Table Runner

I made this gorgeous table runner this arvo after school.  Mum got the fabric in Bowral and the ric rac at the Remnant Warehouse.  She got lots of other good stuff as well and I am very jealous I wasn't with her when she bought it all!  My excellent Aunty was though, and took her to some really awesome places, you are so lovely Lydi!

I got that red and white stripey jug in Sydney so the runner and jug should feel right at home.  It looks kind of Christmasy too so I'm happy with that on the table right now.

And this is the rest of Mum's shopping, a little bit of Love (another skirt in the making), some Kaffe Fassett, Anna Maria and some more of those table runner panels.  The big dusty blue and strawberry piece at the bottom of the pile is for a massive tablecloth Mum is making.

How cute are these crocheted teapot cosies.  The little one was $8, its hard to see clearly but there is masses of hours in them, the black background is all crochet as well.  We love pansies!

Lastly my work in progress, Lill's next bebop cardi, one that fits hopefully.

x see you next time

Amy Butler's Love for Mum

Happy Birthday Mum!She picked this gorgeous stuff out for me to make her a skirt, just the usual skirt!

We had a hard time choosing, Kelani have the whole range. Click here to see Amy Butler's website and the Love range, my favourite is the Soul group.
My BFF Kimmy ordered some today as well cause in her words "I just can't stand it any longer". I must admit that most of Amy Butler's fabrics don't grab me that much, but this is just so beautiful, up there with Farmers Market for me and that's saying something!
There was enough in the main skirt fabric leftover to squeeze a bag out, I have nearly put these things out for retirement (O.V.A.H. if you know what I mean), I've counted up at least 60 of these things I've made and am over it! But when I saw the exact amount needed for a bag leftover, it seemed a waste to fold it up for the shelf so I got the bag template out and did another. They are just the most useful bags and so lovely with gorgeous fabrics under shiny plastic! I am glad I did it now.

Happy Birthday to the best Mum

xxx

My New Favourite

Sandi Henderson has released her new fabric range!

Meadowsweet...

I love it!

I am so sorry Farmers Market, but you are out and this is in! Actually you will probably work together, so you can stay. I still have 2 metres of Vintage Cherries in my stash, one day I will hang it in my bedroom when the bedroom gets built...

This seems a bit more grown up but still so pretty. I love this combination (below) which Sandi says she has a dress combination cut out for herself in.

I have got a couple of favourites picked out, but a bit tricky to describe which ones for now without single images. And I have just had a teleconference with my best friend Kimmy discussing which ones we love the best, so Kelani you had better get these in stock ASAP! Please!

All images from Sandi's blog Portabellopixie.

Kaffe Fassett Bag and Zippered Pouch

Kimmy purchased this absolutely gorgeous fabric recently in Sydney with no particular project in mind. She wanted a Glam Green Bag lesson, so this is what we did.

we had the smallest bit left so made a zippered pouch using this tutorial, it took no time at all and is so handy inside these roomy bags.
I love this Kaffe Fassett fabric and we used a favourite small leopard print for the lining.

Sydney part One

I finally made it to Sydney! Yeah!

I had the best time, I went with my second best friend Kimmy (see pic below). We actually went to a 2 day Wound and Skin Integrity conference, which was very very interesting. I learnt so much and updated my knowledge on the latest trends in wound dressing selection and got a few new insights into everyday items, in particular - soap!

We managed to visit one fabric shop, The Remnant Warehouse, thanks to some hot tips from Cass, thanks Cass. We stopped here straight after getting off the plane. Material Obsession and The Craft Depot will have to wait till the next trip unfortunately.

No bargains were to be had, but it was just so nice to see our favourite fabrics in the flesh and not on the computer monitor! I bought 2m of Pop Garden and half a metre each of these cute ones below! No projects in mind, just couldn't go in there without purchasing something!
Proof that we were there, and yep we matched, actually we matched the whole trip. More posts to come of our adventures, so stay tuned!

i can feel it in my heart

Lill and I headed out together today for the last day of school hols, we had a few jobs to do and I thought we'd check out some Op shops as well. So driving along I am looking at her in the rear vision mirror and I tell her the plan then she says to me:

Mum I think this is going to be a great day today, I can feel it in my bones,

actually I can feel it in my heart.

We exchanged a Pandora charm that I already had and got our bracelets cleaned while we were there. Browsed in the Op shop next door while we waited then had a smoothie and coffee followed by a visit to Nimble Stitches, the tiny boutique fabric store (the only boutique fabric store!) on the coast and picked out some fabric for a dress for a little friends birthday.

Then we headed on down to the other Op shops we check out every so often and found a few more treasures.

I think my favourtie find is this little pink vase which I think is actually a candle stick that my lovely little Lilly discovered with her heart.

My Favourite Skirt and a Bag

With school back and my little boy starting kindy this year, its time I got back into what's important. Sewing of course! But this year, now in fact, I need to do some serious organising in this here house. And I am going to get going in the garden too, just waiting on my Dad to construct the vegie patch, come on Dad!!! Anyway, above is my favourite skirt, I made it last year around Christmas time. It is a Make It Perfect versatile wrap skirt in Anna Maria's Garden Party. I have grand plans for gorgeous cushions and quilts using this range. Check this out, I stumbled across recently and have become a regular follower! Absolutely gorgeous and so happy to read each day.
This is a gift for a friend at school who had a big birthday the other day! So I made her a bag since she has admired them a couple of times. I had such a hard time picking the fabric to use, I hope she likes it!

I need to blog a bag I made recently thanks to inspiration from Lisa. It's a very cute bag with bamboo handles using Anna Maria's fabric yet again. Will get to that...

My First Quilt...

...and I am very proud!

It turned out great, probably thanks to the fantastic art work supplied by my daughter's class of beautiful kids. I just love our school and the teachers are the best. I was asked to make a quilt, if I could, for my teacher by our other Prep teacher who is as equally as wonderful and so very nice to think of our teacher. So she got the kids to secretly draw a picture and say something special about our teacher using fabric pens on pre-cut calico squares, then I got the job of putting it all together along with the lovely poem she found.

I have to thank my Mum for handstitching the binding down to the back. I used Heather Bailey's binding tutorial to get the corners right. I bought a walking foot for the quilting part and (hope this is the correct term) quilted in the ditch around each square. I think the quilt measures about 140cm square and I made a matching carry bag since I had a fair bit of leftover fabric.

I can't wait till the kids give it to her on Friday, she is so special and deserves every ounce of thanks we can show!

Quick Skirt

This is a Burda skirt I quickly made for myself using Spotlight $3.99/m fabric! So for $6 plus the cost of the zip (the doily is from my stash and the buttons thanks to Nanny's stash of which I've got a few things and treasure sooo much) its a pretty cheap skirt, and very comfortable I might add. Unfortunately this fabric is fairly see through, whoops, so I either add a lining or save it for round the house!!! I quite like it, so I might line it...

And here is the cutest little Royal Doulton teacup in the pattern of 'June'.

My second best friend Kimmy found it down near Iluka during her week long family beach holiday, she is so good to me, she loves teacups as much as me, but she chose to give it to me!!! It is so tiny and very old, I love it Kimbo! What am I going to give you for your birthday next week old girl!!??

SHFMOCD...

...nope it's not a mistake!!!

Those letters stand for:

Sandi

Henderson

Farmer's

Market

Obsessive

Compulsive

Disorder/Disease

It's a very serious condition I've developed and probably will never recover from! I just love all this fabric so much, so finally I've made something for myself in it.

I've ordered some more Vintage Cherries from Kelani, since she's just got a new shipment in stock, to make myself another wrap skirt and canvas some for my bedroom wall so I can stare at it forever. Is that abnormal!?! Make sure you check out Kelani, there is an excellent competition on there at the moment, which is really easy to enter.

So anyway, this is my second Make It Perfect, Versatile Wrap skirt, and the info on the back of the pattern is 100% accurate in that this skirt would indeed have to be one of my favourite items of clothing. It is so comfortable and you get to wear your favourite fabrics. I've got another cut ready to sew in Anna Maria Horner Garden Party and so does my second best friend, I'll be blogging her creation as well. For this skirt I cut the 5 panels to make the contrast trim and tie an inch wider than the pattern says, I think this gives you a little more of a look at the contrast fabric!

Strappy Sundress Christmas Dress

Here is my most favourite fabric of the year Sandi Henderson's Farmers Market, in particular Red Vintage Cherries. Love it!

I got the last piece from Kelani and also the co-ordinating Apples in Spring and Red and then made it into the Strappy Sundress, all purchased from Kelani, my favourite online fabric shop.

This is a great dress for twirling!

This pattern is so simple and yet the finished dress is really very special with the elastic back and pretty straps tying in a bow attached to a loop. The skirt part is 2 rectangles (or in my case strips joined together for lack of enough cherries) joined together to make 88 inches of fabric which you need to gather, i.e. lots of fabric involved!!

This is the size 6 and I cut the bodice a little bigger and added an extra row of casing for the elastic back. If I make it again for Lill, I'll have to cut the bodice even bigger as this is a squeeze as it is, great big 5 year old unit she is!

Also, I have to mention my sewing friend Novy, who made this exact dress completely in the cherries for her little girl. It is just gorgeous, check it out on her blog. Thanks Novy for the inspiration!

Thanks Kelani!

Here is some very lovely mail I received today! From the fantastic Kelani Fabric Obsession's Elissa. Check out the Kelani link button to the right.

I recently won a comp just for submitting a photo to the inspiration gallery of something I had made after I had purchased fabric or patterns from Kelani. The prize was a $25 gift voucher. I got some more gorgeous Sandi Henderson Farmers Market and the Make It Perfect - Versatile Wrap pattern, which obviously came to more than $25 but you get that! I think the best thing about Kelani is the free postage together with the personal service and quickest delivery, the prices compare with anything available here in Australia at the moment. Thanks Elissa.

The vintage cherries fabric, on top in the pic, is going to be turned into a christmas dress for Miss Lill. I really wanted to do the Strappy Sundress like Novy's, but I won't have enough so I have to come up with something else...

Fabric Haul

These are for Glam Green Bag linings! and other projects of course, but mainly bags.

I got 2m of each and I have to say a big thanks Mum for keeping my ratbags so well controlled during the spendup!!!

Pink Cherry Dress

How cute is this dress!Finally my Sandi Henderson Farmer's Market fabric order arrived from the USA, all 8 yards of it! It is all just so lovely, it was so hard to choose which fabric for which bit!

I have enough to make quite a few things.

First up was this PinkFig Lily Dress for Lilly. I cut the size 7 pattern a bit bigger, so I guess this dress is now an 8, it is quite a bit bigger than the first one I did in a 7. I have perfected my shirring, well I'm quicker at it now anyway. Also, instead of tying off the cotton good side threads in knots at the end of each line of shirring, I use a needle to sew each thread back through the fabric to the wrong side then knot it off there, so you can't see the start and finish of each line of shirring from the right side...make sense??!! It adds an extra step but is much neater. The pattern includes a sash which is not really needed to wear the dress, just a way of adding an extra bit of interest and using up some gorgeous material
...below is a pic without the sash...