Mumma and Bubba

My good friend R had a gorgeous baby a few weeks ago named Lucia. This is super exciting as she is the first baby among my group of friends, and boy is she cute. Unfortunately I won't get to see her until I am home in New Zealand next January, so in lieu of actually attending the baby shower and visiting her in person I made and sent some custom swaddling cloths from some gorgeous fabrics I found at Purl Patchwork.



The pattern is actually from Purlbee.com (Purl Soho's blog). You can view it here.

I chose some soft double cotton gauze and shot cotton to make a matching set of three. All fabrics are Kokka I think.





The back fabrics were all double shot cotton, in complementing colours. And then I added a running stitch around the edge of each cloth to tie it all together.


They are super easy to make and feel nice and soft, perfect for babies born at the beginning of southern-hemisphere Summer, like Lucia.

If you are not familiar with swaddling (and I wasn't before I saw the pattern) here is a how to video:



Of course I was super late with R's birthday present as well (January) so I popped a blue scarf in the package as well.


A tried and true pattern at this point.



Yay babies!

Oh Dolly

Behold. My first embroidered portrait:


In case you can't tell (from the quite dark photo), it is the one and only Dolly Parton.

A friend, Z requested an embroidered bag for her birthday (which was in March!!), so as I was SO late I decided to capture her favourite diva in stitches.

Started with sewing a simple drawstring bag...


Decided on a portrait to copy


Traced the portrait with a pencil


Went over the pencil with a thin sharpie felt pen. Put the pen drawing inside the bag so I could trace it with disappearing fabric pen


And started stitching that pretty face


What do you think? Did I capture her likeness?


Here is is all finished and ready to be wrapped.


Further Dolly enjoyment below...

Brides and Feathers

Wow. It's been a while huh? My bad, I hope you have all been ok without my in-frequent posts. I have been super busy and also went for a much needed holiday to Tuscany (via London) for a friends wedding. Oh god it was good. Beautiful setting, beautiful ceremony, beautiful couple.

Before I left I asked the bride if there was anything I could help with, and she asked if I could make her something to wear in her hair. I freaked out, but of course I agreed. I don't have much experience making things for the hair but I knew I had enough time to learn.

So after a few emails back and forwards we decided on a blue feather number (no peacock!) with some sparkly bits thrown in to tie it to the dress. The whole wedding had a vintage 1920's theme, and K's dress was an original flapper dress from the era.

Below is the final product:


K was such a relaxed bride that she put all her trust in my judgement and said that she was sure I would make something great. Awww, so nice. Me being based in New York, Kate in London and the wedding in Tuscany meant that she didn't see it until the day before the wedding (eeek!), but she loved it in the end and it looked great.

Here is Kate and I at the post-ceremony cocktail hour (first face photo of me on the site *gasp*).


So pretty right?

I was a LITTLE bit paranoid about K not liking the blue headpiece so I made a back up, based on a picture of a ban-do headband K had sent me.


And here is me wearing it:


K liked this one to, but in the end the blue one won out.

I made...

... a new pillow out of some yellow felt squares I got at Purl Patchwork.

I think I am going to make another perhaps in grey and then add a grey blanket stitch around the edge of the yellow one, and a yellow edging to the grey.


Hanging out on the couch with big silver.


What do you think? Better plain or shall I add the border?

Cushions: Part 1

Below is a cushion/throw pillow I made for my bed. I'm trying to (eventually) get to a grey/silver, white, yellow and neutral palate for the bed "area". This cushion was step one.


The inner is from Ikea (28" x 28" or 72cm x 72cm) and the cover was made from a natural linen with metallic silver splatters from Mood. I probably shouldn't have chosen linen for the bed since its gets pretty wrinkled. Lesson learned.


The pattern I basically guessed, its just a square with an overlapping square at the back, to slip the pillow into. I am going to add some domes or velcro to the split as I didn't have quite enough material to make a big overlap.


I have another cushion inner the same size, so am currently deciding whether I want a matching cover, or perhaps another pattern/colour.


Anyway let me know what you think or if you have any suggestions!

PS: Comments are now moderated :)

Morrocan Wedding Blankets!

Yesss I found them. Maryam of the awesome blog My Marrakesh sells Moroccan Wedding Blankets.


Peruse the whole selection (and some other cool Moroccan-ware) here.

Happy New Yeahhhhhh!!!

Hi there. And welcome back. I don't know about you but our holidays flew by and I can't believe I'm back at work already.

I hope you all had a great relaxing break and Santa was good to you. I got lots and lots of treats and was very spoilt by my visitors. Lucky! Hopefully Z and M had a good time being shown around NYC.

And yay the best thing about being back is I can now show you what I have been crafting over the last few months. Nothing compared to some of the amazing treats out there but I tried.

First up the Glow-in-the-dark Monogram ipod/camera/phone/whatever covers I sewed up on Odette, to slip in with some Xmas cards. Pity most of the cards were opened by the UK post and the pouches were either lost or shoved back in and taped back together. Ugh. Thanks for that.

I made them with some neon grosgrain ribbon and soft natural linen from Mood Fabrics, I'm soooo project runway.


And embroidered each recipients initial on in glow-in-the-dark thread from Sublime Stitching.


This is the closest I could get to glow in the dark :(


And this is one of the ones that got lost!! Ill make you another one soon C.


Next up is a matching scarf and hand-warmer set I made for my friend Z for Christmas.


The hand-warmers were an experiment and (even though I had to re-do one of the hands) I think they turned out good!


I also posted them on Ripple-Along here before Christmas and fellow rippler Jan has even made her own versions! Awesome! Let me know if anyone else is interested in the instructions and I can post them here as well. So exciting to think that someone can follow my instructions :)


Next is a Queen Anne's Lace scarf for my Mum. My first attempt at lace and once I got the hang of it (ripped and re-started 3 times...) it was actually really easy.


I am making a few more in this pattern and cant wait to experiment with brighter colours and also thicker wool.


Download the pattern (for a small fee) here.


And lastly 4 sets of hand-embroidered pillowcases for my parents, grandparents, aunt & uncle and poppa.


The pattern I kind of made up myself after being inspired by some stitches I found online.


The purple wasn't my first choice but time was running out and funds were running low. I think it looked ok once it was all done.

Other than that I actually made 2 scarves for my brother but accidentally forgot to take photos of either of them, durrr. They were both black so nothing to get too excited over ;)

Well after all that it doesn't look like I even made that much! Now I just have a few more things on my list of WIPs (tea-cosy, 3 bday presents, scarf for me etc) and maybe sometime this year I can start on my first afghan. Scary!

Hope you are all well and 2009 has been good to you so far.

xxxxx

PS: New years resolution, post on GC more often!

Odette's bag

One more bit of craft from the weekend I can share, a sewing machine bag for Odette!


I just sewed it up from some scraps I had left over from... something. Neon ribbon on a naturalish linen. Would be good to put a zip across the top but I didnt have one on me at the time.


Fits Odette, the sewing machine foot and all my other sewing bits and pieces, although I really need a new sewing box so they arent rattling around in the bag.

Shop shop shop

Every time I hit my local Whole Foods, I silently thank my thoughtful cousin M for buying me a fold up, leather based, black shopper for Christmas last year. Such a nice gift for an 18 year old boy to choose! It is super sturdy with the leather base (which becomes the cover when folded) and has nice long handles so it can go over my shoulder if it gets heavy. Best of all it can fit the entire contents of a grocery basket in it at once. No need for those paper numbers! AND I get 10 cents off my bill for bringing re-usable. All that and it folds up and lives in my handbag so I never forget it.

Now when I see shoppers on the internets, and around, it is bitter sweet because I have no need to replace my trusty black one. However SHOULD I ever need to I think I would head directly to Leafbrand on Etsy.


Not fold up but still really really cool. And good for carrying anything I would imagine!

Get cutey crafty

Learn how to make your own cutey fabric (calorie free!) cupcakes over here.


Thank you Fantastic Toys.

Circus room

Hi guys! Ugh as you can tell I have been a bit lazy with the old blog this week. I swear Vegas took more out of me than I thought it would. Definately can't go there more than once a year. Unless its a special occasion... twist my arm why dont you.

So this weekend I did manage to do some fun crafting. Since I am the luckiest girl in the world with the nicest friends, I now am the proud owner of Odette! A super awesome PINK sewing machine. Yay for me.

ANYWAY, I have been dying to make some party garland like on the Purl Bee and this weekend I took my chance.

I started off with some left over scraps and 2 new fat quarter bundles from Purl Patchwork. And I even invested in an air erase fabric marker. I love the pen, but didnt realise how quickly it would air-erase. I spent about 30 minutes drawing a new embroidery pattern to stitch at a later date and the next day all I had was a blank piece of fabric. Likewise when I traced the shapes for the garland, the race was then on to cut them out before the lines all dissappeared.

So here are the fabrics I ended up going with...


I guess I didnt take into account how much garland this many fabrics would make, because I ended up with about 50 metres (55ish yards). Thank-fully I had a very nice cutting assistant (A) who helped with most of the speed-cutting.

Then a few nights later I parked up at Odette and sewed this mother out. 4 hours and 6 eps of My Name is Earl later... voila...




The view from bed...

My favourite fabric was the yellow one...


So let me know what you think! I tried to use as much as I could to decorate my room, hence the title, but I still have screeds and screeds left.

Soooo this leads me to my very first GIVEAWAY!!! I have decided to give about 5 metres away to one lucky reader. All you need to do it leave a comment on this post by 5pm (New York time) on Monday 20th to enter. I will use a random number generator to pick the winner and will post off your garland almost immediately. And yes, I will ship anywhere in the world. Good luck!

NB: just so you know the edges of the fabric shapes are raw (aka un-hemmed) but shouldn't fray unless you are really rough with it. Fair warning.

Hope everyone is having a good week so far. Only 2 sleeps till the weekend.

xx

Whaley

The 2nd best thing about having visitors come and stay is the treats they bring me from overseas! The first thing obviously is spending time with them...

Look at my new little friend from Japan.


His name is Wally and he is a tape measure too.


Thanks A!!