called and they are always in the more traditional quilting colours. I like bright and colourful these days. It seemed easy enough and seeing it in more modern patterns made it look more appealing so I decided to give it a try.

I printed the templates and traced up the wedge pieces. Half of the pieces of fabric are from my new stash. The other fabric was from dresses the girls used to wear (like in this cushion cover I started) and some was from my mum's vintage stash.

Once I got going it came together really quickly. I numbered all the pieces so I wouldn't get the order wrong.

This photo is not as bright as the real thing. I really like this colour combination. I am actually using it for the colour inspiration for Esther and Ellamay's new room. I might even make this into a cushion for their room. Maybe.

I haven't finished it yet. Everything got busy at home right after I got this far and I am still trying to get back to it. I would like to make another one of these too. With all the hand stitching involved I found it quite relaxing.

I bought some really awful cushions on sale a few weeks ago for only $2 each just so I could use the inserts out of them. I really should get on with the cushions again. Now I have them I shouldn't be making excuses about them. You know except for all the other stuff I am mid-crafting :-)

Have a great week.

A little fabric situation

I have been having a little fabric situation. More of a big situation. I seem to have suddenly accumulated a lot of fabric. It was falling down out of the shelves and the big plastic box that I was using for storage was suddenly full too. It sounds like I have been buying up on it too much doesn't it. I will admit I have probably bought a bit extra lately. I have been sewing more too. (I was anyway.)

I saw this great idea to make mini fabric bolts. Mine are quite so neatly cut. I think they still look pretty good though.

I used foam board for the bigger pieces of fabric and small mat board for the fat quarters. I am not done yet. I still have some more to wrap around their new home but it already makes me feel like I have achieved something with the mess. I guess I will just leave the scrappy bits in a box for the moment until I can work out what to do with it.

Once it's all done, then I can go and buy some more...

Have a great week

Call him Art

It was my younger sister's birthday the day before Esther and Ellamay's. She is an artist. She is at university studying fine arts. Least I think that is what the course is called. Anyway, she is an artist. So for her birthday I made her a notebook and pen holder. It needed something else though. Here is what I made for her last year. We kind of have a running moustache thing. So I found out her favourite paint brushes and then turned it into a him. Meet Art.

He took me quite a while to stitch. Too many lengthy breaks in between. Anyway, I quite like him. I stitched on the face last and he suddenly had some personality then. Thankfully. I was terribly worried I was stitching him in vain and he would be neither funny or friendly.

I love the texture of his bristly hair. And the moustache of course. :-)

Cushions

Do you like lots of cushions at your house? I like them. I don't like how much they cost for the pretty ones though. Especially with small children around who play with them, fight with them and spill stuff on them. As I mentioned in this post, we are planning some renovations come Spring time. This means a few pieces of new furniture. Goodbye green, blue and brown check lounge suite, hello modern dream charcoal modular suite. I have been reading up house magazines and spotting all the handmade ideas that can be thrown into the mix to soften the modern look I am after.

Back to cushions. We have some on our couch. They are the ones that came with it. They are green, blue and brown check just like the lounge suite. Blerk. I have always meant to make some new covers. We have had that thing for over 11 years now and I still haven't done it. (That didn't even make it to the mid-craft pile!)

Renovation planning is a little boring without action. So I am going to make cushions. I bought this book for myself for Mother's Day and have decided to make cushions out of it. It uses free motion stitching on applique. A more modern way to applique than I learnt way back when I learnt to sew at school.

It is so divine. When I look at the pictures, I almost believe I could just sit down and whip up one of these in no time. Of course, I know I don't actually do that. Maybe one day, if I could sit down at my sewing machine and work with it regularly... I might remember which settings do what and I wouldn't have to teach myself all over again every time I used it. :-)

This is the first cushion I would like to attempt. So pretty.

Here is what I have done so far. I have chosen all the fabric - an old pillow case, 2 of the kids old dresses and some fabric from Mum's stash. Not a bad effort really.

I even went to the sewing machine shop and bought a new foot for free motion stitching. The woman that served me lectured me on the fact that you don't use a free motion foot for applique. I didn't like her. She did show me how to do free motion stitching though. So I guess I like her a little bit. :-)

This is some fabric I bought on a trip to Spotlight recently. It is all meant to be for cushions. It looks so pretty on my shelf. I would like to get the sewing machine out sometime in the next week but then I was saying the same thing last week.

I am mid-crafting a few things at the moment. Some to do with the birthdays that are coming up in our family and some just because I suddenly had an idea. I will have to get some pictures taken so that I can post what has been keeping me so busy. What are you up to at the moment?

Thinking about birthdays

Esther and Ellamay are going to be 7 in June. As they are about to be 7, they no longer want "baby stuff". Yikes! Trying to work out what will be good gifts is a bit tricky. I decided to go with some creative gifts. I like to encourage their creativity because I want them to grow up being able to look at something and have the skills to make it themselves if they want to.

Using my vast collection of acrylic felt, I cut out some simple shapes that they can practise their sewing skills on. I also cut out some Little Pink Houses and some owls. Follow the links to find the patterns for them. The owl is actually a pattern for a teething toy. I thought if they don't feel like sewing some of these, the shapes can be glued onto a canvas as a cute picture for the wall. I have packaged each felt project in little click bags and even printed the little house picture out so Esther and Ellamay had a reference for it.

These are some other bits and pieces I have bought for their kit. I am including some coloured elastic head bands that they can sew some of the felt shapes onto.

I have also bought some kids stitching books. I will share those another day though. (Need to take more pictures).

Green spotty skirt

I am in recovery mode at the moment. I had a terrible migraine at the end of last week so I have been sick and suffering all weekend. I am really over feeling so off too. Today I am pretending not to have any headache at all (even though there is still a little head soreness going on) and I am trying to be useful. Tim took care of me and everything else while I was sick so today I am trying to achieve some things around the house.  I am on a break at the moment though :-D

During the last week, I have been sewing. First I made Amelia's green spotty skirt from the fabric she had claimed in the previous week. It is such an easy skirt to make. It took me under an hour but I am sure it could be made faster if I didn't have another pair of hands helping me. It turned out great. Amelia tried it on when it was finished and didn't want to take it off.

She is such a poser! Do you recognise the birdie top I made last year? I still haven't attempted anymore of these tops. Like everything, it's on the to-do list still. I also made Esther and Ellamay a skirt each last week (photo's to come) and another notebook and pen roll holder. Not a bad effort for my week I thought. Not sure that the momentum will continue now that Tim starts back at work tomorrow :-(

Here are some photos I had to share. I bought a cheap remote for my camera and so Amelia and I had a play with it. I took the one above. (That's me with Amelia, by the way. *Waving*) I still have my glasses on after finishing sewing the skirt.

This one Amelia took of herself. You can see the remote in her hand. She thought it was fantastic to be able to take photos with Mummy's camera and not even touch it. I thought that was good too. It's such a heavy camera for a little girl to hold. We walked around the yard together and she would just stop and point the remote at the camera and start jumping around and posing. Most of the photos were pretty blurry but it was fun. Maybe I will get in some photos more now.

I guess I had better finish up. So far today I have only managed a little housework and I have baked some brownies. There is still lots to do before bed time though.

Have a great week.

New notebook and pen holder

Here is the latest project I have been working on. My new (hopefully improved) notebook and pen holders.

Actually, I am calling them notebook and pen roll holders. Does that make sense? Now that I have typed that it kind of looks like it's a holder for notebook and pen roll's. Hmm... Oh well. Maybe you can see what I am getting at when you look at the pictures.

When I made the notebook and pen holders for Esther and Ellamay's birthday's last year, I followed a couple of tutorials I found but mostly just made it up as I went because I wanted the notebook to be held in a different way. The way I made the last ones only had space for ten pens too. I had bought packs that had twelve pens. My solution to this last year was to leave out the grey and the dark blue pen. I figured they would use the other colours more and they could have the extra pens if they wrecked any of the ones they had. This time though, I decided I would make the holder have enough spaces for the full set.

I measured and figured and made a pattern. I wasn't really sure how it would end up but I didn't let that stop me :-) Once I had finished the sewing I put in the pens and notebook. It didn't look right just having it folded in half so I just folded the pens on top of themselves to put it away and think about it for a while. I kept coming back to it and decided that it looked pretty cool they way I had packed it up. So there it was. I attached the button and smiled. A finished project.

I made two pretty quickly (aka: over a couple of days - I had help from Amelia you see) and have two more cut out ready to sew. I now have an excuse to go and buy some more colours of this fabric. The little girl who received the pink one loved it which makes me happy that I persisted with the project and that it didn't disappear into the mid-craft pile (as so many projects often do). And Esther and Ellamay told me that everyone in their class wants one now. It looks like I will be getting a lot better at sewing these too :-)

Meanwhile, don't you just love pretty pens all lined up. I do. Stationery is lovely. I think I might add one of these for me to the list. I deserve one too. What colours to make it though?

Ready to sew

This is some of the fabric I am using to make the new notebook and pen holders I am working on for upcoming birthday's. So pretty. I hope to go back to buy some more this week. I have been so productive making things that I really need some more. :-) Well, almost. I don't usually make things so quickly when I buy fabric. Usually it sits there until I can think of what to do with it. There was lots of colours and I want to buy more. And thread. I never think to buy matching thread. Amelia has claimed the green spotty fabric for a skirt. I guess that is on the list with the other stuff to do.

I will post the notebook and pen holders in the next couple of days. Have a great week.