Happy Earth Day - Out in the Garden

So I had some sewing projects in mind to mark this day and I really wanted to participate in the Feather your Nest sew along.  But the weather was against my lamp refurbishment, as I am not about to use spray glue inside my house!  The picnic quilt that I hoped to make last spring, well I have now made great progress but really that is for the garden not the house. The awesome patchwork throw that I have been saving our old woollens for, I still don't have enough patches.  Finally the girls dress refashioned from a mans shirt has been moved to number 2 item on my sewing list for this weeks KCWC.

So no lovely repurposed or recycled sewing finishes but we did finally get enough clear weather to finish digging out the vegetable patch, sow some seeds and plant our seedlings. Our friends the Hippersons came and helped, as they are missing having a garden of their own to dig in.  This is our first vegetable garden in this part of the world so it will be a learning experience as to what grows well in this climate.  Plus battle has already begun on the the thousands of slugs that already call our garden home!  We had never seen slugs in such numbers till we moved here.

James and Alannah pleased with their efforts in the vegetable patch.

We love growing our own produce.  We both grew up with vegetable patches and planted our first vegie patch together in 2003.  Our current garden not only has the largest plot we have ever had for vegetables but the rest of the garden is full of established fruit trees and berry bushes.  We don't aim to be self sufficient, just to supplement what we get from the supermarket but we do tailor our cooking around the produce we have on hand. We find herbs and salad greens are the most handy to have in the garden, it is nice to pick a few fresh leaves to make a quick side salad for dinner. 

Xanthe helped me sowing seeds in the egg boxes we had left over from Easter.  We don't have any seedling trays and are hoping that these will make good substitutes.  She then proceeded to sing to them, tell them a story and give them a light water, too cute!  These could be the most cared for little seeds, soon to be seedlings on the planet.

Here are all the seeds in their trays, I used  a permanent marker to write what they are on the side of the box, I am hoping it stays legible or there could be some lucky guessing when we plant them out in a few weeks......

So there you have it that is our little bit for environment, well actually for us, for a couple of days work across the year it is so rewarding!

Happy Earth Day xx

Twirly Whirly Reversible Tiered Skirt

Now Xanthe is a dress girl and insisted the whole time I was making this that she did not like it!   It was not pink enough and it was not a dress!  Once it was finished I managed to convince her to put it on for photos and we have not been able to get her to wear anything else (it has now been 4 days).   Lucky it is reversible as one side has a big chocolate smear on it.  I love watching her spin about everywhere, it seems this skirt makes her feel like a little princess!  Which is exactly what I was after.  I had made a similar skirt for Alannah a couple of years ago, while it is very cute and she wears it often I felt it could do with more volume, twirl, loft?  So this time I thought I would line it, after thinking about it a bit more I decided why not make it reversible.  If I am going to all the effort of making a second skirt as lining why not use pretty fabric and have 2 skirts in one.

 

This is a perfect spring skirt as the extra layer gives it a bit more warmth, but sewing it in quilting cotton keeps it light and springy looking.  I have written a tutorial on how I made this skirt, which I will post later in the week.

The Birthday Dress

Those of you that sew my have recognised Alannah's dress in the previous post as the modkid Addison dress.  Every year, since I have been sewing I try to make the girls a new special birthday dress.  The first dress for Alannah was Sandi Henderson's Analise dress.  Sewn in Sandi Henderson fabric from her Farmers Market line of fabric.

The next year was Feliz Party Dress, from the book Sewing Clothes Kids Love (also available as an individual pattern).  As a relatively new sewer at the time, I also found Trillium's sew along fantastic assistance.  While the book has greatly improved instructions over the pattern, extra pictures and instructions never go astray.  Sewn with Flora and Fauna fabric by Patty Young.

Her 5th birthday was just before we moved to Switzerland, the party was at a local fairy venue, and I did not make this dress, it was a Christmas gift from her great grandparents.

This year I made the Addison dress, in more Sandi Henderson fabric, this time from her Secret Garden line of fabric. Yes I do use Sandi Henderson fabric a lot.  A selection of her farmers market line was the first quilting fabric I ever bought and I guess it has cemented a soft spot for her fabrics.  Although I am not completely smitten with all of her Secret Garden line, it is printed on the softest cotton, lovely for sewing clothes (and quilts!).  Alannah's favourite colour is blue.  A blue dress was requested and these were the nicest blue fabrics I could find.  I do really like the Vintage Ironwork fabric, I think if it is printed in more colourways in future lines it could definitely become a popular basic like her Henna Garden.  As for the Addison pattern, it is great, easy to follow, sewed together with no problems.  Having left this till the last minute I changed nothing, I even chanced the length!!  I simply traced and cut out the size 6 pattern and ta da perfect.  That is what I love best about most of the independent patterns out there, almost always they have great instructions with useful pictures and hardly any mistakes plus the size that should fit, fits!!  I have not had the same success with commercial patterns....

Pinwheels on Parade

So here is is the quilt I have been making for Philippa, Pinwheels on Parade.  I was inspired by Four Wise Monkey's pinwheels in the park, I liked the pinwheel design but wanted smaller pinwheels.  Loving all the colourful quilts around the blogs lately I decided on a rainbow colour scheme.  So I downsized the pinwheel block and set to work making pinwheels.  The pinwheels, including the white are made entirely from my scraps.  I had some of the on parade fabric from the children at play line and thought it would be cute with the pinwheels,  building up the rest of the quilt from there.  

I have more pin wheels that didn't quite fit, thought about using them for the back but ended up strip piecing instead.  Most of the strips are pieced, again to use up my scraps.  Possibly I should have made this up at two separate quilts but I love it how it is.  Below are my two little quilt holders showing off the back.  They didn't much like hiding behind the quilt!

 

It is quilted it by hand.  I took a long time to decide to do it this way, because of the doubled sidedness I was quite keen on an overall design and spent sometime working out an all over machine quilt pattern.  But I am not so good at machine quilting and really don't enjoy wrangling with my machine, even with such a small quilt.  So instead I used 7 different perle 8 cottons and ignored the reverse side, quilting to complement the front.  Spirals for each of the pinwheels, straight stitching around the boarders and complementary stitching the panel, with extra ghost balloons to fill in the white space.  I think the quilting works and I do like the look of hand quilting plus the process is very relaxing.

I finished the quilt with a scrappy binding to continue with the theme and as nothing else I had was quite right.  Finished size is 48" x 56".

So there it is.  Philippa has watched it being made and is very possessive of it, as any almost 2 year old is of something that they think is "mine".  But for now it will go away till her birthday.  It has been made to fit her cot which will, sometime in the next 6 months will be converted to her big girl bed!

Oh and I have entered it into Stitched in Color's festival of scrappiness.  Because of the panel I was a bit hesitant to enter, but I think it fits the 60% requirement.  Every bit of fabric except the white and pinwheel boarders and panels of parade fabric were scraps on the front and back.

Kids clothes week challenge

Yay my first sew along!  Elsie Marley is hosting her spring kids clothes week challenge in April, and I have made the commitment to sew along.  So, I don't need to have my own blog to join in, but participating more in the online sewing community was the main reason I started this blog and I really like the idea behind this sew along.  She is so right just an hour a day and its amazing what you can achieve!

I am also very motivated by all this springy weather to sew the girls some new clothes.  Spring and summer are definitely the cutest seasons to sew for.  Here is a shot of Xanthe this morning, in a dress I made last summer.

It is the Seashore Sun Dress by Oliver + S.  I used three Ann Kellie prints, taking advantage of the panel design to add some extra interest.  This is definitely a dress i enjoyed making and it has been well loved.  It is comfortable, cute and perfect for picking spring flowers in.  Perhaps I will work on dresses for her sisters, or a matching hat..........will have to see what is inspiring me that week.

Annual Photo Album

Over the weekend we recieved a book I ordered through Blurb.  A friend has been making annual family albums for a few years, which are fantastic.  So I decided to give one a go.  I love taking photos of the kids and our adventures but after they are uploaded to the computer I never do anymore with them, which is such a waste.  It took a year but I finally finshed our 2010, 150 page album, 10 days ago.

The girls loved looking through it they spent nearly an hour picking themselves out and reminicing all the places we went that year.  Totally worth all the effort, I have already started on 2011. 

Thanks, you made our day

I visited my local patchwork store today Cotton & Color, as I needed some more pearl thread to finish Philippa's quilt.  Guess who I bumped into Gail Pan and Helen Stubbings of Hugs' n Kisses, quilters from Australia who are running classes here over the weekend.  So nice to meet some quilting "celebrities" from home.  Also I got my thread and as always a few extras....  That is definitely one of the dangers of venturing to the local store (actually ANY sewing store) as I always come away with extras.  But I do like the gems that they hold stock of which have long since sold out online.  Today I spotted a bolt of Girl on a Swing on a pink background, oh how I was tempted to buy a couple of meters just because I could.

Also today, thanks to a lovely little girl clearing out her "baby" toys, I also got to be mum of the day by bringing home a lovely large dolls house home.  The house came complete with wooden furniture and dolls.  Not only were the girls in girlie heaven but I was very happy to get such a great bargain.  So it has a few paint chips, did the girls notice, no way they love it!  I have been looking for a dolls house since Alannah was a baby, but have had this crazy idea of what I was after, massive, wooden, homemade.........by the time I manage to find this or acquire the skills to build it myself my girls will be having kids themselves!  Absolutely no idea why I suddenly decided that this was the dolls house and now was the time, but everyone is happy.

So all in all a great day for the me + the girls!

Cooking Apron

This year Alannah is participating in an after school cooking program.  She loves baking with me but I was a bit nervous to let her loose with a kitchen knife and really cook,  I thought it would be interesting to see what they do and get someone else to teach her some knife skills.  Turns out the teacher to is also not so keen to go there with sharp knives yet, so mostly it has been baking.  But Alannah is loving it and we get a recipe book with all the recipes at the end, which she is very excited about.

You can't do a cooking class without an apron.  The last apron I sewed, was the first thing I sewed as a mum.  Xanthe was maybe two weeks old, my Mum was visiting to help out and I wanted to try out the machine I bought at 39 weeks pregnant (yea pregnant women do crazy things) and see how it worked.  Mum sewed a lot when we were kids and I needed some lessons, I had no idea how to even turn on or thread the machine!  When I look back I can't believe how hard and complicated I thought it all was. This apron has been well worn and is still used but is way to small for Alannah now.

So I decided this was my chance to try and design something myself.  As this was a learning/tinkering exercise for myself I made the apron reversible, which is extra good at protecting Alannah's clothes but also gave me the chance to design two aprons.

The cupcake side is pretty with gathered pockets and I appliqued her name across the top. The spotty side is more traditional with two large square pockets in one piece.  I made a long tie so she could tie it herself in the front.  The frill and curved shape was to give it a pretty feel, it is an apron for a little girl.

The fabric was all from my stash, and definitely not my favourite fabrics. Online purchases where the colours were not quite what I expected, but they worked well together for this apron and it was great to use them! 

I know there are heaps of apron patterns out there, but this is all my own, so if I get 5 comments on this post I am happy to write up a free tutorial.  Xanthe and Philippa would like their own special aprons too, so sometime soon I will be making more.....

Alannah's 100 Day Quilt

On the 16th February the kindergarten classes celebrated their first 100 days of school.  As part of this celebration they were to collect 100 items and with the help of their families, put them together in a display to present to the class.

Alannah has been interested in sewing for awhile now and as it was the middle of winter and we weren't getting out much, I decided perhaps it was time to let her have a go.   She could gather 100 pieces of fabric from my scraps and stash.  I could cut them into squares and she could sew a simple squares quilt.

Of course before embarking on this project, we had a little trial run to see that she enjoyed the process and could kind of sew a straight line.  With a few modifications to the set up, presser foot on a stool and chair on its highest setting, she was all keen and ready to go.

Firstly we hunted through my stash and scraps for fabric, initially we tried for 100 unique pieces of fabric but it turns out that, that is a lot of different pieces, my stash is large but not that large.  Oh yeah and I did the cutting.  I was not too keen on my fabric being attacked by a 5 year old with a rotary cutter, and of course I was concerned for her safety, 10 fingers suit her!  To have a nice size finished quilt we chose 5 1/2 inch squares.  There was lots of playing with the layout and counting and re-counting of squares on my fancy design floor.  

Then the sewing, she did great but needed lots of encouragement to get the top all put together on the first weekend.

 

Second weekend and she put together a simple back.  I was quite surprised at how good she was at pinning the long strips together.  Then we stuck the fabric to the living room floor to baste. Unfortunately we ran into a few difficulties with it being -20 outside and the heating struggling a bit. The floor was to cold, or damp, I am not sure but the tape was not sticking (I have since basted another quilt with same tape fine?!).  We pressed on best we could with the quilt sandwich.  Basting pins turned out to be quite tricky for little hands so we recruited Daddy to help out.

Now it is not a big quilt but even I struggle with machine quilting on my machine and prefer to do it by hand.  So I decided she could try knotting the quilt, not a technique I have used before but 100 knots, one in the centre of each square would continue our 100 theme and be quite achievable, a handful at a time each day.  To save time and as I suspected the markings would not be accurately followed anyway, I decided she could eyeball the centre of each square for her knot.  She found threading the needle very tedious (hey don't we all) but completed all the knots.  Then trimmed the tails to about 1 inch.

Finally the binding, I had considered she could sew the layers right sides together leaving a gap and then turning the quilt out to avoid this step (would have had to do this before we did any quilting).  But she enjoyed the machine work so we went with a traditional binding.  She really liked a Sandi Henderson stripe I had, so I prepared the binding.  I would normally hand sew the binding down, but there way no way Alannah would manage that in the time we had left so I let her use the heart stitch which she had been begging me to use since starting the quilt.  I figured that would give her a better shot of catching the seam on the back as the stitch has depth. 

Yay she was finsihed!!  Time to remove all the basting pins.

Here is one very proud little girl presenting her 100 Day Quilt to her class.

So yes most kids stuck 100 bits or pasta, money or lollies to a poster which took them (or there parents) about an hour.  But Alannah has a quilt that she can keep forever to remind her of her first 100 days of school.  Plus other than the cutting, basting and some of the ironing she did it all on her own (supervised the whole time).

This was a great project, but I did learn that next time we sew together, we would both enjoy it more if there were no time constraints. To get a 5 year old to finish this in 3 weeks took a lot of coaxing...........So I guess her sisters will be starting their 100 Day Quilts on their first day of school!