Shelley Doll

Late last year, while flipping through the December issue of Australian Homespun (No. 103 Vol 12.12), Little Lady fell in love with the Shelley Doll designed by Mary-Anne Hogan. So we made her together over the next week or so, and by we I do mean both of us. Little Lady started by picking out all the fabrics, threads and buttons.

Here's headless Shelley. The above pic shows what the magazine Shelley looks like. Little Lady made a few adjustments as you'll see. She loved being so hands on. I actually remodelled Shelley's hands to include thumbs according to Little Lady's instructions - "mummy, she HAS to have proper hands!" and Little Lady sat on my lap at the sewing machine while sewing Shelley's body parts and helped by taking out pins and pressing buttons on my machine. 

Head in place and add a little lippy... I used Jo Sonja's Matte Fluid Acrylics in Carbon Black for her eyes and nose, and Brown Madder for her lips - colours I had on hand from the Bunnies Project.
 

I cut up an old pair of my jeans for Shelleys pants. All the patches and embellishments were sewn on with embroidery floss and an obvious running stitch. My favourite part is the button and bead detail on the botton of Shelley's jeans.

Little Lady actually sewed all these on herself with me just directing where to stab the button or fabric whenever she wasn't sure.

Not bad for a 3 year old, eh? Yep, a 3 year old!! I'm a very proud mummy.

Pants on. Must protect Shelley's modesty.

The Hair. An indication of things to come when Little Lady gets older? The round buttons at the bottom of her shirt are made of shell.



Shelley's kerchief. I sewed everything this time. Little Lady told me her fingers needed a rest because "is she finished yet? It's taking FOREVER!!"

Her shoes were a real pain as I didn't want to use felt (didn't have any) and I wanted them to be completely washable so no cardboard inserts. I used some template plastic and sandwiched it between 2 pieces of purple homespun, using ladder stitch to sew the fabric pieces together while enclosing the plastic. I tucked the ends of the shoe strap in as I went making her shoes fit pretty snuggly so they won't fall off while she's being carried around.

Little Lady absolutely loves her. I thought I'd have to wait years to begin doing things like this with my baby girl but she surprised me with how patient and careful she was with her sewing. I can't wait for the next time she wants me to make something with her, not just for her.

Summer Quilts

Little Lady is like me, she has to sleep under a doona regardless how hot it is at night. Unfortunately her eczema is flairing up again as a result of being too hot so I'm making a light weight quilt with cotton wadding which will hopefully be much cooler to sleep under. This is where I'm at after a week of cutting and sewing...

Little Lady chose all the fabrics. And since Little Sir is almost ready for a big boy bed, I'm making him one too.

I found the pattern here which was adapted from this Moda Bake Shop pattern and I've adapted it further to make it a double bed size quilt. It's very simple which is perfect as I need to finish these quickly and also the speed with which I'm putting these together is helping reignite my sewing passion. I'm planning on doing a very simple pieced backing with big pieces of plain coloured homespun.

And to show that I have actually finished it, here's some quick shots of Emma's quilt.
It's quilted all over with meandering loops and hearts. Still not sure how or when this will get to little Emma but at least it's finished now.

Medical bag and Tool bag

When I do a big tidy of the kids toys I tend to sort them, not that the kids play with any one category of toys at a time - I've been served tea with toy screwdriver parts in toy saucepans before. So it was more for my benefit than theirs, tho they love bags of any sort, when I made a Medical Bag and a Tool Bag to put all their medical and building tools in.

I used fabric from my stash and some left over Vliesofix and made a simple tote bag to which I had raw edge appliqued a red cross and a hammer onto. I even used a french seam on the bags because I couldn't be bothered zigzagging the edges and this way they can't fray. Only took about an hour to make both and as predicted they're used for carting around toy food and books, not medical instruments or hammers and spanners. But their eyes lit up when they first saw them and they ARE being used so I can't complain.

Oh yeah, that's what I was doing...

I'm a little stuck right now, unable to do anything without a little clingy shadow (Little Sir is sick) so what better time than now to update my scrapbook. I lost my sewing mojo again and I've been busy with other stuff but I have managed to still do some crafting since my last update. Finished projects include a couple of toy bags and a Banana's in Pajamas cake. My current in progress projects include the log cabin crocheted blanket, the hexagon cathedral window pillow (all hexies in place, just gotta start adding the coloured windows), Little Lady's Candied Hexagon Quilt (I blame this project for my current lack of motivation to sew - it's turned out to be way, way more work than I thought it'd be and is in NO WAY going to be finished anytime soon) and a Shelly doll from the current Australian Homespun (No. 103 Vol 12.12). I'm making Shelly with Little Lady - she has picked all the materials and helped me pin, cut and sew (by sitting on my knee at the machine, removing pins, pressing my up/down button and cutting threads). We've also stuffed her parts and now I'm "taking forreeevvveeeeerrrrr" to sew her together before we sew on her hair, make her clothes and decorate her. I've gotta take some pics and then will endeavour to post a bit more regularly. Maybe...

Hexie Windows Shaping Up

It's slowly coming together. All my folded hexagons have been pressed and the centres secured and now I'm slowly sewing them together. I'm using ladder stitch as my preferred blind stitch.

To be continued...

Slight hitch

So I spent last night ironing folds and it turns out that I've misjudged how thick some of my seams are which means they won't fold back on themselves to overlap the colour window insert. Duped by the thinness of my paper template. But after playing with it some more this morning, if I snip this and tuck that it still might work. I'm determined to get this. After all I've already cut the fabric so really what have I got to lose by hacking it some more?

To be continued....

New Project

My sewing mojo is back thanks to a couple of recent Sit and Sew sessions with the gals at the MMQG. In particular Rachel and Bek have got me thinking about catherdal windows and while I don't want to make a whole quilt, I'd love to make a few pillows to dress up my couch. I'm not sure if a sew-along will happen just yet but I couldn't wait so when Spotlight had a 30% off storewide sale earlier this week I went to stock up on base fabric. As usual they were out of white but there was a roll of unbleached quilters homespun that had a linen-like weave which was down to $4 a metre so I picked up 3.5m, enough for 3 pillows I hope. And I've got plenty of coloured bits for the windows in my stash.

But here's the catch. I don't want to do square catherdal windows. You see, the other project I want to do is make a light summer weight quilt for each of my little monkeys to sleep under this summer and at the moment I'm thinking one of them, probably Little Lady's, will be based on the Candied Hexagon quilt like the one on the cover of Australian Quilters Companion Vol 5.2 Issue 18 (2005) which was designed by Kerry Dear. By the way, this issue is out of print and I don't have a pattern but that's nothing new.

Anyway, with hexagons in mind I want to make a hexagon catherdal window pillow. I can't find a pattern online anywhere and it's taken me 2 days but I finally figured out how to fold the hexagons and now that I've got it I don't want to stop in case I forget so I've been busy making templates...

...and cutting today.

Now I'm up to ironing and folding my hexies. It's going to have to be all hand sewn because the sides don't unfold like a traditional square but I want to hand sew the windows in anyway so whats a little more hand sewing. Famous last words no doubt!