A Bit of Catch - Up

Catching up on some of my latest projects...

I said the other day that I haven't really done much sewing lately. Mostly because its calisthenics season, meaning that all I get time to sew is costumes. This year's costume challenge for me was a hippo.

It was a big challenge, but certainly not as difficult as last year's alien! Miss Ruth thinks its pretty awesome and she looks very cute on the stage in it!

It's Been a While...

Since I last posted that is... I have, since going back to work, been very slack with my online commitments.

I haven't stopped though. Not that I think anything ever could, and I've been doing life of sewing, a few markets and also rearranged my work room the other week in attempt to contain all of that stuff I've got laying around for weepantz.

I've been very busy mothering my 2 beautiful kids, and I have been cherishing the moments we have when I'm not working to spend time cuddling, tickling and getting kisses from them.

And now I'm going to go back to relaxing on the couch, and I hope to get back to more frequent blogging now that I'm semi-coping with being so busy!

The last few days

A few days off here this week, I've been busy being a mama and girlfriend as well as cleaning and getting ready for our new couch which was handed on to us from Mick's sister on Wednesday.

We got together with some of our family on Australia day and had a BBQ, in true Aussie style.

We had sausages in white bread with tomato sauce, gorgeous marinated rump steak which was massive and delicious apparently (I didn't end up having any). And sat around watching the kids play cricket and tennis and soccer.

The kids jumped on the trampoline, ate donuts with yellow and green icing and played under the sprinkler having a great time! Mick's dad got his camera out and of course took some lovely photos of the kids playing under the sprinkler. I wont post any of Oliver as he didn't have any clothes on.

Ruth, when Mick was squirting her with the sprinkler

and after squirting Oliver with the sprinkler, check out the evil face!

It was a wonderful day out, and was great to get out in the sun (yes there was a small amount among the overcast grey clouds) and the kids had a great time playing together.

As you can also see from the button on the right hand bar, the auctions and raffles have all finished now as well and we raised such a wonderfully large amount of money for Queensland. I am so proud to have been involved in this initiative and its wonderful that we raised so much money! Thank-you to all who bidded in auctions and entered raffles you have helped make such a big difference.

Mick is back at work after his super long weekend and I am back working on WeePantz stuff again, getting ready for my first market of the year which is on this Sunday in Eltham.

Oh and I've run out of pins, this must mean back to the sewing machine, oh and the snap press too. It's funny how the idea of snapping nappies makes me think of all the other things I need to do like wash the nappies, vacuum and mop the floor and bake muffins, cookies and slices.

The Dress

Today I finished off Ruth's Christmas dress that she asked me to make her to wear for Christmas. I think it turned out pretty well and she looked super cute at her school christmas carols tonight. 

Excuse the flash photography, there wasnt much light about!

The front... 

I used the corset style back for something different. I originally was going to use a zipper up the back, but despite my measurements I stuffed up the bodice size, but I think it was an alright save.

So now that is over, my little miss only has 2 days left of prep! **tear**

Tuesday...

So today is Tuesday... or if you ask the wiggles, it is Taco Day (yes, I watch far too much wiggles with my son). I have been working on orders and also getting ready for the market all whilst looking after my beautiful kids who seem to know when I get up super early to be without them and sew in peace and get up at the same time to bug me!!

I've been playing with some of this beautiful red minky, it is so so soft and delicious!! I want to play with it all the time!!

On the weekend, I also took the kids in to the shops to visit the man himself... SANTA!!

At this point, he was receiving strict instructions to bring trucks and a DS for Christmas. Very important stuff here. 

And then after the formalities were over, the kids both gave him a cuddle. This is the first time Oliver has actually met Santa without screaming his head off so I was pretty proud. He might actually enjoy all those presents this year, although wrapping paper is such a fantastic toy!!

I have almost finished Ruthie's Christmas dress too! very excited about this as it is just gorgeous, I will hopefully finish it off tomorrow as we have school christmas carols tomorrow night!! So I will post pics then!

Until next time...

Her First time in Cloth

I thought I would share a photo with you that really amuses me. This photo was taken of Miss Ruth when she was 1 week old, had been home from hospital but a few days and was in her very first cloth nappy.

VERY BIG!! I had no idea about the cloth options available to me, in fact they were probably not even being sold yet by most of the sellers that are around today. This photo still makes me smile 5 1/2 years later. I remember how much I was laughing and how hard it was to keep the camera still when I was trying to take the photo! She was so tiny too! and definitely didn't talk back... 

Too Glad that there are gorgeous cloth options available now. As much as this photo is so amusing, pants were definitely not an option that day and I'm glad that now there are nappies available that do fit under pants! (especially living in Melbourne in this cold... yes it is still cold!)

Wordless Weekend

A Day Off

Today I made the decision to take the day off from WeePantz. I have been sewing my little heart out lately making nappies and bibs for the various markets I do around. So with an unexpected free weekend I decided to make a dress for Miss Ruth, simply because I haven't done it in a while.

As soon as I mentioned that today I was going to make a dress, Miss Ruth's ears pricked. I asked her what colour she would like it to be "pink" came the reply. So out I came with 3 different shades of pink fabric, and she picked the one she liked best. Light pink, ahh this girl has taste, it is the perfect colour for her skin tone.

So with pattern in hand, and some cute pink fabric along with some white to add my own little flair to it, off I set to make a cute dress. Around 2 hours later I emerged, dress in hand, to have it snatched to be worn immediately. I'm guessing that is the tick of approval!!

As usual, I don't know how to do as I am told. I left the front pockets off the dress and added white to the top and bottom to match the store bought bias binding I already had in the sewing room. I also made a yo yo for the front and finished it off with a little button, just the right colour. (p.s, I'm not too flash at yo yo's, so don't look too closely!)

So it got the seal of approval, she skateboarded up and down the street in it for hours today. 

Market Day Wrap Up!

This Blogtoberfest has given me the motivation to actually blog a bit more about what goes on around here.

YES, its a mad house for the most of the time as I am ALWAYS preparing for a market and this week was no exception. I didn't, however, spend as much time as usual in the sewing room as it was school holidays and a special man's birthday.

But I was ready, after late night sewing and ranting at my printer which has decided to print lines of colour that somewhat resemble a disjointed version of my images in my information brochures. Any advice here? Perhaps I need to run the print head alignment thinggo that it keeps telling me to do! :p (oh yeah, I'm super tech savvy!)

So off I went to the market this morning. Yes, it was early, and yes, I remembered to wind my clocks forward before I went to bed, and my STUPID considerate phone decided to wind itself forward ANOTHER hour at 2am after I was in bed and ahh, yes tragedy, I was awake at 3.30am, well in Daylight savings time it was 4.30, but nevertheless, it was still an hour earlier than I intended to wake up, and only 2 hours after I went to bed. ;-)

So Off I went, and the market was just wonderful. This was one SUPER organised market, I was very impressed with the Fairy Floss Markets team and the work they did to make the day a complete success. I even had one of the helpers offer to unpack my car for me! They were just so so very wonderful! I arrived upstairs to a cookie on my table, in the shape of the market logo (oh what a clever tactic, delicious cookies will keep me coming back) and beautiful stall holders all around me who were all so very very clever. I find sometimes its easier to close your eyes than it is to open them as you save alot of money! I will be doing my Christmas shopping at this market the next time I am there, as it is just FULL of GORGEOUS things that I want to be in my size.

I am finally getting used to the smaller space that I have to display my nappies and bibs. I am used to having a 3m x 3m space and this was just one table, but I think I really did a good job of display this week as I used all of those hours I wasn't sewing to think and research how on earth I was going to utilize my space in a better way. I'm finally nailing it :)

And I had a very good day with lots of babies and their parents walking past and stopping for a chat, and me of course getting clucky over them all! (A girl can look and cluck right?) and of course lots of new customers, creating lots more sewing for me this week! Meaning that yes, I will have something to actually write about on here other than the fact that my kids are just gorgeous. But who gets tired of looking at MY gorgeous kids right?

Speaking of gorgeous kids... I bought them both one of those delicious cookies from the market. (who can resist yummy cookies right?) I wanted to get Miss Ruth something sweet as a reward for being such a good big girl over the holidays (even if her mummy is a grumpy bum slight work-a-holic and worries too much about how much sewing, cleaning, and paperwork ISN'T being done while we are playing together). 

Anyway, off to finish bathing my children and finish the many beers I intend to drink tonight as a relaxation before the big week of market prep for this week's market in Werribee Park.

The Start of the Season.... enter the competition mama!

Today was miss Ruthie's first ever calisthenics competition. She did VERY well and was so so very excited about the entire day. She has just told me she wants to go do some more calisthenics now, but I think she is completely exhausted!!!

Some photos as promised from the day. I wasnt on the roster for dressing today so I didnt get many, and was banished from the room as every time she saw me, Ruth would cry from all the built up emotion and excitement. But she had a fantastic time in the end and her team got an honourable mention in one item which was great :)

The whole team, that's Ruth over on the far left trying to cover her streaked makeup from crying. 

Ruth in her alien suit. The hands are no longer being used (yes they were very frustrating to make too!) but because she couldn't do the correct actions in them I'm glad that she didn't wear them in the end.

All Ready for her free exercises. (Free Arm). Loves the camera now hey??? I may have shed a tear or two when she got on stage for this, her first, number. It was great to see her on stage and loving it!

Well that's it for this week. I am about to go make dinner and then collapse with a beer or 7..... Back to what I get paid for tomorrow. Nappy sewing!! I have selected some great new fabric combos and cannot wait to make them up :)

What did you get up to this weekend?

Crazy Costumes and other stuff...

Okay so I've made no secret for my new disgust for lycra. I have been making costumes for my daughter's calisthenics. To be honest, most of the costumes were done and I had to simply sequin (insert shudders here) and finish them. 

One I had to make from scratch. It was without doubt a nightmare. Id never sewn with lycra before, much less made a body suit and to be honest, had the costume simply been a body suit, it would have been not so bad. But yes, we have to make things sparkly, and beautiful.

I must say that I have NOT come to an agreement with lycra, I still hate it and hope that I never have to sew it again. (we all know that with a little girl who wants to dance this is in no way a reality). I just hope next time it will be easier.

I can take solace that my darling daughter looks incredibly cute in her little outfit and that is what makes this project worth it for me.

I can also be glad that the judges are a LONG way away and wont be able to see my dodgy stitching in places.

I will be able to post photos of all of the costumes on Monday as her first comp is on Sunday! I am so so excited for her, she is going to have an amazing time, and she tells me that I am going to see "the best dancing you have ever seen mummy" and I am sure I will. And Im sure she will see the proudest mummy in the whole room when she gets up on the stage... I may cry... whoops!!

Naughty little Blogger!

I am currently the most neglectful blogger in existence. I do have excuses though which I will hopefully be able to shed more light on soon as I have been talking to some stores about stocking WeePantz. And very soon hope to be announcing my first official stockist.

I have also been accepted to start selling at a few new markets :) and that is something I am very excited about, but the last few months of the year are now OFFICIALLY booked out for me. Very busy, but busy is the way I like life. Especially since my PND I learned that if I dont get bored, then I wont give the depression headspace, very important for me, because (as my therapist put it) I tend to make the depression like a cd on repeat and struggle to move on once it is taking charge of my mind. So busy is GREAT!

So as I said, I am forever busy with WeePantz really taking off, so I dont make it into the forums much anymore. In fact at all, which is very sad, but I am still reading the blogs of my beautiful sewing friends when I can. And have met a few new bloggy crafters lately as well :). I hope all of my crafty friends still pop by here every so often as well. :)

A few things Ive been up to...

Well mainly sewing nappies, wetbags and bibs to be honest. I have a focus group sample to finish by friday of 14 nappies, and a market on Sunday so I hope to make at least 30 nappies this week. I am well on the way to completing that goal too. :)

Ive been doing alot of organising for Reusable Nappy Week. Not many of you know that I am the Australian Nappy Network coordinator for Victoria, so its also the business end of the year RNW wise and I am organising static displays and an information session.

I have been baking... yes... that is something I am constantly doing isnt it? Yesterday I made eclairs... DELISH!! Im not an eclair person, but I filled them with yummy custard cream and I think the fact that they were nice and fresh and crisp made them just delicious!

I tried a few recipes for this, but I found that winging it in the end and using my own judgement worked the best. I watched a video on making choux pastry, and noted their consistency prior to baking, so made the butter, water flour mix, allowed it to cool and then added one egg at a time until I reached the right consistency. I think the recipe called for 2 eggs and I used 1 and a bit, Im not sure if perhaps my eggs are just bigger than theirs...

I have been sequinning as well. Ruth's callisthenics competitions are about to start, so its the home run now with costumes with the first comp in 2 weeks.

I'll show you all finished photos when I have them. I may have to wait until after comps, as she is not really meant to be wearing them until then aside from fittings. But the costumes have definitely been an educational journey with sewing on my first sequins. The red outfit pictured above took me quite a long time to finish. I also sewed lycra for the first time. LOTS of googling before even putting pattern to fabric there as I was so afraid!

Amongst that, I have finished my winter coat, which I started a long time ago. It worked out so well and I will update the blog with pics soon I hope! 

I also completed (well my version of complete) the coffee date dress. I had to add so much to the pattern due to my height and also my bust (which is by no means ample) that Im not sure it still is classed as the original pattern, but I will give credit where it is due :) I was STUMPED by the all in one facing, it was slightly crazy, but now that I have figured it out, I am sure I will do this style of facing again as its easy once you know how!

I have also been doing the usual parenting tasks. Oliver is getting very cheeky now and is learning how to push his mother's buttons to make her cranky! Ruth is turning into a gorgeous, and very strong willed little girl and loves her callisthenics and also her reading. 

So I will tentatively say that I am back. I hope to attempt to be regular blogging when I can to keep you all updated. But for now, I am off to put the nappies on to wash, bake some bread and maybe eat an eclair hee hee. Then I need to update the website. 

Catch you all later.

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!

Musketeer Madness

As per my previous post, I was requested by my beautiful daughter to make her a Barbie musketeer outfit for a fancy dress party on Friday night. So on Thursday I started sewing, I had been planning until that point so I wasn't completely disorganised! Just a little bit hee hee.

The Pattern I used was Burda 2463. I only really used the bodice pattern for this, and drafted a new skirt pattern. (that would be drew it with only a length measurement and matched the waist to the bodice piece. My original plan was to use a circle style skirt but I decided on an A-Line instead. I also re-drafted the neckline as the dress I was copying had the low neck but the pattern was a standard crew neck.

And here is the finished product. This photo was taken just before we left for the party, so excuse the flash photography, there wasn't much natural light as it was pouring rain outside!

The embroidery I did by hand whilst squinting to copy from the dvd cover where the image was about 1cm tall. It is slightly wonky but a fairly close match. I used some pink ribbon for the frill on the front and the sleeves.

In action, the green musketeer uses fans as her weapon. 

I'm very proud of the finished product. And Ruth is stoked, the only reason why she stopped wearing it is because she had to wear her uniform to school! Even wore it to bed! 

My Creative Space

Today in the space, I have sitting this pattern...

Image from here

also, 2m of aqua/green satin, 1.5m of gold trimming, and a zip.

Princess Ruth wants to go to a costume party as one of the barbie 3 musketeers. 

So I bought this pattern, basically so I don't have to draft the bodice of this dress. I will be making a knee length circle skirt piece to attach to the bodice so it is the same as the movie character and putting some tulle underneath so it sits out rather than draping straight down. Also cutting off the draping long piece of the sleeves and leaving out the excessive unnecessary pleating on the top half. (there is a second view of the pattern that doesn't include the pleating) 

I know you are all jealous of my fantastic amazing need to sew children's princess dresses! I hope it goes well because I don't want to go back down to spotlight, tail between legs saying to them "failed miserably, more fabric please!" 

I will report progress this afternoon when I've sewn some of it together and done ALOT of swearing at the satin because its slippery... Any tips for sewing satin are much appreciated at this point! Going slow is my current idea!

WISH ME LUCK!!

For more creative spaces, head over to Kirsty's

School Holidays Day #1

I struggle to keep my children occupied. They both love creating as I do, so when I'm busy sewing, cutting, designing, blogging etc. They get quite bored. I have been really blessed since Ruthie started school, as I have been able to use Olly's nap time for my blogging, sewing, cutting and designing time, it has been working out well :-) Then... along comes school holidays. I swear it snuck up on me and that she surely has only been going to school for like 6 weeks... Turns out its only been 8 so I wasn't far off!

So in order to keep miss Ruth entertained I have decided to do something fun with her every day that Olly can join in on, so that she can have quiet time when he is sleeping and I don't miss out on my sewing cutting and designing time!

Yesterday we made Mini Hot Cross Buns from a fairy tale cook book that "Santa" brought her for Christmas last year. Baking might just be my daughter's favourite thing ever, but then I introduced her to kneading, she might be now addicted and will be begging me to make bread, which I don't mind as I love making bread myself.

The recipe was pretty basic, and didn't really taste that good, so I will be searching for a new recipe for This Friday as we will have to have hot cross buns for Good Friday.

kneading and rolling the individual balls of dough into the pan.

we were singing a roll the dough song and he was rolling his hands like we were, it was very cute, but do you think he would do it for the camera?? don't be silly... Olly was having a great time watching though :-)

Piping on the crosses. This mixture was very thick and quite difficult to pipe, and I've piped some difficult stuff in my time as a bakery lady when I was pregnant. Next time calls for more water in the mix, even though you aren't meant to!

the finished MINI hot cross bun. It is very tiny. 

The buns might not taste very nice, but Ruthie loved baking for the day. Now to top that today!!

Amy 

Finally!!!

Something Non-Nappy Related! Nappies (cute little balls of fluff that they are) have taken over my sewing room lately. There are random bits of nappy everywhere, I really need more storage so it doesn't look like a bomb has hit that room!!

Anyway, I have been this week doing some other sewing. Having a week off from WeePantz so that I can get some other sewing done. I have half finished a pair of jeans, well its more like 2/3 finished but yes im angry at them. And have been invited to a few parties (well DD has been invited,, im just her hanger on). I thought (as every sew-a-holic does) that I would make the presents.

My friend's little girl is turning 4 and she is apparently cooking mad. So I made her this apron.

front

back

I used See & Sew Pattern #4585 for the basic shape but didn't really follow the instructions as I (as usual) had an image in my head of what I wanted to make and the pattern was just giving me a leg up so I didn't have to draft. Yep! Completely LAZY!!

So I used the basic shape from the pattern left the front pocket off (little kids don't need a pocket on their apron, it gets filled with so many useless bits of crap, oh hang on that happens to grown up aprons too :-p) I used some very thin batting in the middle and then backed it with the sage cotton lawn. 

Also, instead of using D rings for the neck strap I used velcro. I was tempted to use snaps, but the snap press was packed away at the time, so I reached for the closest possible fastening equipment that wasn't a zip.

And then for the final touch...

...I embroidered her name.

For the embroidery stitching I used Kirsty's version of stem stitch which I DID find so easy to do thanks Kirsty!! 

I am really pleased with how this turned out. I have no "oh dear that didn't work out the way I imagined it" moments and it came together really easily. I really hope she (and her mummy) likes it!

Now off to make a batman/generic super hero costume! I have made the black cape and had one go at making a batman mask (complete disaster!). This is for a little boy that DD goes to school with. Who is having a party on the same day. AHH to be 4 and the most popular girl in prep... 

In a few weeks we are attending a dress up party so that will be fun for mummy, might have to start that costume now!! haha!!  Also got to start to make things for DD's 5th birthday party in a few weeks... so much fun... so much work and most of all... SO MUCH SEWING!! good thing Id rather be doing nothing else... :-)

Until next time readers... might be sooner than we think, perhaps I will successfully make a beautiful batman mask and want to show it off, or my jeans will start behaving themselves!!

Amy :-)

A Very Special Day

Today was a certain little princess' first day at school. We awoke at 6am, yes very very early and then started the day. Got ready for school and off we went along with the other hundreds of preppies for their first day at school.

Ruth ready to go to school, complete with hat that is the size of a flying saucer and backpack she could fold in half and fit inside...

getting out of the car ready to walk around the block to school. I think the question she asked me was "muuum, why do you have to take so many photos of me??!!??"

doing puzzles with some of her kinder friends from last year (who have been cropped out for privacy purposes)

It was a very exciting morning for my little princess and a very emotional one for her mother. I was a complete cot case, but thats okay, I think all the mums were slightly emotional about their babies growing up. They did, however, all look incredibly cute in their school uniforms!!

So its reduced hours for the first week and no wednesdays for a month, but I am already planning my school hours as being major sewing project hours!! (yes thats right, the emotional Amy didnt really last very long, I immediately started thinking of craft in true sew-a-holic style...)

 I am super excited about not having to get snacks for a 4 year old who has hollow legs every 5 minutes. I'll just have to deal with my other little charge who loves sitting on top of the fabric and patterns as I am cutting or tracing...

Until next time...

Amy xo

Advent Blog-A-Long #11 (updated with Photos!

Fancy that! Its Friday already, and only 2 weeks until that day... yes CHRISTMAS is coming!! Ruth tells me every day that its nearly time for Christmas and Santa will be coming and oh we have the most beautiful Christmas tree in the whole wide world!

Last night I went to my gorgeous little girl's first ever christmas concert at kindergarten. I was a little teary, and my little show pony was the star of the show as per usual with all of the other parents commenting afterwards on how sweet it was that she danced and sang more than the other children. Apparently she is due for an oscar in 25 years' time! so watch out Julia Roberts!! :P

Anyway... so I will update with photos tomorrow as the little star is awaiting her mother to come and read Dumbo to her. I read a few pages of a book every night, last week was Tarzan this week is Dumbo... Who knows what will be next week... I hope Santa brings her something to read cos Im all out of new books!!!!!!

Happy reading and I will catch you all tomorrow!!

wash your face with orange juice...

nawwww so cute!!!!

Amy xo

Advent Blog-A-Long #9

Well! As I said yesterday, I went to the Werribee Open Range Zoo with the kids and my mother in law the other day. It was a wonderful time and Id love to share some of the photos I took with you all :)

Giraffes!

White Rhino!

Pretending to be Unicorns with the rhino horn

hello meerkat!

Not sure I trust this one to take me into lion territory!!

Anyway.. all in all... we had a great time, Ruth thought the animals were amazing and I will have to go back soon to see it all again!

Amy xo