Tin whistle... oh for the last, like, 3 months.

If it was in my "To Blog" folder I have blogged it, regardless of whether you have seen it before.


A friend of mine asked me if I would make her boys (10, 8 and 3) some shorts. She went and sourced her own fabric (or rather she let her boys pick, hence the rather dubious prints) so I decided to use an Ottobre pattern and she could just pay me for my time. I chose "zoom" which is from ... ummmm I cant remember LOL. I think it might be Ottobre 2/2009. I will edit back in the details when I find the right magazine!

The size 8 shorts. These were the 134cm size with some length taken out of the legs.
The size 1o pairs. I made the 134cm size.

For her 3 year old boy I made my usual tin whistle Explorer shorts, and out of some left over fabric I made her a freebie matching Lazydays hat.

Some pram hoods and liners I made a couple of months ago.

This is my usual tin whistle hangbag with a little flap and oversized button added. I think it makes it look like a little dinky handbag and might add it as a standard feature.

Guess what girls??? Kath Kidston (of gorgeous fabric fame) has teamed up with Maclaren to make this spunky little, limited edition stroller. This isnt mine but I did get the opporunity to oggle it and model my hangbag on it.

This is the ingenious Icandy Pear pram. In australia is sold as tirshe Valco Rad, but we dont have the cool add-on doubles kit that the parent company Icandy sells with theirs. A customer that owns this pram asked me to make some liners for her. I had to adjust my unversal liner because the Pear seats are quite an unusual shape. The Icandy pram will soon be stocked in Australia, so if you are looking for a clever and multifunctional double pram then make sure you check it out (and then get me to make you some pram liners for it!)

Happy birthday George

We had a cheapo store-bought icecream cake to eat on his actual birthday and then I made a cake for his party a few days later.

Are you ready for this... its the worlds lamest cake :blush:

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Spongebob with boils and pustules. Bwa ha ha ha ha (boils are supposed to be his spongey bits LOL).

My little man turned 3... I just need to get him out of nappies and we've left the baby years behind for ever!

ABBA Arrival

Elizabeth was invited to an ABBA Arrival birthday party and had to dress up as a disco chick. I made her this pair of flares using 1m of shiny rainbow stretch purchased from spotlight. I just used a basic pants pattern and added a wide frill to the bottom.

Polkadot table runners

I strip-pieced these as one huge piece of fabric and then sliced it twice accross the stripes to create 3 strippy table runners. You could easily do something similar with a jelly roll of fabric (But I bought polkadot fabric off the bold and then cut it in strips 1"- 3" wide)

Once sandwiched I decided to give myself the opportunity to practice some different quilting idea's. On the first runner I quilted 'in the ditch' using red thread. I quite like the simplicity of this and that is doesnt detract from the sharp contrast between the red/white polkadots.

On the second runner I decided to really try and master stiple/meander FMQ in white thread. At first I didnt try too hard not to loop, figuring it was better to actually have a loop and keep the curly organic shape happening, rather than create sharp corners when I veered away from a loop. By the end of the quilt I really felt like the whole "stiple" motion had clicked into place and that I was acheiving an even stitch length most of the time. On the back, however, the tension went a bit funny in a couple of places so I still have a bit to go before I really feel like I have mastered the stipple!

For the third runner I really felt like trying some sort of fee-hand motif down each strip. For the fatter strips I quilted some flowers- they are very wonky, but that is completely the look I was after. On the white strips I used white thread and on the red strips I used red thread, just to make sure the flowers werent too obvious!
This is the backing fabric, and I bound each runner with a candycane stripe.
My favourite runner is the one with the wonky flower quilting, but when I showed them to my mum she preffered the one with the open stipple. She liked this one because the quilting was more obvious, but thats the reason I dislike it. To me the quilting is an accompaniment to the quilt while the fabric/piecing is the melodu- so the quilting should support the fabric/piecing but never outshine or detract from it.

Fete wrap up

So much to tell you about and so little time! I shall start with the Fete. OMG it was a HUGE day. I got to school at about 7am to start setting up my stall. My fellow craft stall organisers arrived not long after and we got on with the task of dressing the tables and laying out the stock. The Fete was due to open at 10am but by 9.30am there were already large crowds laying in wait! The treasurer didnt run us down our stall floats until minutes before 10am (to make sure we didnt start selling early!) so I took time out at about 9.50am to snap these shots of the craft stall. You cant see much in this first photo because of all the crowds. So much for having a nice photo of all the stock set out!

This was the view from behind the counter.

And all the stock

I am sorry I didnt also think to turn around and take photo's of the school oval showing all the other stalls.

Overall our school 'took' over $50,000 on fete day, but we had alreay raised $10,000 in presales of some items and raffles. Once we take out expenses the net will be in the order of $40,000! Not bad for a public school of only 420 students. The little craft stall I helped organise and run took over $3,5oo. Once we take out expenses the net income will be over $3000.

Richmond Primary School Fete

Our full page colour spread in the local rag!

With a week to go this seems like a good opportunity to wrap up discussions about my kids school fete. As you know I have been sewing and creating things for this event for MONTHS! This week I turned my attention to receiving the creations made by other parents and yesterday I had a group of school mums come over for a busy bee to price and package- we only made it about half way through the stuff. Gulp! Here I was worried that I wouldn't have a nice display of things to sell on fete day

In case you cant read the newspaper ad and you would like to come to the Fete the details are as follows:

Where Richmond Primary School, Windsor Rd, East Fremantle

When Sat 14th November

Time 10am to 4pm

Stuff for kids- pony rides, balloon creations, lucky dip, play dough sales, face painters, body art, bouncy castle, sumo suits, farm animals, jewellery making, giant chess, arty brella's gladiators,.

Stuff to buy- divine cakes and slices, scruptions strawberries, gourmet food and preserves, all things lemon, lolly shop, pucker powder, water-wise plants, fresh flowers, quality craft ;), kids clothes op shop, beads bangles and baubles, books and DVD's, Art by Richmond kids, and Mondo cookbook- created by Richmond families.

Stuff to eat- Richmond Cafe- selling rolls, salads and cafe cakes with barista on site ALL day

Mrs Macs, Peters icecream, sausage sizzle, slushies and popcorn, Fairy floss, hot corn.

I'd love Perth based readers to come on by :)

Here are some teasers of the gorgeous home made products I will be bundling up this week. Please note.. I have not made all these things myself!

Beaded jewellery and bookmarks

Completly random but gorgeous felt "teabags"
Table runners

Girly hair bands, ties and clips
And for the boys we put together a "marble" bag filled with random stuff boys like; plastic insects, string, marbles, matchbox cars etc etc.
Whimsy christmas dec's

Assorted teatowels

Kids apron/cookie cutter gift sets.

Dolly outfit

Glam aprons

Dress-ups; pirate bandana and patch

butterfly wings

velvet capes

Hmmm lets see, to the far left is a bundle of juggling balls, in the middle basket is the fanciest pencil rolls you have ever seen, they are being obscured by some gorgeous cupcake pin cushions. The right hand basket contains some glammed up dishwashing gloves.

little girls skirts

book bags

One of many womens handbags

One of the assorted babies quilts/blankets

Sorry about all the pics. It was really hard to leave stuff out. As it is I havent even touched on the clothing or the cards and gift tags!