On the upside it means I have time for sewing again. During our “holiday” there was very little of it taking place. I managed to knock up a couple of flannelette PJ tops for the girls. Largely driven by necessity. At the time we moved a sudden cold snap hit. Combine this with moving from the warmest house in the world to the coldest and they needed some extra layers to wear at night. They sleep in grobags so it’s really only their arms that needed to be layered up. Thus, no need to make any PJ bottoms.
My husband’s work involves him travelling quite a bit at times and for long periods. We’d had a very nice 15 months of him being at home but now he is off again. Given I am not working anymore we decided that the girls and I would go with him wherever he was sent so we could still be together. Thus, we are currently in the country 7 hours from home and very close to the middle of nowhere. We are getting out and about lots to the park and the library etc but are home pretty much every day for my girls’ nap of around 2 hours. This has given me plenty of time to start ticking off some projects BUT I had to sus out an internet connection so blogging was impossible initially. Obviously that’s all sorted now.
But firstly, in between my husband returning to work (and heading away) and us joining him 2 weeks later, I managed to sneak in a few items. First up were some new PJ bottoms for me. I had not pattern, just my other PJ pants that I would use as a template. I had only a yard of fabric, which was not long enough for me to make them in 1 piece to reach from my waist to the floor so I had to improvise a bit. I made a separate waist band and I added a frill to the bottom of them. The elastic in the waist band is a little loose and they try to fall down when I roll over in bed, they kinda look a bit 70s bell bottom, and my husband says they are “stupid” but, hey, they otherwise do their job and I think they are growing on me.
I also made a cute little back pack and skirt for my cousin’s little girl who is just a few months older than my girls. My aunty came for a visit from interstate and I sent them back with her. Cute. The bag was inspired by this tutorial (although I didn’t have a decent canvas so I used a light canvas layered together with the stripey cotton and I made the straps from the spotty fabric and just pocked them through the corners and sewed them into the body of the bag at the bottom). I also sewed a matching little skirt from the same basic pattern as the one in my last tutorial only this one is for an almost 3 year old. Here is the bag, one of my girls modelling it, and the skirt.
Since I’ve been in the country I have finished off an outfit each for the girls. One is overalls and the other, a variation of the same pattern, is a bibbed skirt. Buuuuuut, I haven’t taken any photos of those yet so you are going to have to wait until I get to it. The girls wore them for the first time the other day and the straps are a bit lose. First I will move some buttons and then I will photograph.
I will, instead, leave you with this pic. I visited a friend on the weekend who lives near here (such a treat because normally we are 9-10 hrs of driving away from each other). She has 2 little boys. I made them some dragon slippers. The tutorial is from Made By Rae’s blog. They were doing a month of Celebrate the Boy. Cute!
