Ugh, Ruffles!!

I know I've mentioned it before, probably more than once, but I really love hanging out with my brother's family. My SIL and I are pretty close in age and our daughters love playing together, so I go and see her every couple of weeks and we catch up for the day. It's always lovely and today was no exception. However, a fortnight ago while I was there we pulled out a skirt that had been cut out and started by somebody else and left with SIL to complete. One of her UFOs. The picture was so sweet, a very frilly layered skirt, perfect for my niece. We started to get it all together, but we ran out of time, so today we pulled it back out again. I took my sewing machine over today and got straight onto stitching ruffles (SIL did all the gathering, thankfully) to the in between-y strips. After we had joined together 4 of the 6 layers, the skirt was only down to my niece's bottom, not very modest! After much studying of the cutting instructions etc, we agreed that the pattern was incorrect and it couldn't have been any better than it was given the size of each piece. It took AGES to get to the point we were at and we really wanted to get it done today. We were both a bit over it but were also totally disappointed with how it turned out. So we decided to lengthen each of the in between-y strips, then left off the bottom ruffle and after another couple of hours of stress and frustration...

TADA!!

One cute-as ruffle-y skirt.

Never again!

Mind you, both SIL and I were tempted to try it again just to see whether or not we could improve it.

oh yeah, and isn't my niece gorgeous!

Now, talking about UFOs, yesterday I pulled out one of mine, a panel that was given to me when my daughter was born. I had added some decorative stitching to highlight the details on the panel. I had also added a peeper and border. Yesterday I sandwiched it with wadding and backing and used the bagging technique to join them. The I quilted around some of the features on the panel, but not much.

I realised 2 things while completing this project:

1. I LOVE my walking foot!

2. I really don't like working with cheap puffy polyester wadding.

I'm not a huge fan pf panels usually, but my assistant totally deserves this quilt!

Last night, having finished something, I was on a craft high, so I used the motivation to dive into my stash and make another skirt for my assistant. She has been eyeing off this yellow printed vintage replica fat quarter that I've had for years, so I decided to use it to make the new skirt. I paired it with some striped cotton voile which I bought at the very start of my stash building. I used it to make a skirt for myself about 9 years ago and since have only used tiny pieces at a time. It had the perfect colours to match with the other fabric and I knew it was meant to be.

I really love the way it turned out.  I know, gathering, but this was way easy and way less gathering than today's insane ruffles.

I also love these little try-hard smiles! I know I have the most adorable little assistant though.

Anyway, I should go and sleep...

Sweet dreams! xo

The End

I was going to start by saying that I can't believe there is only one more day of October, but I can believe it, it just feels like it has passed so quickly.

We have had a very busy month! It started with holidays, moved on to job interviews for Hubby, my birthday, Hubby resigning, B-man's birthday and Hubby starting his new job. Plus a few other projects scattered around (I'll tell you about those soon). So I feel like it was the right decision not to post everyday in October...

Hubby took a couple of weeks off at the start of this month so we took the kids away for a few days. We stayed on the farm with my Uncle and Aunty and the kids had a ride on the pony, Tango.

One of the days we set off for Canberra and this was some of the countryside on our way. Isn't it magnificent! There were heaps of these canola fields on the way and they were so yellow. It was stunning!

Floriade is an annual event in Canberra which we have wanted to go to for a number of years now and finally we made it there. Fields of tulips all planted in specific designs, beautiful!

There were poppies too!

After Floriade we went just out of Canberra city to Cockington Green. If you haven't heard of it Google it. It's fun there. They have immaculate gardens with miniature replicas of some of the most famous places around the world. The kids had a great time too with miniature trains and people everywhere and a playground with some life-like animals to play with.

Last time I posted I was telling you about "Swaptober" and I would have liked more time to post about it again, but I'll just tell you now that I managed to get heaps done and drop 2kgs through the month of October, so it wasn't a complete failure. I would have liked to lose double that amount, but given the amount of birthdays and parties and holidays and eating out that happened, I'm not a bit surprised.

Ok, so the little projects...I spent a day with my SIL helping her to make my niece a new skirt and afterwards I was so inspired and came home to make some more clothes for the dolls. I made 2 more skirts and little blouses to match, so now they're all dressed then only thing I need to do is work out their faces. Mmm, the hard part!

I also made a new skirt for my assistant which she won't take off except to sleep.

I FINISHED THE DRESS!!!!

It has the best zipper I have EVER inserted and I only used my un-picker on 3 occasions for the whole process, 2 of which were removing the basting stitches (and none on the zipper!!), I only un-picked once to redo a small section. This is a monumental achievement for me!!

We sold a car! Another big deal for my car-collecting Hubby! It was so sad to see this particular car go, but necessary, I mean who really needs 6 cars with only 2 drivers...? That's 2 cars we've sold this year!! Yay! They paid for the new wall/fence and will pay to fix up another one of our cars...mmm...then maybe we can sell another one, but not one that will actually get much money.

I mentioned that I had a birthday too, which was not all that fantastic, I kinda feel older now, but something really exciting was a gift from a close friend who knows exactly who I am and what I love. She actually designed some fabric (AWESOME) and had it printed by Spoonflower and gave it to me! How special is that!!! I have awesome friends! My parents  bought me some gorgeous fabrics for my birthday too and a cute owl wallet, while they were IN JAPAN so that was really special too! My siblings gave me a charm pack of one of my favourite fabrics "Salt Air" and a replacement bottle of my all time favourite perfume which ran out recently. How my family know me...Sigh...I love them all so much and they made me feel so special over my birthday.

The day before my birthday it SNOWED! For the first half of that day it snowed at our house. They were huge snowflakes too, but unfortunately we're a tiny bit too low for them to settle. It was still pretty exciting though. Odd though, it's the middle of Spring and in the weeks before and after this it was really hot!

The following Wednesday we went to visit Great Nana and her snowball flowers were ready for us to play, so we had snowball fights there instead of in the real snow. It was a lot of fun and a bit of a tradition now.

B-man turned 1! I love seeing my kids grow and change and learn how to live. In this past year B-man has gone from a boring and icky baby to a walking and talking(ish) little person. He can do so much more now and is so cheeky. He is even starting to actually play with my assistant which is really cool.

Oh and I made him a special cake for his party. Never doing one like this again!

  

I spent a whole week sorting out my house in readiness for B-man's party. I ended up taking loads of girly baby/toddler clothes to a friend with a baby girl, put a few things aside for when my sister or someone else very special to me has a baby, and turned some really tatty and un-wearable things into rags for Hubby to use in the garage. It helped so much in making space! I didn't get rid of fabrics though, and instead gained a few bags from various friends and relatives. But you can't tell there are more here, I have a really good way of storing most of them so no-one else can tell...I am starting to use them more though, so that's good.

 Anyway, I think you've probably heard enough about my month. I'll post again, hopefully more frequently, in November. I still have a long way to go with Christmas gift making, so you'll probably see a lot of those projects.

Sewtember Day Twenty-Eight - Better late than never

Sorry it's late, but we had a big storm last night and lost our internet connection. It was a long storm...lots of thunder for hours. We didn't lose power though, so that enabled me to keep working at the machine and I'm almost finished with another present. I can't show you much, but you can see a little bit of the process.

I'd love to tell you what it's going to be, because I'm totally excited at how cool it looks, even now, but I don't want to spoil it for the person who I give it to. You'll just need to hang out until Christmas to see it finished.

I chain-pieced all of the squares together so it was pretty quick. I might make something similar for a couple of the other gifts.

I'm thinking of doing this again, but with wrong sides facing, for awesome looking, quick bunting. I would iron them too...might have been a good idea to do that this time. Oops.

Anyway, I'll be back later on to let you know how I go today. I can't beliave it's the 2nd last day of "Sewtember" already! I need to start thinking about "Swaptober".

See you soon!

Sewtember Day Twenty-One - Family Friday

We spent the day with my brother's family. My assistant loves spending time at their house and now she has worked out how to get on and off the trampoline unassisted she loves it even more. I think we might need to invest in some kind of outdoor play things, like swings or a tramp or a slide. Or we could re-hang our tyre swing.

Better suited to adults though.

(This looks like an ad for toothpaste or something, but it's really our tyre swing being used by some of our friends).

On the way home I needed to tend to someone's garden while they are away and I found these. They're little rhubarbs. When I looked at them the other day you could hardly see them, so I feel good that they're growing. I'm thinking about getting back into my vege patch soon too.

Our landscaper was working so hard today. I think the fence needs to be back by tomorrow so that Oscar can come home, poor puppy. It's looking really good. I only just got out to take a photo though, so it's a bit dark, but you can see it.

I think it looks great! What do you think?

Seeing as I was out all day and got so much done over the last few days, I've taken it easy with the sewing today. I haven't pushed for more time on a particular project or anything. But I have done a little bit of work on that order I mentioned the other day. Here is the drawing of the emblem I will applique onto it.

Here are a couple of others I made recently. Well in the last 6 months anyway...

I'm feeling so much more positive today, it's amazing. I love hanging out with my family. My brother and his wife are just so encouraging. They have great kids too, so it's really easy to stay at their house all day...the time goes by so fast and it never feels like long enough. 

Actually in the coming weeks I might be making skirts with her too. I'm totally pumped for it! I love skirts for little girls because they are cute and fast to make, so it gives a great sense of achievement when you finish one.

I really should head to bed though, I have a big weekend with birthdays and my high school reunion (I'm starting to feel old). I'll be back tomorrow with photos of the presents for you.

Sweet (sewing) dreams!!

Sewtember Day Fourteen - Fantastic Friday

Here's how my day went. Up normal time, breakfast with the kidlets, sewing(Yay!!! 

Doesn't often happen first thing!!!), morning tea, more sewing, workout with my PT, walk around with jelly legs, lunch, hang out in the sun for a boost of vitamin D, wash up, chat with the landscaper, dinner prep, chat with the neighbours, dinner, kidlets to bed, shower and a movie (Sister Act 2, Love it!). All in all a fantastic day! I love Spring, especially days like today! So motivating!!

Here are some of the weights I was using today...the PT brings a big one for deadlifts. There are 2 reasons in my mind why they have that name, because they feel like you're lifting a dead person or because they'll kill you. Mmm, maybe it's both...

I promised pics of the new wall and fence, and here they are.

I think it looks really good. What do you think?

I had to feel sorry for our landscaper today though. My assistant is obviously used to having him at our house. She was outside almost all day talking to him and telling him her life story and all about her future. How awesome it must feel to be 2! She did help me by taking him tea and biccies a couple of times too. He said it didn't bother him, I hope he wasn't lying...

I'm ready now to put the skirt part onto the test dress. I think it looks pretty good, but I'm really not sure about the size. I guess I'll find out if it's ok over the weekend. I hope it's ok. One of the sleeves looks slightly more puffy than the other, I'll have to watch that on the real one.

Anyway, I really should go. My movie's still on and then I need to head to bed.

I hope you had a fantastic Friday too!

Night.

Sewtember Day Seven - Family Friday

My niece visited today and hung out with my assistant for the day. It was great! B-man slept for 2hours, twice! I was sewing for most of the day.

I finished sewing around the petals on the place-mats

 and made some clothes for one of the dolls.

I know, she still needs a face...maybe tomorrow. Or next week.

It's unusual that I've already done stuff before this time of night, so I'm considering having an early one and heading to bed. I'm not sure how well I'll sleep though, given that it's so windy that our whole house is shaking and we have a massive tree over our house. Oh well, I guess resting will be good anyway.

Night!

Friday Fun One - I'm still here!!

You know how I've been taking this month easy when it comes to blogging? Well I haven't been doing nothing. Here is my latest project,

It's a Tashi costume for my nephew. They have book week at school next week and he will be wearing this for the book parade. I actually had a bit of trouble finding any pictures of Tashi online, but I think it turned out alright in the end.

I've also been re-arranging the house more and more. It takes a lot of time because I need to work in the space to know if it's practical or not and then I need to move or adjust things to improve the space. I'm actually growing more and more fond of having a sewing house rather than a sewing room now though, so that's good. The only real issue is that I can't close a door and hide away my work when we have guests over. I don't mind too much, but if there are kids involved then I would be concerned for their safety, with having scissors, pins and the iron fairly accessible now...

I came across this blog recently and left a comment and then I was mentioned in a post! Wow! I feel so special!! I'll have to make some of the quilts I recommended to Sarah. I really should start finishing some of the ones I've already started too.

Anyway, just thought I'd pop in and post to let you all know that I'm still around and still crafting. I hope you are too!

For my special friend who is going through some horrible things at the moment, I'm praying for you and your family and I hope we can catch up soon for some quality time together. Enjoy the rest of your holiday though!

Friday (not so) Fun One - The Big Goodbye

Yay it's Friday, right? Well, maybe. I don't know. Today was a big day for me. My little man moved out. Boohoo... He's 9 months today! Now, having him in our room has been causing some tension with my assistant, so the time came to move him out. It's a strange feeling. Coincidentally, my assistant has gone for a sleepover with her cousins, at Normal Nana's tonight. I spent the day saying goodbye not only to B-man and his cot, and my assistant, but also to...

...my sewing room. I know, I'm devastated! 3 big goodbyes in one day.

Humph! It's been really strange feelings all day for me. I'm a bit excited about having our room to ourselves again, but knowing that B-man is all alone is sad. I really wanted the 2 to share a room, but it just isn't an option with such small rooms and also my assistant is very much against the idea of B-man sharing with her. Actually, she doesn't want him sharing with anyone. I guess if she can't sleep in our room, no-one can.

Anyway, I took a couple of pics of my new sewing room(s)...

Bed/library/fabric room. (This is a teeny sample of my fabric stash...mmm). Very organised-looking scraps above...

Lounge/fabric/pattern/sewing room.

I guess it's not all bad. Now I can look at my fabrics whenever I want without having to move half the house around to get into the sewing room. But, it's still sad. I feel like I've lost something very sacred or something. Everyone will be able to see everything I'm working on all the time now too, so I'd better stay a bit more organised.

So that's it about my goodbyes. Now onto something a little less sad, the fruit for Friday. When it comes to goodness, does doing the washing and vaccuuming count as being good or goodness? If so then I guess you could say I was good today. What sort of things do you think of when you think of goodness? I don't think I'm so great at being good sometimes. I definitely have good days and bad days.

Oh, I nearly forgot the photo for today. "On the road". I'm cheating for this one, that is, I didn't take a photo today for it.

Ok, so you can't really tell, but that's me on a motorbike, on the road!!! It's from a few years ago while i pregnant with my assistant. I just really wanted to go for a ride with someone on a motorbike, and the time just happened. I'd been on bikes before, but each time was really slow and round in tight circles, so it always felt like I would fall off. I needed to do it properly to know that it was ok. Strange, but today being a day for big stuff I though it was sort of appropriate. The person in control of the bike is AWESOME! I had a great time and hope to do it again someday...not just yet though.

Only a few days left in July, so I won't be continuing with these photos. Is there something else I should post about here? I might try and do some more craft, a few people have requested that, but if there's anything, please leave me a comment and I'll see what I can do.

Nighty night!