Baby Gift

Congratulations (again!) to Emma and Family on the birth of little Miles, seeing as we had the privilege of knowing that bubs was going to be a boy I was prepared before he was born and had his gift already made and ready to give on the day he was born! I made a small cot size baby quilt with a panel I had ordered from a fabric shop in America, the panel itself was flannelet so nice and warm for the coming winter months! I backed it with a 100% cotton rather than using a flannelet again as I didn't want it to be too warm though! Apparently the colours and Owl theme match perfect to his nursery which was a bonus! Here is the finished product:

Excuse the shadowing, wasn't the greatest day for taking photos!

All folded up and ready to be wrapped

x Sharelle

A quick sewing update!

Hi Everyone :)
Its been awhile (well a long time actually!) with good reason though, the past few months haven't allowed for much craft business, hubby had holidays (Christmas), we sold and moved house and are now in the process of building again and we also found out we are expecting baby number 3 (due mid sept!)! So lots of excitement all round just not alot of productivity sewing wise. In the few months since I have posted I did complete a couple of projects, Ill share 2 of them with you now and the other I still need to go back and take photos of as it has been gifted on!
Firstly:

This was my first large sewing project that I've completed, its a single bed size patchwork quilt and will be going on my Miss 2yr olds bed, when she finally vacates the cot (no hurry here although I'd love to see it on a bed!) I purchased the pattern from our local patchwork shop along with the fabric, surprisingly it didn't take me long to complete either! I did 'cheat' by getting it professionally quilted as my basic machine isn't really all that capable of quilting such a large project, anyway here it is,

Not the greatest of photos, but you get the general idea :)



Close up of some of the fabric used

And last another project that was started end of last year with the aim of it being finished my beginning of Feb when our friend Henrietta's baby was due, sadly I didn't meet my deadline but gave it to her shortly after bubs arrived, better late than never! So I made what I call a Magic Pillow (another name Iv heard used is Quillow) No pattern was followed, I just bought a panel (or was it maybe 3!) from Spotlight and with my Mums help measured some that she had previously made, quilted it and then sewed the pillow on. Wow that made it sound simple but at the time it was a bit more complicated, although I do have plans to make another so It cant have been that bad! Here are the pics of it completed,

Again sorry for the poor photo quality, we were in the middle of moving when I gave it to her!

and folded up into a pillow :)


Till next time,
Sharelle x

Some completed projects...

Hi Everyone,
Finally an update from me (Sharelle)! Its been awhile but I do have some finished off projects to show off :) Will get straight into the photos and explain from there...

This is a small wall hanger called 'Tiptoe through the Tulips' I made this for my Oma's Birthday, she loves Tulips and loved the wall hanger which is great :) The pattern was from a past issue of Handmade Magazine.

Another Birthday Present here, my Mum and I worked on this one together as a 30th Birthday gift for fellow Handmade Rainbow blogger Hen, the pattern is called 'Washday' and is from a very old issue of Australian Patchwork and Quilting magazine.

A close up of some of the details of the quilt...

Another gift again! Iv made a few of these 'Rag Quilts' now but I still dont tire of them! This one was made for a very special little girl born to an old school friend of mine, this little cherub has just fought thru 2 operations in the first 2 weeks of life, so she definetly deserved somthing special as a gift! (Sorry for the poor photo quality, I rushed to take a photo before I dropped it off to be delivered and didnt realise how bad the lighting was until I loaded the photo to my computor!)

And just a close up of the flannel fabric used, just love this owl print! The photos dont do it justice!

Craft Update

Wow It’s been ages since I blogged (so long I actually forgot the password and log-in for the blog!) so i do apologise and hopefully I won’t have such a big break between posts again! I actually haven’t been doing a whole of sewing so there isn’t a lot to show you all! The project I’m sharing to today has been ongoing for the last 4 or so months. It is what’s called a beginners sampler, I am making it in a quilting class that I’m doing along with Henrietta. Even though we've both been sewing for a little while, we are pretty much self taught or taught by others so we thought it would be a good idea to get some 'professional training' :D so we signed up for a beginners quilting class. Well i can say we've learnt lots, kicked bad habits and have produced a beautiful wall hanging in the process! We attend every Thursday night and for approx 3hrs we are taught how to make a block for our quilt, each block teaches a different technique and put together form what’s called a beginners sampler. We aren’t quite finished yet, although were getting close! But seeing as this has been what’s taken up most of my time I thought id share the progress with you!

Hopefully now Hen will blog the progress of hers and you can see how differant they both are! Its awesome to see how differant fabric choices make the same quilt look so differant!

Excuse the bad quality of the photos, I thought I would take the pics outside as the lighting was better but I ended up having to snap the pics very quickly as the wind kept trying to blow it away!  xx Sharelle

Almost finished, just needs another brown strip on either side, then it still has a border aswell, then comes the big job of quilting!

'Crocket Cabin'

'Dresden Plate'

'Card Trick'

'Album Block'

'Log Cabin'

'Dutchmans Puzzle'

'Square in a Square'

'Applique'

'Martha Washington Star'



'Coventry Cottage'



'Drunkard Path'

'Gentlemans Fancy'



New Pyjamas!

Its fastly approaching winter in our neck of the woods (south of Western Australia) and with winter comes the need for warmer clothes, pajamas in particular! Today I sewed my eldest (3yr old boy) a pair of Pajama pants :) We made a special trip to spotlight this morning and he picked out the fabric he wanted, Lightning McQueen flanelette it was! I didnt use a tutorial or pattern for these, just traced onto baking paper the outline of a pair of pants he fitted, and then used my basic knowledge for sewing clothes! After our trip to spotlight we raced into Target and picked up a plain long sleeve Tee Shirt to match (im not game enough to sew that aswell!) at home I was digging around in my sewing box and I found a little lightning mcqueen transfer so I also sewed that onto the shirt to match. Master 3 was very happy with the finished product, so much so that he has worn them since 3:00 this arvo and refuses to take them off...so long as he wants to take them off tomorrow morning to get dressed for Church im not bothered :)

Finished product...

Trying to give Mum the thumbs up...LOL!

Birthday Present

I am posting this on behalf of Sharelle - she made me this beautiful table runner for my birthday, sewing in collaboration with Henrietta (see the post below). Sharelle forgot to take a pic before giving it to me so I took one this morning (had to wait until my table was tidy!!).

Thanks again Sharelle, I love it! If you would like to see what I made for Emma and Sharelle's birthday you can pop over to Sewing Belle :-)

Bec

What I have been busy with...

As the title suggests this is a quick post of what I (sharelle) have been busy with in the last month or so...inbetween the madness that is Christmas & the New year and Holidays ect!

A pair of Denim Pants for my Little Miss

Close up - dont you just love the owl hem, i do!



Patchwork Diary Cover, this was a christmas gift for my BIL girlfriend...




Another Christmas gift for my SIL

So there you have it, you can also add another Diary Cover and another bag  to the list but i forgot to take photos of them before gifting them oh and also another pair of baby pants! The Christmas gifts were last minute rushed sewing (and by rushed i mean finishing the bag at 9:30pm on Christmas Eve!), we dont generally do christmas presents in our family (and extended family) but decided at the last minute to organise a Secret Santa with Hubbys Family to kill some time Christmas evening :)

At the moment I am madly scambling to finish Miss W's quilt that I have shown a sneak preview of in a previous post. It was meant to be finshed for her first birthday but that was on Saturday just gone so I've decided that now the sooner I do manage to finish it the better! I am resisting the urge to start anything else new until this is done!

Till next time,
Sharelle

Click here for Diary Tutorial
Click her for Baby Pants Tutorial - with this particular pattern I did adjust the size to fit a one year old...

Another Rag Quilt

This is one of the projects iv been working on inbetween working on my other quilt (see previous post of mine) its another Rag Quilt (similar to the one iv made previously) with just a few differant flannel fabrics in it. This was a gift for my good friend's (and aunty's!) little boy. I decided he deserved somthing special seeing as he is a boy born after 3 little girls! We went to perth on the weekend to meet him for the first time and he is adorable! Hopefully he will get some use out of this as he gets a bit older (they are great for play matts!)

Drying out on the line after it was washed...

Sharelle

Applique

Seeing as these are finally on the way to their new owners this week i thought i would post a pic! These are two shirts i purchased from Target with the intent to applique 'somthing' on them as birthday presents for my friends little girls. Here is how they turned out, the first is for a little girl who loves ballet (and also takes lessons) and the second is a flower (because its girly and i couldnt quite think what this little girl 'was into'!)  Hopefully they like them :) On the weekend i also did two long sleeve shirts for my little boy, i should have taken photos straight away as now one is in the wash and the other he is wearing!

If you are wanting to do somthing similar to this with your own childrens plain shirts a fantastic tutorial to follow is this one here, from our very own blogger Bec!

 x Sharelle

Rag Quilt

Hello! So apart from all the sickness that has ravaged our household in the last week or so this is what i have been upto...my very first Rag Quilt! It is made out of Quilters Flannel and is to be a gift for a special baby boy who is due the end of Dec 2010! Yes im a bit ahead of myself but once i had all the fabric i was itching to see what it looked like all sewn up! So here it is, hopefully when this little one arrives he is as pleased with it as what i am (oh and his mum too!) :D

Hanging on the line after being washed (the first wash is essential as it gives the flannel its frayed look)

All dry and folded up!

x Sharelle

Crochet Hook Roll

This morning (after a spot of housework dont worry!) i made this Crochet Hook Roll for the Crazy Crocheter (aka Emma!) among us. After seeing my pencil roll in the previous post Emma mentioned that a similar roll to put crochet hooks in would be very handy so instead of upsizing the pencil roll i googled crochet hook roll tutorial and came up with this one. Below is a photo of the finshed product which i think the new owner is pretty happy with, unfortunatly i cant show you a pic of it filled or rolled up because i dont own any crochet hooks!! 

♥ Sharelle

So its Emma here now, just hijacking Sharelle's post to add a couple of pics of it being used! :)

Its so pretty, thanks heaps Sharelle!!

Pencil/Crayon Roll

Yesterday i managed to have both kids down for a nap at the same time (a rare occasion in this household!) so i thought what better excuse than to do a bit of sewing! Iv been wanting to tackle making one of these Pencil/Crayon Rolls for some time and thought it would be a nice, quick and easy project for the afternoon! I followed the tutorial found here, although iv found if you google Crayon Roll Tutorials it comes up with pages and pages of them! The only problem i did encounter with making this is that my printer was out of ink, my computor is located in the study and my sewing machine is in the games room, needless to say i found my 30mins of daily excerise running back and forth to follow the instructions ;-)
I did intend for this roll to have crayons inside but my quick shopping trip was only able to produce a packet of small pencils! If anyone knows where you can buy boxes of the small crayons i would love to know!

Rolled Up

Open

♥ Sharelle

A Nappy Bag

Well here is my first craft related post! This is a Nappy Bag & matching Nappy Wallet i made for myself last week! Finally something i actually sewed for myself :) I am not sure where the pattern for this bag originates but it was passed onto me from my Mum,.There are 4 different sizes of bags you can make, Extra Large (being the one i used) Large, Medium & also Small. The small version is suitable for a little girl and they are adorable!


Anyway back to the bag i made, i found the fabrics at a local patchwork shop in town and fell in love with them! To customize the bag to suit me i added two pocket's to the inside lining of the bag, one to fit my mobile phone in (so much easier than trying to find it in the bottom of my bag!) and also one to hold a baby bottle. I lined the pockets with Iron-on-Interfacing to give them added support as well, lastly i also added a magnetic clasp so that it holds together nicely!

Front of Bag

Next i made a matching Nappy Wallet, this is actually a pattern i designed myself, i have sold a few of these in the past. To this particular one though i added a pocket to the inside which nicely holds some nappy rash cream or in my case a spare pair of jocks for my 2.5yr old!

Closed Nappy Wallet

Open Nappy Wallet

So there you have it, my first craft related post! Hope you like it :) now i cant wait to see what the other girls have been upto!
 
♥ Sharelle