denim pinny

So we couldn't just send one girl off to church with a new dress...could we? Especially when this beautiful piece of denim cries out every time I enter the sewing (junk) room 'sew me! sew me!'. So I stayed up a little too late last night and made this one for Maeve. Her response this morning when she saw it hanging on the door was 'Ooohh, that's so tuuute (cute)!' Totally worth it, this girl melts my heart.
Pattern is another Ottobre 1/08. I figure if you spend all the money on the subscription, you may as well get your moneys worth by sewing as many patterns as you can trace. This is the 'Deer dress' which I have made before here. I just lengthened it by a fair chunk, and added pockets...because what two year old doesn't love pockets. I find Ottobre's patterns run really wide, so I often end up altering them for my girls. This is still the same size as the one I made back in September, just a lot longer.

sunday best

Grace has been eating so much lately and growing like a weed. Needless to say, nothing from last Winter fits and she has been in desperate need of new clothes. This dress is one she picked out from Ottobre 4/07 a year ago, which I kept putting off making it as it wasn't really my style and looked rather fiddly to sew.
A couple of months back I finally found the perfect corduroy to sew it with, bit the bullet and pieced it together. For some reason it just looked really blah, so it was left hanging unworn until last week. I decided it needed a little red velvet ribbon, some cream lace and a brooch to bring it to life...much happier this time round, and she thinks it is beautiful. Now she actually has something decent to wear come Sunday, and the morning rush for church is on.
Happy mother, happy daughter, expanded wardrobe.

dye experiment

A few weeks ago I had had a go at dyeing some wool, something I haven't tried before.

I found some lemon coloured baby wool going cheap at $1 ball. Didn't really like the colour, so thought I would see how it turned out dyed.

I wrapped it around a big baking pan, put an elastic band in the middle to hold it all together, then dipped one end in some yellow dye and the other end in some red. I also did a couple of plain red balls for contrast.

Popped it out in the sun to dry.

Got out the trusty wool winder and turned it into balls.

Then knitted it into another Vintage pixie cap and a pair of pants.
Pants are from a Patons baby knit book. They are the newborn size, but turned out completely massive. My tension seemed fine, so the pattern must just run big. By the time my baby fits these, it will probably be too hot to wear them. I was hoping they would suit either a girl or boy, but the more I look at them I think they are definitely on the feminine side.

I changed the pattern slightly for the pixie cap and did rib around the face instead of garter stitch. It seemed to pull it all in a bit better.
It was interesting to see how the wool knitted up. It looks like tiger stripes, not at all how I imagined. I think for baby knitting it would be better to dye the wool in smaller sections rather than two big chunks like I did. Still happy with the results though. If I end up with a big chunky girl, we may get some use out of this outfit!

baby knits

So my new found love with knitting continues. These ones I finished a month or so ago, a newborn size cross over cardigan and a pixie bonnet.
Knitted with beautifully soft Shepherd baby wool.

Jacket pattern is from Cleckheaton.
This book has the most beautiful knits for little ones.

The Vintage Pixie Cap pattern came from here ('free patterns' menu on right).
I do apologise for the freaky looking doll model, but I have no baby to model it on yet!
We are slowly getting ready for this baby, still a lot to be done. All I feel like doing is sitting around knitting, but that is going to have to stop soon, there is so much to be sorted around the house, baby clothes to be washed and birth preparations to be made.
Only one month to go now!

yellow ones

And here is more of the same. So nice to finally have these finished!
This yellow strawberry fabric is some I have had in the stash for a while, saving it up for something special.
And you have to have nice jammies...right? Because you spend half the day in them.
I think you call the fabric french terry (is that correct?). 100% cotton and oh so soft and lovely.
These ones should be really warm and toasty.

And Grace's parting comment as I finished taking their photo..."please don't make me wear my hair like this to preschool Mum, it looks all buffy"...maybe she meant boofy, puffy or fluffy or a combination of the three!

new jammies

With the weather getting cooler and all, I have finally made the time to get back into my sewing.
The girls (especially the biggest), were in desperate need of new winter jammies.
I have so much cotton stretch fabric in my stash at the moment, so I decided to use that up first before even looking at what the shops had to offer.
Maybe a little old-school in style (Luke just laughed when he saw them!), but feminine, and they can't wait to wear them to bed tonight.

I made them both a size bigger, and added ribbing so we can fold it back for this Winter and let it down for next. Really hoping I get 2 years out of these! I have more that are almost finished, so hopefully I can check back with photos soon.

Top pattern is a bit of a mix and match, but the bottoms are from Ottobre 1/2009.