WIP Wednesday #7

When you are out of the house for 12 hours a day, 5 days a week, and have to cook dinner, feed and bathe kids and read stories before you can clean up and sew, making progress is slow.  Very slow! But I am glad that I have been pushing past that wall of tiredness and switching on the machine. There is something about piecing bits of fabric together that I find so relaxing.  I have to tune out the world and focus on cutting accurately, making seams meet, pressing carefully and I get to watch a block appear before my eyes.

 

Given that I have just gotten over a stomach virus and now considering staying home in bed tomorrow to get over the head cold that has been plaguing me all week (and harassing me with an asthma flare up that has made me just want to sleep), perhaps taking on another QAL was not such a good idea.  But if I think of it as medication to keep me sane… I am so happy to be joining in! So I am following the Moda Friendship Blog Hop and QAL and loving every minute!

I was inspired by the gorgeous “Simply Sweet” fabric range I have used on Madelyn’s latest dress (made this week – just needs buttons).  I told you I was excited about this one, because of the fabric selection, right?  Well now I have an excuse to play with these colours some more! 

 

I bought the fabric at an end of bolt sale, so had a minimum 1y cut.  So I grabbed 1.5y of each the green and the white prints.  This means I have plenty left to make Emily a little matching dolly dress (and sqee! Just as I was considering drafting my own dolly version, Tie Dye Diva released it in dolly size!).  Unfortunately this fabric is hard to find now, so I can’t make an entire quilt from this range, but I have plenty to use in a few of the blocks.  And an order of coordinating prints on the way (woops – that stash busting doesn’t look like it’s going so well!).  How could I resist some of this Pam Kitty Love?

Photo courtesy of: http://www.fatquartershop.com

I managed to finish my CP cushion top, and nearly went ahead and quilted it so it was ready to stitch into a cushion cover when I eventually get to a shop to buy a zip.  Fortunately, sensibility took hold and I tucked myself into bed before midnight hit, and turned me into a pumpkin.  This block is so easy and quick to make, which makes me confident enough to cut into my Pieces of Hope stack.  Joining them and matching up seams was a little tricky, but I got the hang of it, and I think on larger blocks I will be wondering what I was worried about.

 

And thanks to Vanessa from Punkin Patterns, for her design wall post, I now have one of my own!  Mine is only small; 500mm by 700mm and I had room to go bigger, but  I chose to use foam board rather than polystyrene (for the sake of the vet bills I didn't want, as my cat loves to eat the stuff!) This was the only size available when I went to Officeworks on the weekend.  I paid the extra dollar and got the self-adhesive foam board.  Fabulous!  All I had to do was peel back the backing paper, smooth on some flannelette, and tape it to the back.  Done! 

(okay so my desk is a little messier than Vanessa's....)

I deliberated on turning it into smaller design boards to help with cutting and laying out sampler blocks, but the design wall won out.  I may go back and get some more but at $11.50 a piece I wanted it to be the size I would most use.  DH doesn’t let me hang quilts on walls… but he said nothing about design boards!

Okay, time to link up with Freshly Pieced and hit the couch with some knitting...  No sewing tonight, I am exhausted!

She's apples!

I haven't been too well over the past few days, but when my little Miss requested a pink dress I decided not to let a dreaded stomach virus keep me away from my machine!  I bought this fabric from Spotlight just before Christmas, when there was a sale on, and I was feeling motivated to make my little girl's summer wardrobe rather than buy it.  Unfortunately, as always, time got the better of me, and the fabric went straight to my stash,

The pattern is Tie Die Diva's "Sweet Summer Girls Halter Dress".  I loved being able to download it and use it straight away.  It is a really simple little dress to sew up, and comes in two sizes (baby-toddler, or little girl - 8yrs).  The hardest part is sewing the curved part of the straps to the bodice, but it's doable, and you get that out of the way straight up, and it just kind of falls together from there.  Exactly what I needed when I still had a bit of a foggy, achey head.

Unfortunately my camera wasn't focusing properly, and when I realised that the lens wasn't clicked in all the way, it was too late - she wasn't cooperating anymore, so these are the best shots I could get. She is never still for a moment - then complains when we have to walk more than a few metres.  No wonder, she burns off all her energy at a rate of knots!

I made the size 6 but her chest size (surprisingly!) is not much bigger than a 4 in this pattern.  It looks tight across the chest in these photos, but I think it is more that it is sitting a little too low.  I should have put a shorter length of elastic in the back as it falls a bit and then pulls across the chest.  Not the pattern's fault at all,  she has a little growing room.  She is 4 years old but generally wears size 6-7 in bought clothing, because of her chest size and giraffe legs!  I think it looks gorgeous in real life, and would definitely make another.  Although I have plans to make another of Tie Die Diva's dresses first - they are so easy and quick to make, yet so pretty.

The little headband is another ruffle headband, from the tutorial I used a couple of years ago for her Christmas dress.  I just love it!  Really easy to make, clever construction and it actually stays on her head (when she's not fiddling too much).

Have to finish with the obligatory twirly shot!

That brings my stash count down by 7 FQs.

Flashback Friday #1

I have a bit of an unblogged project backlog - some things found their way onto facebook but others were never shared, so I thought I might use Fridays to flashback to projects that have not had their 5 minutes of fame.

I always wanted a little girl, so I could knit her a little layette like I made for my first niece, back in 2001. In fact it was for this reason that I opted to find out what we were having second time around. But because we were keeping it secret, and because there was a little voice in my head telling me that sometimes little girls turn out to be little boys, all I managed to knit while I was pregnant with Madelyn was unisex: a little aqua raglan cardy, and a sweet little cream lace matinee set (hat, booties and jacket) which she wore over a pink hand sewn dress. I was a bit scared to commit the time it takes to knit a little dress and have her turn out to be a little boy! A bit ironic that now I have finally gotten around to knit her a dress she's wearing a size 6, and that newborn dress would have taken far less time! Admittedly I have used 8 ply (and 10 ply for the second one) which is a bit faster than what it would have been to knit a seamed, lace, 4ply dress from one of my antique pattern books as I was planning for her as a baby, but there is a heck of a lot more knitting in this size!
I am forgetting - I did make her a dress from 4 ply when she was about 10 months old, but of course she grew out of it as soon as I finished it, so it always looked like more of a top than a dress and didn't last long. But now she has two dresses from my pre-Christmas knitting adventures that she can wear next autumn and winter. 

She has worn thisTeacher's Pet a few times already, as it is great for sunny days in the early 20's (Celsius) which we were blessed with in November. After finishing this one, I was on a roll, so signed up to test knit another dress!

This Primrose dress is a little big so she can get a bit more wear out of it with leggings and long sleeves next winter.  The oversize was a bit due to my poor measurements, and a bit due to the wool growing when I blocked it. Not so great as I was test knitting and was unable to help much with sizing, but I am happy because my little princess just keeps on growing!  She is already topping Austy's 5 year old mark on our growth chart and she only just turned 4!  It won't be long before she catches up...

Both dresses were designed by Julia Stanfield.