Here It Is!

That thing I have been stitching away on for the last week is finally complete, and it is just too darn cute!

Take a look at the gorgeous custom named nappy I made for my little man!

Its got gorgeous designer fabric from the front, beautiful dark charcoal minky through the body of the nappy, and a gorgeous embellished back panel.

Yep! All of those letters are hand stitched with blanket stitch for something extra special for my little man.

And there's two little elephants, also hand stitched onto the wings.

This is also just so cute, the I is dotted with a hand embroidered elephant.

I have taken some beautiful photos of Mr 2yo wearing his new nappy, and I hope to upload them soon for you all to see.

Keen on getting a custom embellished nappy for your little one?? Send me an e-mail and we can organize getting one made up for you!

Stitch - Stitch - Stitch

This is nearly finished now and is complete with some very cute embroidery to go with this appliqué. 

I hope to finish off the gorgeous item tomorrow with its final finishing touches and get a pic up for you all to see!!

A Pretty Little Pouch

I have been dying to make up a pouch with Toni's Zippered Pouch Tutorial. One of my daughter's friends turned 6 this week and she will be having her party tomorrow afternoon and Ruth wanted to give her a little pouch for her little things she has. (okay so I may have swayed her slightly :p ).

Anyway... so I did it! I made not only the zippered pouch, but I also did my first ever piece of patchworking on the front panel. Im very impressed and the hand embroidery was really like a breath of fresh air after all the sequining I have been doing for Ruth's Calisthenics costumes.

The front of the pouch, the back is a panel of the bird fabric you see on the right hand side here.

Close up of my embroidery. :) I really am a fan of stem stitch, ever since I learned to do it I always use it for lettering, I like how it hugs the curves.

The inside fabric is some floral print that I had laying around, I used it at Christmas time for some market dresses.

Anyway... So I was really impressed with the tutorial, it was very well explained and pictured :) and its such a fantastic little project to use up some of my scraps! Look out for more of these in the future!

Admitting Weakness

I set to completing my wonderful cool batman outfit on Saturday Afternoon, which I was confident was going to be AWESOME!! anyway looking at pictures online so that I could get a good idea of what to do, My wonderful daughter came up and said "ohhhh so that's who batman is... My friend already has a batman outfit mummy" **insert cry of defeat here** I was devastated. I couldnt believe that my beautiful work was going to waste.. I decided that I wasnt going to give a batman costume if he already had one and searched and searched for ideas of what to make him.

Eventually I came across this... Art Bag Tutorial which is quite girly, but I thought I could whip one up and then maybe chuck in the batman cape as well... this is where my weakness comes in.

I am prone to "whipping things up" at the last second. But then I decide whilst making it, "oh this would look great with *insert whatever embellishment i think of here* on it. And this is what happened with the Art Bag...

 

I most certainly couldnt give a plain art case to someone, so I decided to do a small amount of hand embroidery... as you can see, my weakness came back and I did more than a small amount of hand embroidery. But it does look AMAZING! All of the other mums were green with envy so I no doubt will have made 50 of these by the end of the year... :-p

Complete with a ben 10 colouring book which of course is very cool right now, this went off to its new owner yesterday afternoon. I (without exaggerating) finished it 5 minutes before we had to leave, still in my pjs. Thank goodness for Mick being home or we would have been horribly late as I would have had to get us all ready in 5 minutes! The photos arent very well staged as I took them 2 seconds before we left for the party. 

Weakness.... it sometimes pays to give in... 

Advent Blog-A-Long Day 15

Yeah... so I missed a few days over the weekend!! I have a good cause, and that is because I was sewing! Thats a good excuse right?!?! Anyway.. so I made 13 dresses on sunday its battlestations getting ready for the market on Sunday this week. Im hopeing it will be worth all my effort :D

Yesterday however I spent some time sewing a gift for my mother in law. This will be her christmas gift, and I really hope she loves it!!

I am so very very proud of myself with this one. the front panel is all hand embroidered and its the first time Ive done so much hand embroidery on one piece. Im definately addicted to hand stitching now!!

The pattern was in the November issue of Handmade Magazine and is by strath sewing and quilting.

So yes... I just have to put in the cushion and thats another present down!

I am now officially addicted to hand stitching and my next planned project (after christmas) is a hexagon hand pieced sewing bag that I found in a book I borrowed from the library. I might even take away my stitching on holiday when we go on boxing day!!

This week has been quite productive nappy-wise. I have been doing alot of embroidery on minkee for a new market we have applied to attend next month. More on that another day, but I thought I would share a photo of a sneak peek of what I have been up to as I haven't done a sewing post for a long time!

I assure you, sewing has been happening and I have actually aquired a sewing room (kicked my son out of the nursery and moved him into his own bedroom) and I have been attempting to prove to my lovely partner that I need the space. Although this wasnt questioned anyway!

In my new sewing room I have made Oliver a shirt (sans buttons, so it is still technically classed a WIP) and have been attempting to make a shirred dress for Ruth, which, to this moment I have not completed because I have been too distracted doing embroidery on nappies!

So here's a little sneak peek of my little embroidery/applique that I have been working on, I have finished 2 other ones of this, it is the second last one (there will be 4) and the stabilizer is still on top with my guide lines on it for ease of stitching. But You get a slight idea...

It is quite difficult to do embroidery to a sellable quality on a normal machine (or freehand as some people call it), so this week I have also been looking at embroidery machines and it has been added to my Christmas / Birthday wishlist. But Im happy now that I have figured out a good process to use whilst doing embroidery and applique and have found that tear away stabiliser was a FANTASTIC investment as well as some spray on adhesive and ironing my fabric as I go. As the old (revised) saying goes, practise makes better!

I couldnt go an entire post without showing you some sneaky picture of my kids which I have taken recently. The other day I bought Oliver his first toothbrush because he now has 4 teeth (which he popped out in 3 days much to his disgruntled, exhausted parents' disgust) and I caught Ruth teaching him how to use it. So beautiful and a lovely candid moment caught on film (or on memory card, although film sounds much better and alot more nostalgiac)

Freestyle Embroidery Take 1

So I decided to try my hand at some freestyle machine embroidery. Basically this means that instead of the fancy $2000 machine etc, I did it myself on my regular sewing machine. I started out wanting to complete something similar to what this lady does. But once I got the outline of my anchor I thought Id try filling it in. It looks really cool and considering it is my first attempt, I can forgive the messiness that I started out with. But I will definately be doing this again! Look out world, Amy has figured out how to embroider....

The picture on the left is what I used as my original stencil that I traced for the outline. I am pretty impressed with my effort. :D

My beautiful boy is 10 months old today! I cant believe he has grown so quickly! Soon I will have a toddler on my hands! Hes so beautiful and Im loving every minute of being his mum even if he is nothing but trouble!









Now back to sewing... I bought some embroidery thread yesterday which I am using on my nappies. I made a really cute paw print one, but because it was my first, I will have to keep it for Oliver as its slightly off centre and a little bit dodgy.

I used a piece of paper as a makeshift backing stabilizer because the minkee kept getting caught in the feed dog of my machine... Im looking forward to doing some more embroidery too! I might do some for Miss Ruth on some clothes and of course on my nappies!