Two days...for this?!!

I pushed through coz I know the fun part is next but damn my hand hurts.

388 7cm squares. Yep, had to trim them all. Yep, 2 days. But they look so pretty, don't they? Hopefully I'll get feeling back into my thumb tomorrow coz right now it's a phantom digit.

Got fussy with the colours so still got these to sew and trim before I can plan the layout. Less than 7 weeks until the bubs are born and lots still to do. It actually feels great to be this motivated.

Lotsa Cake - Iggle Piggle & DottyWot

Birthday cakes have been an easy decision for the last 2 birthdays in our house. Little Sir had a birthday late last year and the clear winner was Iggle Piggle since he loves watching In The Night Garden and Iggle Piggle's head shape is actually quite easy to make. I used the same butter cake recipe from here and just doubled the ingredients to make a huge rectangle. I trimmed the sides and corners to create a bean shaped head and didn't fill it as it was too big to be able to slice in half and lift the top off without breaking it. I didn't want to do my usual filling of strawberry sauce and cream anyway as one little party guest was allergic to strawberries and I didn't want him to miss out. Instead I flavoured the butter cream icing with chocolate essence. The difficult part was trying to make blue butter cream icing as the only butter I could readily find is all coloured yellow. The blue wound up being kinda grey in colour and there are actually 2 shades of blue (grey) on Iggle Piggle's head but it's hard to see in the photo.

Chocolate sprinkles to colour the centre of his eyes and mouth again and some red coloured butter cream icing for his um....hair...things.

Little Lady started putting in requests for her DottyWot birthday cake about 2 months ago when the run of family birthdays began. Again I made butter cake (I think I may have overcooked it slightly as it was drier than normal) in a loaf tin and trimmed the corners a little to shape the top of her head and jaw. I also cut a wedge out for her mouth and rather than cover her with butter cream icing and have the same problems trying to create blue, I bought some ready made white icing and rolled it out to cover the cake with.

Her eyes are balls of icing and her eyelids were made by thinly rolling a small ball of icing and wrapping it over the eyeball and trimming it to cover only half of the eyeball. Her tufty flufties (the tail-like things coming out of the sides of her head which I have just realised probably should have come out of the top of her head instead) were made by rolling a flat sheet of icing around a line of short fruit stick lollies - I wanted the whole cake to be edible but was fast running out of icing so had to improvise. They were finished off with a ball of icing pinched at one end to create a funny drop shape. Originally I had the idea to use blue fairy floss for the ends of the tufty flufties but couldn't find any at the time.

Both the eyeballs and tufty flufties were attached to the head, and where needed to each other, by scoring the icing on the bits that will touch with a knife (to rough it up and give the 'glue' something to bite onto) and then painting the area with a thick sugar syrup ie, sugar with only enough water in it to dissolve it, say 3 spoons of sugar and 2 or 3 spoons of water - the microwave made this really easy as it virtually liquified the sugar crystals. You need to paint it on while its still hot as when it cools (which was surprisingly quickly - only a few minutes) it sets like hard candy, gluing the bits together.

I painted her pink rather than try to colour the icing before rolling it all out so I could get the colour right though she does look a bit streaky because of it. I simply mixed pink food dye with water and enough icing sugar to thicken it a little until I got the right intensity then painted it on with an artists brush. I have Gorgeous Man to thank for my 'action shots' - he was actually the one who thought to take pics for the blog. Thanks baby!

Gorgeous Man helped finish painting her face, tongue and tufty's and coloured in her pupils with a Sharpie pen while I got ready for the party and then I stuck her tongue and eyelashes on and she was ready!

Little Lady loved her and I was supermum again!

Long overdue

My garage has been overrun with kids furniture for some time now. We bought a kids table and chairs set raw so that we could paint them in fun bright colours ourselves and were quite motivated to get the undercoat on....and then they sat there taking up prime realestate in our garage for, well for a very long time. But they're finally finished and in use!

I've also been knitting a cardigan for Little Lady from Patons "Sugar Fairies" (Book 1304).

I started knitting it on the drive to our family beachhouse back in January and only really get any done late at night when I'm too tired to sew or I want to watch TV. I'm supposed to use 4 ply baby wool but I picked up a whole bag of Moda Vera Noir (75% wool super wash, 25% polyamide) for 50c a ball so I hope it turns out OK. Google says (yep, I had to look it up) that polyamide is nylon. Of course I don't like to make things easy for myself and after starting the cardy I realised I really didn't like the purple colouring so I restarted it and looped out all the purple yarn.

I've finished knitting all the pieces and am now tying off all the ends where I joined the next stretch of pink yarn before I sew them together. Then onto crocheting the edge and adding the beads.

Charity Quilts

My first time at a keyhole patterned quilt. A mix of navy, yellow, pale blue and greys, I wanted a more subdued colour palette that might suit an older quilt recipient.

I also made 2 blocks (all I had time for in the end) and sent them all off to Corrie at Retro Mummy for her Quilts for Queensland effort.

While I was going for subdued I didn't realise how washed out an overcast day can make photos look.

I'm thinking about it. In fact I've been thinking about it for a few years now. Do I have the motivation to do it tho? Creative ideas are always there, stock is there, means are there too. It's just maybe because I don't NEED to I haven't found the drive to get it going yet. Well it's in writing now so maybe this will keep it churning in my mind and have me a step closer.

Dresses For Two Little Princesses

While still busy with finishing the Freckled Whimsy quilt (which I'm now going to make 2 more of for my  two sisters' new bubs) and also a keyhole quilt front to send to Corrie at Retro Mummy for the Quilts for Queensland effort she's putting together (more on this in a later post), I've managed to find some time to make some more dresses.

Last time Spotlight had a pattern sale I got this

 

and have since made dress A in some pretty fabric that I picked up at a clearance sale at Spotlight not long after getting the pattern. Its a simple pattern which sewed up very easily and I can see would lend itself to modification will little trouble. I actually changed the way the shoulder straps fixed to the back of the bodice,

wanting to add a hidden button closure instead to make it easier to get the dress on and off.

 

And this is my first buttonhole!! So pleased with myself. Like many other sewing techniques it's a lot more scary as an unknown but so easy once you actually try it.

Front

(dontcha hate it when you discover a smudge on your camera lense AFTER taking all your photos)

and Back 

and modeled.

I've also made a replica of the little pink dress in a smaller size for a friends daughter

which I decorated with some small roses across the bottom of the bodice.

Fingers crossed it fits as neither dress came from a formal pattern and I guessed little Nicola's measurements, making small adjustments to the pattern to fix the things that I would like to change about Little Lady's dress if I were to make it again.

My first squiggly

I finished piecing this together last night:

It's the biggest quilt I've made to date and I think I did a pretty good job of it. But now I have to finish it and I've realised that I can't keep putting it off, I'm going to have to learn how to free motion quilt coz I don't think sewing in straight lines will do this quilt justice. I'm all prepared for it too so despite the fact that it was past midnight I had my first go at stippling on one of the placemats that I made for practicing on. And here's how I went...

Front. This is the placemat I liked the least so it was my first guinea pig.

Some detail. A bit choppy when changing direction but I did notice I was getting better as I went. I've learned that I can't rush through and that I have to sew at a certain speed. All the advice I've read to date says to go very, very fast, the faster the better. I found when I did my lines got more jagged and uncontrollable so I think I've found a speed where my hands and feet are on the same page, which from other bits of advice I've read is really all the speed I need.

And the back. I wound up stippling a lot smaller than I thought I would. I found it easier to control small movements so next I'm going to practice a looser stipple.

Where to begin...

2010 went blindingly fast or maybe it just feels that way because the end of the year always feels like such a rush. My 2 little cheeky monkeys are growing so fast. Little Sir is walking now and babbling away trying to talk, and Little Lady is so independant, choosing her own clothes, brushing her own teeth and washing herself at bathtime. "Mummy, I do it!" They're both so clever and observant. I often wonder if I was like this at their age.

Craft-wise the end of 2010 saw me very busy sewing christmas presents. Normally I'd just buy something for my neice and nephew but this year I wanted to do something from the heart that I put love into. I made something they can use and will be able to use for a while to come yet, a craft apron, and something for them to keep, a little bunny rabbit each. I thought I had started making them too early but I'm glad I did because it took me close to a month to make them between a christening, birthday parties and life in general. The craft aprons were the same design as the one I'd made previously for Little Lady here but I made them slightly shorter and changed the way I sewed on the binding to make it look neater. At Little Lady's instructions I used a rainbow striped fabric for my niece and coloured spots on a blue background for my nephew. Of course I had to make her one too which she chose a blue "twinkle star" fabric for. Forgot to take photos tho.

I got the bunny rabbit pattern from an old Homespun magazine (No. 82 Vol 11.3). The pattern looked a lot smaller than I thought it'd be so I enlarged it 150% and made my first trial bunny (on the right) which Little Lady quickly claimed. Confident I knew what I was doing now I enlarged it to 200% and made 4 more, one for each of my monkeys and one each for my niece and nephew.

I've also started the new Emma quilt with the Freckled Whimsy design:

My trusty ironing board has now been retired as a workbench since I rearranged my sewing area. Poor sucker gets no action anymore since I still can't be bothered actually ironing anything not craft related.

No, I don't eat yoghurt while sewing but the container is handy as a tall skinny rubbish bin for threads and such. I remember thinking "I'll have this quilt finished in no time if its anything like sewing these bits together. Too easy". Famous last words coz then I got to this part...

OMG there were SO many little half triangle squares to iron open and trim down! I got about half of them done in one day and then couldn't use my arm for the next 3 days.

Here they are laid out ready for little stickers so I know what to sew to what. I messed up pattern at the bottom left corner but realised after I took this pic so it's fixed now. Haven't started sewing yet. I've been completely obsessed with watching my chrissy present to myself - Fringe seasons 1 & 2. No hurry. I've only got 2 more quilts I want to make before May (girls you know who for - I'm going to be an Aunty again...twice!! So friggen excited!!!!!) Plus the one I'd love to make for Little Lady to replace her quilt on hot nights like tonight. And a dress like the little pink one I made last year for little Nicola who will be 1 soon. And I bought some patterns to make Little Lady some more dresses - yep actually found a pattern I liked! And a dress or two for me. And....