More sewing...

I've done more sewing than the baby sleeping bag, I've been getting ready for Christmas.... here is the christmas stocking I made for Aiden, bright red cotton with an appliqued christmas tree. I added a yellow felt diamond to the top of the tree (a star was too hard!), but can't decide if I should add more decorations to the tree or leave it as is.

Over the last 2 days I made Aiden a new outfit out of some of our old clothes... Mum gave me the sewing patterns she had from making our clothes so I used the old knitwit pattern & whipped up a t-shirt from one of my old ones, and a pair of shorts from an old pair of Gus'.
I love making little clothes, it's so quick. I think the shorts took me about an hour, including unpicking & resewing the inside leg seams as I mucked it up & sewed the wrong seams together!

His outfit is much less retro than the pattern! and I made the shorts about 2 inches longer too! much nicer to have long shorts than little stubbies :)  I used a cotton drill fabric for the shorts rather than a knit but they still worked out well.

And lastly, when mum gave me the patterns she also gave me some fabric, including an A line skirt she had cut out years ago but never made. I finished this off too, although it was a bit small so I added a panel down each side so it fit :)

Summer Baby Sleeping Bag

Last week I made Aiden a new sleeping bag for summer. I was sick of buying him new ones as he has grown out of 3 sleeping bags & almost a 4th already!
Luckily for me I had just got a voucher in the mail from Spotlight & the fabric was on sale. It's a nice dark navy blue cotton jersey.
I made a pattern based on his existing sleeping bag with an extra 10cm in length as that is where he is running out of room! I copied his existing sleeping bag & found some tips online, and came up with a double layer sleeping bag (so no need to bind the arm or neck holes as I sewed the rights sides together then turned it out), the zip has a guard at the neck & behind the zip to stop him eating the zip or the zip catching on his clothes, and I inserted the zip "upside down" so it opens from the bottom. Hopefully this, with a back up that I'll make next week, will see him through the summer!

New baby pants from old shorts!

When I last went shopping for new clothes for Aiden (which is quite a frequent occurrence since he is growing so fast!), I was disappointed in the lack of long pants that weren't trackies or jeans. The weather is warming up so trackies are a bit too hot now. I found a few tutorials on line that had patterns for pants for babies, so I decided to make Aiden a couple of pairs from some old shorts of Gus'.

Before, 1 pair of mens shorts:

First I took apart the shorts by cutting the seams & unpicking the pockets on the back. I used a pattern from danamadeit.com, the shorts were just the right size for small pants:

I cut the shorts a bit smaller than the pattern as the pattern was for a size 2-3, but when I sewed it together they were too small! So I unpicked the outside leg seams & added a strip about 2" wide then resewed the legs back together, after seams there is just over an inch of extra fabric in the legs :) a good fix, looks OK & fits well :) maybe a bit too baggy in the legs, but a good fit over a cloth nappy bum!

After:

Plenty of room in the length for growing!

I've been a busy bee sewing up a storm...

Since I've been at home I haven't done any baking, BUT, I have done alot of sewing.

The 1st thing I made was some new cushion covers. These were made from a spare curtain so match the new curtains we put up in the house. I made an envelope back so no need for a zip, just a couple of velcro tabs to stop the cushion trying to escape out the back.

I had a go at quilting as well. I plan on making Aiden a quilt for once he is out of the cot (probably far too soon), so thought I better practice on something smaller! I made a table runner for christmas. I quilted in simple straight lines, the binding was the tricky part so what you see here is the 2nd attempt at binding! Much better than the 1st :)

The back was a nice christmassy print too.

Over the last week or so I have been enjoying having the sewing machine set up in the office, so whenever I feel like sewing, and Aiden is asleep, it's all ready to go.

Last week I finished recycling (?) an old set of flannelette sheets from our bed (king size) into single sized ones for Aiden, no pics, but they're a lovely dark blue, perfect for a little boy :)

I made a pretty sewing machine cover too. This used some cute fat quarters & some leftover material from the sheets.

Who knew my sewing machine would get such a workout! So here is it's nice new cover to keep it happy :)

Breast Feeding Cover Up

When I was at Esra's baby shower last weekend, Carole gave her a clever breast feeding cover up that she had made. This inspired me to make one for myself in my free time I am enjoying before bubs arrives now that I have finished work....

a quick google search for a tutorial, a quick trip to spotlight (where I spent my $10 birthday voucher), less than $6 spent (so a huge $16 in total!) & I was ready to sew.

I found a couple of tutorials that were useful... this one & this one.

I wanted something nice & bright so I bought this bright green & white polka dot cotton.

There was enough fabric left over so I also made a wee carry bag for it too!

Now I just need bubs to arrive!

Baby Shower Cake

A friend had her baby shower back in August......  here is the cake I created for her.

It was chocolate with vanilla buttercream piped in ruffles all around. A cute baby blue teddy bear on top completed the cake :)