Swap opening - Jack's new outfit

Please excuse my photograpy. We opened the parcel when I got home from work and it was starting to get dark so the lighting is pretty bad. I took the photos straight away so everything is a little wrinkled from the mail, and I put them on Jack straight after his bath while he was in the mood to pose.

Look at what we got!

We opened this great package from Jen this afternoon and what a wonderful bundle of clothes she has made for us.

A fantastic button-up shirt covered in tow trucks, other trucks, motor bikes and cars. I think this is a Michael Miller print and there are lots of fabulous details like the faces of the drivers and the names on the trucks. This is perfect for Jack as he is rather obsessed with tow trucks, broken down cars and mechanics at the moment.

The shirt pairs perfectly with a pair of denim shorts with the same print for pocket trims. There is a huge amount of contrasting top stitching and they are really well made.

And my favourite part, a white t-shirt appliqued with a tow-truck towing a car, based on a design from the printed fabric.

The applique wraps around the shirt and the whole think is free-motioned appliqued.....very impressive!

As you can see, Jack thinks he looks rather special!

Thanks Jen, you've done a great job and they will all get lots of wear.

Kids swap 2010 - sneak peek

I enjoyed making my swap outfit for last year's swap so much, that I signed up again this year.

It was a bit easier this year as everything was already in my stash.

You might recognise the fabric from a different swap I posted about a while ago.

I had the patterns and fabric sitting there waiting to make an outfit for Jack, and this has given me the motivation to get on with it. mind you, Jack's outfit is still only half done....

My parcel was wrapped up and posted off today, and now I'm eagerly awaiting my special parcel in return.

Check back on Monday for the big reveal!

A visitor and ANOTHER quilt in progress

This little guy has been hanging around our place for the last few weeks, changing trees every day.

He has a few battle scars so hopefully he will stay safe with us for a while.

I've spent a few hours over the weekend working on a baby quilt for a work friend's baby shower. The original plan was simple charm squares with a co-ordinating border and could have been completed in a weekend. However, the plan changed when the fabric arrived, and this is where I am up to....

It is inspired by Helen's Bye Bye Birdie quilt that appeared in Homespun magazine, http://patchwork-of-mini-grey.blogspot.com/2009/10/day-9-of-blogtoberfest-bye-bye-birdie.html and the bird appliques are taken from another quilt in a later edition of Homespun.

I've pieced the four long strips but the geen sashing isn't attatched yet. There will be two more sashing strips, a narrow pink border and a wide green spotty border.

That won't take long, but the quilting will take me a while.

And these little birds all need stitching down and they also need eyes and legs.

The baby shower is next weekend and I've decided not to try to finish it in time. It would end up rushed and I know I won't be happy with it.

I've also got some other commitments this week that simply can't be put off.

I think I will take a trip to the shops for a shower gift instead, and take my time working on this.

I'm sure there will be another little girl in need of a quilt sometime in the future.

A new flannel quilt in progress

A few weeks ago I recieved this snuggly bundle of fabrics in the mail from http://www.fabricshack.com/

I recently found out that you can fit four yards of flannels in a $13-ish envelope (from the US) and set about working out how to get something special using as many prints as possible. I played with a simple design and then spent a bit of time online picking out fabrics. Jack joined in and narrowed down the selection, and we ended up with 1 yard of the bright stripe fabric, and 1/4 yard of each of 12 different novelty prints.

I spent a few hours one Saturday cutting and the rest of the weekend sewing, pressing and trimming and ended up with a completed quilt top. The best part is that the whole quilt top cost less than $40, including the cost of fabric postage.

Here it is laid out on a queensize bed. Jack calls it his 'new kilt'.

The top turned out a bit larger than I had imagined, but it looks like a perfect size to use on a single bed instead of just as a throw/lap quilt as I had planned.

The four yards were cut rather generously so I managed 9.5 inch squares from each fabric, with only a small strip of each remaining. The stripe fabric worked really well for the sashing and there is only a very tiny scrap left over.

Jack's favorites are the 'Rescue' range - the multi prints of fire engines, police cars, trucks etc. There is one with a blue background and one with a beige background in the quilt, and they were very thick, soft, rich fabrics - lovely to sew with.

I was a bit disappointed with the Riley Blake (2 x green car prints) and the Michael Miller (black multicolour owls and black icecream prints) fabrics as they were much thinner. The colours and designs are great but they were harder to handle and I'm worried they won't wear as well.

I'm busy picking fabrics for the back from my rather large stash of novelty cottons. I need to go on a search and rescue mission to find the ones Jack has pilfered from the pile over the last few days.

The back will be a crazy-ish random eye-spy creation and the binding will most likely be a plain solid colour. I'm thinking of either quilting in the ditch or in a diagonal grid pattern.

Hopefully I'll have the backing completed this weekend and will be able to get it sandwiched and quilted by the end of the month.

Finally some sewing!

We were planning on attending a birthday party for the daughter of a friend today but woke up to the little one coughing and vommiting at 2am this morning (throat infection not gastro) so decided we should skip the party and take him to the doctors instead. Poor little mite has spent most of the day on my bed with countless dvds and lemonade iceblocks.

However, I have this little dress finished and ready to gift so it will be going in the mail instead.

I used a pattern found here http://www.ikatbag.com/2010/01/dress-for-winter-iii-very-simple-jumper.html and made it reversible, and made it totally from the stash.

One side is blue pinwale cord, trimmed with cotton lace and white flower-shaped buttons that compliment the lace.

The other is a bright quilters cotton in blue with iredescent butterflies and flowers, picked out with gold foil. I decided not to put buttons on this side because I like the way the butterflies sit on the shoulders.

This really should have taken only 1-2 hours from start to finish, but i forgot to check the overlocking thread before I started (unpicking...), broke a needle (unpicking, rethreading), had several goes at the rounded shouldertabs (more unpicking - next time I'll draw on a stitching line) and several goes at the hem (more unpicking, pressing and pinning which I should have done first time round).
Gee I'm out of practice!

I also spent ages going through the fabric stash and choosing fabrics, then going through the ribbon stash to choose trime, then going through the button stash to choose buttons. It made for a pleasant evening but dragged out the construction time.

I was planning a layered yellow ribbon/purple ribbon/green rickrack trim on the patterned side but after I had it pinned to the dress I decided it looked more like gift wrap than clothing, and I'm glad I left it off.

Ah-hoy me hearties...!

Pirate day at day-care - we've been reading pirate stories and talking pirate-speak for the last week!

I thought it would be easy to buy a pirate hat but everywhere was sold out, so we designed our own from black cardboard, glue, tape, staples and gold braid. It took much longer than expected but turned out rather well.

The parrot was non-negotiable. The pirate in the book (I wish I had a pirate suit by Pamela Allen) had one, so we had to have one too.

Thankfully there was a parrot finger puppet in the toy box (from Ikea). Some pipecleaners for feet, some green feathers for wings and two big safety pins to attatch it to the shoulder and the pirate parrot was ready for action.

Every pirate needs some treasure. Our gold and silver coins were made from bottle tops flattened out with a hammer. They smell a bit beer-y but that's okay.

The pirate sword was cardboard covered on both sides with some sticky-backed foam found in the 'useful stuff' in Dad's shed. Apparently it is used for concrete slabs? It made a nice soft sword that shouldn't cause any damage.

One of his mates had a telescope. Of course Pirate Jack noticed, turned to me and said "Mum, where's my pirate-scope?".

Colour Swap

Well, I couldn't help myself and signed up for another swap!

This time it was a colour swap. Each person listed a favourite colour and then their secret partner put together a pack worth $30 including fabric, trims, threads etc.

Today was opening day and Jack was convinced the present was for him.

It didn't take him long to realise that it was intended for someone else...he got this far and said "Oh look Mum, its for you".

And here is my lovely pack. I listed blue combined with cream or green, and mentioned that I have a soft spot for paisley, and my clever but very secret partner didn't dissappoint.

There is a fantastic frog and paisley print with a matching border print, that co-ordinates perfectly with the brown, green and pink print beside it. I'm tossing up between using it for a bag or a quirky wrap skirt. There is also some blue sock monkey fabric that is already earmarked for Jack's I-spy quilt and a lovely spotty fat quarter. Some fantastic coconut-shell buttons, some thread and a set of three hand-made felt flowers made up the rest of the parcel.

Jack immediatley found a use for the thread, and then turned his attention to the flowers...

However, I quickly rescued them from his clutches and will be using them to embelish a bag or hat or maybe even a quilt.

Here is the only photo I took of the pack I made up for Emma. She asked for fabric for her boys, suggesting blues and greens and I took the opportuinity to grab some great rocket fabric that I've had my eye on for ages, added some co-ordinates and then wrapped the whole lot up in some very boy-ish flannelette.

She has some photos on her blog so drop over to http://emmafaye-emma.blogspot.com/ and have a look!