Highland fling

My sewing machine has been sitting vacant for a while now and life has just been quite busy and blogging has been far from my mind so again i am sorry for neglecting you BLOG!!

Winter has arrived and along with it a desire to sew........and shop!!!
I love new seasons to browse the array of catalogues that come streaming through my letter box and drool over the latest Boden or Joules designs and then I go in search of (The look) for less!!

I spotted this dress from Joules but by the time I had pondered over purchasing it it had sold out in my size

This is when the sewing machine came out and the hunt for fabric began!! My other half suggested I just sew a couple of tea towels together to get the same effect but then what does he know of fashion!!! Although I did actually give it some thought as they had some rather wonderful tea towels on line!!! ( I jest)

We have a little sewing shop in our town and it stocks some rather old-fashioned fabrics so I did not hold out a great deal of hope that I would find the right thing,but then I guess its rather a dated fabric with a trendy twist so I was lucky to find a wool blend in a traditional tartan design at a mere £4.00 per meter....result!!!

I was in too much of a rush to buy a pattern so i just cut out the material from a dress i already had that was a lose fit and my finished result was this

 I put the zipper on the outside to give it that Joules feel

 I think this will look great with a shirt,maybe a denim

french seams to finish it off!!!

Right I am off for project number 2!!!

Getting back in the swing of it

And what a better way to get back in the swing of things is to make a swing coat!!!


I wanted to make a simple project one sunday afternoon.This was just going to be a what I can find in my fabric kinda project as I really need to use up fabrics that have been laying around for a while.

I am always too impatient to order fabric and wait for the postman and so I buy as I see with no particular idea in mind and usually I can find something (albeit not exactly right)

I realised that I did not have large enough pieces for the lining but I managed to find something that sort of goes together and although I dont love the star fabric in this coat its given me ideas for the next coat I make from this pattern found  here           

The only thing I may do next time is slightly alter the volume in the sleeves and make them longer but here is the finished result

sew much fun

When I get a bug for something I get it big style,it could be photography,cake making,cooking,knitting and right now its my sewing machine that is getting my attention

I love crafting,could you guess!!! I want my children to grow up with the ability to make and create,even more so important for Lucy who may need to keep busy hands when she gets older and so I try to surround them with made with love items to inspire them

On my last post I had put up a mention of a book by Emma hardy and I also found this book in my local library by the same author,its great for getting your littles in to making and has some really sweet ideas and will be on my list of books to buy once it goes back to the library

I dont as a rule make much stuff for my only boy Daniel as I find boys clothes need a lot more tailoring,something that intimidates me a little but when he asked me to specially make him something nice how could I say no and I only have a window of time when my cool boy will wear something that I have created so I set to and made him this rock out dressing gown

Note his cool kung foo moves........its his chinese genes

My boy lives in his jammies at home and so he can now cosy up in his rock strar house coat too

Little red riding hood

A rainy saturday at home left me feeling creative and a little project I have been meaning to do for a while took shape in the form of a little red cape for lucy

I made it in wool with a soft cotton lining and as Lucy doesnt like the restriction of chunky coats this I felt was an ideal cover up without the hassle of feeding her reluctantly in to a coat and with only one button we can escape out the house in a flash

I can honestly say this was so very easy to make that even a complete begginer would find it a breeze

The book that I took the pattern from was from Emma hardys making childrens clothes

There are some really neat patterns in there and all very simple but effective,Im going to make the little boys dressing gown next and have some rather groovy material already and waiting

All I need is some time!!!!

These rolled fabric flowers are so easy to do and look great as a hair corsage as well

 http://portabellopixie.typepad.com/RolledRosesTutorial.pdf I have a link to the web site its a really fun project and I have a feeling i am going to be making many more of these

A sweet treat for a tired dress

I stumbled upon this little dress in our local charity shop,its never been worn but it looked like it had a little something missing

I decided to make my little cupcake a cupcake dress and hunted through my stash of fabrics and found just the right colours

Now thats better!!

Lucy was in this dress all of 10 seconds before she had gotten it dirty and not even long enough to get a photo in but trust me she looked super cute

 

I love Amy butler

Her prints and patterns are amazing and I thought I would share my latest creation from the little stitches book.

The pyjamas were quite easy to make and I think I will try and make a bigger pattern and make some for Megan and Daniel.

I had a slight problem in that i sewed the front panels the wrong way and couldnt be bothered to satrt again but its not made much of a difference.

I always goof up somewhere along the line.

And bunny comes too

I had some of the material from the bunting left over and now we have a new member to our animal brigade.
I have been told by Daniel that he would like an army bunny!!! I am not sure it will be quite so cute in army style but I will rise to the challenge and post army bunny very soon

Getting all crafty

I have the craft bug and here are a sample of my first projects,the first dress I made was the first ever time I had used a pattern (apart from making a bag once)

I then got a little adventurous and cut a pattern out from one of lucys dresses,this was harder but I loved the finished results.

The hardest thing is to get my baby girl to model them.