Christmas

I feel like I should be doing a "looking back on the year" post but heck, I havent even blogged about christmas yet! I dont think a tin whistle 2010 retrospective is going to happen before the end of the year. So here goes... a kind of crafty/foody look at christmas in the tin whistle house...

Matilda wrote this lovely letter and left it out for Santa. (translation: 'Dear Santa, if you cant find our stockings they are in our bedrooms upstairs. We wish you a merry christmas and a happy new year. From the Sayers. PS enjoy the food. PPS merry christmas to elfs and reindeers.' )

This is the 'adults' table. We went with a silver/blue/bronze theme on this table

Elizabeth and I googled some napkin folding insutructions and she folded the paper napkins into snowflakes.

The 'kids' table... unfortunately we didnt have enough sliver and blue stuff to continue the theme so we went for red and blue on this table.

The christmas tree with presents for 15 people stacked under!

What a living room looks like when all those presents have been opened!
Some of the food. I meant to take more picture. Too busy cooking I guess!

George with his favourite present.

Elizabeth checking out her new iPod Touch

Matilda and one of her cousins waiting patiently for the green light to get the new desert island into the pool.

WAAAAAAY too hot to play cricket in the backyard. So after lunch we settled for some giant dominoes on the living room floor.

How daggy is this... Elizabeth has become obsessed by solataire!

See you in the new year!

PS: Daggy = Australian coloquialism for uncool or unfashionable, but still likable anyway.

A bit of last minute christmas sewing

My Mum normally makes a personalised christmas stocking during the lead up to each new grandchilds first christmas- but she is currently galavanting around South America with my Stepdad so I offered to make the latest grandchilds (ie my nephew) stocking instead. The yellow letters have been appliqued onto the red strip of fabric, and then sewn onto the front side of the green sack. The sack is lined with green gingham and pulls closed with some gold cord. There is also a pocket sewn into the inside lining- this is to hold any particularly small trinkets that Father Christmas might bring. The whole sack is about the size of a pillowcase. In our family each child puts their Stocking at the end of their bed and Father Christmas places his gifts (unwrapped) into it sometime during chrismas eve night. The next morning the kids wake up (usually about 6am) and rush to our room with their sacks and look through the gifts.

In Perth this year the forcast on christmas day is for hot and sunny weather, with temps reaching 38 degrees celcius (thats 0ver 100 farenheit I believe). Our christmas day menu will includes traditional food like ham and turkey, but we will also be serving fresh seafood and crisp salads. Our christmas pudding is made with ice cream! After lunch the kids will swim in the pool and in Australia it is practically compulsory to play a game of backyard cricket somtime during the afternoon!

Snapshot Sunday- christmas wrapping

My cutting table has turned into a wrapping table.

My sister and her boys are visiting from the other side of Australia. We went out today for a picnic and happened upon this little fellow.

Raggy quilts--- kid style

A Raggy quilt is a great first sewing project for a kid. The idea is to cut some cotton prints into large squares as then the quilt comes together very quickly. In Matilda's case she had a bundle of half yard fabrics so I made her cut 9" blocks as we could then get 4 squares per half yard of a fabric. Since using a rotary blade and ruler isnt really a safe option for kids, the best way to cut out the fabric is to create a 9" template from cardboard (or what ever size you want the blocks to be) and get the child to mark out the squares directly onto the fabric using fabric chalk. Child can then cut the squares out using scissors. It doesnt matter if the child isnt very exact at cutting out because the edges of the squares end up as part of the raggy edge.

Elizabeth decided to make a raggy quilt using my collection of denim charm squares. They are 5" square, so she has quite a bit of sewing ahead of her. Elizabeth is up to cutting out the backing fabric. For Kiddy raggy quilts its a great idea to use flanellette; its cheap, it rags up well and its nice and snuggly. In the pic Elizabeth has marked out a series of 5" squares onto the flanellette with chalk and is using scissors to cut out the charms.
Here they are together working on my cutting table. This is Matilda's first ever sewing project but Elizabeth is reasonably experienced for her age. We also have a 9 year old friend of Elizabeths making a quilt too, but by the time I took the photo's she had taken her fabric and template home with instructions to cut out the squares as homework. LOL.

I will keep you updated over the next few weeks with little instructions as I go along :)

PS... this is how my sewing room looks most of the time; stuff piled everywhere, scraps all over the floor, stash looking like its going to topple off the shelves etc... I like to call it creative chaos :)

Snapshot Sunday- Parisville table runner

I cut up a set of Parisville fat quarters (by Tula Pink, Mist colourway) into 3.5" strips and joined them until the runner was about 80" long.

For the binding I used up the remaining strips of Parisville.

Quilted with an all over meander.

Backing fabric was a soft grey with butterflies, picked it up at Spotlight about 6 months ago.

And since I am here... this is how I salvaged Elizabeths top. I added in a triangle of fabric in the front 'V'. and also took in the sides a little.

Loving "sewing holidays"

Thats not a holiday from sewing... but rather a holiday filled with sewing!

So this weeks efforts are quite impressive if I do say so myself. First up I finished off the top of my Summer Soiree quilt. You can see it here hanging from my book shelf. On the table in front of it are all the left over Summer Soiree pieces and my sketch for the pieced back using up these scraps. I've ordered some kona solid to tie it all together and have to wait for that to arrive before I can begin piecing it. I'm planing to hand quilt this one, just doing a running stitch in DMC cotton around each colour 4-square. Maybe...

Can you believe this next item is my only christmas sewing this year? My Step-mum is setting the table this year for christmas lunch (at my house ) and has decided on a blue/silver theme. I decided to make a long table runner in the same colour scheme as my contribution. After a bit of searching around I discovered the new "Parisville" range by Tula Pink. The mist colour way has lovely muted blues, creams and silvers with just a dash of purple. On its own its completely non-christmassy (so I will be able to use it for the rest of the year) but set out with all the blue/silver baubles and crackers etc it will look fab. I hope! More pics as soon as I have stictched the binding down.
Now onto some clothes... I continued on with my list of garment sewing I posted a few weeks back. My eldest, Elizabeth, is in the most need of some clothes so I picked up the next pattern I had put aside for her. It is McCalls M5422. I bought this a a couple of years, so I am not even sure if its still available.

As you can see I made it up in several colours; using a grey marle for the main body, red for the sleeves (both Stella knits) and then used a Michael Miller knit stripe for the binding. I must say I was really impressed with this pattern. Being a Hillary Duff pattern I though the "brand name" would sell the pattern and not much thought would go into the actual design. But I was pleasantly surprised to see that it was a well thought out design with solida construction techniques. For example the neck is faced (rather that bound) and the actual binding around the sleeves is a double layer binding cut on the bias.

The outer t-shirt I have made is really designed to be worn over the halter neck or other singlet style shirt. That combined with the fact that I upsized and didnt pay attention to the seam allowance means that Elizabeth has ended up with a rather roomy and gapey t-shirt. Oooops. She is not happy because she likes it otherwise. I think I can salvage it by adding a triangle of fabric in the front 'v' to look like she is wearng a t-shirt underneath. It will still be roomy on her, but at least it will be modest. I am planning making her more of these t-shirts, but will trace off a smaller size for her.

Also this week I sneakily snuck in a couple of pinny dresses for the daughter of a friend from school.

Snapshot Sunday- Summer Soiree

Phew... this is getting rather large. I intended it to be a generous single bed size... but I think its going to end up double bed size! I have the final ourter border to add, I was going to make it nice and wide, but now I think I will just make it the same width as the sashing.
And just because there isnt much sewing to show you... here is a pic of my 3 kids. Elizabeth and Matilda had just been shopping to pick out a new "christmas" dress and were doing a little twirl in them. George decided to join them, choosing something from the dress up box.