Tin whistle- May 2011

Phew. I've written a lot of posts this month haven't I? Here is a wrap up of the custom orders I have sent out during May.

Baby Joggy City Select liner Traffic jam/cowpokes- George was home sick and was hanging around like a bad smell when I was doing some photo shoots. I use the term "photo shoot" very loosely here, as it means wheeling my pram infront of a glass door and draping the pram liners in them!

Baby Jogger City Select liner in customer supplied fabrics. I love this fabric. Its a purple and mint green damask, with matching bird fabric for the reverse side. This customer also wanted to know if I would make a fitted bassinet sheet. I was up for the challenge, but was sewing blind. The customer sent measurements, and I am waiting back to see how it fits. All going well I am happy to make these for other customers.

Universal liner in scarey monsters and Truck stop fabric.

A universal liner using the Traffic jam/cowpokes combo again.

And now onto some clothes. I dont 'officially' make tin whistle clothes anymore, but if a customer emails me asking nicely how can I refuse ;) This order was for a couple of pairs of tartan pants.

One pair was lined with some Stella knit so make them extra warm and comfy.

I also made quite a few pais of Dungarees this month too. This is a size 3 pair in denim with owl feature fabric.

Some more size 3 pairs, one in denim one in brown corduroy.

This is a size 6-12 months, in denim and an owl fabric supplied by the customer.

Everyone fell in love with this gorgeous elephant fabric (this seasons offering at Spotlight- its with the regular cottons not the quilters cottons). I made 3 pairs, 2 with Denim and one with navy corduroy. They were all size 1.

Snapshot Sunday- Sock monkey PJ's

The fabric for these featured in last weeks 'Snapshot Sunday' post. George picked out the Sock Monkeys flanelette himself. The tartan was a bit of creative management on my behalf because I didn't buy enough fabric. Gosh I haven't don't that in a long time, normally I overbuy and then end up with useless 20cm cuts of fabric. Actually the tartan was one such useless scrap (I must blog what I made with that!). Anyway I quite like the combo- you would normally think to put tartan and sock monkeys together. The pattern is, of course, Burda 9747. I've made it stacks of times and it always works out well.

Changing the subject completely... I just cant get the hounds tooth fleece out of my head (the stuff I used to make this beanie). I want a fleece wind jacket out of it. NOW! Will that be naff or quirky? I'm not sure- eccentric I can live with, I might even be able to live with naff! So yep- I should definitely scratch that itch right? I popped into to Spotlight and picked out this Kwik Sew pattern. I think I will do the hooded one, only because in my old age I'm discovering I hate my ears and neck getting cold! Can you see something hiding behind the pattern?
I was naughty and picked up a 30cm cut of just about the entire range of Denyse Schmidts new fabric line 'picnic and fairground', sold exclusively in Australia through Spotlight (or fabric chain store Joann in the USA). Its arrival has been eagerly awaited by Australian crafty bloggers/flickrers. I'm not even sure I like it all THAT much, but rushing in to my nearest Spotlight to buy some seemed the thing to do!

Layouts

I have finished all 84 blocks for the Japanese quilt. Now I am pondering which way to orientate them in the quilt. Does anyone want to vote? For scale the pics represent about 1 quarter of the blocks... so roughly 1/4 of a king size qilt. We have:

1. Grid pattern

2. Stepped grid pattern

3. Random


I have a preference, but wont say what it is yet. The pattern says to orientate them randomly, as I have in the third photo.

Jill and Dad, if you can see this post from where ever you are in France, let me know what you think!

Jills Giant Japanese quilt

I snuck a couple of hours to work on this today (too bad about the dirty washing piling up in the laundry!) and got a good start on the blocks. There are only 2 pieces to each block, and they are combined in a random way, so its pretty brainless to piece (which is nice when you are listening to a good audiobook at the same time!). There aare 84 blocks in this quilt and I have finished joining the first 2 pieces in all 84 of them. In the pic above I have just set myself up to add the 3rd piece to each block.

I stopped once I had chain pieced 28 of the blocks, just because I wanted to make sure the 3 fabric combinations in each block were 'random' enough! See even when you do random piecing you have to double check things. I laid out some of the blocks to get a feel for how it would look as a completed quilt. I think its going to look pretty smashing.

Snow Blossoms

This week I decided to plan a holiday to my Sister's place in Canberra. While there, the kids and I are going to join them for a few days in the snow at Perisher. Perth experiences pretty mild winters, we barely need jackets, let alone hats- so I decided it was necessary to acquire a few- hats that is. I started looking around in the stores... and then remembered Rae of Made By Rae had a free tutorial on her blog for a cute Snow Blossom hat that could be sized up to suit any head. George and Matilda had fabric left over from these jumpers, so I got to work. Seriously this is such a simple hat to make. I timed myself- they take 15 minutes from first cut to final snip of the pompom on top!

George is finally wearing his pants that I made on a sultry day back in February!

I took Elizabeth up to Textile Traders to pick out her fabric- they had a range of unusual mottled fleeces- she picked out a pink and orange one. A 50cm cut got us the hat and a scarf too. Not bad for $5.50!

While there I spotted a hounds tooth polar fleece and that was it; I had to have a snow blosson hat too! I cut mine so that it didn't have the front seam spoiling the hounds tooth pattern.

Ha! look at my hair... its past my shoulders! This is how I looked 2 years ago; just so you can see how far its had to come

Sailor stripes

So during the week I was wearing a stripey top and caught my reflection in the mirror and thought "You know what I don't like this top anymore" so I took it off and and went straight to the sewing room and turned it into a t-shirt for George. Don't worry I put on another top first!

I'm is pleased that I managed to get the stripes lined up on the raglan seams. I forgot about that until I went to sew it up... and by some kind of serendipity I had fluked cutting the stripes in the right place! If they hadn't matched up I would have had to ditch the entire project, as I cannot stand it when stripes or patterns don't meet properly or look asymmetrical.

The sleeves were cut from the sleeves of the old top. I reused the cuffs, as they were interesting and had a nice button detail on them (which yo cant see in this picture, but can see in the ones of George wearing the t-shirt). Reusing cuffs also saves hemming/binding the new t-shirt. I also reused the bottom hems on the main top too.

The neck line posed a bit of a problem. I didn't have a red ribbing that matched well, and a contrast ribbing kind of looked weird. Eventually I solved the problem by digging the neckline of the original t-shirt out of the bin and unpicking that ribbing. It was an exact match after all!

George put his t-shirt on with his brown cord Dapper Dillinger pants that I made way back in Sept 2010. George has worn them a few times, but I haven't snapped a picture until just now. I've always thought they were ridiculously baggy, but George has finally got a bit taller and bulked out a bit so they look pretty smart now. Sorry about the creases... I don't 'do' ironing, unless it involves pressing a seams open while I am sewing. LOL.

Summer PJ's in time for winter

Oh she is a dag!
I'm quite happy with these. The singlet is based on the bodice pieces of an Ottobre dress (Minnie, Ottobre 6/2010, pattern #20), I just cut them longer and then added the band to the bottom The pants are Burda 9747- my favourite PJ pattern.

I took a closeup of my neckband so you could see how I topstitch it. I think the trick with the zigzag stich is to centre it over the actual seam. It looks a bit more like a professional coverstitch job then. The binding can go a bit wobbly and out of shape, but a stem press usally sorts it out, and if that doesnt work, it springs back into shape after the first wash.

Matilda started doing randome acrobatics manouvers to show you how comfy the PJ's were! (as a side note... Elizabeth has discovered Supre... Eeeeeeeeek. She is shown here in her $5 lycra mini-skirt purchase. My friends who are mums of teens, tell me that the 'Supre-love' lasts until about 15 and then they wont be seen dead in there. Only 4 years to go!)