The Princess, the Pea and the little Fish.

It's oldest little fishes birthday tomorrow. She's gonna be the big 5! The last five years have really flown by, I can't believe she's at school already let alone turning 5. Anywhoo, as well as getting a bike for her birthday (she's been asking for a big girl bike for ages) I've made her a princess and the pea playset from the book 'more softies'.

She is into pink now. This is the girl that played with Thomas the tank trains and was a complete tomboy until not that long ago. Now she likes pink and princesses and fairies and unicorns and mermaids and especially likes pink pony unicorn mermaids. They do exist, go have a look at the my little pony section in the toy shop.

So we had to have some pink in the mix and for good measure we threw in some green and purple.

The pattern is pretty straightfoward and the cutting out took the longest, once you have cut lots of rectangles out you just sew them up and make a cute princess and a pea. Couldn't be easier!

I found a book with the story in to give as part of the pressie, it was suprisingly hard to find. I couldn't get the story on it's own but managed to find a book of princess stories that included it.

I'll let you know what she thinks of it!

Projects a go-go (or it's been raining a lot)

It's been raining a lot, hence quite a lot of things have been started or cut out or planned. After the boring stuff (housework) is done there's really no choice but to do a bit of sewing or crafting. What a shame! All the nearly finished outside jobs have been abandoned until the muddy bog outside has a chance to dry out. Should be a while since we're still waiting for the rain to actually stop. So meanwhile...... Littlest fish is getting a mermaid/underwater stitchery similar to the one I made for her sister a while ago (hers had a bit of a woodland critter theme). I'm using a beautiful mermaid pattern I found on little dear tracks etsy shop for the centre panel. Then I'm using some cute under the sea patterns from her lovely book Doodle Stitching (the motif collection) for the smaller panels around it, except for one which is a mermaid I found in Badbird's free stitchery patterns on her blog. The surrounding fabric patches will be made up of some much loved and hard to get hold of mendocino prints by Heather Ross. I'm going to very carefully fussy cut them out to get the best bits. If there's a bit left after this I'll make a cushion cover or something with the leftovers. Will show you some progress shots as it progresses.

I have aquired an interest in hawaiian applique and tivavae (similar but from the south pacific). I'm not sure how I aquired said interest but there you go, it's here so I may as well explore it.

I found a great website that sells patterns for cushion size projects up to giant Queen size beds (Poakalani, just google the name) and ordered a few to try. The first one is a 22" turtle pattern that I'm going to raw edge applique. I want to try another pattern using needleturn to give it a go. The turles have been cut out and pinned on to the backing fabric and so far so good. I'll try to remember to take some pics of the different steps as I go. Hawaiian applique in a nutshell is like those snowflakes you make out of paper when you're little. You fold up the paper and cut bits out then open up the paper to find a pretty pattern. Except with fabric. And a bit more thought out.

Next project a go-go is a planned quilt using this awsome pattern from Chasing Cottons, Who doesn't love sandcastles!? And they're fabric ones!

I'm going to first make a block up as a cushion cover for a little girls birthday pressie as after sifting through the stash I found some fabric that is sand looking with pretty little shells all over it, perfect for a sandcastle. You could do a fairytale theme or make it a bit boyish if you preferred, the fabrics on the picture are Heather Ross' far, far away prints which look beautiful.

And to finish off here's a pic of something that's just about done. I cut up a design roll (like a jelly roll but not from Moda) of Amy Butler's Soul Blossom range and did a sort of log cabiny thing with squares of other stuff in between. This lot was sewn together rag rug style and super quick. I'll post some more detailed pics and info in a separate post as soon as I find the other pics I took of it.

So there you go, heaps of things are on the go and with all this wet weather it's keeping me out of trouble. Now to figure out how to keep the rest of the fishes out of trouble.....

Stairway to heaven? Depends if you like fabric...

I'm still here. We've been a bit bust lately so the poor old blog has been neglected. The house (outside) is painted on three sides. If the rain would go away it would be painted on four sides.

We have been doing some major pruning and cleaning up in the garden. It just needs some new mulch to finish it off (if the rain would go away it would be all done).

I've been helping out in Stacey's prep class with some literacy activities and some pottery, I have to act surprised when I get my Mothers Day present.

And in between all this I've made a couple of table runners to fill up my ladder.

I made this ladder ages ago out of some cheap pine and dowel with an idea in my head that it would look good leaning against a wall with some table runners draped over it in the dining room.

It's now full but that probably won't stop me from making more when I feel like it.

I like table runners, they are quick and don't take heaps of fabric and they are easy to quilt!

So we now have some nice runners to hang on their display ladder and add a bit of colour to the dining room!

Here's another new addition to the dining room, she's is hanging above the doorway to the adjoining sewing/computer/TV room. She's wooden and comes from a shop here called The Inner Labyrinth. I wandered in on one of my infrequent visits (not a shop to visit with a two year old) and saw her hanging on the wall and next thing you know, I'm taking her home.

She is lovely and I'm glad she came to live here. Stacey thinks it's cool having a mermaid hanging on the wall, Mr Fish just rolls his eyes.

I've got plans for one more wall in the dining room and then I think I'll be done with the main decorating. I'll show you when I get around to doing it. Promise.

What can you do with a jelly roll?

Remember this jelly roll I got ages ago? Well it is finally all used up. All I have left is a couple of little scraps that I just can't throw out but I've managed to make three things out of the roll with hardly any wasted. Here's a looksy.

This one I've shown you before, it's a table topper for a little cane side table and was made with a wedge ruler.

This one is a table runner I made with the leftover bits from the throw pictured below. I used the greeny blues and the dark blues/navy that were left and just stitched bits together after laying the fabrics out in a nice way. The outer border was made with some batik fabric that went with the prints.

This throw is made with the jelly roll and a charm pack I managed to hunt down. I just cut the strips up to make a square around each charm square and sewed them together.

So there you go, three items from one jelly roll! How many can you do?

Super Sweet Slipcover

So I found this chair at the tip. (In the recycling shop, not on an actual pile of rubbish!). It was looking a bit sad and worn out so I scrubbed all the flaky bits of varnish off and cleaned it up, then gave it a spray with a can of white gloss spray paint. It was in good condition structure wise so that was all it needed to look a bit happier. Since then it has been sitting in the lounge room with a cushion on it waiting to have some kind of transformation happen. Well, I finally got around to it and here is the result.

First I took a few measurements and made a pattern out of some light interfacing to get an idea of what to cut out. I got some foam from SL and cut the shape out using the interfacing as a pattern. I cut the foam in half across the spot where the seat bit meets the back rest so that once it was in the slipcover it would be easy to bend to fit the shape of the chair.

Then I wrapped some wadding around each piece a few times (just a thinnish wadding, nothing too thick) and secured it with some tacking stitches. I snipped bits of wadding here and there to fit it around the shape of the foam.

Once both pieces were wrapped I laid them down in between the fabric I selected (Amy Butler, Temple somethingorother, off Etsy) with right sides together and pinned around the foam shapes as close as I could get. Then I very carefully pulled the foam pieces out of the pinned fabric and stitched around the shape following the pins, leaving an end open for turning.

I ended up overlocking the edges after I trimmed the seam allowance back a bit to keep it neat.

Then it was just a matter of turning it right sides out and slipping the foam bits back in before slip stitching the opening closed.

The chair seems a bit happier and brighter now and I love looking at the colours on it!

Some things I made.

I know these are a bit late but I thought I'd put them on here anyway. Out of my stash of driftwood that is currently in the front yard I made a little tree to go on the table for Christmas. It was easy to make with a bit of wire and some wood glue. I just drilled a hole through each piece and threaded them on the wire with the larger pieces at the bottom and the tiny bits at the top. Some little shells were hung as ornaments (they even had holes in them already, no drilling needed!) And it's finished off with a starfish on the top. I also made a couple of new baubles for the tree. I found the clear plastic balls at spotlight that you can put stuff in. (One of the only things I managed to find when I went in there, everything else on my list was either sold out, not arrived or mysteriously vanished.) After collecting a little bit of sand and going through our shell jar to find some teeny tiny ones, it just required a bit of glue to hold together and some glittery string to hang on the tree. Most of the other decorations we had this year were glittery, feathery, sparkly creations that the fishes made at Kindy. (Littlest one got to make some as well, she wasn't going to miss out on using glitter and glue!) I just had to throw in a couple of beachy things to balance out the sparkles!

These other bits and pieces are pressies for various people that have now received them so I can show you. Mum likes my sea fan that I framed and so when we found this one I thought I better make her one too. I managed to get a few shadow box frames from Big W (thanks to Claire for her very good finding skills) and painted the matts in a nice sea blue/grey sort of colour. Then with the help of my trusty toothpick I stuck that sucker down. You could make a nice display of shells or bits of driftwood or anything else that tickles your fancy, as long as it fits in your frame.

This pic is of a throw for the lounge I made for Aunty Sand and Uncle Brian-man as the fishes call them. As you can see it is being expertly modelled by littest fish (not sure why she has gumboots on). It was going to be made in fabrics that matched the table runner and wall hanging they have in their house but do you think I could find the photos I took to check what fabrics were used? They loved it and Sand reckons it will match perfectly so it turned out

A-Okay.

This is a monster shirt I made for a little man who likes transformers and robots and other boy things. I was a bit unsure as to whether he would like it (being handmade and not a transformer) but was assured by his knowledgable aunt that he would like a monster shirt.

He did in fact like it and even wanted to put it on so that was a bit relief. And being the lovely boy that he is, he even told me he liked it so that made my day.

We went away over Christmas to visit Mr Fish's parents and all the various Fish relatives down on the Sunny Coast. It rained nearly the whole time time we were there but despite the rain we still had a good time. I'll put some pics of the little fishes feeding the wallabies and the things we did in my next post. Hope everyone had a nice break and a bit of a relax :)

The Neptune table topper is done!

At the end of the kitchen where the dining table used to be (it now has its own room) is a spot I've made into a little relaxing area. I found the cane chairs at target and got some nice bright coral coloured cushions to add a pop of colour to that area. The little round table was mum and dad's and it's been around for a long, long time, except I recently painted it white.

Anyway I thought a little table topper would be nice for a bit more colour and the Neptune jelly roll that has been sitting in the sewing room being admired for a while had just the right colours in it!

I used some strips with coral, blue and green to match the cushions and kitchen that it's going with and sewed them together lengthwise.

Then using my trusty 10' wedge ruler I cut 36 wedges (10 times 36 is 360 degrees) going up and down the fabric so as not to waste any.

Then the sewing begins and 36 wedges were quickly sewn together to form, you guessed it, a circle!

I cut out a circle of pellon and backing and pinned them together (right sides together) while slipping in some ric rac so when it was turned right side out (through the circle in the centre) the ric rac would be around the edge in a wavy pattern.

Then after a good pressing I started quilting a spiral pattern all the way round and then went up and down all the wedges so it was very quilted and flat.

After this I cut out a circle using a saucer (it was just a little bit bigger than the hole it had to cover) and turned the edges under and quilter another spiral pattern to secure it.

So there you have it, a Neptune table topper and now that I have opened the jelly roll I am keen to make something else. It's a bit addictive!

Highs and Lows

This week has been a rather eventful one. One of the highs has been this lovely torch ginger finally deciding to flower after about 4 years of living here. There are 3 torches on it at the moment and hopefully we'll get a few more. It has moved spots a couple of times before we found the best place for it and more seems to be happy and thriving.

One of the more lowish sort of things to happen was that we got this new teddy. Well the teddy itself isn't bad (thank you Red Cross) it's the reason we needed one in the first place.

Littlest fish had a bit of an accident on Wednesday and ended up in the hospital emergency dept. for half the day. It seems that diving on your sister who is perched on the side of the lounge and knocking yourself and her over the edge is not a good idea.

Especially when you both fall over the side and one of you lands on the corner of a step - with your face. After a trip to the local doctor who told us to go to the hospital as they could fix the gaping hole in the side of her temple in a kinder and less painful way than the GP could do, we set out for the emergency dept.

Some numbing drops and 2 local anesthetic needles later and the stitches were in.

Littlest fish was very good and managed to keep still mostly and I managed to not faint as I held her head steady and had to watch everything the doctor was doing. She had to have a couple of stitches to put her back together and some steristrips and a big band aid type patch to cover it all up but is now on the mend. In fact the next day she was up and playing and I had to explain to 21 mums at Kindy why she had a huge patch on her head when we dropped her sister off.

The stitches come out on Tuesday and she should only have a tiny scar that should fade to nothing so that is good.

Her face is a bit bruised down that side which looks a bit yucky but it's getting better each day.

The steps have now got plastic corner things on them and the furniture has been moved a bit so there is a side table between the step and the lounge. All lounge diving has also been banned, lounges are for sitting on only.

Her sister was not hurt at all and was very helpful when I was shouting at her to get me a washer and the phone.

To leave you on a more pleasant topic, here is a little sneak peek at something in the works at the moment - I finally undid my Neptune jelly roll! (I was a bit nervous as it looked so pretty)

(In case you aren't familiar with them the teddy is called a trauma teddy. The hospital gives them to kids that are in need of something to cuddle while they are being fixed up. The nice volunteers at the Red Cross make them and donate them to the hospital, yet another wonderful service they provide).

Neptune is hard to find!

I know I am a bit slow and the Neptune range by Tula Pink has been around for a while and is now oldish but I only really discovered it and desperately wanted some recently.

It is rather hard to find nowdays and it was quite a few google searches before I managed to track some down. So now I am the proud owner of a jelly roll and charm pack with 3 half yard pieces on the way. The tricky bit is thinking about what to make and deciding on a pattern. Decisions, decisions.

I love the prints and colours and am thinking a throw for the lounge would be nice and maybe a runner also. It's the perfect range if you like all things ocean related.

And a little parcel arrived recently from equilter with some bits and pieces for some sewing fun. There's nothing like getting a parcel in the mail, even when you have to let the little fishes open it!

sneak peeks at the finished room coming very soon!

Oh, I do like to be beside the seaside....

When you can't be right next to the seaside all the time here's the next best thing!

A nice reminder of what's nearby waiting for our next visit. I had made one of these a while ago that I gave to kindy for the Mothers day hamper we raffled and wanted to make another one for our place. This time I changed the colours from deeper blues to more bluey greens to more closely resemble the water around our area.

It has some little shells sewn onto the sand at the bottom that finishes it off nicely and a piece of driftwood to hang off.

(Pattern is from a book called Skinny quilts and table runners that I found in our local library)

What the?!!!

This funny red thing is a starfish! We hit the jackpot at the beach this morning and found not one but two lovely starfish. We have seen them on the beach before but they are not something you come across very often. There is a particular spot that is exposed at low tide where the more interesting creatures seem to gather. As well as getting to check out these beauties we found quite a few large sand dollar shells (none of them had anything in them, they hide in the sand when alive) and an interesting looking sea slug. It was really exciting for the little fishes to see the starfishes and we watched the star shaped one bury itself back in the sand without noticeably moving, it just seemed to magically sink before our eyes. This was definitely a special beach walk.

Now for something completely unrelated, a cot quilt for a new little baby that was born recently!

Little Ebony arrived a few weeks ago and had to have a pretty quilt for her cot so out came the rotary cutter and the ruler and this little beauty was put together. It didn't take long to make and is a simple 9 patch block alternated with a feature block. It was nice to sew something again and a princess dress has just been requested by oldest fish so it looks like a bit more sewing will be done!