Mid-century chair makeover

Say hello to my new old friend. We've had a pair of these mid-century chairs for a while; they belonged to my grandmother and were used for a time at two of my sisters' homes before they came to live with us. I love that they've got a bit of our family story woven into them. They're just a classic style and built to last - apart from the fabric which was so worn in places that I had been hiding their poor condition under a throw. We always planned to reupholster them one day. That day came the weekend before last. This is how they used to look:

My husband and I have different tastes in home decor and DIY methodology, which complicates things. Put two fabric swatches in front of us that are different shades or patterns, and we pick the opposite to each other. When he decides that he wants to start a project, he just wants to get it finished as quickly as possible, which is great but it means making snap decisions at times and I hate being rushed. These chairs have waited several years to be recovered, what is another couple of weeks until we find the perfect fabric? Besides, there were a few steps that needed to be taken before sewing covers could even start. The chair back foam was glued well to the metal frame and needed to be cut away. The wooden parts of the frame needed some touching up and the shiny varnish sanded back so a matte Danish oil could be applied instead. A full day was needed for the oil to properly harden.

We had foam cut to our specifications for the seats (515x515x125mm). The old covers were in such poor shape that they could not be used as a template when we cut out our new fabric so making the new covers was the most time-consuming stage. What am I even saying?? I have no idea if this was the most time-consuming part, I didn't do anything in this project except take the photos and look at fabric.

Speaking of fabric, there is so much choice available now - it's actually really overwhelming. I went to several fabric stores in Wellington and looked online (I told you I like to take my time and cover all my bases) and I have to say that even though we bought elsewhere in the end, I was most impressed by the service and speed of delivery of the samples I ordered from Martha's Furnishing Fabrics in Auckland. The generous size of the samples they sent out really gave me a decent idea of whether or not the fabric would look good en masse and they even included five extra fabrics that they thought we might like. I also wanted to show you this amazing print I really loved that I found trawling through fabrics online. I obtained a sample (which was a different colour from the screenshot) from Fabrics Direct in town. It sat on the chair for a whole weekend and I started having second thoughts about it. At $65/m, I wasn't really prepared to take the plunge and then decide after it was too late that the colour didn't suit the rest of the house.

Charles Parsons Maze in turquoise

My husband was thinking more along the lines of a textured solid colour similar to the original chair fabric. We ended up settling on a textured neutral from The Fabric Store in Wellington. It probably was not on either of our radars before we started looking seriously at all the fabric options so I guess keeping an open mind is the lesson in all of this. It's not an upholstery fabric though, but at $38/m it was a price we felt we could afford, particularly because we also needed to replace the foam too. These chairs can really handle bold prints but when I thought more about it, opting for a neutral will mean these chairs will remain timeless and it's so much easier (and cheaper!) to add colour with cushions.

Can I also just add that a husband working at a sewing machine = so hot. Buoyed by the success of these chairs, he is going to tackle the last taboo of sewing - ROMAN BLINDS. Should I tell him that those things are best left to the professionals? This should be fun to watch. He's insane. Insanely cute, but still insane.

{Free Printable} Father's Day Kids' Quiz

Even though it's still wet and cold, I love that winter is officially over. It has been quite a rough season in the Paper Moon household and I am looking forward to getting back onto an even keel again. Spring is my favourite season; I love the promise of new beginnings, longer, warmer evenings and that my daughters were all born at this time of the year, which means launching into birthday party mode.

Father's Day is also fast approaching and for the last couple of years, it has become a little tradition for the girls to fill out a simple questionnaire for their Dad. Each year yields different responses as they get older and their relationships with their Dad develop. I still laugh at the answers my daughters gave the first time they did this. There are many questionnaires available on the internet; I first saw this idea on Mousehouse's blog and simply changed some of the wording on her Mother's Day questionnaire to make it more suitable for Father's Day. It's quite a revelation to see how children view their parents and serves as a great memento of this fleeting ride raising children.

This year, I decided to make a shorter version with more white space so Aimee could practice writing independently. Feel free to download my printable for your own personal use. Try it, laughs will be guaranteed.

Triangle crochet blanket

It has been a while since I have blogged about anything crochet-related but I can finally share a blanket I started over 18 months ago. I am not usually one to leave things unfinished for so long! Inspired by all the fabric triangle quilts I was seeing on the internet at the time, I started to make a child's blanket out of crochet triangles. It measures about 87cm x 114cm and is a mixture of acrylic and wool.If you are looking for a relatively quick project, this is not it. When I discovered that it takes me around 40 minutes to single crochet just one triangle, the enormity of the blanket project I was about to embark on hit me and I had to push through a few moments of ennui - and also downscale the size of the project to a baby blanket. It is now the second winter since starting this blanket and the cold nights we've been experiencing over the past few weeks have really been the motivator I needed to forge ahead and complete it.What I find with crochet is that I can never be sure exactly how much yarn I will need for any particular project. I used up some of the yarn in my stash and needed to buy more pale pink and grey only to discover that not just those particular colours, but all of the yarn I was using in this blanket has now been discontinued. Sad face. There is something to be said for not leaving unfinished projects languishing in a bag for over a year. It meant that I had to use the remaining yarn in my stash and resulted in enforced placement of some of the triangles where I would have otherwise chosen a different colour for greater balance. Similarly, the very simple double crochet border and pink single crochet edging was a result of not having enough yarn to work the border I really wanted to use. I had got almost two thirds of the way through the border before I realised I would not have enough yarn and had to unravel it all. In the end though, I am happy with the simpler edging so maybe this was just how it was meant to be.

Aside from how slow the triangles were to work up and running out of yarn, the other issue that I faced was finding the best way to stitch them all together. If I was more certain on colour placement from the beginning, a join-as-you-go method would have been ideal and I should have left long tails on each of the triangles to make the process even more simple. Since I had woven the tail of each triangle as I completed it, I put the right sides of the triangles together and slipstitched them. It results in a standard ridge-like join on the back of the blanket.In part because of all of the issues I encountered, I do feel such a great sense of satisfaction to have finally completed it. What are you working on at the moment? I'd love to hear from you.

That one time I was nominated for Funniest Sewing Blog 2015

Funny old thing, this blogging business. Business, as in "matter", not business, as in profit-generating (or losing) as I don't earn anything from writing in this space - yet. Unless it is in my dreams and then I do this as my full-time job with a six-figure salary affording me ample time to buy limitless amounts of fabric where I'll sit at my sewing machine bathed in golden rays of sunlight and beam beatifically at my immaculately-dressed children wearing outfits that I have made for them, who are busying themselves with their own crafts because they understand the importance of never interrupting their mother when she is creating.

I was looking through my stats page on Thursday night to see how many vampirestat.com robots or some other such spammy links had crawled around the internet to find me that week when I noticed a link that was quite suspicious by the very virtue of how normal it looked. So, I clicked on it and like an internet version of Narnia, a whole other world of sewing blogs opened up before me.

Somehow, I was nominated for a blog award that I had never heard of before on a blog that I never knew existed. I did make this announcement on Facebook, but I think it is worthy of its own blog post because, really, I'm still a little bit chuffed about it and it just serves to highlight how random blogging can be. Even when you think no-one is reading, somebody probably is.

Now, don't laugh - actually, you can laugh because I did. I ended up on the list of Madalynne's Best Sewing Blog nominees for 2015. Not only that, I was nominated in the Funniest Sewing Blog category, which, naturally, is the category everyone wants to win. Let that sink in for a minute. Come to my place to be entertained to disguise the fact that I can't really sew anything technically challenging. Maybe 'funny' has a different meaning in US English and it actually means completely delusional about one's creative talents combined with neurotic episodes - in which case, I am hilarious.

So surprised was I to see my blog on the list, I wondered if there had been a mistake. I even took a screenshot of the list of nominees in case I received an email apologizing for their mistake and I could wave it in their virtual faces and say "I was nominated for an award that nobody actually cares about that gets tacked on at the end of the awards ceremony when all the major winners have collected their trophies and are getting drunk at the bar and even the cleaners have gone home - I've got the proooooof!". I may even have printed out that screenshot and placed it in a sealed envelope for a time when I can reenact the winner's announcement - except this time, it's my name in lights.

So, no, I didn't win the category - but I was in some impressive company. I still can't believe somebody liked my blog enough to nominate me for this.

How many of you have heard of Madalynne's blog? I hadn't before Thursday night, and like many other new (to me) blogs on the awards list, I am in complete love with her whole blog. She makes bras and plays around with lace and elastic and other scary stuff. It's a visual symphony really so even though I was unaware of these awards, the list serves as a great reference point to discover other really great blogs. And, yes, it does feel pretty nice to be featured alongside some major players in the sewing world.

Thank you to that person who waded through all of the blogs on the nominees list and still had enough energy to click on my blog name otherwise I would have missed out on the biggest bellylaugh I have had in ages.

One thing that struck me about the Madalynne Best Sewing Blog Awards is that the Kiwi sewing blogs are a bit thin on the ground. I went through the entire list and found one other - two if you count the blogger who has a Kiwi husband. Now, I know there are plenty of amazing bloggers in our neck of the woods, and there were even one or two surprise international omissions (in my opinion).

I just want to acknowledge all the other blogs out there that I love and enjoy visiting (you know who you are because I leave comments) and that I think are worthy contenders to make such a shortlist so this non-award is as much yours as it is mine.

It made me think we need to highlight our own homegrown talent more. Which New Zealand sewing-related blog do you love to read and why? Feel free to leave a comment so others can find them.

Dresses for Cambodia

Just when you thought this blog was turning into a travel diary, I will stun all my creative followers and write about this dress. Yes, another peasant dress to join the multitudes already out there. But, this one is slightly different in that there is an important reason behind making it. I first read about the Dresses for Cambodia project on Sophie Slim's blog. Sophie is the architect behind another great social cause, The Sisterhood, and her generosity of spirit is pretty infectious. I wanted to join in with her latest initiative immediately but because life is feeling pretty full at the moment, I haven't been able to take on as many voluntary sewing-related requests and I decided I wouldn't commit to this one - until I remembered that I had a half-finished dress hanging in my sewing space. It just needed the butterfly sleeves to be finished and hemmed so this really was a very quick project in the end and gave me the motivation I needed to complete the dress.

My model was not feeling particularly cooperative but I hope you get a sense of the summery feel of the yellow floral print voile fabric, which is very light. The only misgiving I have about it is because the fabric is quite sheer, I had lined it with grey cotton so I wonder if it will be slightly too hot to wear in the Cambodian climate. Still, it will join the other items of clothing that will be sent over there in May and I hope whoever wears it will love it no matter what.

If you would like to take part in Sophie's quest to dress some street children, head over to her blog.

DIY - Small wire basket

Amazing what you can do with some chicken wire, a pair of manky old pliers and ye olde fingertips.

Thanks to the rabbit hutch project which has turned out to be longest wait for a birthday present in recorded history, a small amount of chicken wire was left over and I snaffled it to make a storage basket for my kitchen.

Let's not pretend I came up with this idea myself; having looked online after I made this and seeing how many tutorials there are already out there I decided that the world doesn't really need one more wire basket tutorial. Instead I give you a brief rundown on how I made my small version.

Our roll of chicken wire from the hardware store had 2cm squares. I cut out a shape that resembled a plus sign using pliers, bent the sides and wrapped the tines around the adjoining side to hold it all in place. My completed basket is 7 squares wide, 7 squares deep and 6 squares high (5 squares when the top row is turned down to prevent being scratched or clothing getting caught on the sharp tines).

Now I have something to house my garlic instead of just having them sit dejectedly on the bench.

Misshapen, mine.

Fleur - a vintage-style cloth doll

In a complete departure from my usual sewing projects, I got to pattern-test Big Little's newest creation, Fleur, a vintage-style cloth doll. She is simply too beautiful for words. I don't think the photos do her justice to be honest. She is so robust yet lovely to hold and at around 38cm tall, she is an amazing size. My 5 and 7 year old daughters just love her to pieces.

If you are visiting here from Big Little's blog tour this week, you may notice that my version is a little different to the lovely ones that have been showcased so far. It was not because I disliked the original pattern, but simply because she was created based on what materials I already had in my stash.

I've sewed one other doll before, but I just made it up as I went along and it was very rudimentary. This doll has quite a number of components to her, including jointed limbs, and the pattern has a very comprehensive tutorial to accompany it; to see it all in one file may actually a little overwhelming for a beginner or inexperienced sewer. The testers were dripfed the tutorial, which I think was a really good approach so it felt more manageable.

I think to do it in stages and only when you have complete focus on the task at hand is key. I had a little bit on my plate last month when I worked on this doll and so I snuck a few hours here and there and always with the nagging in my head that I really ought to have been doing something else, so I think I rushed her a bit and lost enjoyment because she didn't come together as well I had hoped she would. I really struggled with a number of areas, and my frustration only grew when I could not achieve a nice, balanced look to her face. I don't even know why - all the other pattern testers seemed to manage it without a problem. Perhaps it was because I used polyester fill where others had used natural fibres? I just could not achieve the lovely rounded look in the example pictures when I started stuffing her and it caused so much frustration! She had no other features at that point, she was just a bald-headed, faceless creature with no arms or legs and I just wasn't feeling it.

I also found stitching and turning out the ears and making clothes that are this small an issue - I must have man-sized hands or something but finesse is required to work with these little details and plenty of patience is needed because you cannot rush through the stages unless you want it to show in your craftsmanship.

I had a ball of sea foam green wool in my stash and this is what guided me in the colour choices for the doll clothes. I followed Lisa's tutorial to braid the hair, which was surprisingly easy, and then I decided  my doll needed a more relaxed hairstyle, so I rolled the hair at the side, swept it around to the other side and then braided it.

Having struggled to stuff the doll, I made the decision to tackle the clothes instead. I figured it would be a good idea to have a break from the doll and play with some pretty fabrics instead to rekindle the enjoyment. For me, there is no point sewing if I'm not having fun doing it. I made a kimono dress and regretted my fabric choices so I opted for separates instead. I love how it all turned out, with her little leggings made from a pair of one of my daughter's old holey leggings. They are simply longer French knickers without the elastic in the legs and sewn with a tapered leg so they fit more snugly. The denim jacket is adapted from the bodice pattern and made using a pair of old jeans and I snuck in some of Sarah Jane's florals for the lining. The teeshirt is made from a stretch knit and I handstamped it with one of the girls' stamps for a street wear look.

So fash-un.

The shoes are made from a small piece of suede and were really quite fun to make. I cut out the soles from the supplied shoe pattern and to make the boots, I drafted a slightly wider pattern using the contour of the doll's leg as a guide.

I was especially hesitant to embroider her eyes; having come so far through the doll-making process and lacking confidence in my embroidery skills, I feared I would completely ruin the doll and not be able to disguise any mistakes. Lisa came to the rescue with a simplified eye design, which is just perfect on this doll.

There were so many emotions at play constructing her. I oscillated between excitement, to frustration to ambivalence and finally to falling completely in love with my creation. It was a total incarnation of the creative process diagram I wrote about last month. I could never give this girl up, so I am so glad that my children play with her and adore her too. As soon as her face was stitched on, it was my eureka moment and I just fell in love with her.

If you are ever given a doll that someone has carefully laboured over for hours, feel special because these dolls are definitely not a five minute project and if someone has carefully crafted something as detailed and beautiful as a Big Little Fleur doll for you, know that you are loved.

Lisa was incredibly patient with me as I worked through the various stages asking a barrage of questions along the way. She has also generously offered 15% off the pattern until this Saturday 20 December only which is now listed here in her Etsy store. Just enter the code FLEUR15 at checkout.

Unless you put all the dolls being showcased this week side by side, you mightn't realize that they were created from the same pattern, which is the beauty of it - it is such a versatile pattern and you are only limited by your imagination. I am having all manner of difficulty adding links and uploading photos to my blog at the moment, so if you would like to see more versions of this doll and to visit the remaining blogs in the hop, please do click through to Lisa's blog for a list of all the participants.

Aimee from Small Steps Big Noises has made a doll to give away to one lucky little person. Knowing how much work goes into creating these dolls, this is such a generous thing to do and captures nicely the spirit of this time of year. Please do go and enter for your chance to own your very own Fleur doll.

Dr Seuss novelty prints winner

You do realize that the odds of winning something in the Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Day are pretty slim, don't you? Just think, of the 245 prizes up for grabs for international participants, there were hundreds more people in the group that missed out. But still, you gave it a shot and I admire that. If it's any consolation, you're in some fine company. Natalie Portman didn't win anything either.

Better luck next time, Nat.

My last giveaway winner was from the United States. This time, the fabrics will be winging their way across to western Australia. Congratulations, Janeta!  Thank you so much to you all for taking the time to enter my giveaway. A big hello to my new readers and likers on Facebook and Instagram, it is a good feeling to know people think I am worth a follow. I've also found one or two new (to me) blogs which is a nice bonus (that's just something us losers like to say).

Only six months until the next Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Day, maybe some of us will be lucky next time round.

{Giveaway} Obseussed with Dr Seuss

**GIVEAWAY CLOSED**

Oh the places you'll go!
There is fun to be done!
There are blogs to visit and fabric to be won.
And the magical things you can do with this haul will make you the winning-est winner of all.

Go on, just leave me a comment telling me what you would do with this set of five Dr Seuss cotton fabrics. That's it. These are "Dr Seuss fat quarters", meaning they are slightly wonkily cut, but they are more or less 44x55cm/18x22" - and you may end up winning them all for free so who's going to complain about that?

**BONUS**

Existing followers of my blog will qualify for two chances to win. New followers are always welcome, but this is not a requirement to enter the giveaway. If you are a follower (and I have come to know many of you quite well through our behind-the-scenes chats), please just leave a second comment telling me how you follow - (i.e. Instagram, Facebook and/or via Bloglovin or Google Friend Connect. As you can see from my GFC tally, this is an extraordinarily popular blog so why would you want to miss out on all the action?

A winner at the close of the Giveaway Day will be drawn randomly and announced on my blog. In the unlikely event of being unable to reach the winner after three days, I will redraw.

Open to international entries.

Giveaway closes at 2pm Saturday 13 December (NZDST)/5pm Friday 12 December (PST).

**OTHER IMPORTANT STUFF**
if you comment anonymously, I will be unable to contact you and your entry will be invalid so please leave an email address in your message. I reply to everyone who gets in touch with me, provided there is an email address link in their profile, but Giveaway Day can get a little crazy, so please take this as my personal acknowledgement to all you fabric hounds for stopping by.

Giveaway Day runs for the whole week so there is plenty of time for you to head to the other participating blogs and enter their giveaways. To view them all, go here. Have fun!

Foxes, bikes and bears oh my!

Our newest family member arrived into the world last month and even though I did not know whether he would be a boy or a girl at the time when I started my projects, I threw all my eggs in one basket and sewed some wee baby boy pants and a gown as gifts. If he had turned out to be a girl, I would have found a happy home for the clothes, I am sure.

Sewing with knits is still something I am still unaccustomed to, so this was a good opportunity to overcome my fear of the fabric and have some fun with some cute organic knits, especially the bike print which is a little joke for his cycling-obsessed Dad. I drafted a pattern for the pants and added some cuffs mainly because I wanted to hide the ugly crooked seams - ha! They turned out better this way so hooray for happy accidents. Of the three, my favourite item is the gown. Love the bear print, love the softness of the garment and love the envelope neckline. Love, love, love. The pattern I used for this one can be found here. I added some binding to the neckline and sleeves using some offcuts rather than turning down the seams and stitching. I would also say that the pattern size is on the generous side, and would probably fit a 3 month old as opposed to a newborn.

Welcome to the world, nephew. We had better pay you a visit before your Mum sees this on here and you've outgrown everything.

Come and see what other creatives have been up to over at the Queen of crochet's place.

It's my blog and I'll be a nepotist if I want to

November is all about family. Two of my daughters have their birthdays, my husband and I were married and two of my close family members also have anniversaries this month. It's hard to believe that it is nearly a year since one of them got married. It was such a special day, made all the more so by the involvement of many friends and family putting their individual talents to good use. Take, for example my brother-in-law, Chris. He is quiet, very unassuming, and also very creative, having trained and gained qualifications in video editing. His skills have been put to use filming and editing the wedding of one of my other sisters and he also enjoys dabbling in surfing videography. 

He designed the invitations for his nuptials and tied in items of significance to the couple. Music is hugely important to them, and the fish symbolism represents their star signs but also Chris is a keen fisherman and surfer. Butterflies also have special significance to them and they featured everywhere, from the cake to the floral arrangements down to the guests seating plan. Being a self-confessed font geek, I really love the use of the different typefaces and the colours that he chose.

You may have noticed a little bit of a spruce up around here too. There's nothing like a bit of a banner change and injection of subtle colour to make a blog feel fresh and new again. It's looking more and more how I imagined this space to be when I first started blogging here over a year ago. While I've been happy to potter around teaching myself how to alter the look of my blog with the help of the internet and some of Simone's very useful tutorials at Greatfun4kids, I handed the design of my new logo over to my brother-in-law, who came up with this sewing concept - I really like the texture of the crumpled paper and even though I loved the old font, the new typeface is more legible when it is shrunk down into my profiles on Facebook and Felt, which is quite important and something I never even considered when I first started blogging.

I think Chris, like many men (and Kiwis in general), doesn't like to broadcast his talents but I just wanted to say that while his passion lies in surfing videography you need only look at what he created for his own wedding to know that his talents are much broader than that and if anyone was considering a new design concept for business cards or if you were looking for unique wedding invitations, I know he would be only too happy to discuss your ideas with you. Chris, if you are reading this, I hope you're not blushing too much at this unsolicited plug, you are talented and I hope you can live your dream.

After all, isn't that what we all want to do in life?

This is not a sponsored post, although I may receive some whitebait for Christmas lunch *eyebrow waggle*.

A lesson in the art of perseverance

Thank you to everyone who commented and understood where I was coming from on my last blog post. I don't want people to think I was throwing myself a pity party, in fact, what I meant by being a number 4 was that I was feeling frustrated by an idea that I couldn't execute properly. So many ideas jostle around in my head so when I test something and it doesn't turn out how I imagined, I second-guess whether it was ever a good idea to begin with. Is it just a case of needing more practice? The alternative is to accept that there are some things that I simply cannot do well or at all - like drawing. I wish I could, but I really can't. I will continue to create because I enjoy it, but every now and again the voices plague me, as I am sure they do with everyone who has a dream that they want to fulfill. Self-doubt is such an obstacle; it can cause us to never finish something that may end up being quite good if only we trusted in ourselves more. Which leads me to this question:

How do you know whether to continue to pursue an idea or when it is time to cut your losses and move on?

I know the answer is going to be different for everybody. I experienced this very thing this morning when I spent two hours trying to get a woven label printed on my home printer so I could sew it on one of my buntings. I was forced to persevere because it is heading off-shore soon and noting its origin is necessary given where it will be displayed. There was little choice but to keep feeding fabric through the printer in the hope it would suddenly produce a clean label.

All I needed was one label. Just one.

It really did come down to me saying a few Hail Marys and telling myself that I'd have just one more go before resorting to Plan B (finding a good supplier who could make me some labels within a tight timeframe) or very unappealing Plan C (to send it without a label on it).I was just about to admit defeat, but then I asked myself: Would Tom Cruise give up? No he would not because he is the best of the best and keeps cool in crisis situations. So, I took that snippet of encouragement and gave it one more go.I really could not believe it when I saw this one come out of the machine. I stared at it, a little bit amazed that it had worked. I may have danced around the dining room with the Top Gun anthem blaring in my head. Thank you washi tape, thank you printer, thank you Tom Cruise.The lesson in all of this is that perseverance can pay off. This is all well and good for a one-off project like this one, but logic dictates that the smart thing to do is to pay someone to make the labels for my items. Would anyone have any recommendations for good quality woven labels that preferably are made here in New Zealand?

I am number 4

Creatively speaking, I am feeling stymied. Sty. Mied. I lay awake into the small hours for two nights last week excited by the prospect of some creative ideas and then I check the internet and see that they've already been done and so I start to wonder if I will ever come up with a truly original concept. So, I forge ahead with one idea because I am stubborn like that, and I spend a whole day drafting a pattern and then another two days sewing it up. And still I am not happy with it. And I begin to wonder what is the point of reworking it at all when the cost and time to make it is going to chew into any idea of a profit, meaning the price would need to be raised so high that few would consider buying it. Hmmm. So, I quietly pack it all up and go back to the drawing board. It reminded me of this:

Sorry about the swearwords grandparents, my children and any future grandchildren.

So that was my week. I'll eventually arrive at number 6. Perseverance and all that.

I know two of your fridges are going to feel some love because Ellen Giggenbach's magnets are coming to live at your place. One set is off to Elizabeth in Sweden and the other (drum roll) is going to Amy at Love Made My Home *tickertape and rainbows streaming from the sky*.

Congratulations my EU buddies and thank you so much to everyone else who entered. I am so glad you love Ellen's work too. Renee and I spent a few hours on Saturday making up some of the projects, and I thought you might like to see how they turned out:

These are a definite 6 on the creative process continuum.

Enjoy your week everyone and come and say hi on Facebook too if you feel inclined. I just set it up last week and the Facebook strategists have cunningly decided that a minimum of 30 likes are needed before I can access my stats. Just sayin'.

Baby doll dress and my new BFF

I am rewinding a month to show you the dress I made for Aimee to wear on her birthday. In amidst all the party preparation and baking, I decided to make her something to wear. Because, yanno, what's one more job to add to the to-do list? Admittedly, it was very tempting to just go and get her a store-bought Minnie Mouse dress-up costume, but then I remembered that I had a lovely pale pink cotton polka dot fabric sitting on my shelf. I sketched something that would be relatively simple to make but that would resemble a Minnie Mouse oufit - puffed sleeves, fitted bodice, full skirt. In the end, my design looked nothing like a Minnie Mouse costume at all but it is something she has happily worn since on a regular basis.

Heard of ironing? Me neither.

I sewed the dress with an elasticated neckline, which is quicker for me to do than sew a yoke and insert a button or zip at the back. The top part of the dress is effectively a peasant top with a shortened waist. There were many trial fittings to check that the dress would fit and after the patience of my model started to wear a bit thin, I decided to leave the elastic out of the sleeve casings and quickly hemmed them. The whole project was completed within an hour after dinner one evening.

What I was most pleased about was getting a chance to road-test my new gathering foot for my overlocker and discovering that it is my new best friend. I've owned a Huskylock S21 for a little over two years and still don't really know what it is capable of doing but it does look pretty sitting on my table and that's the most important thing. Using the gathering foot was either going to be a huge timesaver or I was going to end up spending more time than I wanted to hunched over my machine in frustration learning to make this contraption work properly.

Say hello to my little friend.

It is kind of scary-looking and I wasn't even sure which way round it was meant to go on the machine at first. I've put some fake sewing in to demonstrate some fake gathering so you can see how everything should look if you are as technically-challenged as me.

Before making this purchase, I had been doing the usual two parallel lines of basting stitches on my sewing machine first, then gathering and finally sewing the skirt to the bodice. The gathering foot does this all in one step and sometimes quicker is just better, I find. I need more practice to get the ruffles more even by adjusting some of the settings and needle tension on my overlocker but I am so happy to know that this machine can perform this function.

Aimee wears the dress to school the minute it has been washed (but not ironed) and put back in her drawer and it is slowly getting covered in paint and felt-tip stains, which only proves the point that she lives in it, and I kinda like that she likes it that much.

What have you been making lately? Come over and see what everyone else has been up to this week at Leonie's Show and Tell link-up.

Big Little Pixie Pants pattern and blog tour

This week is shaping up to be a goodie. I am one of several bloggers taking part in a week-long blog tour showcasing the latest children's clothing patterns from Lisa of Big Little. It is a good opportunity to discover other like-minded creatives - unless you're like me and following them already anyway. Even if you read nothing else I've written, be sure to read the last couple of paragraphs *eyebrow waggle*.

I've never met Lisa in person, but we share a love of beautiful fabrics and whimsical garments for children and if ever I could find as much beauty in the local secondhand stores as Lisa does with her thrift-shop finds, I'd be making many more garments out of refashioned clothing. As it is, I content myself with admiring her beautiful blog and the clothing she makes and sells in her store and on occasion, am lucky enough to test some of her patterns.

I have mentioned before that most of my girls' clothes are passed down to them from older cousins and so far, they are always excited to receive them. I do buy clothes when necessary, although nothing is more satisfying to me than being able to make something for them to wear. When I was invited to test the Pixie Pants pattern, I was quite excited firstly because I had a valid reason to eschew housework but also because I have never made pants before.

I know.

The pattern is easy to follow; it's a little like having Lisa right there next to you holding your hand which, for someone new to sewing pants, is quite reassuring. I would say a confident beginner would be able to tackle this with ease. To make these pants, I found that I actually had everything I needed in my sewing space, which is a rare thing. It made me realize that, while not very sexy, interfacing, white thread and 2.5cm elastic are quite important sewing supplies to have on hand, would you agree?When I cut out the pattern pieces, I had always intended for the scallop pattern on the fabric to align but it actually wasn't all that easy to achieve. Fortunately, due to the way the pants hang, it isn't all that obvious where the scallops don't line up.

I really love that the pants have pockets, because what little person doesn't like to stash their treasures? The contrasting fabric in the pockets is another detail that I really like on this pair, although there is the option to make them without pockets too.
All told, it took me an afternoon without children around to make these pants and I thoroughly enjoyed the process of putting them together. While they can be made from heavier fabrics for wearing in the cooler months, I opted to use a thin cotton fabric which makes them quite light and summery. Unlike Aimee's expression.
Thank you Lisa for allowing me to test the pattern for you. The pants are adorable and are a relaxed fit which is so important for my active child.

*LAST COUPLE OF PARAGRAPHS - Caution: may contain exciting, wet-your-pants information*

If you are eager to have a go at making a few pairs for your own children or other lucky little person in your life, you can enjoy 15% off the newly-released Pixie Pants and shorts variation in Lisa's store for the duration of the blog tour.  All you need is the coupon code PIXIEPANTS15, valid until Tuesday 23 September.Be sure to check back in on the Big Little blog next Tuesday for a giveaway too. I can't wait to see the other blog tour participants' versions. Tomorrow is the turn of a lovely fellow Kiwi blogger, Jenny at Mend and Make New, who not only makes cute clothes, but also really cute children. See you there.

Just for a bit more overkill, I am showing and telling at Leonie's this week.

Sewing for Tweens: Ghastlie party dress

Lately, I find myself looking at my children and wondering where my babies went. The feeling is especially true for my eldest daughter. She turns nine in a few months, but strangers often mistake her for being a couple of years older. She's tall for her age, and has a maturity about her that I guess comes from being the eldest child. Even so, she's still a young girl who will happily wear clothes that I make for her and it makes my heart glad because I know that this may not always be the case. The challenge will be as she gets older to find the balance between what is age-appropriate versus what she will actually want to wear.

It has often been remarked upon that while there are so many girls' clothing stores, there seems to be not as many age-appropriate clothing options for girls in the 9-13 year old age bracket. My sisters also take a more conservative approach to dressing their daughters which has been such a blessing because the clothes are invariably passed down to us.

Still, it is always nice to have something new every now and then and so it was that I embarked on this sewing project for Sienna last weekend. She selected the fabrics and I looked online for some tween dress inspiration. This polka dot dress with a bit of a rock-n-roll flavour popped up. I was immediately interested in the shape of it and showed it to Sienna, who also really liked it, so that formed the basis for her latest dress.

The fabrics are a black and white stylized print that looks like a Maori koru motif and a slightly subversive Alexander Henry print from the Ghastlies collection. The Ghastlie family have been around for several years and this piece of fabric is from the 2011 series. It had been in my stash for quite a while just biding time until a suitable project came along. I think as my daughters get older, these kinds of prints will become even more popular with them. Some of the facial features are quite menacing especially to younger children like Aimee, who doesn't like the fabric at all but to an older child, the fact that it is slightly spooky and off-beat is part of the appeal. This will be the perfect Halloween party dress.

When we looked at the polka dot dress, the two aspects that appealed to me most were the use of piping and the pockets. I think that by incorporating both of these factors in my version they help to balance out the quite dark mood of the print and keep the dress playful and fresh.

I headed to the blog expecting a detailed tutorial, but found that the instructions assume that the reader has some knowledge of dress construction which meant that I had to rely on what I remembered about making a lined bodice several years ago. I basically resorted to fumbling my way through all the steps, which is fine if you have the time and patience, but I really wanted to whip it up quickly. This is not one of those dresses. There's maths involved, people. There's understitching and adding a zip to a lined bodice, plus handmade piping on this baby, so there are more steps than a Rocky Balboa movie.

Maybe someone has made a dress exactly like this with a free pattern and accompanying tutorial out there somewhere in blogland and I suffered unnecessarily? Anyway, the pain of constructing this dress is really worth it, I think.

Often when I sew without a pattern, there is a lot of unpicking as I am terrible at calculating and pattern drafting in general and I just wing things. I found it to be true for this dress, as I made the bodice too small (I forgot to add seam allowances for the zip - oh, and for the whole bodice) so it's a snug fit. All it means is that Sienna will likely only get a season's wear from it, but that's why I have two other daughters, right? So they can capitalize on their mother's sewing mistakes. I imagined the dress to have a nice, full skirt like the one in the inspiration photo but realized quite late in the process that I had nowhere near enough fabric to make a circle skirt or any kind of full skirt. In the end, I had to settle for one much straighter than I would have liked.

Such a shame because a flared skirt really would have won it for me. With one change in the "plan" (the one that is written in my head), it follows that more allowances needed to be made elsewhere. The hemline was originally going to hit around knee-length, but the straighter style meant that it needed to be shorter to give greater ease of movement. I can't see Sienna doing cartwheels in it, but at least she will be able to run more freely with the hemline at a shorter length.

Are you sick of all the photos yet? Can you tell I am proud of the dress? And of my daughter, but that goes without saying.

Just one more image of how Sienna decided to accessorize the outfit. Love it. Love her. Do you think that I will need to make some new leggings for her?

If you have reached the end of this blog post, well done, now you feel how I did when I finished making the dress. Slightly ragged and a little more aged but pleased to get there in the end. Now go forth and make something. I'll see you over at Leonie's for Show and Tell on Thursday.

Crochet ice-cream fairy doll and two important lessons

Wellington has the best weather. Said no-one ever. The cold bite of winter has finally hit us with full force and its arrival coincided with the last week of the mid-year school holidays so instead of just being miserable outside, we could all be miserable together inside as well. Thank goodness for loom bands and children that like to craft and watch lots of telly.

Aimee has always been quite the keen artist and the walls in our house bear proud testament to that. Especially at about Aimee height. Ahem. Lately she has been producing some really imaginative pictures where I can actually tell what they are instead of having one of those awkward conversations where I pretend to know exactly what she's drawn and she looks at me all indignantly because I guessed incorrectly.

One drawing she made for me in the holidays was so cute that the moment I saw it, a picture popped into my head of how it might look as a crochet doll. This is Aimee's picture of an ice-cream fairy:

There is so much to love about it. She chose the yarn colours and I spent a day cobbling it together with the help of this crochet ice-cream tutorial. I posted an image of the work in progress on Instagram and this is how it ended up:

You're in luck, this girl doesn't mind being photographed from behind.

All the while, Aimee's older sisters and she would come over to where I was working and see it taking shape and offer lovely words of encouragement. Yet, I could never have imagined how much Aimee would love it once it was finished.

I see all the flaws and the things that could be tweaked to make it look better and the hair that could be much more 'tamed', but Aimee loves it just the way it is, and isn't that a great lesson? To love wholly and completely in spite of any imperfections, both real and imagined?

I received a lovely comment on Instagram that praised my mothering efforts. I was so touched to read that because there are days when I feel like I get it all terribly wrong. Like this shining parenting moment in the holidays that my little artist also captured. It's fairly certain that no crochet dolls will be resulting from this picture.

Evidently, I must have some major anger side-effect issues that make not only my arms fall off but those of the child being disciplined. Or maybe it's a super power because it's a mighty fine excuse to not do any housework or cooking. Every picture of a sad child must also have at least one caricature of a smirking sibling enjoying the verbal tug-of-war. The thing is, I don't even remember what I was angry with her for and I bet she doesn't either, if you asked her. I might have missed the whole point of the picture. I haven't really. I will do my best to make sure that when I next convey my displeasure to one of my children that at the very least, my feet will be pointing in the right direction.

Let that be a lesson to us all.

Joining in with another fairy this week over here.

Birth of a quilt

Fabric is so beautiful to me and some of the bundles in my stash so hard to find that the thought of cutting in to them is really difficult sometimes. I need to remind myself with each new project that those lovely pieces of cloth, so pretty all stacked on top of each other in their coordinated glory, can be turned into something else that is not only beautiful but useful and that can be enjoyed by others too. Even having written that, I will struggle to let this quilt go. It is wonky and imperfect, but it has a piece of me in it. How fitting then that something I love should go to someone I love.

Like any mother showing her newborn off for the first time, if any unflattering comments are made, I will cut you.

This is a birthday gift for my one year old nephew. It took longer than I thought it would to make. Knowing what I know now about quilting, finishing it a little over a week past his birthday is really not too bad at all. There were moments when its completion seemed so far from reach and then all of a sudden, it was done. I am sure many of you experienced quilters will be able to relate to that feeling of satisfaction when the binding is on. 

Here it is, back when it was a just a twinkle in its mother's eye:

It slowly grew square by square, strip by strip, panel by panel.

Into this.

I have made just one other quilt before, but I didn't sew through the layers with that one (I'm not sure that even counts as quilting then?). Both were fairly simple patterns, but this one took so much longer to assemble. There's quite a process: Working out the size of the squares to determine the best scale of the plus signs on the finished cot quilt, deciding which colours and patterns looked best where for balance, basting, stitching and making and adding the binding.

Of course, no project of mine ever seems to run smooth. I used a grey pure cotton fabric that, while beautifully soft, frayed instantly once cut and continued to fray when handled too much. It surprised me given it was found with the other quilting fabrics in Spotlight. It was mixed with very lightweight gingham and heavier fabrics like suede alongside regular quilting cottons so the differences in weight resulted in some obviously wonky squares.

Being the awesome mathematician that I am, my calculations resulted in, shall we say, an unconventionally sized quilt. The quilt top ended up being wider than the width of my backing fabric. There are many ways to solve that problem, the obvious one being to cut down the top which would make the squares on the edge of the quilt noticeably smaller than the others. Cry you a river, I know, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Instead, I made the edging wider on the back. Because I didn't want machine stitching showing through on the front of the quilt (can you tell I had a clear vision of how I wanted the finished quilt to look?), I ended up hand binding the edging.

Bamboo wadding is really lovely to sew through even with a regular sewing machine foot. I didn't even think to change the needle at the quilting stage and had no problems whatsoever. I topstitched around the edges of each plus sign with the stitch length on 3 and it produced some really lovely outlines on the back.

I am also really happy with the edging I used. It is black with tiny off-white dots in an arched pattern. It's striking yet does not overwhelm so that the plus signs remain the focal point of the quilt.

Thank you Leonie and Helen (you need a blog so I can link to you) for your words of encouragement and advice throughout my project (smooch). It looks like a walking foot and some decent quilting pins will be high on my wishlist as my standard pins were inadequate and I ended up dispensing with them completely in frustration. I started quilting from the centre and worked my way to the outside, smoothing the layers out with my hands as I went. I read somewhere online after I had finished that it is not recommended to start quilting in the middle. With not using pins, it seemed a good place to start for me! At any rate, I've learnt my lesson; basting is important if you want minimal puckering.

Now I am looking at my fabric stash in a completely different light and seeing endless possibilities. I have started a Pinterest page for inspiration and it is likely to be my fastest growing album because there are just so many amazing quilts out there. I can fully appreciate the work that goes into highly complex patterns but for now, I think I will stick to making simple geometric shapes and blocks. I quite like the modern vibe they create. What are your favourite quilt patterns?

Quilt details:
Finished size: 118x135cm/46.5x53"
Edging: 6cm/2.5" Kona Bay Fabrics: Exotic Garden Dots
Backing: Grey shot cotton (Spotlight)
Bamboo wadding (Spotlight)
Squares: 10cm/4"
Orange triangle, light blue spots and stripes quilting fabrics (Spotlight)
Gingham, suede, dark blue polka dots and stripes, Lizzy House Pearl Bracelets and Sarah Jane Pirates fabric from my stash
Seam allowances: 5mm/1/4"

Joining in with Leonie's link-up this week. Come over and see a really sweet 5th birthday card invitation and other lovely makings.

Lately

So, this quilting thing. It's more complex to construct one than I thought. Or maybe I just underestimated the process. I am even more in awe of this one now given that I am doing possibly the least time-consuming piecing that is quiltingly possible by stitching 10cm/4" squares together into a cross quilt. I have made a couple of rookie mistakes in my fabric selection which I will go into in more detail when I finish it.

It has been raining steadily here for a few days and having a couple of unwell children has given me a really good reason to slow down and plug in the sewing machine while the girls rested. One or two of you have been quite keen to see how the quilt is all coming together. There are sneakity peeks over on Instagram, but here's another photo for you. Because ironing never looked this good.

I have decided to wait to show you any more until it's completely finished because, yanno, impact.

Truthfully though, the idea of a big reveal might motivate me to finish it, unlike my poor crochet triangle blanket which has not progressed much further at all from when I last wrote about it - way back in March. Maybe this cooler weather will spur me into picking up the crochet hook once more. We'll just have to see where the mood takes me.

Hottie Project covers

And just like that, it's Show and Tell day. As promised, I am back to show you my Hottie Project contributions that I made in moments stolen over the weekend. These hot water bottle covers were all made from a black terry towelling bathrobe which, by the way, was Humongous Man-sized. It was given to me by my sister who discovered articles of clothing left behind by a former tenant. I don't know if that's particularly ethical, but really, tenants, don't leave your unwanted belongings behind for someone else to remove. That's just piggy.

Even after washing it, there were a few unusable patches so I feel pretty happy to be able to get four covers from the material.

I can confirm that my appliqué did not improve on my second or third attempts. Maybe I should stick to straight edges for a bit until I get it all worked out. They're wonky with wobbly embroidery to match. Bet you're thinking my appliqué needs work but damn that girl can monogram. This was already on the bathrobe so I incorporated it as my little feature. Hope someone out there is a Brad and Ange fan.

I have to confess that when I saw Leonie's spaceship and rocket offerings this morning, I unpicked Legoman and had another go at stitching him because his crookedness simply Would. Not. Do. That was the moment I realised how much of a nightmare it is to appliqué (digression: does that acute accent annoy you? I'm sorry, it's the pedantic French language lover in me) onto a project that has already been sewn together. So, for the sake of my sanity, I decided that the balloon and the heart covers would just have to be sent as they are. Just don't put them right next to Leonie's ones in the care parcel to Christchurch, please. Ha!