One Week Ago

We had a birthday in our house. Now we have a 9 year old. Scary.

There was the compulsory new outfit. Both Ottobre patterns, but without looking I can't tell you which. I had forgotten how annoying it is to top-stitch on corduroy though. It was the only suitable fabric in my stash that had enough length for my growing boy, and it does look so nice on him. There is enough length in the hems that the pants should last a good two winters.

He chose the cake form my cake books - it was the spider one out of one of the Australian Women's Weekly books, but then he made some design changes, such as no big spider and lots of other bugs stuck in the web. He also thought the web was better grey rather than black (as in the book) as this way it looked more like a web. I am happy with simple :)

Cheers!

7 Years Old

It had to happen. My baby has gotten another year older. Which I suppose means I am getting older too. Oh joy!

Every year it seems hard to believe that my kids are no longer the babies that I brought home, in what seems like, not so many years ago. They are growing up, and becoming their own person. It is lovely to see and to help them to learn. Though it does mean that each year they are getting closer to becoming an adult and will eventually move out of home (though I guess in another 7 years I may not be feeling quite the same as this as we hit teenager territory??)

An is usual, a birthday means mummy made clothes to mark the occasion. This year, I decided to ask for a little input on what the birthday girl wanted and we went through my patterns together to find one that she liked. She chose the Zucka skirt from Farbenmix. I then dug through my fabric to find something that would work for a more summery version - I have plenty of cord for a wintery version, but that is a few months off. The stripes are like a nice light stretchy denim, and the cupcakes are a cotton that she has wanted ever since I bought it ages ago. I really wasn't sure about the combo side by side, but as I was putting the skirt together, they just worked.

For the top, I liked the look of two in Ottobre 3/2010, so I asked DS to pick the one he liked best for his sister. He chose number #32, but without the ruffles. To match it to the skirt I chose a few different colours of Stella and went from there. Again, like the skirt it seemed to not work until it was sewn up. I added the cupcake embroidery to liven the tee up (I managed to put it on a bit low, but never mind).

Both patterns are size 122 and I am hoping will last for 12 months size wise.

DD chose a Fairy Castle Cake for her birthday this year - and I really must find some dummy cakes! There was a lot of chocolate cake that went into the making of this, and it probably isn't fair to send it home with all the guests! As it is, we have the whole bottom layer in the freezer.

All in all, DD had a lovely day. (I forgot to mention that the day started with star shaped pancakes, thanks to a great aunty for the silicone shapes!)

Cheers!

Hmmm - Been Slacking Off A Little

I was just having a browse through my photos, and it appears that I haven't shown much of what I have made over the last few months. So I will attempt to update my blog over the next few days.....hopefully I can do that :)

So first up is a t-shirt I made for a birthday present wayyyyyy back in May. For an 8 year old boy, who seems to love my handmade presents almost as much as my DS does :D

Ottobre 301 design B t-shirt, with long sleeves. All fabric is Stella from Crafty Mamas - and I love the two colours together.

The stencil was free from the Ottobre site. It was a bit fiddly to trace and cut out - but well worth the effort.

I traced it onto freezer paper, and used Jo Sonja paints with a fabric medium for the paint - it holds up well. I have used it for a few projects now, and they still look great! (there is a plane top somewhere, but I can't find it lol)

Next up will be some boring but necessary sewing - luckily the fabric is cute and the clothing very comfortable!

Cheers!

Hip Hip Hooray

It's my birthday :)

Aside from it being a Monday (total monday-itis here lol), it was a lovely day. A chatty one with lots of phone calls from my lovely family.

Hubby had been working on my present for a few weeks, and even though it was finished a couple of weeks ago, I wasn't allowed it until my birthday (I did know what it was, as I had some input into it - see here on hubby's blog).

So what is it? A hand made swift and ball winder. Lets just say that the swift was relatively simple in its design and planning. But a ball winder is a whole other ball game ('scuse the pun)! DH got there though, as I knew he would :)

I did have to give it a test run to make sure it all worked great - it makes lovely center pull balls.

The kids got me some lovely BWM wool to practice my dyeing on, so I can use my swift to skein it up for dyeing and then wind into balls with the ball winder when I am done. I can't wait!

Now I am all birthday-ed out, so I am off to bed.

Cheers!

p.s. Photos were all taken by my husband :)

There Is Now An 8 Year Old Living In My House

And he still loves his Mummy made presents best of all :)

Sewing clothes for him this year was a little more challenging, as he is tall and skinny, so I need to make sure that pants will fit. So once I had got to the waistband part of his pants I blindfolded him (he was very excited to do this lol) tried his pants on him, marked where to hem them and roughly how much I needed to gather the back of the pants with elastic. Which was a fair bit. He managed to get in and out with the blindfold on and not pin himself once. Then he went on his way without peeking.

A top and pants, both from Ottobre. The top is a size 140, and this should give him enough room for growth and to get him through to the start of the cooler weather next year as well. It is #37 from 4/2010 made in stella from Crafty Mamas.

Pants are #39 from 4/2009 in a size 134. I love the details on the pants - pin tucks in the back yoke, shaped back pocket flaps, and that fantastic shaped front of the pants. Love it! There is nothing boring about this boy sewing.

The other challenge was that this year our Easter holidays were quite late, and I misjudged how much time I would have to sew while the kids were at school. This meant I had to sew when they were at home, but without them seeing (night time is no good as I make too many mistakes). So when it was rest time, I shut the passage door and gave them strict instructions to knock before coming out. It worked wonders and I got everything finished in time.

 Melly & Me - I Come In Peace alien - he is the favourite present and totally loved.

A new camera case to go with his new camera - I used the Keyka Lou pattern again, but changed the straps to make it more boyish, and added velcro to the back pocket to prevent the spare batteries falling out.

And we can't forget the cake - he picked out an octopus as a number 8, from one of the Women's Weekly cake books - they are just wonderful for kids cakes.

Cheers!

A Birthday

Was celebrated last week. My boy turned 7! I still don't know where all those years went. One moment he is a baby, wanting constant feeding, next he is at school, can read by himself and needs a bigger bike! (Which luckily was a birthday present).

As seems to be the tradition since I began sewing, my kids get a new outfit for their birthdays. DS actually checked to make sure I was making one :) And when I handed him a present to unwrap, he said "Ohhh it's from Mummy. Must be new clothes". Well then, no surprises there.

I had fun picking the patterns, as he is now a size 128 (euro sizing for those thinking he is a giant lol). So that means for a lot of the Ottobre patterns, he is in the next/bigger size range, and there is some seriously cool boys wear for older boys.

Some influence for choosing patterns came from a piece of fabric I received in a Crafty Mama's swap from the lovely Lissy of handmade - homegrown. It was a woven in black with awesome dragons on it. I knew immediately that I wanted to make a button up shirt. But heading into winter and with only just enough fabric to scrape a short sleeve shirt from, also taking into account the fact that DS really didn't like button up, collared shirts, I was in for a challenge. The pants fabric was some widewale cord that I had been hoarding for years! The t-shirt fabric was a remnant of a stretchy knit - probably a cotton/elastane blend - beautiful to sew.

1/2007 had exactly what I was looking for! A button up shirt, combined with a long sleeve t-shirt (#31). Perfect. Even better, the pants paired with it in the magazine (#32), were just what I was looking for. DS loved it!






I also realised after beginning to sew the t-shirt part, that it was navy blue not black like the shirt. But it works well. I had to fussy cut the sleeves in the dragon fabric, and didn't notice that the blue dragons were different sizes at each selvedge. But these are unimportant details - it looks great overall - and I am finally getting to the point of "blind man....galloping horse" about my sewing (ie: it is perfect to my hubby, it is only me that notices the fiddly bits).

Little boast for the binding - look how great it went on with the twin needle :) Though the stupid needle decided to skip when I did the hem and I had no more, so I won't show you that.



Oh, and a sugar laden cake :) The Treasure Island cake from the Womens Weekly Kids Cake Book.


Cheers!