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 :)

Rich Chocolate Cake

It was Gus' birthday last week & he wanted a cake that tasted like & was pretty much just chocolate ganache! A google search found me a recipe by David Lebovitz that sounded promising so I decided to try it out the week before just in case! Here is that recipe, with how I made the cake.

Ingredients:

290g dark  chocolate (I used Nestle cooking chocolate)
200 g butter
5 large eggs (room temperature)
1 cup sugar

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 175C.

2. Butter a springform pan then dust it with cocoa powder, tap out any excess. Wrap the outside with aluminum foil in case the pan isn't watertight.

3. Melt the LARGE amount of chocolate and butter, stirring occasionally, until smooth. Remove from heat.

4. In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs and sugar, then whisk in the melted chocolate mixture until smooth.

5. Pour the batter into the pan and cover the top of the pan with foil. 

6. Put the springform pan into a large roasting pan, and add enough hot water to the baking pan to come about halfway up to the outside of the cake pan.

7. Bake for 1 hour & a half (check after 1 hour and a quarter).

8. The cake is done when it feels just set, if you gently touch the center, your finger should come away clean.

9. Remove the pan from the water bath and remove the foil. 

10. Let the cake cool completely on a cooling rack.

It was divine! Gus loved it! It was very rich & strongly flavoured.

And the girls at my new job enjoyed it too! I took in the leftovers as there was no way I was leaving the leftovers at home to tempt me!

But.... then Gus decided he wanted something else.... so see the next post!!