i just love love love this fabric <3

I "rediscovered" it recently while looking for something pink and pretty for a recent trade. It was hidden away in the cupboard in a bag of my "special" fabric. It's a Japanese import and love the extensive gilding, bright colours and beautiful images. I also like that you can get totally different looks depending on which part you take a piece of fabric from.

These custom pants give you an example, they're really really pretty and pink. The focus is really on the flowers and I used some matching pink grosgrain ribbon on the outer seam so they can be turned up as they get shorter.

Then you can do something like this where I've cut from the bright purple and green parts of the fabric. Pretty nifty huh ! These were a recent instock :D

Lily in her horsie number at last!!

You may remember a while ago the lovely Demon Deeva sent Lily some cool horse fabric. I made this outfit from the fabric but just couldn't get a picture of Lily in it; it seemed every time I would put it on her she'd manage to spill something on herself within the first five minutes and end up grubby.... so finally here are some photos. And yes, as you can see she was trying her hardest to spoil the shoot by getting all wet.

The pants are a denim hemp, which I am loving. Lily has been trialling it for the last few months and it has washed up really well so it will be making an appearance in the Book Week stocking this weekend.

The lime tshirt has a square of pink chenille and then the cute horsie. I had this pink chenille skirt hanging in my cupboard that I had bought at a market for $5 and strangely enough had never worn, I mean, a shapeless chenille skirt is really very flattering!!! But at least the chenille is now being put to good use. I did also make a hair bow out of the chenille as well but we'd left that in Adelaide when these photos were taken ;)

Lily loved this outfit so much she had to wear it to bed that night LOL

a little knitting

A couple of little washcloths. The blue from Jo Sharp Soho Summer DK cotton in Azul, the mauve from Debbie Bliss cotton DK. They were both knit on 4.5 mm needles and what I like about both patterns in that they're dual sided so look nice from both sides. The different stitches produce two very different types of fabrics, the DB cotton is thicker and more robust so really suits the ribbed pattern. And the JS which is a finer cotton worked well on this twisted purl stitch, I like how the stitch looks in the looser weave.

These are for my mum, her favourite colours are lavendery/mauvey colours. I don't know if she'll actually use them but they will look pretty in her bathroom.

'what's In Your Knitting Bag?' Challenge

I'm joining in the lovely Bec's What's In Your Knitting Bag? Challenge. At home I don't really use a knitting bag, I used to but it got too messy. So now I use this cane basket which I can close the lid on and hide things away :) It's far roomier than a bag too ;)

So here's what's in it:

Fibre Trend Patterns for a dress and some ballet shoes ( Lily keeps telling me she wants those shoes)
Stitch'n'Bitch a very well flicked copy
Poncho from Jo Sharp Contemporary Knitting waiting to be frogged as it is too narrow (damn sub yarn)
Scarf in lace pattern
Zig Zag rib vest from Jo Sharp Knit 3; back done front just started
Rainy Day sock the rest of the ball is in there too waiting for me complete
Clinique makeup bag holding all my little tools, dpns, crochet hooks, cable needles, scissors, measuring tape, and odd scraps of yarn
Cotton Face cloth on the needles out of Jo Sharp DK cotton in Azul
Cotton Face cloth finished, from Debbie Bliss DK cotton in mauve
Waverley Woollen Mills yarn sample card Lily uses this to knit with ;)
Mini M&M container this contains all my stitch markers
MonsterKnits Business card
KikkiK notebook details of what's in my stash and what I'm working on
stray cable needle
Knitting needles; Lily's duckie pair, a wooden pair and a rosewood dpn.
Books hats, gloves, scarves and Contemporary knitting
Yarn magazine
Folder with printouts of patterns downloaded
KnitPicks Love them!!!

Told you that basket fits a lot. There was another project bag nearby containing some UFOs but that's a bit of a tangled mess LOL When I travel I use my Oi Oi nappy bag which has been rejuvenated as a part time knitting bag. :D

Some lovely shopping :D

Ventured to the Spotlight sale in the hope of getting some nice cheap yarn in their sale. OMG had they been picked dry by Sunday !!! But I still managed to score 10 balls of pink Jet all in the same dyelot for $3 a ball and 3 balls of Cocoon 4 ply for $3 a ball so not too bad really. Also got some nice brown homespun and a pretty brown spotted fabric (neither of which were on sale but shall be perfect for Tully's owl dress)

Lily loves buttons and actually has a real eye for selecting funky buttons. For once they actually had some really lovely ones in their tubes, just really didn't need them for anything specific. But I couldn't resist these cute little girl and the goose ones ~ awww! I have no idea what I will use them for but had to have them. Lily chose the blue ones with the stars embossed in them, they too were too nice to leave behind. We did, however, leave behind the cat, dog, ladybirds and gingerbread men that she added to our basket.

And OMG how absolutely gorgeous is this fabric that arrived today!!! (They're all fairy tale prints) This is just a little preview of some of the fabrics that I shall be using for the Book Week stocking. After following a link on the lovely Lottielulu blog I arrived at the most divine new store Retro Mummy. Given how much I LOOOOOOOOOVE Japanese fabrics, this was like being in a lolly shop. I really had to try to resist buying the whole shop out. Really cute and stunning stuff and Corrie's service is impeccable! The trims are also to die for and I got some for Tully's dress too with owls on it

This could be a little embarrassing..

but not for me hehehe....

I was thinking about Lily's carousel dress and how the style reminded me of one Mum made for us kiddies (actually there may have been two?) I had a look through some photos and found a pic of me in it but as I was sitting behind a table and the photo was in black and white you really couldn't see it. Then I remembered these photos..

The dark haired little girl is my niece Brooke, and the pretty little blond thing is my nephew Joshua, he's wearing the dress I was thinking of. (Josh didn't usually wear dresses but we when he'd come into visit Gran his naughty aunties would sometimes dress him up LOL he liked being like his big sis ~ awww) He's about 3 here and Brooke would have been 6 (now 17 and 20 respectively) From the side profile Josh looks a bit like Lily.

The bodice is a little different as is the style of the skirt, this one's more Aline whereas Lily's is fuller and gathered.

And the dress Brooke is wearing was a gorgeous little halter style; I loved that fabric, it was sort of like a cord but not a cord.

Anyway, while I'm posting these pics I know my sister (the mum of these two and five extras) reads my blog so while I remember I'll ask her if she has this dress?

In girly mode.

Been playing with this dress idea for a while now, and yeah!! It's always feels so good when the pictures in your mind translates exactly to what you create :D At this stage, I'm really happy with this dress, and in the progressive try on stages it looked good. So hopefully, it still will when Lily tries it on again tomorrow.... after I get some more buttons. Who would believe that with all the red buttons in my button jars there was only one that was the right shade? Why are most red buttons a slightly orangish shade instead of a true red anyway? That bugs me.

So back to the dress, it's made from quilters cotton, with the skirt being Michael Miller's Carousel. This comes from Lily's fabric stash ~ so yes this will be for her, and yes this is going to be the last piece of clothing she gets with horses on it. I think I might take her for a ride on the carousel in Geelong to take photos of her in it. I actually meant to make a dress out of this material for to wear on her 2nd birthday day out to the carousel.

And more girly goodness. I'm working on some stock for August. I'm stocking randomly throughout August except for a special stocking for Children's Book Week, 18 - 24. So the first cab off the rank is some little peasant skirts I've been working on lately, these will go up individually over the next week.

The theme for this year's book week is READiscover which ties in nicely with some of the plans we have for our stocking which will be all about rediscovering some classic stories.

For me, the most exciting part of book week is the preceding Friday when the Children's Book Council announces the book of the year in a number of categories. Lily was born in the same year as "Where is the Green Sheep?" won the Early Childhood section; she actually attended a local function where a CBC judge spoke.

If you'd like to learn more about the awards or the council you can find it here http://www.cbc.org.au/

There will also be a very special pikki tint outfit released for Book Week; this one will be gender neutral :D