A pinafore for Susie

I bought a lovely pear fabric at a secon hand shop the other day. I suspect it is vintage, but I can't be sure (how can you really tell??). I like it anyway. The big question was what will I make out of it? I decided on making a cute pinafore for Susie. It was a huuuge piece of fabric, so this little pinafore only dented one corner... so I got plenty left.... hehe... what will I make next?

Ok, so here it is;
It's a bit hard to get Sus to stand still long enough for me to take her photo, but I managed to trap her between the telly and the curtain...

The pinafore crosses over at the back.

Since little monkeys gets easily dirty, I made the pinafore reversible. I paired my pear fabric (!) with this floral fabric.

The shoulder straps just ties on the shoulders (I love this pic by the way). Easy peasy...

And the best thing is; Susie seems to like it. She would stand completely still when I was trying it on to get the pattern to fit her. And she will also stand still long enough for me to tie the straps on her shoulders... she doesn't usually have time for standing still that long.

Now I will have to make something for Maja as well. She's asking for a pinafore like Susie's, but I can't be bothered altering the pattern to fit a 5 year old... I've got something else in mind... stay tuned...

Edit: Woops... I forgot to say that I used this tutorial as a starting point for my pinafore. I've altered the pattern ever so slightly to make it my own though.

Happy happy joy joy!!!!

Late last night, I got an email telling me I'd sold something on Etsy! I'm sooooo excited... I've had my first sale!! Yoohooo... This is what I sold; the green reversible shoulderbag.

It is now in the post... on it's way to Norway... to a gal named... wait for it... Tonje! How cool is that...!? To Tonje....from Tonje! I hope she enjoys it!

Quilted bags

I've been making some quilted purses/bags the last few days. I didn't have a pattern for these bags, so they are just made up as I went... It was really good fun. I really enjoyed the quilting... the batting made them so soft and lovely. They are all living in my etsy shop now.

White handbag with flowers

I just remembered that I still had one handbag left after my handbag sewing marathon before christmas... I didn't have anyone to give this one to, so it's now in my etsy shop.
I had so much fun sewing handbags for christmas presents last year. I think I'll make some more bags soon (more night work...)

Small purses

A few days ago I used a couple of the squares of fabric I bought a wee while back to make a... triangle purse... pyramid purse.... don't know what to call it. I felt that it would be a bit small with just two of the fabric squares, so I added on some green and black fabric strips as well... and an orange ribbon as a wee strap. I also had a green zipper that matched the green in the stripy fabric (altough it doesn't really looke like it in the photo).
This little purse was really fun to sew. I'm not sure if I want to keep it myself or if I should put it in my etsy shop...

Of course, when my 5 year old saw me using the sewing machine, she wanted to join in as well. She found some scraps of fabric and asked me for a zipper, so she could make herself a wee purse for her coins. She sewed it all by herself, with me only supervising and giving her some hints and tips on how to do it. She even put in the zipper herself.

I think Maja's purse turned out gorgeous!! I was hoping she'd give it to me for my birthday in a couple of weeks... but no... She wants to keep it herself.

Birthday!

We had a birthday party for Susie today with a few of her friends round. Her birthday isn't until Monday, but Saturdays are better for parties. Happy Birthday, Susie! Where did the past year go? I can't believe you're one already!
I just thought I'd show you Susie's dress. This dress was made by my great grandmother, and I wore it on my first birthday 30+ years ago. It's crocheted and it's quite thick (and short....) but I thought it was a bit fun to dress my girls in it on their 1st birthday too (Maja had it on on her first b.day too.)
Here's the proof... Me on my first birthday. You'll have to excuse the colours... the cameras wasn't all that in the 70's... (Why did she make it that short?? Was it fashion?)

Happy birthday!

It's my little brother's birthday today! Sooo... I've made him a card and a present. I don't think he's got the present yet because I was a bit slow getting to the post office... well... to be perfectly honest, I hadn't finished his present in time (I was waiting for the batting to arrive in the post). And it's really hard using the sewing machine with Susie around. She tends to "help" me a bit too much... pressing the pedal, pulling the cord, running away with the rotary cutter (or licking it)... or just rearranging the bookshelf and make a general mess... So I'm mainly a night worker when it comes to patchwork/sewing. I don't think my brother read this blog, so I'll take my chances and post some pics of what I've made.

Just a quick card for him... (Why can't I just make up a batch of cards to save for when I need them?? I always end up with just having to throw something together in a hurry... )


Ok... now you're getting impatient.... "will she never get to what she's made"... Place mats!! I saw these place mats on a blog a few months back and fell totally in love with them. I just knew I had to make them. So after a bit of research on the web, I found the pattern for them (thanks Merete). I really wanted to keep these myself.... but I couldn't think of anything to give my brother for his birthday, so I decided to make these for him instead. I hope he likes them...

I made four of them. I'm kind of hoping that won't be enough... cos then I can make some more and give him for christmas....hehe...
Oh... forgot to say... this is what I needed that black fabric I wrote about earlier for.

A couple more for my shop

I've made another couple of needle books for my etsy shop.... Both Hardanger embroidery on white evenweave with black fabric lining and two white felt pages for your needles.

Come to a party!

It's quite unbelievable, but Susie is going to be 1 in a couple of weeks! Where did the time go?

I'm having a small party for her, so yesterday I found my stamps and sat down to make some invites. The three top ones are just different lay-outs I tried out, and as you can see I settled for the left one... well, Maja helped me choose... actually she decided that we were gonna go with that one....
This is what they look like on the inside:
Of course, Maja couldn't resist a chance to use my stamps, so she helped me out. This is what her invites looked like:
I think this one is really nice! (almost nicer than the ones I made....) Don't you just love the rainbow sheep...?

Ballband dishcloth

I've wanted to knit the Ballband dishcloth ( Mason-Dixon Knitting by Kay Gardiner and Ann Shayne) ever since I saw it in a blog, but didn't know how. I did a search on the net and found the pattern for it HERE. These dishcloths were really quick and easy to knit, and fun as well....and they are definately gonna look much nicer in my kitchen than the old store bought dishcloths I already have...

They're made of 100% cotton and they are really nice and thick. I don't know if they're any good, but I hope so. I'll give one of them a try tomorrow.

Catch of the day...

I went to the quilting shop in Linlithgow today. I needed some black fabric for a project.... can't tell you what yet, because it's going to be a birthday present and the person who will receive the prezzie might be reading this... These are the ones I settled with. The top one, I found in a "sale" box, it's 1,5 meters. The other four are fat quarters.

While I was there, I picked up another bargain... Two small rolls of squares (12x12 cm) for £2! One with red fabric and one with purple. Lovely!

Love hearts...

This is what I made with my green and blue fabric squares from my previous post; lovehearts!
I just love hearts... ehh... love lovehearts.... whatever.... and lime green is one of my favourite colours... so I think these turned out quite good.... especially since I haven't done any patchwork for a long time. They are a bit on the small side though, 7x7 cm. So that makes the seam allowance at the tip of the hearts a bit on the small side....

I found the pattern for them HERE as part of a mystery quilt project by Merete Veian. I didn't really have a project in mind when I made them, but I don't want to make the table runner they were meant to be, so that's why I didn't follow the pattern regarding size of the starting squares, and that's why mine turned out a bit smallish... But since heart shapes are my favourite I couldn't resist makining some. I'm sure I can use them for something anyway (anybody have any suggestions??).

Fabric

I found my old bag of fabric today.... I just love the bright strong colours on these small pieces of fabric! I've been reading a few quilting blogs lately, and they have inspired me to do some quilting/ patchwork again...

So I chose a few colours and started cutting them;

These are the colours I chose (see above).... I've started sewing... got four small blocks, and another four half done. But I'm still not quite sure where I'm going with these blocks... They are really tiny..... I wasn't expecting them to be sooo small.... but I'm sure I'll find a way to use them.

I'll put my thinking cap on.... Now, I'm going to bed!

Spiral scarf

Maja insisted that she neeeeeded a new scarf. I wasn't gonna buy her one, so I said I could knit one, and she was fine with that. She got to choose the yarn..... fuzzy.... of course. But this isn't just fuzzy... it has got small "bits" in it as well. It wasn't the best to knit with because of these "bits" but I managed. It wasn't really a problem, just a bit fiddly to get the bits through the stitches as you knitted. I made it a spiral scarf. We've got plenty of "normal" scarfs, so I thought I'd make something a bit different.

Christmas presents revealed...

I promised to show you those christmas presents that I made that I only gave you a sneak peak of in an earlier post... so... here they are:

All the sneak peaks were handbags. One for my mother, one for my brother's girlfriend and the rest for my husbands nieces.

The two top ones are the same design and the two bottom ones are the same design. I've used the same fabric for three of the bags but all the bags are different. (It's quite amazing how different they look when you change the fabric.) All the bags had pockets of some sort, some on the inside and some on the outside, some zippered some not. They all had a magnetic snap closure as well.

I hope they all liked their handbags (if not, they could always put them in a wardrobe and use them as storage for bits and pieces.....;))