Owls

Hello. Thought I'd stop by and post something since I haven't for so long. It's been on my mind to do something... but then so have a lot of things! School holidays are drawing closer and my hope is to not have to be going this way and that quite so much. Believe it or not, amongst all the driving kids around, renovating and living, I have managed to do a few things that are just a teeny bit crafty. And true to form, most of them remain in mid-craft condition.

I had in my head before my youngest nephew was born in October last year, that I would like to make something for his arrival. That never did get finished - maybe one day. I started making a hexagon quilt. It was flawed from the beginning though. I made the hexagons too small and so it would take hundreds of the things to make what I had in mind. And sewing it all together by hand is so slow! That will possibly stay in the mid-craft pile forever.

After seeing a picture of a beautiful set of camping owls here, I decided I needed to make my own version for my nephew. I used some of the stack of wool felt I recently purchased off etsy, with great visions of making everything I had on my pintrest felt board.

What do you think of my progress?

I used the pattern from my Fa La La La Felt book and added the gusset piece so the owls would stand up. I think they look a bit blank. I need to stitch their eyes a little I think. Give them some personality. I quite like them. By the time I get them finished, my nephew will be one! (If I get on with the stitching of course!) I am going to make a tree stump house for them. It looks great in my head. Now if I can just translate that into action.

I have a few more things to share. I took a bunch of pictures recently of my mid-craftiness because I was going to write a whole lot for this blog. Still not there yet. And the blog renovation... I am a bit stuck on that too. Seems like it should be a simple enough project, but I can't for the life of me get that figured out. One day you'll stop by and see that I have finally figured it out.

See you another day.

Button flower hoop

I love buttons. You know that don't you? After I got the family button collection from Aunty Jill back in July last year, I was determined to make something to send her and say thanks. I have been wanting to try making some button flower hoop art. There are so many fun things that can be made in embroidery hoops :-)

One day over the summer, I was looking for something to do. Something fun. This is what I came up with. I love how it has turned out. I think I need to make one for myself actually.

As you could expect, I haven't finished it. I need to finish the back off. (Hopefully, I will get that done before July rolls around again.) I can't wait to package it up and post it off. That will be another project complete then.

Owl sleep masks

I think I might have mentioned a while ago that I am an Aunty again. Hooray for being an Aunty! I was trying to make a secret sewing project for my new nephew but now that he is a month old, I have pretty much given up on that project. You never know though. Perhaps I will revisit it with fresh eyes at a later date.

Anyway, I wanted to put together a gift for my sister-in-law that would be useful particularly at the hospital but for later as well. Something that is nearly impossible in hospital (and after you go home) is resting. You certainly don't get rest in hospital. I thought some kind of eye mask would be a great idea. It could be worn to block out the light and might give people the hint that rest is needed.

I found a tutorial for making and owl sleep mask. My sister-in-law likes owls so it seemed like a good idea.

I made the grey one for my sister-in-law and the pink on is for another friend who has just had a baby too.

They turned out really pretty. Even if that pink one is only "mostly" done, it still looks good. It felt good to make them. And so quick. I don't know how practical they will be but I like fun things. The way my family has been lately, if I have managed to do any crafting or stitching I have grabbed it with both hands!

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!

Matchbox house and doll

As I mentioned in my post here, I am trying to cut down the mid-craft pile so I can start some new projects. I have actually managed to do some stitching of late. Oh my, it does drag on! I try to do some stitching at night after the kids are in bed but that is not working because I keep falling asleep! I decided I needed to get back to stitching during the day. I do find it hard to be motivated when the kids decide they need to do sewing at the same time. Sigh. Oh well. It is actually what I want. I want them to be interested and learn about sewing. Can't have it both ways I guess.

This is the first matchbox house that I have almost, just about, nearly completely finished. This one is just about the same as the one I found on the this post here. Oops! I didn't mean to do that. I tried to change things a bit for the next two I made. Which I don't have photos of yet because - not finished yet.

I created a tiny felt doll to go inside the little house too. So that means I have to make 3 tiny felt dolls to go with the 3 tiny houses. I have also now made 3 tiny quilts and have prepared 3 tiny pillows. The tiny possibilities!

Esther, Ellamay and Amelia all seem to think these are pretty cool. So do I actually. Wish I could get away with wearing one. Soon I will have to find some ribbon to tie them with. And get some photos of the kids with them too. I really like matchbox crafts (remember the camera for Esther and Ellamay's birthday un-party) I will have to find some more crafty ideas. I was excited to find you can buy blank matchboxes from the craft shop back when we made the cameras and now I have restocked the supply so bring on the matchbox ideas.

Penguin foot cozy

This is what a foot cozy might look like if the world was ruled by me. Actually, it's a cheap black beanie that I got with visions of turning it into something ridiculous to cheer up my sister-in-law. She had broken her toes in a quilting accident (it happened at the time of quilting and was quite unrelated, but it makes a good tale). She had to sit with her foot up and couldn't do too much. So I made her a foot cozy to keep her foot warm and to give her a giggle.

I used some felt and buttons and the penguin foot cozy was created. Hopefully, that foot is well and truly on the mend. How's it feeling, Rachel? Now the foot cozy will just be another silly thing I made because it's fun to be silly and bring smiles.

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. :-)

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).

Pretty cottons and other distractions

Hi. I didn't mean to have a blogging break for so long. It just kind of happened. I am mid-craft so many things at the moment. Aside from the crafty things, I am trying to get back into the decluttering of the house again. I was going strong and then one thing and another came up... like boredom. :-) I have managed to get rid of quite a few more bags of old clothes and toys though. I have a goal in mind now so I must get serious about it. More on that later.

The kids holidays finished just after Easter. School holidays were quite full on here. Heaps of kids making. Easter crafts and anything else they could come up with. We even managed an adventure. It's good to get back to some kind of routine though.

I have just picked up a stitching project again which I started a while ago. I am having trouble concentrating on it though. A lot of sleepless nights lately. Amelia has a cough again and so I have spent a lot of nights up with her lately.

Lately, we have had sick and miserable kids - the wintery weather has brought with it the coughs and colds we hate. The kids have been creating - I have been working on lots of things for the kids to do on the pump with Amelia. Tim has been crazy busy trying to catch up at work because of all the short weeks because of public holidays around Easter. And there has been a lot of changes going on around here one way and another.

I have been completely distracted lately too because I have been googling around for inspirations for a renovation. We are planning to start working on our house, room by room, to update everything and make it lovely. Tim has started building Esther and Ellamay some loft beds which will help with the limited storage situation at our house. I am very excited and so are the girls. And I think Tim is loving to be out in his shed again.

Anyway. I should go and do something else. So many things to do and so little time. Sigh. I will be catching up with posts in the next few days (hopefully) about our Easter and adventures.

Stitchery

I have been going to my local fabric and craft shop a little too often lately. They had that spotty fabric on sale there and I had to go back to buy some more and, well, it's nice to feel inspired by fabric at the moment. My latest purchase was 1.6 metres of this osnaburg. I only just found out what osnaburg was from this post at Wild Olive. A fabulous stitchy blog I have recently stumbled upon. I was terribly excited to find the fabric and bought the remainder from the bolt. Now I am planning all kinds of stitching projects.

I have been sketching up ideas and screwing up paper and starting again. I have photocopied pictures and adjusted pictures and I have finally started one small stitching project. It won't take much of my fabric for this one :-) True to form, I have also starting making a couple of other things at the same time though. I will get around to sharing them. At the moment, why don't you just look at all that pretty cotton. Perhaps I need some more of that too :-)

Needle books

How do you store your needles? I have a pin cushion that use to take care of them but I was having trouble with little people pushing the needles right down into it. Frustrating, but again one of those things that I remember doing to my mothers pin cushion so it makes it hard to be too cross about that. :-) (Sorry Mum). This felt cloud is what I have been using lately. Although it looks kind of cute (to me anyway) it wasn't really doing the job. I have wanted to make some kind of needle book for a while now and even had a couple in the mid-craft pile (recently culled).

Since the three girls are now sewing with real needles, we are going to start working towards making up a sewing set for them while improving their sewing along the way. Good idea, don't you think? I searched flickr looking at all kinds of needle books that might be easy for kids. There were lots of great ideas and this one isn't exactly kids beginners level but the girls had an idea for what they wanted. Mostly, it had to be quick. I had seen this tutorial for a child's sewing kit a while ago, which includes a pattern for a needle book and pin cushion and thought it would do the job.

Mine is the pale blue, Amelia's is green, Ellamay's is purple and Esther's is the pink ballerina. Sticking with our regular favourite colours. Everyone got to sew the line in the middle of their needle book. I know that's not much but when there is three little girls all wanting to do theirs at the same time, you have to go with what works easiest.

They all did a pretty good job with the sewing machine. I am hoping to get Esther and Ellamay back on there some time soon to make some little bags. We have been dreaming up all the other things we need to make or buy for their sewing set. We aren't going to make the sewing box that goes with the tutorial at the moment, though I would like to try it some time.

This is the inside of my needle book. By the time we got to sewing my needle book, some one had fiddled with the sewing machine and the tension was wrong (again!). True to form, I didn't stop to try to fix it. Waste of time. It takes me forever to get it sorted out. I am an impatient sewer (sewist? Sewing type person? Whatever the word is).

I will have to get some photo's of the latest stitching the girls have done. They are pretty proud of it. Little felt hearts that turned into cushions for their Barbie's and little felt rectangles which have become mattresses for the Pony house. They want to start doing things that are more advanced. I might set them up with an embroidery hoop next and have them just do lines of stitching and perhaps learn some new stitches. They think using a hoop for stitching is a very exciting idea.

Fabric Dolls House

I am feeling pretty proud of myself. I have moments like that. This last week I finished and gifted this fabric dolls house. Our friend's daughter turned two while Amelia was in hospital so we missed her birthday. I must admit, I hadn't even given it too much thought before that. What to get for a two year old girl when she is the youngest of four? I remembered the dolls house and thought this would be perfect. This is the fourth one I have made. It is such a great pattern. And if you can cope with handing over all that work, its a great gift too.

The flowers are from lace that was on my mum's wedding dress. I stitched the pink centres.

The dolls house was a big hit with my friend. The little girl figured it out as soon as she took it home and put some things in it to cart around.

This is the one I made for Amelia over 12 months ago. When I first came across the tutorial to make these I thought it was a fabulous idea for Amelia because she could take it to the Big Building (Royal Children's Hospital) when she has her clinic visits. And it has been carted all over the place full of little toys that can be pulled out and played with anywhere.

Esther and Ellamay didn't want to be left out and so I made them one each too. They chose their fabric. They are using theirs as sewing bags now. They keep their knitting dolls and pom pom makers in there.

I made a barn for my nephew because he had received lots of Fisher Price Little People and Farms animals for his birthday last year. I thought he could take it with him places.

If you would like to make one too, head over to UK Lass in US for the tutorial. They would make a sweet Christmas gift if you could bear to part with it. And if you don't have a ridiculously long list of things to do between now and then!

Christmas sewing book

You might remember me raving about the Book Depository before because of their great book prices and worldwide free postage and here I go again. I was looking for books to buy the kids for Christmas and I found this one. Christmas things to stitch and sew. I figured since it was cheaper than me buying a magazine and because it looked cute and easy, that was good enough justification to buy it. :-) There seems to be lots of great titles under the Usborne Activities label which I wish I had have found a couple of weeks ago because they would have been perfect for my girls for Christmas. It's too late to get them here on time now. Anyway, here are some of my favourite things out of the book.

I love the angels and the wreath and the reindeer collage... well, you get the picture. The projects are all very simple so perfect for beginners or people like me who like a quick turn around on a project. I would love to make some but I think I might just be planning these for next year at this stage. It is really pretty to just look at for the time being.

Simple Christmas tree

I made this in a fit of creativity one night lately. There has been so much time spent worrying and taking care of Amelia and life that I just needed to achieve something pretty to distract me. I love making things in these embroidery hoops. And this is a spare felt tree that was half done with my felt decorations that I have already posted about. Very satisfying to finish something in one sitting.

Tshirt makeover

Here is the tshirt makeover I told you about in my last post. Amelia had worn it once or twice and then this happened. She had been painting, wearing an art smock like a good little girl. She took it off, got all washed up and then came back to check her wet art works. These things happen all the time with kids but I have never done anything about it before. The stained clothing just becomes 'at home' stuff or only gets worn underneath other things. This time I thought I would try fixing it.

Using some old baby clothes, tshirt scraps and another scrap (from Amelia's drawing book) I made this birdie on a branch. It was just going to be a birdie but then I discovered the paint at the bottom and side of the shirt so I had to think up something else. I have never done this before and I figured it looked simple enough but it was a bit tricky. I think my sewing machine is in need of a work out! It hasn't been out of the cupboard for quite a while. :-(

I hand stitched the legs. They are kind of funny. Whatever. It is still cool. What do you think? Esther and Ellamay have decided that they want some tshirts now that have pictures on them so I guess I will have to get this tshirt making thing figured out. Meanwhile, do you recognise the birdie? I used the same pattern as I did to make the eraser stamp back in June. June... that was a good craft month...

Anyway, I think I will have to google around and see if I can find some tutorials on doing tshirts like this to see if I am doing it right.

Have a great weekend :-)

Making new from a whole lot of old

I had an idea the other day. I thought I would try my hand at stitching some old and new together. Amelia had a tshirt that was in need of a makeover. After only wearing it once or twice, she managed to get paint on the front of it.

Come back and see what I did to make it better :-)

Felt Christmas decorations

I have got Christmas on the brain lately. I really want to get making Christmas stuff and feel like I am organised this year. I say that every year. Oh well, I can dream. I am a bit earlier than usual but how can I help it when the shops have had their Christmas stuff out since the end of September or something ridiculous like that.

These are some decorations I started making last year. I never quite got to finish them. Such a surprise to not be finished something! Maybe I will get them done this year. I was thinking about getting the sewing machine out and just stitching them onto cards. Might be a quicker way to finish them. Plus, that would be cute don't you think?

I have been digging around the hard drive and found some photos from the last couple of years of Christmas things so I will share those in the next few weeks.

Echidna stitching

I really wanted to make something... crafty and nice for Echidna Day. Something that wouldn't matter if it was around after Echidna Day was finished for another year.

I decided to do another stitching project in a hoop. I found this colouring page of an echidna and decreased the size I wanted. I traced it onto calico with a water soluble pen (aren't they a dandy tool to have?).

I have been trying to think up a focus for Echidna Day for a long time. After an email from a crafty friend of mine I settled upon it being a day of counting our blessings. My friend sent me a paper project she had about a month of thanksgiving. We don't celebrate Thanksgiving in Australia but I really wanted to adapt the idea of it to Echidna Day. This was perfect.

We have so many blessings to be thankful for. It is important to remember them when things get too overwhelming. In the grand scheme of things - Life is good.

This week has been a tough one. Amelia had to have a routine broncoscopy and there were complications during the procedure. We are so thankful that the medical team were able to clear her airways again and she stabilised. The day after, you would not even know anything had happened. She was happy and playing like she always does.

We are so glad that God bought such a special little person into our lives. We have been blessed with three beautiful daughters. We have a lot of blessings to count.

A stitchy visitor...

I am nearly finished him. I will share soon.

(LOOK! Something crafty!)  :-D

Tree Stitch

New stitching project in the works. The photo has turned out nice and big. Must be the new Flickr set up... I couldn't make it work before. Anyway, it's a tree. When I started it, I was making it very basic and just an outline of the tree with our family's names on it. It looked too plain when I had done that. So here is a peak at what I am up to. I should probably research some embroidery stitches so it looks like I know what I am doing. I am making it up as I go along. There are so many stitches still to be done... I don't know when it will ever be finished. And yet I am still dreaming up more stitching projects to make. Good way to distract me from still feeling lousy.

In other news, I have a few posts that I am in the middle of (how surprising!), so I hope to get them finished and up this week. Just to show I am still alive. The Crisis has been a bit neglected lately. I am working on it...