Ruby Doll

One Red Robin is a Blog from a lady in Melbourne and she is kind enough to have a free gorgeous Ruby Doll pattern so I started it last night and finished off tonight just in time to meet her new owner, a friend's little baby girl who was born this afternoon. Hopefully we will get to see the new extended family tomorrow.

She has my first attempt at both felt and using a blanket stitch which is around the face. Having no idea how to blanket stitch, I found this great tutorial from another blog, futuregirl. Her blog has a few different tutorials which I'm sure I'll be referring to again! (I seem to spend more time visiting blogs than actually sewing!).

This is the afore-mentioned "wonky-bear" because of the ear on backwards. I originally made him for the new baby girl, but can't bear to hand him over with such a big mistake... I should just call it a "feature".

This afternoon after nap time, Isabella and I made a batch of cupcakes. Well I made cupcakes and Isabella just wanted to keep stirring. After all was made and cooking, Isabella took to "cleaning" the beaters... so much like her father it's scary!

PS. Excuse the quality of the photos, the camera battery died and I had to use my mobile phone camera.

Two WIPs

What a way to be woken up from a nap... big sloobery kisses from your baby brother!

Couple of works in progress happening. In other words, not a lot of anything getting finished :-)

I sewed a diaper cover/case today using the free Jane Andrea pattern. It holds a couple of nappies (one for Isabella and one for Liam) and a huggies wipes container and a nappy sack. Fantastic for a quick trip to Cronulla or the shops when I don't *think* we'll need a nappy, but inevitably someone will need one!

All that is left to do is a press stud. The pattern uses velcro, but I have this thing with velcro. My bags always seems to be full of biscuit crumbs/families of dust bunnies who have taken up residence, so things with velcro do not end up clean for very long.

The other work in progress is a quilted playmat for Liam using these Moda Fabrics Look & Learn charms that I got from Reprodepot.com in the US. All it needs is some backing fabric picked out and the padding and it's all done! Hopefully it will get finished this weekend.

The happy little man, taken today... He will be five months this Thursday!

Quick Afternoon Sewing Fix

Two quick projects today, one for Isabella, a pretty little necklace. I picked up a bag of large beads from Lindcraft yesterday and some matching ribbon to thread through them instead of wire. It always worries me when kiddies jewellery has elastic, I have this fear of the elastic breaking and tiny beads going everywhere. I don't know if it is a fear of never being able to vaccum them all up or having to constantly buy replacements! We have already been through three identical Dorothy the Dinosaur necklaces for the broken elastic reason.

Liam got a bib from the free Chickpea Studios pattern. It was a great quick afternoon sewing-fix, only taking about 15mins from cutting to finished. Now I just need to buy more press studs... Off to eat our yummy roast for dinner.

Tomorrow I'll Do Some Work... I Promise

Isabella was at daycare today, so Liam & I managed to get a few bits and pieces done together and then silly me thought I would "drop into" Lindcraft while Liam was napping in the pram, and meters and meters of material that was 1/2 price and two pattern books on sale later and we were heading home hanging our heads in shame for buying more stuff. One of the patterns was a Burda Easy pattern for a dress which I finished off while Liam napped and then the final bias touches went on it tonight. Excuse the shonky it was taken in pretty poor light at 11pm. Tomorrow I'll do some work... I promise!

Isabella LOVED day care again today, her 5th week. We pulled into the car park to drop her off and she was "bye bye mummy"-ing me already!. When she got home she had a new song to show us, something about a Giraffe. Aunty Dani dropped by and got the whole routine as well as the one she learnt last week about two monkeys who get eaten by a crocodile. Well that is how Isabella tells the song. Sounds pretty gruesome!

After dinner we went out for a play and Isabella managed to pedal her bike properly for the first time all around the driveway. Pretty impressive. She is already talking about what she is going to do in the "big pool" tomorrow, so we're hoping she has a good swimming lesson tomorrow like she did last week.

Sweet Mary Jane's

These are the shoes I whipped up yesterday afternoon for a new baby on her way... yay more babies! They are from the Green Jelly shop on Etsy. I made up a little drawstring bag for them to go into since things like this are always inpossible to gift wrap in paper and I had a bit of the matching flower frabic left. That is enough shoe making for now, today I bought a simple dress pattern that I am going to "attempt". I love my new sewing machine :-)

And this is a half-sleepy Bella last night. The only reason it's here is because trying to get an in-focus photo of her is near impossible! 2.5 year olds do not stay-still!

Shoes, shoes and more shoes

I finished Liam's shoes from the free Michael Miller Fabrics pattern, they worked AND they fit! He seems to like them, well as much as a 4.5 month old can. He didn't try to yank them off, so must be a good sign. After a stubborn shoe last night that I mucked up a bit I made the matching shoe this morning in 15mins from cutting material to finish. I used a couple layers of interface to make them strong and they have a nice warm fleece sole. I think I'll make up some more for Liam and maybe even a bigger pair for Isabella as slippers.

I bought a Mary Jane shoes pattern off Etsy last night from Green Jelly for a present for a baby girl coming soon. They are on my list to do in nap time today. Then I'm going to get back to some Web Design work which I SHOULD be doing!

Lots and lots of sewing

The new sewing machine has had a work out over the last few days. On Monday Isabella got a wrap dress which I made from a bunch of tutorials and patterns on the web. It looks gorgeous, even if I do say so myself. I even did a button hole and bias around the neck, so pretty adventurous for my first proper project after the bag. I used the Tiny Happy pattern but put it together using the What Did She Do Today blog tutorial. The dress is a bit big at the back, so next time I make one for a 2-3 year old I will be taking about 10cm off the back. I loved this pattern because I didn't anything except material, no buttons, studs, elastic etc...

I ran up a very quick bear for a friend too, but genius me put one of the ears on backwards so the pattern is facing the back... grrrrr. Bella claimed him as her own, and doesn't apparently mind a wonky-bear.

Yesterday I whipped up a very quick pillow cover from my Make It You book for an old pillow that Isabella has had on her bed that has been replaced with some new ones we got when we bought her new big girl bedding from Treehouse.

Today I started on a pair of shoes for Liam from the Michael Miller Fabrics blog, but after a very busy day, not much got done other than cutting out one shoe. I'm going to make one of the shoes first to make sure the pattern even works!

After all the sewing and playing today, Bella & I had an afternoon cappucino. Well I had a cappucino and Bella had a baby-cino, but I think she wanted my cup more.

Happy Valentine's Day

We don't do Valentine's Day presents anymore (that's what almost 7 years of marriage will do!), so this year I just made Dean a card. It was a rush job as I ran out of time, but he's used to that! We normally do something special in April for our anniversary so we'll make up for it then.

Liam is 4.5 months old now, and rolling non-stop. We can already see teeth trying to come through down the bottom and a couple vampire fangs just under the gums at the top. He is even trying to get up on his knees already to crawl, we can't believe how quickly he is doing things

Isabella had her 4th week of daycare, or as she calls it "School" last Friday and she is still oving it. We arrived this week and as soon as we got to her room she was saying "bye bye Mummy, bye bye Liam, see you later". All our fears of weeks of clingy-ness and tears haven't happened, and fingers crossed she keeps loving it. The carers are lovely and always say she had a great day and loves helping out. Seeing her so happy there certainly makes it easier to leave her 'cause we know she is enjoying her day.

We had our 3rd week back at swimming on Saturday and it was our best lesson yet. Isabella actually tried to get herself in the pool when we got there which is a first! Normally she's chatting about swimming all morning, excited the whole way to the pool but not so keen when we walk through the pool gates. This week she swam with a big smile on her face... well until a couple of kids in the class started jumping around and banged into her, then she wasn't too happy when they were next to her.

And finally... I got a sewing machine! It's only a basic one but after borrowing mum's which is older than I am and destroying copious amounts of material on it, we decided it deserved a one-way ticket to Lucas Heights centre for trash and went halves in a new little Brother PS-55. So far I have made a little bag (it's reversible) to try out a few of the features on the machine. The pattern is from a little book called Make It You that I picked up when I got the machine.

Visiting Daddy at Work

Today we visited Dean's work in the city. Most of Dean's work-mates have only seen Liam the once when he was about 3 weeks old so he has certainly grown since then!

The "coffee-lady", Cecila is off on maternity leave from Friday so I made her up a little Owl Pillow for the new bubs last night. You can't really tell in the photo but he is quite a good size, about the size of Bella's head. He was very squishy and soft from the fleece he was made of and I had to pry him from both Bella and Liam's hands this morning. I have two more on my ever growing list of things to make, one for each of them.

Bella was back at swimming on Saturday. She is definitley inmproving but still not too happy swimming, I think she enjoys standing waiting and watching everyone else a bit more!.