Posts from — April 2009

…but if I could have I would have!

It is a present from Zoe’s Aunty Jane, bought from her favourite shop Du Pareil au Meme. I think I’m onto a good thing here – I send her girls home made elastic waisted skirts, and she sends my daughter miniature French trench coats. Thanks Jane

This is my favourite yet, and far simpler to sew than attempts one and two.

Two more birthday parties this month. Is it wrong to give all the children in the class the same gift?

Zoe goes to a wonderful kinder. I am confident of that. When I pick her up in the afternoon she is happy and animated and we often have interesting conversations. On the way to kinder however, the conversation goes something more like this “I AM NOOOOOTTTTTTTTT GOING TO KIIIIIINDEEEER”…..”AAAAAAGGGGGGGHHHHHHH”….. “NNNNOOOOOOO” …..”AAAAGGGGGGHHHHH”. (Repeat x10).

To make matters worse, on a Thursday Zoe has to wear pants to kinder, because she does PMP (a kind of P.E. for little ones). Zoe hates wearing pants, and boy does she let everybody know about it. “NNNNOOOOOO PANTS”….”NNNNOOOOOO PANTS”….”I HATE PMP”…..NNNNOOOOO PANTS” (repeat all the way to kinder).

To try to make our PMP mornings a bit more cheerful I have in the past made the prettiest PMP pants possible (see here and here). This year however I thought we’d try something different – the swing top. It’s not a dress, it’s not a top. It’s the perfect PMP outfit!

The pattern is based on the Ottobre Creative Workshop 301 pattern which I cut off under the arm to add some ’swing’ and is made from the stretch fabric I bought at Hilco in Germany. Just to add a bit of interest though I thought I’d cut the whole top sideways so that the stretch goes the wrong way. Wow – that does sound seriously familiar! I keep going over my thought processes as I was cutting the fabric and thinking about all the clues that I was doing it wrong. Thoughts like ‘wow, this print looks like it’s going sideways’, or ‘this fabric is not as wide as I thought it would be’, or my personal favourite, ‘hmmm it’s weird how the stretch seems to go up and down instead of side to side’. I was convinced however that I had it right, so cut away I did. Cut cut away until there was not going back.

I love this top. Zoe loves this top. Strangers love this top! But every time I get close to it all I see is those little arrows going the wrong way across the fabric and I feel so darned annoyed. I know. I need to get over it.

Here’s Zoe in her PMP swing top and very first pair of leggings:

I mentioned a while back that I was working on a few projects that involve squares. This one has to be my favourite – a very pink quilt for my Zoe.

I am very belatedly following the mod sampler quilt-along at Oh, Fransson.  I love retreating to my sewing room with these small pieces of fabric to quietly and every so carefully sew up each block.  But only when I’m not too tired or too busy. Unfortunately that isn’t very often. ETA for quilt…some time before Christmas!

Zoe’s legs

I bought these stockings at the Melbourne Stitches & Craft show. They look pretty spiffy with Zoe’s shiny new shoes!

I figure if a girl is going to wear clothes made by her mum, then she needs to be allowed to indulge with the accessories.

Stockings made by Textile Allsorts.

Dress made not by Zoe’s mum, but by Tina from Purple Happy Tree

Ever since I made these capes I have been thinking about how I could improve the design. With a 4 year old birthday party coming up (and the sparkly stretch velour on special at Spotlight!) I decided it was time to give the cape another go.

I am much happier with this version. Rather than a rectangle, this one is a semi-circle (it would have been a full circle, but I only bought 1 metre of fabric). This one also has some special hemming tape in the bottom to make it flair out which is a nice touch.

I have a number of improvements in mind for the next one though, including the use of lining inside of it instead of satin which makes the cape too heavy for a four year old (I know – I felt like Einstein when I came up with the idea of using lining for a lining. Pure genius I tell you!). I also have a better idea for the neck shape. Oh and the next one will be pink, because next weekend it is a 4 year old girl’s party.

Here’s Zoe doing her best wizard impersonation before we wrapped the cape up for the party

Here are my gorgeous nieces Lucy et Hannah modelling Aunty Bel’s creations in their new home town of Noumea.

Cute huh!

One ballet bag for this ballerina:

And one ballet bag for this one:

Oh how he melts my heart!

Is that greedy?  You see I have a fabric store now – and it has its own blog.  But I couldn’t bear to let go of this one.  So for now I have two.  This will still be my main blog, and most of what goes in the other one will probably be posted here too.  So why would you want to visit the other one?  Well I now will sell items I make through my fabric store, and all shop updates will be announced through the Earthgirl blog.  So if you want to get your hands on some Earthgirl creations (or want to buy some gorgeous fabric to create your own!), then get over to the Earthgirl Fabrics site and add the blog to your feed reader.  Oh and if you see something I make here that you think you might like to buy – then send me a message.  I’m not taking orders – but I would love feedback on the kinds of things people would like to buy.

This bin is not for sale…but it is made out of Anna Maria Horner fabrics available from the store.

It holds fabric scraps under my cutting table.  Unfortunately it’s already full!

We had a much better day today. No cooking, no bike kicking, and much less yelling. It seems to take several days for the kids to settle in to the idea of holidays. Thanks goodness they seem to be feeling a bit more relaxed and finally so do I.

This morning I was cutting out a skirt downstairs when Zoe called me up to the sewing room to see the dress she had designed. She had the fabric laid out on the floor – and asked me when I could make it for her. I picked up the fabric, sat at the machine, and told her she’d have a dress in no time. Thirty-three minutes later – here is the result:

After I had taken the photo Zoe said to me ‘Mum I didn’t expect it to be bunchy around the waist – but that’s ok, because I don’t mind when you make mistakes’. That’s her sweet way of telling me that she hates the dress and will never wear it again. Oh well, at least I got some shirring practice in.

I went to Spotlight later in the day and very nearly bought an arsonal of fabrics and trims to make her a fairy dress that she will actually wear. You see no matter how many hours I spend shirring satin (or nylon chiffon), the only dress she will wear is the made in China $2 number I bought from the bargain box at Sparties. She has worn that dress 7 days running now! I managed to come to my senses and realise that I could never compete with the $2 Sparties dress, and came home with just a few choice sparkly materials for my sparkly stash. And some linen…and some denim…and some lace. LOTS of sewing going on around here right now

I’m sitting here eating the kids Easter Eggs so I better hurry up and hide them and get to bed. No doubt it will be an early start tomorrow. Happy Easter!