Voila: A Crochet Baby Ball

Hello again! Thanks so much for my birthday wishes! Love you guys!

This week, I found some tv time (!) to watch Project Runway (new eps!) and crochet some baby balls... I found this Purl Bee Crocheted Balls tutorial, and loved the simple colours. I love a lot of textured things for baby hands to touch and hold and squish. I added a bell and tried the handstitched cross stitch thingie, and it looks great. This is the second Purl Bee tutorial I've followed (My DIY Rainbow, knitted, baby blanket was the first), and they're amazing to follow, great photos and explanation!

The wool is some sort of cheap Spotlight kind, let me check.... it's called 'Filou' and 100% cotton, and on special for 50c, so I bought a few and if you're having a baby in my friendship group in the next 6 months... guess what your baby is getting? They are so quick to make up, and I need crochet projects at the moment as it's hard to sit for periods at the machine! (Please don't ask me about my Sew Weekly Reunion piece!)

(While googling my own blog, I found my first crochet ball, a little bird from 2009!)

Hope you've been having a great week! I love it here at the moment, mama lyf has been great this week! The weather is warmer and it smells like spring in our streets! Exciting!

xoxo

A Birthday Thing!

It was my BIRTHDAY on the weekend, and I went to a show at the THEATRE and it was amazing and funny and then Husbie took my photo (like the old days!), but this was the set of razzle dazzle glitter!

Hooray! This birthday was so different to last year, and so different from two years ago (so different, that I can't even recall what I did for my birthday two years ago)... and it's amazing and wonderful growing older and getting to experience so many different things. I loved being in town on Saturday night, being with Husbie and being an adult. I loved just throwing my outfit together (we realised after a busy fun day with family we had half an hour to get ready) and just thinking what the fuck, and being confident in myself. After I'd realised that I look a lot like a theatre character (I also wore my big fluffy coat), one of the Seven Little Australians perhaps with my big clumpy boots (a birthday present from Husbie) and vintage school girl-esque frock and floppy hair bow.

I just love that life keeps giving me new experiences! Even after all this time!

Happy Birthday to all you fellow Virgo Queens and Kings! (And a big nod to all my Leo friends and colleagues, as I'm on the border!)

xoxo

My Gorgeous Pattern & Notions Swap!

I haven't had much time in my sewing/blogging career to do a sewing swap, and there are always lots going on here... but as The Sew Weekly Reunion has stirred a lot of passion around online, so I was keen to be involved in the swap that Kat set up!

For my side of the swap, I was assigned Toni from Sew Let It Be Done who lives in Salt Lake City in the USA and I had a big hunt through my patterns & (not many notions) for some special things... I found my handmade bias tape & included a little teenage vintage pattern for her daughter and Toni is over the moon happy with the stash! YAY I was nervous!

And in my postbox, I found this DARLING collection from Denise at Dottie Doodle that made me smile all over... perfect patterns, and perfectly coloured notions! Check out those big buttons! ARGH:

Thank you SO much Denise, you are a total sweetheart! She mentioned the blue braid is original 50s/60s as she bought it from a vintage fair, directly from the original owner! Amazing.

As I haven't started my Sew Weekly Reunion creation yet (but have ummed and ahhed about ideas) I'm thinking I'll switch to use that Style 3109 pattern instead... as I like the waistline... I'll see how I go this week, as there's not much time left! ARGH!

Thank you Denise & thank you Kat for organising! And Thanks Toni for all your swap love. How great are swaps? Why haven't I done one sooner?!

Love to you! (It's been a busy time for us, birthdays - MINE - and family stuff and just crazy house stuff and more... I'll try and fill you in, but we'll see!)

xoxo

Voila: Puddle Suit

Have you heard of a puddle suit before?

I went into Spotlight yesterday, and asked for waterproof fabric (thinking there would be no way), and as I had Baby Darling on my back, I indicated to make a onesie type thing for playtime outside, and the lovely woman at Spotty quipped "You mean a puddle suit?!" and that's exactly what this is!

Over the past few weeks as Baby Darling wants to explore his surrounds, it's also been quite wet and dreary (hey, it's winter!) outside... but he gets bored inside. How many times can a kid look in the tupperware cupboard? (A LOT if you're my boy)

So a few of us in our Mother's Group started talking about a all in one zip up suit... so they can wear their normal clothes and not get wet through the knees and the bottom! So now I know it's a puddle suit! (I bet my mum - a kindergarten/early childhood educator for many years - knew this and I should have asked her what it was called... but that'll have to wait for the weekend when I see her!)

So I looked into my pattern stash (that I'd pulled out in search of The Sew Weekly Reunion creation... still haven't chosen my pattern!) and this little McCalls costume popped out, because check out that astronaut suit:

Looks like a Puddle Suit in disguise to me!

And you know what? The fabric the woman in Spotlight suggested to me was Ripstop Nylon ($6.95 a metre FYI) and it's the SAME stuff I used to make my Neon Bike Dress in late 2011! AMAZING, and so weird that I can just forget fabric that easily! I like the sewing part and the wearing part, not so good with terminology or actual fabric name part. I often just call everything poplin as I forget what other cotton stuff is called. (Is poplin a cotton? ARGH, now I'm doubting the easy stuff!)

So it wasn't hard to make the Puddle Suit, about half an hour of sewing after another half an hour of cutting... I changed the raglan sleeve of the astronaut style (just a short cut, as that's extra sewing) and possibly the neckline is a little loopy, but not really important as it's a practical suit not a fashionable one (but there is a vintage zipper in the mix, for you trainspotters!).

I measured (what I thought) correctly the length for his legs/arms, but when he moves around in the suit, they ride up a little (with the elastic ends) so next time (!) I'll make it a bit longer all round. Fuck he looks cute in it though! We go to a gardening playgroup on Tuesdays, so it got a little work out there... and this afternoon we did a bit of weeding together as well as the sun stayed out for a bit longer.

SO CUTE!

Brainstorming: The Sew Weekly Reunion Colours

If you are sewing with us for TSW Reunion 2013, you'll have seen the challenge theme this year is the Pantone Fashion Colour Report!

My favourite colour palette was in 2011 when I sewed up this Colette Rooibos, and there are some colours reflected in this 2013 palette too. The pinks and greys in particular! Fashion forward perhaps? LOL

I like a lot of these colours, especially with black, as it's winter here, I might make something that fits in with my existing wardrobe. Or I might just make something for when I return to work, like a proper dress?

Anyways, I better get a wriggle on and decide!

Unabashed: Part 2 in a Series

Just noticed the other day that my flowers had run out of water (and perhaps overheated in the central heating of the Loungeroom) and that our mantlepiece had a few more ornaments than usual.

And then I saw the other end of the mantlepiece:

Hmmm, just as great. One of a kind decorations at our place, right?

Sometimes those plastic toys just shit me, but they bring so much happiness to the little boy, so what the hell!

Hope you're having a great weekend! It's freezing for us, but we've had it pretty good weatherwise this winter, so I'm not complaining over a bit of hail and rain and wind!

xoxo

DIY Rainbow Crossing Baby Blanket

Look what I finished finally!? My first knitted baby blanket for my boy!

We absolutely love it, of course, it keeps him lovely and warm! And it's gorgeous yarn from Morris & Sons in the city, a gorgeous shop with super gorgeous staff! And the pattern is from Purl Bee's Super Easy Baby Blanket, and yup, it was super easy... but just needed the time to do it! It's my first time knitting with the circular needles, and they are just GREAT! I've started a cowl already on them too (that I hope to get finished by this winter! One month left to go! Fingers crossed!) as they are just super easy to use once you get your head around them (and not twist the first few rows!).

I first picked up the wool in August last year before I left work, and then probably started it last August, early September and didn't get far until February this year, and I only started the layer of yellow in April... why did it take til June to finish it?! Oh time flies!

Here's the blankie in SITU:

And now since DIY Rainbowing happened earlier this year, I'm calling this blankie my own DIY Rainbow Crossing for all the gays! YAY! Needs more purple to be a fully flown rainbow, but close enough I reckon!

Love to you guys! Hope it's a Happy Friday for you!

xoxo