Sunday, March 28, 2010

easter sunday for us today


Ages ago I bought some japanese masking tape and I've used some to decorate a gift tag for my beautiful nephew's easter basket (tin). He's only 16 months old, so just a couple of little easter eggs at this stage and did I say he's beautiful. I also had a thing for stamp sets a while back, I have 2 alphabet sets - the one I used here are quite small and a little fiddly to use, but they came in a little wodden box which is so cute, so I had to have it. I like to make my own cards, I can't justify spending $5 - $6 on a card when with a little thought and creativity you can make them yourself.

Our family can't all meet up next Sunday so we are doing Easter Sunday today at Mum & Dad's, should be lovely.

Sunday, March 21, 2010

a new doll for bells


This pattern was given to me as a gift, it's the poppy doll from hop skip jump. Rather than wool flannel which the pattern suggests I have used a cotton/linen blend in a neutral color. The reason for that is I didn't have wool flannel on hand - I had the cotton/linen blend. Wool felt is suggested for the hair, I have used wool of some sort - I had pink and green in my stash and the choice was rather simple for bells. The doll and dress took around 3 hours yesterday, the pattern was very easy to follow and I was happy with the result and so was someone else....


The head/neck section is set into the body and hand stitched in last, I've never made a doll in that way before - it gives a nice result I think. The material for the dress was chosen - it was to be a dress not a top as instructed by madam bells and no pants!


Late last night I wanted to make the pants, I found a little denim and there you have it - jeans for the new doll. I put them on her last night and when bells woke this morning she said "take them off, I don't like pants, she is wearing a dress!". Who am I to argue, maybe one day she'll get cold and she'll feel the need to wear jeans....
Tinkerbell, as she has been named has received lots of cuddles and has been part of group gatherings along with other select softies.

pink skirt

Perhaps there has been a slight break in the drought, I've had this material sitting around for quite some time, felt like sewing something so thought I'd do a simple little skirt for bells. Nothing too difficult, just some elastic in the top of some pretty japanese fabric. It took a little convincing for bells to put it on but once she did it didn't come off for days.
(*excuse the hole in the leggings, I could have cropped that out but didn't notice until the photo was uploaded and then it was too late.....)

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

hand quilting job no.2 complete


Here is the 2nd hand quilting job complete for my friend Kylie, I've quite enjoyed the hand quilting, mostly due to the fact (as explained previously) - I'm just not feeling it lately. The creative juices are not flowing. I even went to a 20% - 50% off sale recently at Amitie and only purchased 1 fabric, some beautiful japanese printed linen which I'll share at some other point in time. I thought this would be nice for a library bag for Bells when she starts school next year. Usually this type of sale results in big dollars going down, lots of ideas and lots of excitement. Oh well - I guess I saved money.
I'm pretty sure that my stumbling block is a quilt I'm trying to finish off for Mum, I don't seem to be able to find fabrics to go with it. I suppose I'm finding it very, very difficult as they aren't my colours.