some Christmas gifting..

Now that Christmas and most of the gift giving is over I can share some pics. I've been a little quiet over the festive season as we've been away visiting all the family. Still have a couple to go this weekend...

I've also been absent as I've been computerless. You see, in amongst all the festivities, my laptop happened to over indulge in a little bit of the liquid amber, unfortunately he hasn't recovered :( Luckily Andy is allowing me to use his Mac laptop, he went into work today just to get it for me.... the sweet boy. I think it was mainly so I didn't touch his precious big Mac. The only prob is that I haven't been able to recover all my emails, they used to go to outlook express now they're going to entourage but i can't access all the ones that have already gone to outlook... not sure if I can which is a real PITA.

So some pics, Lily in her special Christmas outfit, I had to smuggle this into the washing machine as she wanted to wear a Christmas outfit everyday in the lead up. Luckily she still fits last year's angel tee and shorts and she could be convinced to wearing that while her skirt and singlet dried.

 

Andy's annual pj shorts, nice and long ~ gosh thos fabric was super soft which he really loved.

 

Some baby doll tops for the very gorgeous Tahlia and Zoe whom Lily had an absolute ball playing with. Two of the most delightful little girls you could ever meet.

 

two crayon rolls, without their full quota of crayons for two cute little tots Nikayla and Will.

And a little ruffle skirt for a dolly and Strawberry Shortcake loving Demi complete with matching clips and a matching skirt for her baby born doll.

how to make the mermaid tail....

This tail fits my two and a half year old.

I used:~

.5 metre rhumba mesh

.5 metre dancetime satin (you could substitute this and just use the one fabric, such as that sequiny stuff)

A small amount of padding, I used quilt wadding but you could anything similar, even a couple of layers of polar fleece.

First I created my pattern pieces, the skirt is basically a tube shape with an leongated curve.

I measured Lily's hips then add some for ease of movement, halved it to get the skirt width. The other measurements needed were to just above knee plus one inch, and the required length plus an inch. I chose about ankle length so that if Lily hasn't got the tail hooked up, it won't drag on the ground too much.

The measurements I used where 13 inches across, 11 inches and 20 inches down. Draw a line curving the 11 inch side down to the 20 inch one.

Cut two of this pattern piece from the satin and the mesh.

With right sides facing sew along the bottom curv. Trim seam and secure it with a zigzag stitch and turn right way up. At this stage as the mesh is so slippery on the satin I found it useful to stitch it into place over the top of the satin. Sew the shorter length side seams together. Overlock seam.

Your second pattern piece should look like half a mermaid's tail, something like this one below. Use your imagination and go wild with a shape!!

The only thing I forgot to add on my pattern piece here was a two inch high and a couple wide rectangle where the tail joins into the skirt.

Additionally cut a length of the satin two inches wide and about 10 long. Fold in half and stitch. Turn right side out.

Place on fold and cut two of the dancetime satin and one from your padding.

Stitch hand tail to the right side of one of tail piece with the two ends place to the edge of the tail.

With right sides of the satin facing and the padding on the bottom layer stitch about .5cm around the outside of the tail leaving the tag unstitched.
Turn right side out and topstitch around the edge of the tail. Stitch a few wavy lines down through the tail like I've drawn on the pattern piece.

Place the tage from the tail against the bottom edge of one of the long seams with the rest of the tail laying on the right side of the skirt. Stitch in place, then place the other seam over the top and stitch and overlock the top seam. Turn right side out and top stitch a line along where the tail joins the skirt to secure it further and hide the over locked seam a little.

Overlock or zigzag around the waist, turn over one inch stitch down leaving room to thread elastic. Measure your child's waist. Subtract 5 cm from the measurement and cut a length of 12mm non roll elastic. Thread through elastic casing, secure and finally stitch down casing opening.

Hope the instructions make sense!! I didn't think to take photos of the process.

Voila it's done!!!!!

Try on your little one!!

hooray for a new sewing machine

My lovely husband Andy and Lily bought me a new sewing machine for Christmas!!!!! OK, so technically I shouldn't be using it as it's not yet Christmas but hey seriously, who could resist? I LOVE LOVE LOVE my new machine!! I think I played around with the stitches for about 10 minutes before the urge to make something took over.....I've been VERY productive since then whipping up Christmas pressies!!

Here's Lily modelling a ruffle skirt I made from this tutorial. The pattern is to fit a size 5/6 but as you can see it does fit a very petite size 2 ~ .(although if you look closely you can see that it's hanging off her hips and falling down with each bounce).I figured it would as the measurements for the top of the skirt is fairly similar to what I cut for my peasant style skirts.

I'm now making one for Lily to wear Christmas day with her I <3> Santa singlet ~ black cherries with red spotted underskirt.

I will make very very minor adjustments to the process; firstly, I like to use a 10mm seam allowance, I odn't like 1/4" seam allowances, I think they're more suited to quilting than clothing, particularly when you're trying to work ruffles. This will make it a tiny tad smaller but that's fine. And for the gathering I like to use a 2mm long stitch, and turn the tension back to two. Sew a line of stitching 1/4" in from the edge of the fabric and then another just next to it; the two rows really do make it easier to gather.

Anyway, now back to my new baby.. I'll put up some instructions for the mermaid tail a bit later ~ have to take some pics.

The Cutest Little Mermaid!!!

Lily has her first dressup party tomorrow, bravely I asked her what she'd like to go as. Given that she has two sets of fairy wings, a fairy dress, a set of angel wings and a ballerina tutu I was pretty sure it would be something along those lines. Nope, a mermaid she says. So it's off to Spotlight we go to collect some supplies.

I can't believe I actually went to Spotters and came home with a bag full of satin, tulle, mesh and panne velvet (all for dressup costumes for Christmas pressies) it's like a knitter coming home with a bag full of acrylic and novelty yarn ~ well for me anyway LOL

Anyway, this afternoon we dragged out the dancetime satin and the rhumba mesh (hmm, no guessing what these fabrics are used to create usually) a bit of padding for the tail, and we had this little number whipped up in no time!!! We chose the rhumba mesh as we thought the ruched ribbon and tinselly stuff looked a bit seaweedish. I'm really pleased that it actually came out looking exactly like I envisaged AND that Lily LOVES LOVES LOVES it!!!

Practice dressup run ~ found a bikini top in a bag of hand me downs and the blue wig from my dressup box. I did have a bikini top weaved out of grass but she said that was too uncomfortable even though it was gorgeous!!!!

If anyone's interested I'm happy to put up instructions for how I made it :D

and a few last things before Christmas

Just a couple of pieces that I have finally put the finishing touches on. These shall pop up sometime over the weekend, probably tonight if time and family commitments allow. These will probably be the last items until mid January ~ but then again I am hopefully getting a new sewing machine for Christmas so the urge might be just too much to bear.

It's time for me to get onto the Christmas sewing, Lily "needs" a mermaid tail for a fancy dress party on Monday, and she has some other orders in for other dress up items. I also want to get some sewing done for some of the other nieces and nephews as well as whip up some dollie clothes... and finish the flower girl dresses!!! hmm, that's a lot LOL!!!!

picnic

We have a great little green belt running through our neighbourhood. It's actually classified land for wildlife and is planted out with all indigenous plants. It's a great little spot, sometimes Lily and I pack ourselves a picnic lunch and walk the 50 or so metres down to it to have lunch. It's a great little explore for a two year old as we have to walk over two footbridges to get to the spot where we picnic ~ we actually don't really have to walk over the bridges (they take us the longer and more roundabout way) but it does make the outing more fun

some overdue pics of our christmas custom

Megsie reminded me today that I hadn't posted any pics of our pikki tint sweet chocolate dot christmas custom, so here they are ~ the completed set!! i have a very gorgeous photo of the beautiful little girl who is the new owner of this outfit to go up on our gallery when we update it. It really does look gorgeous on her!

And this is just some beautiful fabric for Fabric Friday (yes, I'm mkaing that one up but hey, why not?!) Jealous Megsie?????

And while we're on the subject of swaps...

I can't resist posting some pics of these two gorgeous tulle fairy tutus that I sent off today as part of our Summer Swap package. I feel quite comfortable posting these as the recipient is moving house so offline for the week, and I don't know that she reads my blog anyway.

Woolaholics Kitchen Cool Swap

I realised I haven't posted pics of what I made for this swap, you saw the fabulous gift I received from Lucretia.

This is what I sent off to Shona

These odd little squashed ball things are called tribbles, which is basically a flash name for a pot scrubber. I found two different patterns for them, so made one from each pattern. They're subtly different in not only size but also construction.

A papillion dishcloth made from Lily Sugar'n'Cream cotton, colourway Lavender Ice.

Rainbow garterlaec dishcloth made from Rainbow Bright Sugar'n'Cream cotton.

And a felted bowl made from some random handspun yarn that I have way too much of and really isn't useful for much else other than felting. Good thing it makes good bowls, as I'll be making a few more of these LOL

Concentration!!!

Some cute pics from one of Lily's daily drawing sessions, she takes it very seriously!!! She's been doing some wonderful drawings and crafting lately. I was presented with a beautiful picture of some flowers and crunchy carrots yesterday, she'd put little smiley face stickers in the middle of the flowers ~ very cute!!

Somehow she's mastered the art of using scissors, I've tried to teach her a couple of times but hse's never really got it. Then a week or so ago she picked up a pair and just started snipping no worries.... the only problem is that Lily loves to help. Last night I was cutting out some fabric and had put the cut pieces aside, and turned around five minutes later to find her helping to cut them too. *oops*