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 Thirty - Quick re-cap

 Wow! How fast did Sewtember go!?! I'm totally overwhelmed by the number of things I didn't get done and still need to do, but I'm also really happy with the things I did do this month. Here is a quick run down of the things I finished over the last few weeks. Click on the link for each one to see the original post.

Rainbow quilt top 

I know it's only the top, but the top is finished! Actually, I just love it. One day I'll get around to finishing the rest of it.

 The zoo bag

Dolly Over-alls

Dolly shirt and skirt

It's a shame I didn't get to do faces. Maybe next month.

Test Dress

Quilted birthday cards

Wrap around shirt

Tardis Phone Cosy

Super hero cape

Place-mats

Thanks for joining me throughout this month. I hope you were all productive too. I'm looking forward to another Sewtember next year.

See you in SWAPtober!

Sweet Dreams!

Sewtember Day Twenty-Two - Party Time!

Ok, so we celebrated 2 birthdays in our family today. One for my sister Annelise and the other for my cousin Alleyne. We went to Great Nana's for a party and caught up with everyone and ate a lot of food.

I know, everyone just wants to see the presents...Ok, seeing as Annelise was born first, here is hers.

 Annelise already has a couple of these shirts, but she said if I kept making them she'd love it, so that's what happened. Happy Birthday Annelise! Love you lots!!

Now, here is the one I've been working on for Alleyne. It took some time to get the design just how I wanted it and I think it was totally worth the effort.

Do you remember the gift I made for my Dad? Hint: It was a mini-quilt... This is related to that one.

Ta-da!

I love it!

I'm not really into Dr Who, but I'm totally tempted to make one of these for myself. Haha.

Maybe I'll try some other forms too. Postman Pat's van was suggested, or maybe something else. Who knows. Maybe one day when I get the time to make something for myself I'll think about it a little more.

I had the just enough thread to complete the phone cover. Phew!

Here they are with there presents. They loved them! It was such a great afternoon!

Tonight was our 10 year high school reunion...more about that tomorrow.

And this is what I was working on this morning before all of the party stuff.

Next step: applique! But that's a job for tomorrow, I think.

Shouldn't be too long before it's complete.

Yay for semi-quick projects!

Oh, our fence is back up and the wall is done! Looks so great!!

And the puppy is home. Awww. Isn't he cute!

Anyway, it was a big day and I need some sleep. I'll see you all tomorrow!

Sweet dreams!

Sewtember Day Seventeen - Another Funeral

A friend of mine put a comment on Facebook this morning which was a challenge for anyone interested to create something this week. I read the challenge wondering how many people would actually take it on. I feel like I am constantly creating things and while I'm at home with the kidlets, it gives me a great sense of achievement when I design and complete projects. 

This extends way back to before I was even in School. I have always loved to make things. I remember being really small, maybe 3 or 4 and I would make ponchos for my dolls by getting a piece of fabric, folding it into quarters and snipping off the corner to put the doll's head through. I also remember the my friend's mum found a pillowcase with the corner cut out for the same poncho style thing. I don't think her mum thought it was so cute though. Most of the ponchos then had a ribbon tied around the waist to hold them on. I recently found a doll here with the same kind of poncho dress and ribbon combo, in my assistant's toy box. She kindly alerted me to the fact that the doll was only wearing a piece of fabric and I should make a real dress for her...when I was little that WAS a real dress! How times have changed...

Anyway, today I went to yet another funeral. 

We heard a couple of people talking about my Great Uncle's life and even though it was hard to keep up completely - the kids were a bit distracting - I couldn't help but think of my Grandad (his brother) and how much I miss him. It's so hard when you lose someone close to you. I'm kinda over it. Hopefully there won't be anymore funerals for us in the next while. Or at all.

Sewtember.

I got a tiny bit of sewing stuff done today, but only on the things I can't show you. I'm sorry. I know that's boring, but tomorrow I'm really hoping to get back into the place-mats and the (real) dress. I bought the rest of the things I needed to complete it today. I realised the other day that the time I set to have the dress finished is also when I have 2 kidlet's parties to host, so I'm planning to get it done in the next couple of weeks instead. Fingers crossed!

I'll leave you tonight with a few more pics of things I've made. This time shoes. Hopefully you're enjoying seeing my creations and also hearing about my life.

I hope you have a great Tuesday!! I'll catch up with you then!