Making: Toy Bag & Play Mat for Duplo

A few days before Christmas I had a quick idea, my son was getting a few Duplo boxes for Christmas (we found a special deal on Taobao on the famous 11.11 sales) and as I suddenly realised he’ll need some extra storage for the colourful blocks, I remembered the lovely playmat I’d seen on pinterest five years ago (or around then) that you could easily build and sift through the blocks, but then once finished you can draw it all up and hang it on the back of the door or somewhere out of the way for next time.

I googled up a few photos and tutorials, but for these first attempts, I followed the very straightforward Fabric Mill idea. It was great and used up some fabric I had in the stash leftover from birthdays through the year and other bunting adventures… the smaller ones are for smaller children who also got their first batch of Duplo this Christmas, so a useful bag for them for the next year.

The one I made Felix is bigger, around a metre wide at least… and now that I’ve sewn it up, next time I’ll put the drawstrings on both sides… kinda like the Swoop Storage bags I later found… (you can sew your own, or just buy them from this small business!) as that distributes the drawstring gathers a little better and less likely for the bag to be too heavy. As right now, with the amount of Duplo Felix has (about 4 boxes of the stuff over the last 2 years) is just ok, but it’ll get too heavy if we have more.

What storage ideas do you have for Duplo or Lego? I love something that can serve two purposes, like a playmat and a bag. I’m really happy with how neat this was to sew, it was a bit of time getting the circle flat and neat and matching the two fabrics up… but the stitching part was super quick and very easy to put together.

The Vera Bradley fabric I’d got from my very small fabric shop (it usually doesn’t have much on offer, it’s like the bargain cotton bin at Spotlight - if you’re Australian you’ll know) but the green and pink colour combo was intersting to me, but I had no idea how to sew with it… my sewing teacher declared it for quilting and not good for garment sewing… so I’m happy I’ve used it here… I love the khaki green with it.

Duplo is our preferred building block right now, as Felix is 3 years old and very happy using this size block, but I know eventually it’ll be Lego and that stuff is small.

What are you sewing at the moment? I tried a green velvet dress last week, that just went so wonky everywhere... Wrong pattern I think! Will try a skirt next!

Knitting: Baby Blanket for a Darling One

My bestie in the UK had a baby! YAY! I knitted him a baby blanket! YAY!!!

I'm very happy with it, but it's more of a pram accessory type blanket than roll up your baby like a kebab type blanket. I found the pattern on Ravelry, and it was simple to follow (I'm not a big knitter these days, I do like it, but I can't concentrate on anything other than purl or knit!) but looks slightly tricky with those diagonal stripes. It took a long while though, maybe 2 months? I don't sit and watch tv shows as much as I used to! But the sweetest thing is when you can give your child a crochet hook and a scrap of wool and we both 'knit' together for a bit.

The wool came from a small wool shop in Wuyi Lu in Shanghai's Changning District, it's near Dingxi Lu, and about a 15 minute walk from our house. The women were so sweet and helpful, I didn't speak much Chinese when I bought it but I wanted green and tried to say 'lu' because I know how to order green tea! It worked, and it's a little minty fresh green than the grassy green I'd hoped for. But looks lovely with the cream.

Now that we live in Shanghai, I also started investigating about visiting her because wouldn't you think that flights would be cheaper since we're a little bit closer to England than Australia? Nup. It's peak time to fly (even though I was looking at the end of the holidays) and my little budgeting dream got squashed as our insurance bill came in and other ridiculous "adults who live abroad" things that cost money. So instead, this little baby blanket has arrived safely by China Post!

I REALLY want to visit the UK in the next year though, so fingers crossed xoxo

Hope you're having a lovely weekend! I'm out of whack with my blogging at the moment, it's been so hot and now the weekend is actually a little stormy, we think another typhoon is around! What a summer!

Little Leftover Boy Jumper

You sew and you make and you sew and you make and you wear and you sometimes wear and you sometimes don't wear. And you don't take any photos. None! And then other times you take a photo of something you made before it gets worn. Rarely!

My boy is wearing this now, but I'll have to update my tshirt template (a cut up tshirt) for him because he's kinda getting too big for this already! Especially the sleeves! His baby arm rolls are still there, little cutie! The fabrics are all knits from the stash, I did start a dress from the mustard fabric, but it's kinda dorky and I might just make it a top ... haven't decided yet. This is the leftover bits for a nice warm jumper!

His face when he realised the pocket was amazing... my friend popped his toy car in there, and he was like "WHAT I CAN CARRY A CAR"! I love how much they're learning about the world at this age... soaking it all up!

xoxo

2/31 Practical Pram Sewing

Everynow and again, we just have to have practical sewing projects, right? Here's one that I'd been thinking about for a while (since the onslaught of BD eating real food, perhaps?)! Also, the fabric in our pram is a bit hot... and BD is quite a hot boy anyways... so it's probably better that he's lying on cottons instead of polyester blends (great for cleaning though, I guess).

So yes, it's a pram liner. A pram liner. YES. (please don't tell past-Veronica Darling what future-Veronica Darling is up now... it's B-O-R-I-N-G and 2 years ago I would have died if I'd known I was sewing this shizz).

But isn't it nice looking?

The top fabric is from the 'nice' section of Spotlight (AKA the quilty part) and I got it to make hats like the Oliver + S one. And the bottom fabric is from the 'cheap' section AKA the rolls of stuff they put near the checkout... and you grab the little bolt and discover that there's only a metre for $4 or something ridic, and the nice clerk gives you the rest of the bolt (that's an extra .5 a metre FREE) anyways.

STRAWBERRIES:

Baby Darling loves strawberries, so very appropes.

Also the bias edging is from the stash (I seem to recall I got it in Sydney all those years ago, and obvs haven't done any bias binding with it!)... what I did was measure out the pram cushion underneath and cut 4 layers (the first middle fabric is an old offcut from the Hospital Blanket Laurel dress for comfort and as it's cotton, I thought it'd be a cooler fabric for him and the second piece is that stiff fabric, what's it called? Not underlay... um... shit am I going to have to google it? It's interlining! The non fusible kind because Spotlight in the country is shit for extras like interlining and underlining)... so pretty much a big rectangle but with a curved top... then I did a little bit of crazy topstitch/quilting pretend sewing. You know when you just sew crazy lines all over interlining and the blanket fabric and it looks great (not really) but you're covering it up anyways with the two pretty outer layers of fabric!

I didn't do anything crafty in sewing the 4 layers together, just stitched the edges, then attached the binding to one side, but I decided to take the time and handstitch the other side, and it looks GREAT!

Did some fancy pretend button holes thingies for the straps (a really tight zig zag stitch becomes an 'edge' stitch type thing), and then cut a T out of the bottom so that the bottom 'through the legs' strap could fit:

STRAWBZ!

So we all decided practical sewing is GOOD sewing, because you really use the things you sew everyday! YES!

xoxo

Voila: A Ripple Crochet Baby Blanket

My dear friend had a baby girl in July, and I'd been wanting to try a special crochet style, the ripple effect! It wasn't hard after about 3 rows, but it took a lot of concentration for a while to get the 'peaks' and 'valleys' as my pattern called it. My Mum's friend Chris knows a lot about the old crochet, and gave my baby 2 darling blankets for when he was born. One was a ripple blanket so she shared her pattern! 

I was a bit gung ho at first, because you count out your stitches in the first row, making sure you'll have enough ripples (but don't they look a bit chevron-esque?) and I was worried the blanket wasn't wide enough (so counted out over 200 stitches I think, what a headache!)... so I ended up making it too wide, so didn't make it as long... so the ripples are vertical instead.

But makes it kinda sweet and different looking. Plus if the new baby is swaddled, she'll be rippled across horizontal anyways... win win!

YAY!

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

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!

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

Upside Down Baby Trousers

Happy Monday!

Another completed set of Baby Trousers! They take less than half an hour to make from cutting to finishing, but still takes me a few days! I'm testing out how the photos look from my iphone, as I've been using photo stream/icloud thingie, and means less plugging in of cords and loading photos... I even took these photos inside and they're pretty clear!

They are very simple, an upside down U really, and you leave a space for the waistband but sew up the sides and the underleg bit... exactly like these test trousers! I bought the stretch knit fabric from Spotlight and made a pair of trousers for Baby Darling's best friend's 1st Birthday. But I cut this pair for him first, not realising of course that the fabric had a top and a bottom... as you can see the boats are upside in this pair! I recut another pair (the right way up) for the little birthday boy, and finished these ones over the weekend for our boy.

When I'm in a hurry, I don't cut the threads properly. Obviously!

They fit ok over his cloth nappies (they create a bigger bum) as there's not enough stretch in the fabric... but next time he's wearing disposies, I'll try them again. He's wearing them today even though they're slipping off his bum, so cute!

xoxo

**** EDIT ****

OMG, just realised how wonky they look in the top photo! I think they're matching leg lengths, for some reason not in the piccie! WHOOPS!

Testing Baby Trousers

Happy Weekend!

Before we went away on our USA trip I made Baby Darling a couple of pairs of trousers, from stretch fabric, so I guess they're more like leggings! This fabric is leftover from last year's stretch pregz fash dress and what I wore on my last day of work!

For these trousers, I lay down a pair of Bonds baby trousers (that had no middle seam, just the side seams and around the inner legs) and cut out two pieces that look like very tall bridges... then sewed the sides, and inner legs, and cut little pieces for the ankles & the waistband, but just used elastic on the waistband. Very easy and very quick... it only uses up half a metre of fabric (maybe less) as well. Baby Darling's legs have gotten a little longer, so these are great with such skinny ankle bits as they stay down... a lot of the baggier trousers we have just creep up when he's moving around!

What are you doing for the weekend? It's a fantastic sunshiney few days for us here in Melbourne... but very cold in the mornings and night. Tonight our Mother's Group has planned a night out at our new local pub! Very exciting! I have spent the last few days expressing milk for Baby Darling, so I'm looking forward to it!

xoxo

DIY Baby Friendly Necklace

I can't stop making things! I need to officially STOP and shut up shop in this sewing room once and for all! We have 2 sleeps til the USA and I have to do a LOT today to get ready. My plan is to tie up all the loose ends today, and luckily if I get stuck, my parents will be here and I can leave Baby Darling with them. (A Post Office trip is my last stop off, and it's so boring for him!)

SO! I've been looking at baby friendly wearable things, my cowl loops are the best because you can play with them (Peek-A-Boo, anyone) but I had these beads and I couldn't work out how to tie them into a teething & playing (while BF-ing) thing for Baby Darling that'd look cute as well as functional for all involved.

For some reason, I'd packed them up recently with this purple string (where the HELL would that have appeared from, gosh my stash surprises me!) and I thread the beads on (three strings together would fit through the holes of the beads, and was long enough to tie) and knot them at each ends to stop them sliding all around, but I left a bit of space for Baby Darling to fit his fingers in between them. I bet he'll love them next time we have a snack!

But hopefully it'll be a fun toy on the plane as well! So maybe I won't wear them until the plane so they'll appear new to him! Yup he's learning fast and becoming familiar with people and things now! We visited the nurse today, and yup again, he's 10.4kg (I suspected he was over 10kg) the size of a year old child. Luckily, he'll plateau from now on! 

I might try my hand at Travel Blogging, so you might see a few of our USA Adventures! 

xoxo

Baby Hills 90210

Did you love Brandon or Dylan?

After watching Beverly Hills 90210 in my teens, I actually didn't like either of them... I tried really hard to like all the boys on the show... but they were all too squeaky clean.

BUT, when my real life boy buys and ironic Tshirt and wears it until it's threadbare in places... he's my kinda guy alrighty. When Husbie wore Brandon Walsh, everyone would laugh and he'd make people's day. Too gorgeous.

Now that I have a little boy of my own, what better way to keep the LOLS going, and bring delight to other people... hence this amazing piece of resizing/refashion! It's now a Baby Sized Tshirt and ready for our holiday to USA.

SO EXCITED!

The Neverending Blanket

It took a year to crochet a massive blanket for our bedroom, but for some reason it's taken 7 months to knit a teeny tiny baby blanket. It's still here and I'm still knitting slowly.

Maybe it's because I watch 1 episode of Project Runway and 1 episode of Girls a week and sit and knit while I watch. So maybe the tv is too enthralling for that 1.5 hours or I'm just so slow!

The boys are off for lunch (it's a holiday here, Anzac Day), so I'm going to watch another Project Runway, eat lunch and knit like the wind (I hope I get to the blue wool eventually!)!

Awesome Adventure Blanket Toy

I think this is a much more interesting blog title for us grown ups, because in reality this toy is BORING. But for babies, it's potentially the cutest and loveliest and funnest thing ever. Maybe even the funniest!

My baby is 6 months old now, and tends to get bored of toys so I'm forever swapping things around so he never gets used to anything for too long and learns about stuff (which is why I guess we have toys?) in different ways and over different days. SO! I had a spare 15 minutes while he was outside cooing and being a great baby, and as we were off to the hairdressers (which is a great place for babies - how much do they LOVE the blowdryers!?) and thought I'd make him a play toy from ribbons and leftover scraps.

It wasn't hard at all to make (as you can see it's pretty straight forward) but Baby Darling played with the tabs and ribbons and spaghetti straps one by one... it looks to me that babies adore tags and little things they can touch, get their fingers into and flip around. One of the mums in my Mama's Group showed me a shop bought blanket, so that's where I got the idea from... as when you're a kooky old seamstress who doesn't throw anything out, I've just gotta grab the time to make a million of these.

And of course, I can't find it anywhere now, so I've either cleaned it up with the 'out of rotation' toys already or it's been eaten by the dog. Oh my darling but naughty dog.

Love to you guys!

A Darling Little Baby Dress

YAY, took me all week to post this, but finally I get to show you my little dress for a darling little one year old!

The fabric is (more than likely) an 80s print bedsheet, and I followed a little vintage children's pattern, but I couldn't find it to show you. So many things are lost in my sewing room, one day all will be well there! I have taken some 'before' photos to get myself in the mood.

The times I've been in children's clothing stores (now that I have a child), I'm a little wary of all the styles, colours and just how boring the clothing choices are. The boy section is very limited in style choice, not to mention colours. And I don't really like prints, graphics or words on clothing, so I'm kinda grossed out by the 'builder' and 'car lover' types of clothes in the boys section. Now the girls section (perhaps if I had a girl) would also gross me out because there's a LOT of frilly & pinky stuff there... but there's a lot more variety in style (than just jeans/cargo pants & tshirts choice for boys) especially in the onesies (and yes, he's a baby so I still dress Baby Darling in onesies. So cute) in the girl department. AND, FFS, I'm not even in the market for new clothing for Baby Darling, as we have mostly handmedowns YAY!

But, just my observations... and so when I'm going to make clothing for children, I'd like it to be interesting & unique. So this darling little frock (that's very Pebbles-esque, don't you think?) is to be the beginning of my Baby Friendly Fashion... Yep, I want my creations for babes to never be boring. And even though some people might thing brown fabric for a girl is boring, I think it's delightful with the vintage buttons, and orange stitching!

Unique! My friend's child got 3 compliments in 15 minutes from wearing the dress, so I'm extremely pleased with how this one turned out! I think my sewing mojo is back with animal prints!

A Refashioned Baby T

And here's my final thing from that large orange tshirt I bought from the op shop to make my friend's macrame birthday present! YAY! That's 3 things from one tshirt, how refashionably thrifty can one gal be?

Sorry I've been out of action here, we had the insides of the house painted, so went away for a bit, and it's been unbearable hot (32 or there abouts every day!) in Melbourne, so my baby just isn't sleeping very long (but seems to be so tuckered out right now, he's gone over an hour!) during the day... he's a sweetpea at night though, sleeping while it's cooler... or kinda cooler at 20 degrees. GUYS I LOVE SUMMER, don't get me wrong, but with a baby? With a hot baby? And consecutive hot days? YIKES!

So you've seen the other orange long sleeve baby T I made, so this one I used a singlet top my mum was going to send to the op shop, and the leftover sleeves of the original orange tshirt. I did make a template/pattern piece just by doing some guesswork on some other baby clothes (Baby Darling is still wearing them, so couldn't pull them apart to get the right template - which is always the BEST).

I folded the singlet in half but with the side seams together, and a proper seamstress would have probably turned the thing inside out first, so it's right sides together like normal sewing... but I don't feel very proper or normal as a speed seamstress... I have small windows of sewing, and go like the wind!

And gotta top it off profesh style with a label! YEW! Oh, and now looking at the close up photo, I also used some leftever tshirt as the binding for the neckline here... YES! I love the 'raglan' look that baby clothes have with this crossover neckline. Before I had a baby I just thought it was a 'baby' style, but now having a big head baby who has little shoulders and little neck (I'm sure they all do) it makes sense to design it this way!

Hooray, ok I hear some rustling from Baby Darling, gotta whirl (sorry for spelling mistakes or whatever! I'll check over perhaps next week when I get back here! LOL). xoxoxoxo

Leftover Tshirt Scraps

As the Macrame Terrarium I made recently used only the bottom part of the T in a Tshirt, I had the neckline part and sleeves left over... so thought I could get possibly two baby tshirts out of it, and this is the first!

See my scraps below:

One of Baby Darling's existing long sleeve tshirts is a kinda bat wing style, so I placed it over the neckline and cut around it (with approx 1.5cm seam allowance), keeping the shoulder seams and neckline. As the macrame works better without the bottom edge of the tshirt (the hemmed bit) I hadn't used that, so attached it to the new hem of this tshirt and the cuffs of the sleeve... make sense?

It is pretty baggy and loose around the neckline (it is for a man, not a baby) but he'll be able to wear it fine with a singlet or a tshirt underneath when the weather cools down. And I love the print being cut off, it's the same at the back, but some letters are cut off... looks totally refashioned!

I have some left over orange that I reckon can be sleeves on another baby tshirt... so this could potentially be 1 old man's tshirt becoming THREE new things! WIN!

Thank you for your kind comments about taking Baby Life/Mama Lyf slow... seeing how he's changed already in 5 months is incredibly, so I love being with Baby Darling daily and soaking him up! What a guy!

xoxo