I came across this pattern browsing fabric photos on flickr one day.

It is by Alicia Paulison from posy gets cosy.  It is a really simple bag, and I probably could have created a simple pattern myself, but I really couldn’t be bothered and I knew this pattern worked.  There is a group on flickr with dozens of them, and they all look good.

I wanted to make two for my little girls kindy teachers.  But when I was going through my stash auditioning fabrics, I came up with 8 different combinations.  So I made them all.  It was a real production line.  I didn’t make them all at once, I just did one step at a time on all 8 bags, just a little bit each sewing session.

I wish I had taken a photo of all of them together. I have already given the rest away.  They went to friends and family and a select few who helped out my addiction and suffered my recent tupperware party.

My little boy’s favourite Disney movie has been Dumbo for quite a while.

So I recently set about finding some elephant patterns.

I started with the Audrey and Maude Edward pattern and some fabric from Amite that I picked up at the latest Brisbane Creative Living craft fair.

He turned out very cute. Susie played a big role in the fabric choice.



But even before I made him, I ran into Pauline from Funky Friends Factory (at the craft show too). Now I have made a heap of her patterns. And all of them have been great.  I still have a few more dinosaurs to make that have been on the “to do” list for years.



So I got one of her elephant patterns – Ellie. Ellie was going to be perfect for my little boy.

So Edward turned into Ella and is now owned by my little girl.

The thing that I like about the funky friends factory toys is that they are designed to be made with polar fleece. It is such a forgiving fabric and I am always happy with the results.

This is “elphun”.

He is so soft and cuddly.
I won’t say that he was difficult to make, but I think that having a basic idea about toy construction definitely helps.

So this was my evening/afternoon of sewing elephants.

Lucky me is on holidays (for another 4 days).  We went to Alexandra Headlands for a week, which is just over an hours drive. It was nice to get away to the beach and we enjoyed some sunny days.

We had a great time.

And after a visit to Eumundi Markets and our favourite costume stall …. ballet lessons are now a new priority.

ANYWAY back to my craftjunk …. While away I was reading blogs. Chaletgirl couldn’t stop going on and on about beautiful fabric and discussing the oh-franson quilt along. I couldn’t help myself. I had to be involved.

Soon as we got home (within a few hours) I dove into my stash to find 6 fat quarters. Inspired my Sheridans prints and solids I was looking for 6 favourite prints.  The plan was to match them with some cheap homespun/quilters cotton solids – thus reducing the financial outlay for yet ANOTHER quilt. I did it for a smidgen under $20.

The 6 that I picked were from my treasured Amy Butler Collection. They are from her ginger bliss range.

I bought the prints as a fat quarter pack years ago; with my friend Sheridan. This is probably the first lot of designer fabric that I bought and it certainly was my first introduction to Amy. We got them at the first real craft show that we went to together in Sydney (I don’t count the Rosehill one). So this group of fabric is very special to me and has lots of memories. And now I have cut it.

I am looking forward to doing the sampler quilt. It looks like it will be a great pattern and there was no way that I could not be involved. I haven’t bought the sashing or backing yet as I thought I would wait until I get the blocks together to see how they look.



I also noticed that the first lot of sewing instructions is up today. Bring it on.

This is a long overdue post.

Mid summer was very hot here in Brisbane and I was inspired to make my little girl some simple cotton dresses. I got some cheap cotton from spotlight.

I trawled through sewingpatterns.com for what seemed like hours and settled on NEWLOOK 6504

So then I googled the pattern the see if I could find an aussie supplier. You can see where this is heading …. I couldn’t find it anywhere.

Sewingpatterns.com offered the pattern as a download for $2.99 US, so I thought for 6 bucks (with a crappy exchange rate) it was worth a go. ……

It was a fairly simple ordering process. You pay for the pattern and they email you a password. From there you install a simple security plug-in for Adobe reader. Then you can download the instructions and the pattern sheets. The security of the system is that you can only use the same printer to print the patterns, now and in the future.

.

So what you do is print out the pattern sheets on your normal printer using normal typing paper. You tape them together and then cut out the pieces. VOILA there is your pattern. Well that process took fucking hours!!!! This pattern for a simple child size A-line dress was 84 pages. I kid you not. I would hate to think how many pages a more complicated adult pattern would be.

Putting the pages together was easy but kind of tedious. In the end I only joined the pieces that I thought I might use in the future. Which was silly because since then I have made almost every view of the dress. I also used a paper cutter to trim the sides of each page to make matching the edges up easier.

After I got the pages together I traced the size I needed on Grease proof/baking paper.

So a lot of work for a simple pattern. But a pattern that I only paid $6 for that I couldn’t get from my local spotlight.

I MIGHT do it again but only as a last resort and only if I couldn’t buy the pattern locally (within Australia).

So the final product …. perfect.

I have made 4 of these dresses and I can make the simplest one with just under 1m of fabric in just under 2 hours. So for  1 lunch time nap and $4 thats great.

I met for lunch with a few girls from work. One of them recently had a baby and I could not go without giving her something.
I have had this wee wonderfuls pattern for ages and thought I would give it a go. This is Olive from the Make-along series.

She has proper “bottom” and sits really nicely.
The doll was so easy to make and I used mostly scraps from my stash. She matches one of my handbags!

I love the wee wonderful patterns and have made quite a few of them. This one was no different. The instructions and clear and well written and lots of pictures help describe what you are doing.

Below are some my other wee wonderful creations.

I haven’t done anything “new” quilting wise in a long time. The last couple of quilts I have made were very project orientated. Meaning the focus was more on the end result rather than the process. I am a process kind-a-gal.

So when scouring the net for something interesting I came across the escaping bug’s quilt.

The pattern is by piece by number and she sells them in her etsy store as a PDF download.

It is like a bug jar block where you use featured fabrics of bugs or frogs or spiders or any type of creepy crawly and sew them into a jar shape.

The Piece by Number patterns are different though because they are paper pieced.

So as a little challenge for myself, I made a jar doll quilt using Piece by Numbers bug collection pattern. I used food fabrics instead of bugs to create Jam Jars.

The paper piecing is a strange technique and after the first block I decided I didn’t like it. But once you get the hang of it, it is not so bad and quicker than I first thought.

I did change the pattern a little. The jars are supposed to look like they are sitting on a bookcase, so there should have been a few extra pieces of sashing an additional borders.  I like the look of the bright colours on the black.  I think that the black background is also what appeals to me about this quilt, as lots of quilts have lighter backgrounds. Well most of the ones I have made anyway.

I also bought the escaping bugs pattern and will make it for my little boy one day when I find some creepy crawly fabrics (probably at the next quilt show).

I have also signed up for the Material Obsession dolly quilt club starting next month to learn some more quilt techniques and keep my interest level up.

I have created a totally huge and totally unachievable queue on ravelry.

I have a small stash of yarn destined to become things and I am determined to make them all.

My projects are

1.
february ladies sweater by flintknits

from 3 balls of BWM black alpacca

2.

top down round yoked cardigan by milobo

from 3 balls of BWM Rustic in cedar fleck

3.
Lilta Dinum by Cheryl Oberle from Folk Shawls which is a knitted faroese shawl. This will be a challenge and might be beyond my skills.

(this one is by toomuchwool)

using my BWM 2ply in havana

4.

Cinnebar Crochet cardigan by Doris Chan from Everyday Crochet

using some brown wool that has been in my stash for years

5.

another eva shawl also by milobo at without seams

using my BWM 3ply cone in moss

6.

a crochet lace scarf using one of the patterns from this Japanese Crochet Stitch Dictionary

using some plum laceweight Habu

If I manage to do all of this then I will spoil myself and buy some Kaalund Enchante silk in poisettia

7.

to make an Arrows stole by Annette Peavey.

this is vhanna26’s

Its a doozy of a list isn’t it.  I reckon that if I try and complete a project every two months I might get through my list by the end of the year. Then I would have all of these new knits – 3 cardigans, 2 shawls, a scarf and a stole.

This is just my knit/crochet list.  I have lots of other sewing/quilting projects that I want to do too.  And all of those pop up “must makes”.

This time next year I will look back on this list and see how I went.

It is going to be a big year!!

I have been wanting to make the kids some dress up dolls for a long time. I was following the progress of Hillary’s “kit, chole and louise” from wee wonderfuls and immediately bought the pattern when it came up for sale.

Meet Jack and Jill.

Obviously they are still a work in progress and don’t even have their limbs sewn on yet.

Jack is already a little bit difficult.  Because he is for my little boy (18mths), I didn’t want to use yarn hair.  Instead I figured out a basic hair shape from felt and sewed it in the seams when constructing the head.  It has turned out quite ok.  I will also have to adapt some of the clothes patterns so they are a little more “boyish”.  But that is part of the challenge.

I plan on giving these to them for Christmas, so I have some time to enjoy making them. This was a project that I didn’t want to rush.

I am a big fan of Bendigo Woolen Mills yarn. You can buy it online, it is cheap, they have a great fiber range and lots of colours to choose from. Their service is excellent, the wool is of the highest quality and did I mention that it is so reasonably priced (CHEAP).

I have a couple of big projects on my wish list. I am dying to make Hamper – a crochet motif afghan from Rowan Classic Summer Book 11.

And I would also love to make a February Ladies Sweater, which is an adult version of Elizabeth Zimmermann’s Baby Sweater on Two Needles (or known as February Baby Sweater from her knitters almanac). Flink Knits has done a wonderful job rewriting this pattern and it has a huge following on ravelry.

My problem is that I dislike the idea of making a huge yarn purchase online and not liking it when it arrived.

Anyway I am a regular on the Bendigo Yarn Lovers group on ravelry. From this group two lovely ladies offered to, and sent me some of their left over yarn to try out and see if it suits my projects. They had nothing to gain from this lovely act and even paid for the postage without hesitating. I know that it wasn’t much but I really appreciated their kindness.

It was great to have the yarn, feel it, knit a swatch and check out the colour. I want to make the cardigan using black alpacca but I was concerned about it being a little grey and not the right weight.

So I made these lovely ladies some project bags in thanks for their kindness.

The bags are inspired by my knitting project bag that Sheridan made for me.



I even went and bought some more of the knitting fabric from Auntie Cookie just in case I need to make more of these when more kind knitters cross my path.

I don’t think that I would call this afghan “exquisite”, it just happens to be the name of the pattern by Terry Kimbrough that I made for Sheridan aka Chalet Girl.

When I first learned that Sheridan was going through IVF again I decided to begin a crochet afghan for the new baby.  I chose to crochet something because I knew it was something that Sheridan couldn’t make herseIf.  I chose the pattern and bought the wool and began immediately.  All the while, every stitch I was thinking of her and her little family, hoping that the whole IVF process would work and thinking positive thoughts for her.  Almost like a prayer shawl.

Anyway, I have been keeping this project a secret for so long.  I gave it to her while I was visiting because there was no way I could wait another couple of months for the baby to be born.  Here it is in her baby girls room and this is it on ravelry.

I decided on a Terry Kimbrough pattern because all of her patterns are not only beautiful but have that heirloom quality about them.  The exquisite pattern is on the front cover of the Heirloom Afghan for Baby booklet . I bought my copy from crochet Australia.

The wool I used is Bendigo Woolen Mills Classic 5ply in Holly.  I really wanted to use a gender neutral non traditional colour and I thought that red was the perfect choice.  I bought 3 x 200g balls, but only used 2 – about 1000m (1100yds).

The pattern is surprisingly easy and I didn’t have any major problems.  Considering I only started crocheting Xmas 07, I am extremely happy with the end result.

I finished the main body at the end of march.

I dragged it out again in June and not long after I found out the recipient was going to be a little girl.

Then all of a sudden it was finished.  So I made an effort and blocked it.

And it was well worth it.  It turned out really well.

And now here it is where it belongs. In a little girls room where it will be used and loved. Maybe not made “for” the baby but it was made for my very special friend, whom I would do anything for.

xx