Made a bag for me too! Japanese Koi handbag

Finally something for me! This is a hand/nappy bag made from the same pattern as the "Not so green" grocery bags but in different dimensions. I even put set in pockets into the lining. I was going to make it sedate with the brown fabric on the outside and the koi lining peeping out from the inside, but at the last minute I decided to be BOLD! My sister gave me a voucher at a fabric store for my birthday and this is one of the things I made- Thanks Emma!

Yikes- Pink Skull PJ's

I have to wonder about my children sometimes! I took my eldest, 7.5 yr old Elizabeth, to Spotlight to pick out some fabric for some summer PJ's. She can USUALLY be relied upon to pick something super cute and girly. But this trip she fell in love with some hot pick fabric with black and white skulls on it! I convinced her to add in some black spots to break it up a bit. Elizabeth also picked the pattern (simplicity 4767). (Un)fortunately there was enough fabric to make a second pair of PJ's, the second pair had the skulls on the bottom and a spotty top (below) . I didnt quite have enough fabric to add the sleeves in, so I used a different pattern I had to make this capped sleeve version (Simplicity 5119). It looks very sweet on.

Happy Birthday George!!

My sweet little man was 1 on the 17th November. He had a little party at the local park straight after school, so all his sisters friends could attend (That would be called rent-a-crowd. Poor third child has no little friends of his own). Because this is my craft blog I have focused the pictures around the things I made for his party.

Now I cant actually take all the credit for the cake. I made the actual cake (in my new Thermomix), and dreamed up the theme but left my Mum to put it all together while I went off to have a pedicure on the morning of Georges Party (a gift received on my own birthday 3 days before). She did a much better job of it than I would have.
Georges big sisters, Elizabeth and Matilda, and I made a "Curious George" Pinata for the party. Thats Matilda showing him off before he got thrashed with a big stick. It took us about 2 weeks to make, but it was pretty straight forward to do. We did have a couple of hiccups along the way. He was actually supposed to hang by his tail, but once I filled him up with lollies he was too heavy and fell to the floor, leaving his tail hanging nicely on the curtain rod. And when he was half finished him a friend dropped by and when she saw him she remarked that I had what looked like a dead pig hanging on the curtain rail! Charming!
George disemboweled. Thats me in case your wondering what I look like.

More not-so-green grocery bags

I tried out various weight fabrics and using a plastic outer for some of the bags (the plastic is bought by the metre in the table ware section of Spotlight). Next bag project is to make a smaller "handbag/nappybag" size for myself. My favs are the black/white one and the choc/metallic blue one. These are all christmas gifts.

Not-So-Green Grocery bag

Searching around for christmas gift idea's I struck upon making some "Green shopping bags" (like those you can buy from Coles supermarkets for $1 each) in much more interesting fabrics than is usually offered. My idea is that I will fill the Not-So-Green bag with things like Beer/wine and appropriate small childrens toys and present one to each family in the extended family network. The Mum keeps the bag and everyone else fights over the contents.




Using some monochrome 5" squares I picked up in a bargain bin as the fabric, butterick pattern 5824 for basic instructions and a cut up Green coles bag for a template I created my masterpiece! Mwa ha ha ha ha. I have a few adjustments to make to the next lot, but I am happy enough with this one to present to my Dads wife for her birthday next week (I will fill with some gourmet grocery items.






It looks smaller than than a original Green shopper bag, but the black base from one fits nicely inside.

















Folded.

Dinosaur raggedy quilt

I found some inspiration in Helens blog (http://patchwork-of-mini-grey.blogspot.com/2007/09/wip-wednesday-week-38-end-of-raggedy.html) and decided to make a raggedy quilt using these fabrics and her excellent instructions. Completed Nov 2007 for a Dec 25th christmas present.

My daughter, Elizabeth, got right in on this project and drew the chalk likes on all the squares for me.

I love the end result- doing the raggedy design was simple but I did find that it actually takes much more time than traditional quilting. Although it was handy not to have to find a large piece of floor on which to lay out, sandwhich and pin the layers of the quilt together. I guess that would make this method good for larger projects like single/double bed quilts.


















He has a modern looking cot, funnily enough called the childcare modena, and this quilt with its deep rusty/greeny colours will look fabulous in it. The cot converts to a toddler bed, so he will get plenty of use out of the quilt, and the colours/fabric will suit an older boy very well I think.

Frankenstein nappy

I had a nappy that shut with snaps and it was driving me crazy. On the whole I prefer snaps but the fit on this nappy wasnt so good due to a lack of snap settings. The snaps also went through all the layers of the nappy and being a pocket nappy I couldnt get any absorbancy at the front of the nappy- which is right where a little boy needs it the most . I decided to have a go at replacing the snaps with velcro.
First you take a hammer and bang each snap to split the cap.

The snap then falls out, leaving a small hole in the fabric.

I then upicked the front waistband of the nappy so I could insert a piece of PUL on the inside and velcro on the outise. (I didnt have to do this, A simpler way would have been to sew the vecro to both the inner and outer layer of the nappy. This particualr nappy is a pocket nappy and I wanted to be able to stuff the nappy right up the front, so I needed to have the velcro attached to the PUL outer only) . I also slipped bits of PUL inside each wing and pinned velcro in the appropriate places.

View of the inside of the nappy showing the extra pul in place. This will stop urine leaking out the little holes left by the removed snaps.

Velcro sewn in place and the waistband stitched shut again.













Dodgy sewing to match the dodgy holes left by the snaps.

















My little treasure modelling the nappy. It fits much better now and I love that I can stuff it up the front properly.

Catherine's birthday quilt

My younger Sister, Catherine, has a birthday in November and I promised her a quilt as a present. She came to the store and picked out these fabrics. Soft browns and creams with the tiniest splash of red. I thought it was going to be too plain (I kept trying sneak in more red fabrics), but actually I find it really restful and perfect for where she wants it.