Taylor Street

And then a month later...

... I'm scratching my head wondering where the time is going!  Eight weeks until I go back to work, and I can't believe it.  I'm vaguely horrified - didn't expect to love staying at home quite as much as I do.  Nevertheless, the mortgage beckons and I can cope with three days a week I think. 

I made this little guy a couple of weeks ago:

 

which is of course Acute from Melly & Me.  Clever clever ladies, and I really think this toy is supremely cute.  I can say that because I just followed their instructions, and voila.  It's currently hanging by the antenna on our pinboard the poor thing.

There are a few more things almost finished - I'm lacking the motivation and discipline to actually finish anything at the moment... 

Hot summer nights

It was just too hot in the house last night, so we took ourselves down to the foreshore with some take away to try and cool down.  I happened to have my camera, and finally remembered to take a photo of the playmat I made for Charles before Christmas.  He's looking very small lying there, but it measures 150cm x 150cm so it'll be big enough for him to roll around on for a little while.  I bought the Echino fabrics a couple of years ago and then couldn't resist more in Japan, but decided it was too heavy for a quilt so never really knew what I would make from them other than bags.  I decided I needed something to throw on the ground when we go out, and this fabric was perfect. 

It went together in one day during sleeps (not mine, Charlie's), and the back is the same heavy denim I used for the nappy bag in the last post.  It's quilted in straight horizontal lines to keep it quick and easy, and did a fairly deep binding.  And just because I think this is a cute photo:

 

I can't believe he's already 12 weeks old.  The time is flying by, and I'm really enjoying being at home with him and starting to dread going back to work.  But right now, all I can think about is the reportedly imminent arrival of a southerly change.  42C in our back yard today...

More bags

Doesn't time fly when you're having fun...  I meant to make this when I was pregnant but never got around to it, and the nappy bag I got with the pram is so crap I was forced to do it.  Glad I did, as it's just the right size, and actually stays on my shoulder.

 

I made it with a denim outer and red drill lining, and jazzed it up with a bit of striped canvas I've had in the stash for years now.  There are a couple of very minor adaptations to the Amy Butler pattern on my sisters advice - I made this bag for her a few years ago.  I left out the bottle pockets, added the button closure, and I also added a loop of fabric just inside opening that I can clip my house keys to which makes it a hell of a lot easier to grab keys quickly with a babe in the other arm.  The change mat was made as per the instructions and makes for a lovely soft and good size change mat.  Worth the effort to make it, and the denim gives the bag a little more body than the first one I made - I'd go for a heavier fabric if you're making this bag.

Must fly - I'm off to Melbourne to show off my little guy in a couple of hours.  It's time he met the family.

Bags and balls

What I have here is a couple of small and quick projects to kick start the new year.  The "hand finishing" I mentioned in the last post is indeed done, but alas not photographed yet.

First small project, a puzzle ball from Last Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts.  God I love that book - I've made so much suff from it.  Anyway, simple black on black for the main fabric, and black and white small prints for the contrast.  I didn't realise just how well babies respond to black and white - amazing.  The knots were all done in a different colour - orange, red, yellow, blue, green, and purple from memory (I'm too lazy to walk downstairs to check).

   

And the second was born of necessity.  I bought myself a new camera in the sales - a Sony Cybershot DSC-W150.  What an overwhelming exercise that was!  I ended up just getting a simple and fairly inexpensive point and shoot, mainly from being too confused by the possibilities and a pressing need for an upgrade.  I'm pleasantly surprised - this camera is significantly better than my old one.

Anyway I digress.  The cheeky camera companies no longer supply any sort of cover for a camera, so I cobbled myself together a little camera sleeping bag with a button fastening.  The outer is a heavy denim which I embroidered, and it's lined with a cotton check and a layer of quilt batting to keep it safe in my handbag. 

 

The idea was born from this tutorial I saw ages ago on the Purl Bee.  I've been wanting to embellish something ever since I first saw it, and I'm quite pleased with this little camera bag.

So the crafty side of 2009 is off to a good start. 

More Christmas presents...

...but this time for a different little girl.  I didn't expect to have sewing time at this stage of my life, but I'm led to believe that when Charlie starts growing up a bit my sewing time disappears.  So, while he's sleepy I'm trying to make the most of it and made this little pinafore for my 2.5 year old niece.  It's from a fabulous Japanese book with patterns for toddlers - both boys and girls for a change!  A pleasant change if you have a boy, and I do believe there will be a few things cranked out from this book over the next couple of years. The ISBN is 978-4-579-11184-8, and it's worth tracking down if you have little ragamuffins in your life.  I bought my copy at Kinokuniya in Sydney.

 

It went together surprisingly quickly, and I'm pretty pleased with it.  I used a lightweight striped denim, and the yoke facing is a rodeo novelty fabric - perfect for my niece growing up in the country with horses (and a passion for them). 

And I actually have something else to blog about, but I've just got a wee bit of hand finishing to get out of the way first.  Happy days. 

And joy of all joys, my gorgeous boy slept for 11 hours straight last night at the ripe old age of 7 weeks.  Good boy!

Christmas presents for little girls

I'm not particularly imaginative at the moment - I made some of these for my other niece about 12 months ago but my sister really loved the tops like these I made for her girl so I went for tried and tested over exciting and new (phew, that was a long sentence but it's kind of how the old brain is working at the moment):

 

The pattern was bought in Japan - a single pattern in an envelope rather than an exciting magazine we all know and love - and the fabrics are from Spotlight last summer.  Quite nice cottons actually.  And I made an extra for someone else's little girl. 

If you're making one, you might as well make three, right?

Why blogging is good

Blogging is good because it makes you finish things.  This had been three quarters done for weeks.  I needed something to blog about so hey presto I found the time to finish it - I don't want to fall off the wagon this time! 

 

The pattern is from a Japanese book called simply "Amigurumi Book" by Tomoko Takamori (ISBN 987-4-529-04171-3).  Very cute book with lots of very cute things.  This was fiddly as I did it with smaller yarn/hook than the pattern called for, and it's about 15cm tall (6"), so really fiddly.  But funny.  And good for small hands.  Henrik insisted I put the tongue in.  I nearly didn't, but I'm glad I did because it's very fetching I think.

Thanks so much to all the lovely comments on my last post.  My intention is to get back to all of you asap, but apologies if it takes a little while...   

Well it's been a little while...

  And quite honestly I haven't been doing much.  I started maternity leave in early October with ideas that I'd get soooo many things done in the few weeks before the Wolf arrived, but I soon learned that late pregnancy=major lack of motivation and ability to move.  Needless to say, not much got done and I discovered that it is in fact possible to sit on the couch and stare out the window in silence for many hours at a stretch.  I did not realise this was possible before.

Anyway, I did manage to drag my enormous self out every afternoon for a walk with the dog.  Here, I have proof.  This was the day before I went in to labour:

 

Hmmm.  That's quite a lot of guts to drag around.

Happily, I can tell you that I had a beautiful baby boy on October 29, weighing in at 4.328kg (9lb 9oz for you old school types) after a 26 hour labour that was an experience I'm rapidly forgetting.  He looked like this just after he was born:

 

...and now four weeks and two days later he looks like this:

Check out the hair!  I did get a shock when he came out with so much hair.

Anyway, I haven't made anything other than a baby lately.  Nothing worth blogging anyway.  But I'm back in the saddle, I have patterns cut out and ready to go for Christmas presents, and I'll do my best to get some sort of routine that involves blogging happening.

I can hear a certain young man calling me...

I haven't really fallen off the face of the earth...

  ...it just feels like that sometimes.  And I have been doing some making, but not nearly as much as I'd like given most of my spare time has been taken up sleeping and trying to sort out what used to be my sewing room.  Woe is me, it's been relinquished to the foetus codenamed Wolf.  It was always going to be that way and as a result I never really felt like the room was mine, but I did manage to make an almighty mess of it and pack it full of crap.  So many a weekend has been spent procrastinating and sorting through said crap (bank statements from 1999 anyone?), throwing things away, figuring out what I want to keep, and what needs to go.  I think there will be no surprises when I say that I have an excess amount of fabric - I'm quite amazed at how my taste has changed over such a relatively short time but that may be because of the influence of the blogs I've come to love over the years, and the fact that younger people are now being catered for in the craft-y community.  Anyway, I have some serious volumes of more "traditional" fabric and will be sorting it in to groups for sale somehow (probably on ebay???).  Most of it is either fat quarters or 20-30cm widths, but nearly all have been used to some extent - often only a 2" square or something random has been cut out of it, but cut none the less.  Anyway, it is far too good to throw away, I can't see myself using any of it in the immediate future, and I'm reluctant to give it away when potentially people out there will pay for it (and if truth be known I've spent far too much money on stuff I haven't used).  Is selling by weight OK?  Any suggestions?  I'm thinking of possibly putting groups of fabric together in 500g or 250g lots or something.

Anyway, I have been doing some making and put this together for a friend who just had a baby girl:

 

     

Hmm, not fantastic pics, but I'm sure you get the idea.  I copied the idea from here, and I used 4.5" squares which makes me slightly less copycat-esque, but only marginally so (and I don't think it would stand up in court).  It didn't actually take as long as I expected, and I'm pretty happy with the result.  The back is nice too I think, and I did the fabric strip as long as the newborn trick (56cm!!! - she was a whopper) with her name and vital stats stamped on it.  The one pic I took of the back is really bad so I'll see what I can get sorted this weekend and post it to flickr if it's OK.

Possibly the best thing about it, and this was the first time this has ever truly happened, this quilt was made entirely with stuff I already had in the stash, which as one very clever person I know once put it means it was "technically free".  Fabric, batting, thread - the lot.  Yeah for that.  The funny thing was I actually have a mini stock pile of quilts for baby girls but I knew the mum of this one wouldn't love any of them, so what was I to do?  I think (hope) she'll like this one.

A quilt of his own

I'm very pleased with my latest completed project - a quilt for a certain young fella.  I was unable to decide which fabric to go for on the back, so decided to go with most of the ones I used on the front.  This means I essentially ended up with a double sided quilt, with lots of different things to find on it until he's more interested in Bob the Builder or Thomas than anything his silly mother made him. 

This has ended up 120cm (ish) square.  It ended up square because the log cabin squares were 30cm square (plus seam allowances, and yes, I went completely metric this time), and I thought 90cm is going to be too narrow to tuck in if/when I want to tuck it in, and it kind of makes a nice throw size for a single bed when the time comes. 

The log cabins are based on the bedspread in Machine Made Patchwork (the bedspread is the first pic from the book in Hillary's post) - split the fabrics roughly in half along dark/light lines, and then did the central part of the squares in light or dark fabrics, and then the second half of the log cabins in the opposite.  That's a terrible description, but I'm sure you get the gist if you're interested.  If you do want to know more, please just ask and I'll try to engage my brain and give a better explanation.  For binding, the orangey/yellow seemed to be the only one that fit.  I think it's the Kona Cotton "School Bus" colour, but I'm not 100% sure as it was in my stash.  I like the way it worked out anyway.

It's been through the washing machine and dryer and has that puckered slightly shrunk look that I'm growing to love, and I hope it keeps my little guy warm and happy.