Frustration

My oldest daughter goes to a school with a school uniform and with very good reason. Despite only being 5, she has VERY firm ideas about what she should wear and how she should look. The battles to get her to dress sensibly for Kindy were legendary and I was determined that a school uniform would feature once she reached the age of 5. I knew the alternative was all out war every morning before school. She generally has very good taste in what she wants to wear but as mothers of little girls everywhere will know, getting them to wear warm things in the middle of winter can be a huge trial. She also struggles with any new item of clothing I introduce into her wardrobe and generally has to be tricked into wearing it for the first time. All of this is very hard for me, because I would love to make her endless clothes but I know that each time I do, I will have a battle on my hands to get her to wear it. As a result, little Eloise gets an awful lot more clothes made for her than her big sister does and I get very excited when Madeleine actually requests that I make her something. I couldn't resist buying this pattern when I popped into Spotlight the other day to put some craft market posters up.

I got stuck into it yesterday despite having a list of other things to make as long as my arm. Its a fab pattern for someone like me who likes quick and easy when it comes to clothes. Its also a fantastic pattern for using up smaller pieces of quilting fabric of which I have plenty.

I made it in a size 3 for Eloise in this beautiful Heather Ross fabric and she loved it. When Maddy came home from school, she said she loved it too and could I please make her one (little flutters of excitement on my behalf!). I know Maddy loves this Michael Miller fabric so I made it up for her in that, staying up till midnight to finish it so she could wear it today.

Guess what? She looked at it sideways and told me she didn't have the right shoes for it and she might wear it in the summer. ARGHH! Oh well. I shall have to be patient. I know she will wear it one day. I will just have to trick her into it! I did manage to get her into it for a quick photo of both of them (bribery always wins!)

No Time, No Time!

I am grabbing a sneaky five minutes while the girls are watching after school TV to update my blog. With school holidays, visitors and a flooding basement I hardly seem to have had a moment to get on this blog to update it. I have been busy in the sewing room though.

This gorgeous sweater bear is a commission for the lovely Stephanie of Liberty Lane. The sweater was hers at university and was definately a tricky one to felt. I had to put it through the machine 3 times to get it to felt and the black and white fairisle stitches on the bear's face didn't felt properly at all. I ended up zig zagging round the whole bear before I put him together to give it extra stability. The bear is for Stephanie's son's first birthday. I love that something she wore is going to her son to cuddle.


I also made these groovy monkeys for the 2nd August Devonport Craft Market. I LOVE the purple disco monkey. The disco arm was actually an accident but I think I will make a few more in this way. Friends on Facebook are coming up with names for them at the moment. Most popular names at the moment are MJ/Micheal, Elvis,Britney,Stevie and Justin.

These monsters are big favourites too. I need to make a few more and I'm hoping they will be popular with the little (and big) boys who come to the Devo craft market. They are made from wool felt and stuffed with toy fill and beads to give them a little weight. They are basically squares with arms and legs. The ears on the orange fella are made by pinching out the corners until the seams match and putting a few stitches in. I might make a few owls in this way too.

This is my favourite dessert at the moment

Its a gorgeous lemon cheescake tart. I will post the recipe another time as I've promised it to half a dozen people!

We had our first crafty get-together a few weekends back. Several stallholders from the market got together on a Sunday evening to eat cake and do crafty stuff. We have a challenge/swap for the next meeting. The theme is 'Green' (any interpretation of the word is fine) and the plan is to make something, bring it along to discuss and then we'll put our names in a hat and do a draw to find out who gets to take which handmade goody home. I can't wait. I have a minor obsession with felted sweaters at the moment so I think the little something I make may be made from one of those.

I made these button shaped cupcakes for the first crafty get-together.

They are from the Australia Womens' Weekly Easy Cupcakes by Colour . I adore this book and I know it is going to be very well used over the coming years. I can see my daughters fighting over who gets to take my copy with them when they leave home! There are some beautiful cupcake designs in it and everything is stunningly photographed. Go get yourself a copy! There are some gorgeous polka dot cupcakes that I am planning to adapt to make toadstool cupcakes for Eloise's 3rd birthday fairy party. She had her first ballet lesson this week. Isn't she gorgeous?

She inherited her ballet outfit from her big sister but I made her the headband from this super-easy pattern. It's a great project for a beginner sewer and is really really quick. The kids have lost all patience with my computer time now so best go and play yet another game of Candy Land.

Personalitee

Wow, I've been really slack at posting on here. The last Devonport Craft Market seemed to take a lot more time to organise and we had lots of lovely visitors last month too.

Here I am again though and I haven't been totally idle. Its birthday party season again and I've been really enjoying creating personalised gifts for Maddy's friends. Sorry about the lighting on the t-shirt pic. I made it on the morning of the party so this photo was taken at the event itself!

This is a covered notebook that I made for Maddy's wonderful little friend Lucy (could you tell?). She loves to write and draw. I made her a matching pencil case too.

And finally, here is a wonderful brushed cotton blanket commissioned for a new baby. I really enjoyed doing this one. The lady who commissioned it was great and was really keen for it to be something that could be used by the little girl for a long time so it was fun finding just the right size and colours.

We have our first Crafty Get-together this evening and I can't wait. I've just bought myself a new cupcake book and I'm torn between making frangipani cupcakes or button ones. I'll post pics when they are finished. I'm really looking forward to hearing ideas from the others about what we can do with the social time we have together. With all those creative people in the room, there are bound to be some fantastic ideas. I'm just going to take a bit of knitting and some wondeful craft books to share and see where we go from there.