Tanya Whelan

Have you seen this book Sew what you love by Tanya Whelan? I had to pre order it ( what a shame it is not out for Christmas) because I know it will just be lovely and while I put this on my wish list, I had to add her beautiful fabric, too, who wouldn't? Have a look at her blog, too. I have made her ruffeled skirt and the tutorial is so easy to follow and my girls love their skirts and I am going to make her easy peasy skirt because K. loves pleats since she got into Cheerleading club at school. I promise photos will follow!

My sister's wedding

We have been away for a long time. It was my sister's wedding in August and we added our family holiday to that stay, so in total we were away for 5 weeks.
Here are some things I made for the wedding.

This is the quilt I made for my sister and her husband. It is the biggest project I have ever done and I am so glad they liked it. When I started making it, I wasn't too sure how it would work out...especially after my friends disliked some of the fabric I was going to use. I am so glad I kept going, the colours worked beautifully and the different prints make it interesting, at least I think so.
My girls were flower girls and I made their dresses. I bought the fabric at Ikea for £5 per metre, you can't go wrong with that (and if I remember right it was designed by Kath Kidson, but I am not sure anymore). They looked so cute and had a fantastic day.This is our picture for the guest book. I asked my dad to make me a big heart out of thick wire and I tied ivy around it. I then took pictures of all the guests and these will go in the guest book together with their wishes for the happy couple.

One more present for Miss R

It had to be the Tilda angel. I thought the bathrobe was quite cute and I enjoyed the bit of embroidery (You can clearly see that I am not an expert!). It was quite a time consuming project but great fun. Best of all as, that both teachers liked their gifts and cards.For the piggy one I used an svg images from treasure box design, they do such lovely characters.
I can't believe that K has almost finished her first year in school. They have done so much (and mummy had great fun making costumes) and I am sure these memories will stay with her for a long time 9 even longer if mummy manages to finish the scrapbook).

Teachers' presents

I have to make presents for six teachers this year. The pre-school teachers are the most difficult, because they have received gifts from us for three years now and I don't want to repeat myself. One of the school teachers was easy, she collects pigs and I found this flying pig in a Tilda book.

The pre-school teachers are getting bracelets like this one
Now I only have to figure out what to do for Miss R and then I am done...mmmh a bag or an angel?

Butterfly costume

My daughter's class held an "Ugly Bug Ball" and even though we have a perfectly fine bee and ladybird costume she requested a butterfly outfit...but not any old butterfly outfit, it had to have the stages of the butterfly's life in it. Thankfully I remembered a short tutorial for a wrap-around-butterfly-wings-skirt on ikatbag . I didn't have her exact measurements but it worked out all right (ok, the wings turned out a bit too long and that's why you can see the pink skirt when you wrap them around, but it is good enough for me). The skirt worked as the butterfly and cocoon and I made the caterpillar out of felt and used a button for the egg. The evening before the dressing up day she reminded me that she needs antennae, too. So there I was making pink pompoms to attach on a headband. In the morning we had to paint her face, too....the things you do to make your little ones happy. To be honest, I get just as much fun out of making the costumes for her as she gets out of wearing them.

Farbenmix.de

Just found this fantastic web page. Lots of wonderderful sewing advice and super cute ribbon in the shop. I looked at it in German but I think they have an English version as well. I don't know if I am the last one to find this, but just in case, here is the link
www.farbenmix.de

Fantastic book

I got this book a while back and finally made something out of it. K. loves her skirt, it is comfy and a little bit like a dressing up skirt ...just right for a little princess. The patterns are easy to follow and there are even some lovely ideas for boys in there. I will have to get some knitted fabric for the t-shirts, they look very comfy.

A bag

I made this bag for our friends daughter, she seems to like it and uses it as a school bag. Isn't it fun, when the things you made get used and loved. I love making presents, so much more satisfying than just choosing something from the shops...that reminds me, that I should better get back to my sister's wedding gift.

It has been a long time

Wow, has it really been this long? I think I know the reason...we had the most amazing weather since March, lots of sunshine and hardly any rain = lots of outside play and hardly any sewing + 5th birthday, visit from parents and Holidays and the result is no blogging for months.
But just to show my cousin that I have not been lazy, here is the quilt I made for my sister's godchild. I followed an idea I have seen on Little Birdie Secret's blog, it was so much fun and didn't take ages. And I am working on a couple of surprises for my sister's wedding.
One very important event in the last two weeks: my new sewing machine arrived. It is a Silver Viscount 1050 (really helpful shop and best price I could find) and I love it. I don't know how it compares to the big brands but it seems fantastic value for money. So far it does more than I thought it would and I feel like a kid in a toy shop trying out all the functions it comes with. Isn't it sad that I get excited that I can write by sewing, no mare iron in labels for my girls!

How to make a lion costume

Mt daughter's school seems to have a dressing up day every week, we had pirate day, people who help us day and this week it was circus day. Pirate day was easy, old shirt, my belt, scarf and a few cardboard accessories. My cricut came in handy, I cut out the Jolly Roger on the Paper Doll Dress Up cartridge from white vinyl and stuck it onto black fabric that I had lying around. A bit of face paint and she was done. On the way to school she said:

Mami, I like pirate day...but I would rather be a princess!

People who help us was easy, too. I persuaded her that all the girls would come as nurses (which most of them did) and that a chef would be a good costume. I made her the outfit ages ago, the colours were all her choice! This time she opted out of the face paint, I had suggested a curly moustache, she wanted to be a girl chef. That is ok, too. We used some felt doughnuts and biscuits and a wooden spoon as accessories. Today is circus day and K had decided as soon this day was announced that she wanted to be a lion. We had nothing in the house, so I got to get my sewing machine out...I didn't complain. You might have guessed by now, that I really like dress up days and get a bit carried away.
I had a look on the Internet and then made up my own costume.
We copied the shape of a hood onto orange fabric that was folded right sides together, we added seam allowance and about 3 inches at the bottom.
I sewed these two pieces together and zigzagged the rough edges.
K then ripped brown, orange and beige fabric into strips (we used my scrap bag and found loads, don't try to make them uniform, the rougher the look the better), we used some felt strips, too. I then placed the first line of strips along the seam on the hood and zigzagged them down. The next lines of strips were arranged in a u shape around the first line, about 11/2-2 inches apart. I then cut 4 u shapes out of brown felt for the ears and sewed two together around the round edge, leaving the straight bottom open. I filled them with cut offs and sewed them on between the lines at the front of the hood.
I used some shorter strips of fabric for the fringe and sewed them on along the top front edge of the hood.
I would have sewn this hood onto a brown t-shirt, but we borrowed one from friends, so I used safety pins.
We cut some elastic for the arms and legs, knotted them into a circle and just knotted some strips of fabric on. We used a 3 inch wide and about 24 inch long strip of orange fabric for the tail, before we sewed it together we cut brown, beige and orange fabric into 3 by 6 inch rectangles (roughly) and folded them over to go at one end of the long strip of orange, with the rough edges meeting at the bottom and the fabric lying on top of the long strip). The long strip of orange was folded over lengthwise (now measuring 11/2 by 24 inches). Then I started sewing at the end with the extra fabric (it should be on the inside of the tube). This is a bit tricky, you might have to do this bit by hand if you put in too much fabric. I then sewed along the long side leaving the top open. The next step was to turn the tail around and cut the fabric at the bottom into strips. I attached mine to a brown pair of leggings. You could stuff your tail, but we liked it unstuffed better.
We added some face paint in the morning and this is it.

Promarkers and Lili of the Valley Stamps

Oh why, oh why do I keep finding new inspirations? I bought a crafting magazine that came with free stamps and enjoyed using them so much that I treated myself to promarkers. They are alcohol based twin tipped markers and they are so wonderful. The colours come out beautifully and they blend so well. I found a web page that sells them cheaper than Letraset themselves. Now I have a new problem...I need more stamps. I have found the perfect web page. Lily of the Valley stamps. The images are so cute, lots of sweet little fairies and girls that I like the most. I now have to decide how much money I am allowed to spend...the have free postage over £25, very tempting.