A baby girl is on the way!

Not for me, but for one of my bestest friends, Jenni! We had her baby shower yesterday which was hosted by her sister and I offered to help out with some of the food and party games. I've been eyeing off cake photos in flickr for quite awhile now and have loved seeing all the cupcake towers so knew that was what I wanted to make for the cake.

I followed a tutorial on Cake Journal to make the stand and trawled through You Tube to find some demos on how to use fondant to make a ribbon bow and voila.....

There are vanilla and chocolate cupcakes, topped with pink butter cream frosting and I made the chocolate hearts by swirling together white chocolate with some pink chocolate colouring. The top cake has a layer of the same chocolate and vanilla mix from the cupcakes. Jenni got to take this tier home to share with the Daddy to be!

I also scrapped the front of a paper mache journal and the party guests got to write a message in it for Jenni.

And you can't have a baby shower without gifts! I used Ottobre 4/2009 design #3 for the dress with a quilter's cotton contrast for the band, then used the same fabric for the applique


and also for the matching bloomers, which are from Ottobre 3/2007 design #2.

I also made my first MCN, I used the Darling Diapers pattern and made this in their newborn size, once again with the same quilter's cotton to match. It was great to finally use my new snap press too, I was suprised how easy it was. I'm so happy with how this nappy turned out, my sister even said it looked the same as the one's I've bought, so now I can't wait to trace and cut out the bigger size for my little miss. I can see lots of matching dresses and nappies for summer!

Minky fleece outer

microfleece inner, with a 2 layer bamboo fleece snap in trifold booster
(try saying that 3 times fast!)

You also can't go without giving a mummy to be a bouquet of flowers:

Little socks, singlets and a face washer all rolled up.

It was a wonderful day and now I just can't wait to meet the new little miss, I hope to have some baby photos to show off in around 6 weeks or so ;)

Natalie xx

Sewing for a litte miss 4

One of my friend's daughters is turning 4 and I had a long list of things that I had in mind to make for her. She loves dressing up, bags, jewellery etc and in the past I've made her necklaces and bracelets so I thought this year I'd come up with something different. In the end I decided on following the Lazy Day's skirt tutorial on the Oliver + S blog. Melissa from Day to Day recently featured a 5 day Lazy Days skirt sew along and I loved seeing what everyone else had made. I wanted to use some broderie anglaise fabric that I bought an end of roll from Spotlight last year, so decided to make a two tier skirt so that there was a lining fabric for all those little eyelets.

Jai was a bit of unsure of modelling this for a photo, he was happy to test it for me earlier to check the waist but got a bit shy when I asked him to pose for a photo (sorry darling!)

I've been eyeying off the Bow purse pattern from Ottobre 3/2008 ever since I saw it and thought that it would be perfect for this little miss and found some fabrics that would compliment the skirt as well.

I then made a heart yo-yo hair clip to match and added in a couple of extra hair clips as well.

In the end I couldn't leave it without any jewellery so made a little sterling silver charm bracelet as well.

It was lovely to see her open it, she squealed with delight at each new item she found beneath the wrapping. I think that is the best part of giving a handmade gift.

I fell in love with the skirt so much that I have another one the same almost finished for my little miss as well!

Natalie
xx

Kellie's workshop at Hettie's Patch

Having been away for the weekend has made this week pretty hectic with lots of things to do around the house and other sewing that needed to be competed, but I've finally found some spare minutes to post about my wonderful weekend with Kellie. It was lovely to meet her and to see her gorgeous quilts and pillows in real life. I thought they were stunning from her photos, but to see all the details up close was a real treat. I don't know if I'll ever get close to the perfectly stitched appliques that Kellie has mastered or even get my free motion quilting to resemble anything spiral-like at all, but I'm happy with the progress I made and am eager to keep practicing at it. Unfortunately I ended up with a terrible migraine on the Saturday and had to leave early, but thankfully I was able to shift it and felt 100% the next day, so got right to work on my dummy quilt getting the feel of free motion stitching and then was even able to get to stitching down all the applique for the practice piece and even started quilting it. I didn't get much of a chance to have a good mingle around with everyone and barely said more than a few words to both Emma and Andrea that were there too, so I hope I didn't seem rude, I was just so disappointed that I didn't get as much done on the Saturday that I really needed too, which meant for head down over my sewing machine as much as I good on the Sunday. Silly me didn't even think to take my camera with me, so I only have the two photos I snapped of my progress so far - but if you head on over to Hettie's Patch and Kellie's blogs, you'll see lots of lovely photos!

My dummy quilt sandwich to practice on

My practice piece which Kellie has called "Wish you were here!"

We each had a lovely bag and embroidered name tag made for us!

I really had a great time and would love the chance to do something similar again. A huge thank you to all the staff at Hettie's Patch for making it so enjoyable - all the little touches were just lovely and thanks again to Kellie for being a fantastic teacher! Now to set aside some time to finish up my practice piece and get tracing, cutting, fusing and stitching on the main project, "Willow".....

Natalie
xx

Fresh from the shops today

I had already intended on going to Spotlight today, so imagine my delight when I heard they were also having 20% storewide today as well! I had a detailed list, mainly supplies needed for Kellie's workshop at Hettie's Patch this weekend and thought that maybe an extra thing or two might come home with me as well. Somehow more than that ended up in my take home bag though......

This is what we will be working on in Kellie's class

and this is some of the fabrics I bought today that I plan on using - I will also be raiding my fabric scrap boxes too.

cake boards to make a cupcake stand for my friend's baby shower in a few weeks

these patterns were all $2 each, I just couldn't pass those up!

Suiting fabric in the remnant bin that will make lovely pants for Jai - I ended up getting these for $4.40 and $3.60 each!

These jacketing remnants cost only $2.40, $2.00 and $1.60!!! I'm thinking cute skirts and maybe a jacket out of one of the larger pieces, for Cheriese.

more extras.....

I know I keep promising photos of my new cutting table and work bench, but I just can't seem to get it all neat and tidy, maybe this photo will explain why:

as always, lots on the go - you can see the outfit for my friend's baby that I'm currently working on. I spent this afternoon sewing some more and hope to have a final photo in the next day or so, just some hand embroidery and the hem to do!

Natalie
xx

School Holidays - Day 1

It's been a lovely lazy day here, day 1 of our school holidays is always set aside for doing as little as possible! We did manage to get changed out of our pjs just before lunch and even did some quick baking..... well, not sure if 3 minutes in the microwave is officially called baking, but it's the closest thing I'm going to get to today. I used this 5 minute Chocolate Mug Cake recipe.

Fresh out of the microwave.

Jai was the last one to finish his serve

"mine's all gone" Jai realises......

Hmmm, wonder if there's anymore left?

nope, all gone!

Natalie
xx

The "I just need to sew SOMETHING!!!!" sewing.

I'm sure you've all had those days where you've had a couple of busy weeks where you don't get the time to do the thing you love to do? I've been planning on getting some sewing done for the last week now, but just haven't been able to spare the time. Well today nothing was going to stop me, I decided I was going to sew. I have a baby gate at the door to my craft room, so I set Cheriese up just outside it on her table and chair set - gave her a bowl of snacks: cheese, strawberries and banana and her cup of water and quickly decided to make up a dress for her out of one of the remnant pieces I bought at Spotlight last week for only $2. I've had this ruffled sleeve top tutorial bookmarked and left open in my browser for over a week now - so quickly jotted down the measurements and started cutting. I used my overlocker for the seam and finishing to make it even quicker and had it finished just in time for kindy - with a quick stop to make some lunch for Cheriese and Jai in between pressing, sewing, trying it on for fit and snapping some photos! This is a great tute, so quick and easy - I can see a few more tops/dresses from it for Cheriese. She ended up wearing it down to kindy, I just added a long top and leggins underneath as it's another cold day here.

In my haste I forgot that I wanted a dress instead of a top, but only cut the length given for the top, so I added the ruffle.... but now I'm not sure if I should leave it as it is, or if it's too much and should take the ruffle off and just leave it as a long top? What do you think?

Natalie
xx

Dress-up sewing

I really need to be making more clothes for my 3, they are all growing so fast, but we have had a couple of dress up events to go too, so costumes have become more of a priority!

First up we had a movie themed quiz night for Jordan's school. We chose the movie "Star Wars" for our table and seeing as Jordan already had his Commander Cody costume, I just needed to whip up something for Jai, Cheriese, my nephew Cooper and myself. Jai has part of a Darth Vader costume - well really only the cape left, so he wore that with some black pants and a black top and I only had to print him out a mask and the voice changer thing and he was done! Cooper wanted to go as Yoda, so off to Spotlight I went and came back with a metre or so of brown polar fleece and made him up a robe and then I got out my face pants to complete the look. There was was enough fleece left over to make a robe for Cheriese - we couldn't all agree if she was a young jedi Padawan or one of the jawas! I decided to go as Princess Leia, so just made a simple tunic out of a white panne velvet in my stash and put my hair up in the side buns. Here's some quick photos:

Jordan and Cooper

Jai, Cheriese and me

Jai's teddy got to come along too. He was still in his ewok costume from the Star Wars day at the library last holidays!
It was book week at Jordan's school a couple of weeks ago and this year's theme was "Safari". Jordan wanted to go as a lion, so once again off to Spotlight I went and decided that the double bonded polar fleece was the best option, with one side being a tan colour and the other a dark brown. I found a Spotlight "Get Creative" brand tracksuit pattern that goes from a size 3- 12 in my stash that I forgot I even had and used it for the lion costume. I added strips of the two tone fleece around the hood for the mane and sewed a tail onto the pants. Jordan loved it, but as it was so thick and warm he could only keep it on until the end of the parade - it was one of our few warm days and he was getting too hot! I'm sure it'll be worn again though as all of my three littlies love playing dress up. Jai didn't quite understand why Jordan got to dress up and he didn't, I pointed out that it was a special thing that Jordan got to do at school and that he would be able to join in next year, but he got a bit sad about that so I said that I could make him a quick dress up to wear while he watched the parade as well. So another trip to Spotlight where I scoured for 'cheetah' fabric as that was what Jai wanted to go as. I ended finding only one piece of cheetah printed felt left, so I grabbed it. By the time I finished Jordan's costume, it was after midnight, so I decided to make a quick and easy cheetah tail and then a simple polar fleece hood with some cheetah ears sewn on. In the morning I quickly cut up the remaining scraps of the felt, grabbed one of the tunic tops I'd made for the church play and asked Steve to hot glue gun the scraps to it while I was getting everyone ready in the morning. Phew! was a busy night/morning, but they both had a great time at the parade!. Here's the photos.

say "Roar"!!

Lions can play piano too!

Cheetah's like to climb

and pose too!

Cheriese loved seeing all the costumes and was clapping and saying "yay" as each class got up on stage.

Hmmm, wonder what the theme will be for next year? Hopefully I can find it out earlier and get a head start next year lol.

Natalie
xx

Sewing for Jai

Jai desperately needs some more long sleeve tops, he has just had a big growth spurt and has grown out of most of his size 4 and 5 tops at the same time!!! There are so many tops in my Ottobre magazines that I want to make, but decided to use the same one I made in the EB kids clothing swap earlier this year, Ottobre 4/2008 design #25 "Pekka" t-shirt. Jai loved the car print so luckily I had some left over.

According to Jai it is "really awesome" to swing in too.

I've been going through and re-organising my craft room. I know have one side of my cupboard just for my fabrics. I didn't realise how many different knit fabric I have, lots for both the boys and my little miss, so hopefully I will be blogging some more Ottobre tops soon.

Natalie
xx

Swap goodies!

I did a swap with Cass and she sent me the most gorgeous package of goodies!

I had seen the travellers on her blog and immediately wanted one of my own -
I used it for shopping today, it was fantastic - I crossed off all my items as I went and didn't forget a thing, yay!

She spoiled me though by adding in all the beautiful fabric, srabble tile pendant and adorable key ring.

Thank you so much Cass!

While I was taking the photos, miss Cheriese grabbed the key ring and started dancing with it.
The tutu she is wearing used to be mine, it was the first tutu my mum sewed for me for my ballet concert when I was 3 years old. I'm sure I've seen a photo of me wearing it, I will have to look for it when I'm at my Dad's house next time.

Natalie
xx