Taylor Street

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.

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?

Production lines

I'm absolutely itching to get stuck in to a couple of quilts for you can guess who, but want to get some more tedious sewing I feel compelled to do out of the way first.  Binding muslin, waffle weave, and flannel are the order of the day (or many days) at the moment.  I'm developing a blister on one of my fingers from the hand sewing, and have finally discovered the joys of the thimble.  Why didn't I use them before?  Probably because hand work was not something I indulge in much, and must confess I'm not a huge fan really.  Good for in front of the TV I guess.

Anyway, here are the first round, bindings all ready to go.  These are now all machined on one side at the very least, and some are complete.   I'm thinking you can never have too many wraps/spit rags/pram drapeover things/playmats/general fabric bound in colourful prints to put over, around and or under things, right mothers? 

I also became 33 on Wednesday.  All grown up now...  Birthdays are really very good, but I wan't really as excited about this one as it really snuck up on me despite the fact that I ordered my birthday present about 3 months before the actual day.  There was chocolate cake involved, which generally means a good day generally, and H made my favourite stodgy meal and spoiled me generally.  I made the most of it.

String theory

Well, not exactly string theory as this is incredibly simple.  This string embellished black linen has been waiting to be morphed into a loose summer "throw on over the swimmers" type of shift for months, but Sydney never quite put on any swimming weather this summer so it hadn't happened.  A beach holiday is not so far off, so with that as motivation (and time disappearing) I finally made this incredibly simple and easy shift from Sewing Talk.

This is dress c from the book, and I added 1/2 and inch to the side seams of the largest size but this dress is plenty roomy enough and I probably needn't have bothered.  It was always intended as a schlep dress, so a bit of extra room doesn't hurt.  The fabric is a lovely black linen/cotton blend from Tessuti with string embellishment and I have a feeling this will be my dress of choice in the tropics.

More stockpiling

Maybe I should open a shop.  Feels like that at the moment with my growing stash of baby related gifts.

These are the first of the flannel baby blankets a la Last Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts.  Flannel from Spotlight (and it's beautifully soft and fluffy), and the trim fabric is a 20's repro.  I wonder which will be most useful, waffle cotton or flannel?

Other than that, 2008 continues to fly by and I'm already counting the weeks until our next holiday (10).  And we bought a new car.  A new second hand car, but much newer than my old car.  And I still feel a little bit of a pang of loss from trading in my old car, probably because that was my car, and this one will be much more H's car given he drives it every day (as always) but it was never my car first.  And I'm scared of smashing the new one.  Not that I'm prone to smashing cars, but these things happen.

Baby wraps are go

After reading the responses I had from this post and asking other mothers I know, I went ahead and bound some wraps at 100 x 130 cm (I know this is none of the suggested measurements, but I wanted them the same size and the smallest piece was 100 x 130 once I squared it up and I thought it was in the ball park).  I really love these, and would keep them for myseld if I had a reason to.   The cotton fabric I used for the binding is from Tessuti, and the cotton waffle weave muslin is from Spotlight and is really wonderful quality (they still surprise me when they sell good stuff).  If anyone decides to have brave a journey to Spotlight to buy some, just be aware the 112 cm wide waffle weave is 100% cotton from Pakistan, and the 150cm wide is 65% polyester from China but they're all mixed up on the table together.  Not that there's anything wrong with blends, I just wanted to use 100% cotton so bought the narrower fabric.  I made the binding fabric strips in to bias binding (not traditional quilt double fold binding), machine attached, and then sewed the second side by hand using mattress stitch.

Now hopefully someone I know has a baby girl...

So far it's 0/1, so I had to do a boy-ish one in great haste, and realised I don't do boy-ish very well.  Add a couple of quickly appliqued singlet onesies and I think (hope) this will be a nice welcome to the neighbourhood for my newest nextdoor neighbour.

Mothers know best

Next on my list of making for expectant mothers is to trim some gorgeous muslin I bought recently, but I really don't know what lengths to cut the fabric.  It's all roughly 110cm (43-44") wide, so now I need to know what length to cut them that is most useful for mums and babes.  Help me.  I've asked a couple of people who had wildly divergent suggestions as to what was most useful (one being an enormous 150 x 150 cm or 59" x 59" for you imperialists, the other just over half that), so wondered if anyone who drops by and has a child or two could offer their opinion - I'd really appreciate it.

...why it's a pair of gnomes

I alluded to something peeping out the window in my last post (you could see a glimpse of Mrs Gnome), and here they are.  Pattern is from Hillary, and they are cute, quick, satisfying, and festive. 

We like projects like that.

All a bit ho-hum really

My sewing has been giving me grief, and there's just so much of it I want to do.  Maybe that's the problem - spreading myself too thin and getting annoyed because nothing seems to be finished, and the stuff that is isn't up to scratch.  Well, I've been pretty happy with some things lately, but a few things that should have been quick and fun (like the fabric ball) were too quick, not so fun, and not so satisfactory because I rushed.  The same can be said for these two birds I punched out last night (and it really was punch out - from go to woe in less than an hour).  I'm trying to embrace the "not everything has to be perfect" mantra, but I think I've gone too far the other way sometimes.

Hello pterodactyl head.

Then again, these are destined to be hung in a very large tree at my sisters place so no one will really be inspecting the workmanship terribly closely. 

I also made a simple shift dress out of some gorgeous (I think) Dolce and Gabbana fabric which I want to wear this weekend, but it's gaping at the back which means I have to remove the zip and take some fabric out of it.  Annoying.  And the facing is too bulky so that needs to come out as well and be replaced with some cotton voile or something.  Really annoying when something should go together quickly, and it takes an age.  I've also got about 27 quilts knocking around in my head, plus three unfinished ones that I want done and dusted - two of which I love, one I don't.  I think I'll send the un-loved one to the quilter and give it away.  Actually, my problems are not great - in fact they are problems I like having so I should stop with the whining.  It's just a passing sewing related peevishness.