Category — Sewing

I’ve been absent from this blog, but not through lack of finished projects. Last month I sewed three tutus, a quilt, 2 pinafores and 4 skirts (including one for me!). I’ve also been very busy with the store, adding new fabrics and getting parcels of goodness wrapped and sent out to people. I’m loving the beautiful fabrics I’m sewing with and the summery creations I’m making with them, although things would run a lot more smoothly if I had 30 hours in each day.

Here are the tutus I made for Zoe and her 2 cousins. Believe it or not these are getting easier to sew, although I have no tutu plans for at least the next 6 months.

I also got my quilts back from the quilter. Now *all* I need to do is so on the binding.

Did I say 30 hours in a day? Any chance of 32?

I’m still working on the pattern. It’s a tad big – but still wearable.

I have been quiet lately, mostly due to preparations for Zoe’s 5th birthday party.  We had 11 girls here to a fairy party, and although I questioned my sanity many a time for being overly ambitious with the plans, the party was a great success.  Phew!

My first priority in preparing for 11 children and 11 adults coming to our house was of course to make 8 metres of bunting to decorate the room.  Crazy – yes.  But pretty – no?

Then I made 11 bags for the party girls to put their treasure in:

And 11 wands for them to decorate:

And 11 sets of flowers for their hair:

Then there were decorations for the wands:

(finished product!)

Food for the fairies:

And a cake…made by my mum – her best yet!!

Some fairies enjoying their food:

And last but not least – the five year old fairy herself!

Happy birthday gorgeous girl!

I know it appears that I have given up sewing – and for a few weeks there, after a string of difficult projects and a dose of exhaustion I wondered myself if perhaps it was time to part ways with my sewing machine. But then one day in an attempt to clear my cutting table I sewed up a dress that had been sitting there all cut out for nearly two months. And for once everything worked and the dress came together quickly and easily and looked fantastic and WHAM – I’ve been sewing ever since

The dress was a second attempt at this one, but it turned out even smaller than the first, so I sent it to my good friend Tina to try on her beautiful two year old Indigo and take a few snaps for me. And blow me down – have a look at what she sent me back!

Believe it or not Tina is not a professional photographer but she does make beautiful clothes which if you’re lucky you can snatch up from her store. Thanks for the beautiful photos Tina – you’re a gem!

I am just putting the finishing touches on some other projects which I will share soon!

P.S. this dress is for sale here, and the fabric is for sale here

It is school holidays here, and I have been diligently finishing some of the large projects I started last term before I let myself start on any new sewing. After finishing the first of them last night (the blanket) I couldn’t help but sneak into my sewing room for 30 minutes this morning for a bit of fun.

Here is the Build-a-Bear bunny Zoe got at her last birthday party sporting her brand new veil:

Isn’t that just what any self-respecting bunny needs?

Pictures of blanket and other diligently finished projects to come.

I am aware that I tend to complain a lot about the sewing that I do. Projects are too long, or too hard, or I make too many mistakes. I really don’t want this blog to become a negative place – so I’m making a concerted effort not to complain any more. From now on, happy light-hearted stories only.

On that note, let me introduce last weeks project:

Thankfully these tu-tus were a joy to sew! No battling with my machine to sew the lycra, no breaking my $10 Schmetz twin needle, no staying up until 3am to get them finished in time for a party, and certainly no tantrums, swearing or dummy spitting involved. Nope, these were a piece of cake, and I highly recommend them to any sewer who has a long list of half-finished projects, a backlog of paperwork and a dirty house

One of the lucky recipients came to play with Zoe today and the girls wore their tu-tus the for the entire day. Awww, seeing these girls prancing around in their pink tulle made all the effort joyful labour worthwhile. And I can’t help but think that I might attempt another one of these some day soon (which is is more than can be said about that dasted pettiskirt!).

Ooops – nearly let some negativity slip in there. Nope, all is happy, all is good!

OK…mental note to self…don’t judge a dress at 1am, especially a dress that has taken many hours to make (and unpick).  I woke up this morning and thought that maybe the dress wasn’t so bad, then I tried it on Zoe, and I realised that it was actually pretty cute.  And…drum roll please…Zoe loved it!  What a shame it was a size 2/3 (she’s nearly 5!).  Maybe – just maybe – I might be able to bring myself to make another one in her size.  Surely it couldn’t be so hard the second time.  Could it?

Here are pics:

Wow, what an overwhelming response to my giveaway! Thank you so much to everyone who left a comment – it has been so much fun reading them as they have come in over the last few days.

I just plugged some numbers into the Random.org random number generator….and the winning number is…..number 309!! That means Melissa and her comment “beautiful bib” is the winner Melissa I have your email address so I will contact you shortly to find where to send the bib to.

This is what I’ve been working on over the weekend. Let me just say – that never before have I made so many mistakes making the one garment. And that is really saying something, because I am very good at making mistakes when sewing. It was as if I was cursed. I cut the fabric the wrong way, sewed the pieces in the wrong order, sewed the seems too narrow, too wide, back to front, upside down, put the snaps in the wrong spot, broke the snaps, messed up the hem. Are you bored yet? Anyway, the dress is finished and of course now I’m harbouring a bit of resentment towards it. Time to move on. I have something easy in mind for tomorrow. Something very hard to mess up….

You know when you sew something, and you’ve got a great image in your mind of what it will look like, then something goes wrong, the image cracks and the project seems ruined beyond repair? No? Oh, well it happens to me a bit.

Take this dress for example. Late one night I was only a handful of seams away from finishing it, when I put the spotty fabric for the hem through the overlocker upside down. I couldn’t save the spotty material I had cut, and I didn’t want to have to go cut any more, then I lost faith in the spots all together, then the dress became ‘doomed’ and sat nearly finished for a good 4 weeks.

Thankfully a few days (or weeks) break can help revive the image and save projects from eternal doom. In this case, late some other night inspiration struck and I realised that what this dress needed was a ruffle (hey I told you everything was going to have a ruffle now that I have my special ruffling gadget). No kidding, 15 minutes later this dress was finished. And how good does it look?

Now I’m just sitting here waiting for inspiration to finish the other five or so projects currently classed as ‘doomed’.

(and by the way if you think this dress would look super hot on your 4 year old girl then you can buy it here).

Last week I got myself a gathering attachment for my overlocker, allowing me to gather, overlock and sew pieces of fabric together all at once. Of course the obvious time to buy such an attachment would have been before making a pettiskirt, but for some strange reason at that point in time I was feeling frugal. Luckily for me the urge to be frugal has left and have I ever had my $25 worth of enjoyment out of this little accessory. With some spotty fabric I (frugally) bought on sale at Spotlight I made my first tiered skirt, and if it weren’t for the 53 unfinished projects covering my sewing table I would be sitting down this minute gathering my way through my fabric stash.

Here’s the spotty skirt which I think Zoe received more excitedly than perhaps any other piece of clothing I have made for her:

Here’s Zoe modelling the skirt:

And here’s why Miss Zoe thinks this is a good one:

Oh – and what’s this? Another wizard’s cape?

You betcha! Another party today…and still one more invite on the fridge.

I’m going to try to finish some projects over the next week, which is not nearly as fun as starting a whole bunch of new projects, but I have sewer’s guilt which I’m going to try to alleviate. Then I’m going to alleviate my fabric buyer’s guilt by sewing up some of the piles of fabric under my cutting table which is earmarked for various purposes. Hopefully then I’ll start on something new.