Christmas has Come

Only have a few mins. It's the end of the day, I'm exhausted, and have a stack of things to do tonight as we are off to more celebrations with family tomorrow and then away for a couple of days. The girls looked gorgeous in their little dresses today. I took a bunch of photos. Will clear off the camera and share some snaps upon my return.

Merry Christmas!

A New Bag, Perhaps?

My very most favourite handbag was pinched when we were broken into. It was also my only casual-ish handbag. Actually, no, I have one other but it's really tiny so not an option when you need to carry a few more things or are doing a spot of shoping and know you'll want to stow items in your bag. I am REALLY missing my bag for its prettiness and I am REALLY missing my bag for its functionality. I had found my bag on a trip to NZ a few years ago. I was walking down the street when I spied it in a shop window. It literally stopped me dead in my tracks. I've seen a whole lot of nice bags in my time but none have elicited that response from me. I decided not to go out try to replace this bag on purpose but would just wait until I found another bag that shouted "Pick me! Pick me!".

Then yesterday I was reading the Hawthorn Threads blog and found on there a link to this bag from The DIY Dish website. It looks super easy and super lovely. It's done with just plain cotton but I'm sure you could add some light iron on interfacing if you wanted to make it slightly more hardy. Think I'll make one for myself. Now I just need to choose some fabric.

Perhaps something from the Antiquity collection by Michael Miller (the Delilah in purple is one of my missing fabrics from Two Little Fairies - did I mention how sad I am that it has never shown up?). Or maybe a lovely Echino fabric. These Lecien fabrics are also very nice. Ooooh, I like these and these and these and these and these and these and these and that's just looking through the "Coming Soon" section of the Hawthorn Threads website and only halfway through the "New Arrivals" section. And H awthorn Threads don't necessarily even stock these full collections so there's more to be seen/acquired even. Oh dear, how am I ever to choose?

Oh, and can I just add, I am musing over the new Melly & Me Little Menagerie fabric from Windham fabrics. It's really sweet. I'm throwing around some project ideas in my head for something I can do with it for the girls.

Hats Hats Hats

With the Christmas dresses out of the way, it was time to move onto sun hats. So this weekend was sun hat weekend. I am making the girls 2 each and as they are reversible I get to use 8 fabrics for that. Yay for getting to play with some more of my stash of pretty fabrics.
I decided to do it semi-production line so first thing was to cut out the fabric and the interfacing for the hats. Here it is. I've laid the fabrics out with their buddies so you can see what each hat will be made up of.



I then decide to scale back the production line a little and just work on 2 hats at a time, so here they are with interfacings attached.

Next step was sewing crowns and bands together.

Then it was onto the brims. Once done I had a pile of crowns and brims ready for assemblage.

Here they are fully pined and ready for the last couple of steps.

I attempted to have the girls model them once they were done but they were just too busy trashing my house like 2 little whirlwinds and the hats were quickly discarded on the floor in amongst the rest of their trail of destruction before I even had a chance to get the camera out.

Finally I distracted them with some food and both a) kept their hats on long enough and b) stood still long enough for me to get a picture.

And just in case you are wondering, here's side A and the flipside of my hat all finished and on my head.

I still have another 2 hats to complete but I think that's gonna have to wait until after Christmas. Oh, and I finished the other pillowcase dress. It just needs it's ribbon threaded. I'll have to do that and get some photos up.

On a completely different note, my fabric from Two Little Fairies never arrived. It was posted 2nd Dec and only had to get from Melbourne to Sydney then onto my place. Usually that takes 1-2 business days. Somtimes my mail goes a little crazy and gets sent to somewhere in Western Australia that has the same suburb name as me (yes, the postal workers, I assume, cross out my state and postcode and write in the WA one over the top then when it gets there and my street name doesn't exist in that suburb someone writes back in the correct details again and it eventually gets to me. I don't know how long this generally takes as the first I know if it is when I pick up a letter from the letterbox with all this stuff scrawled across it. Perhaps this has happened to my package and it will eventually find me. I hope so but for each day that goes by I am losing hope. I am very sad.

Ready and Waiting

The dresses are done. Now we just need Christmas Day. Here they are looking all pretty on their hangers. The front of the orange dress and the back of the white one. I'm quite pleased with how they have turned out. The ribbon is sitting a bit funny at the front on the white dress but I tried it on D and it sits fine when it's on and done up so all good. I think it's just all the gathers that pulls it in a funny direction when it's on the hanger. Yay!



I tried to get some photos of it on D but she wouldn't co-operate. She had been turning around in circles showing me how pretty she was but when I said I want to take a picture she threw herself on the ground and started crying. Then she decided to wipe her now snotty face on her pretty new dress so I distracted her with the flowers on it. That did the trick to get her to sit still long enough for me to snap something.

Immediately following this she up and ran away. So, that will have to suffice until Christmas Day.

I must say, with no zippers or buttons or anything, it's a slightly tricky dress to get back off. More tears from D, who was (as I had discovered earlier with the photo taking caper) a little on the grumpy side, but I worked it out eventually.

Oh, and if anyone is wondering, the fabric for both dresses is Moda fabric by Me and My Sister Designs. The orange one is Overly Orange Uppsy Daisy from their Spring Fever range and the white one is Bright Black from their Happy range. I LOVE the fabrics these ladies do. I want to buy some of all of it!

Two Pillowcase Dresses and Half a Hat

Ooops, I started this post almost a week ago but never got it completed. I had spent the weekend before last plodding away at some pillowcase dresses. Initially I made this first one from an online tutorial I found. It's cute but wasn't what I was looking for so I wrapped it up with a box of crayons and stuck it under the Christmas tree at the girls' daycare. Pressies were being donated to the local woman's refuge. Hopefully whoever receives it likes it and hopefully it fits. The "categories" they had given for pressies was for little girls 0-3, which is rather a large bracket so I wrote 18mths-2yrs on the label in the hopes that it makes it's way to someone that is not already too large for it. That being said, it did fit my girls (tried it quickly) and even though they are 19mths they are almost the size of your average 3 year old so maybe it'll be okay. And if it goes to a younger child, well, next year.



Then I looked at pics of finished ones I liked on the net and watched some youtube tutorials and then I came up with this. It still needs it's ribbon so kinda just looks like a square with it's corners cut off at the moment. I think I'd like a nice lime green. A trip to Spotlight is in order. Just not sure when I'll get there. Maybe not til Friday. I'll get some nice ribbon for the blue one I want to make as well. Hope it looks nice when it is actually all finished. And on one of the girls.

I did it with French seams and everything. Oh, how I love youtube tutorials.

It was the 2nd last lesson of my sewing course last Monday. I started working on a hat. A Lazy Day sunhat. It has sizes for kids and for adults. YAY! I want to make a couple of hats for the girls and one for me. I'd forgotten to measure their heads before I left home and seeing as I had mine own head with me to measure whenever I wanted, I started firstly on mine. Here it is half finished.

It's a reversible hat and this fabric will be the other side. I need to start keeping an eye out for some more grown up looking fabrics as I have stuff that's more little girly. It was a bit tricky picking out 2 that were suitable to be stuck on top of my head. Hopefully these will work okay.

Chistmas is in the House!

I recieved my table runner from the EB Christmas swap on Friday. Had been out and about for the day and arrived home to a card from the post office. Without even taking the girls out of the car (much to their chagrin) I was off to the post office. Had it unwrapped pretty much immediately and well before I'd made it home again. What better to do at traffic lights than explore a pretty new present like this?

It's REALLY lovely. A beautiful mix of red, gold, cream, and navy. I absolutely love the gold thread through the red fabric and the quality of the sewing is great. Much better than what I sent on so I feel a bit bad for the person that received mine. Although if she stands back and kinda squints she could pretend that the one I made has corners as neatly finished as the one I received.

Well done, Ruth, and thank you! I fell very lucky to own something that has so much care and thoughtfulness infused into it.

I'm nearly done with the decorating around this lovely piece too. Shall throw up some piccies once finished. Just one last finishing touch required. Will hopefully get out to the shops for it tomorrow.

Oh yeah, and I changed the name of my blog. Because, well, because it's my blog and I can!

Posting Day

So, here's my Christmas table runner from the EB swap sitting wrapped and ready to post. I am just awaiting a quick visit from my sister who has something to drop over to me and then I'm off to the post office. Can't wait to receive mine. If I'm really lucky it will be tomorrow but as I don't know where it's coming from I'd best prepare myself for it being Friday. Or even Monday. The decorating of my house this year is awaiting its arrival as I want to match in the colours. So as you can imagine, I'm feeling a little impatient, it being 1 Dec and all - the day I would normally be hooking into getting the decorations up (and the accompanying bottle of bubbles).