Applique baby boy onesies.

When we found out we were having a boy I immediately started thinking of baby boy outfit ideas. For my baby shower I was gifted with quite a few plain onesies so I thought it would be good fun to make a few of them a little more special.This process is so easy that really anyone could make a whole collection of applique onesies in not much time and for minimal cost.

I began by hand drawing templates for a tie and bowtie. As these are fairly simple shapes, it was quite easy to freedraw the shapes. If you don't feel as confident there are many printable outlines online.

template

Then I cut some spare material to size and used heat and bond lite to permanently attach the material to the onesies with an iron. This way the material stays in shape and is easy to sew around.

For a finishing touch I used white thread to blanket stitch around the material. If you are unsure how to blanket stitch, here is a good tutorial to use. My blanket stitch isn't perfect but it's quite neat and I'm pleased with my end products. The more I make, the better my stitch will get :)

The little gingham hat, hook and coat hanger were all thrifted. I found an amazing number of cute plastic hangers in a thrift shop in the ACT and have been able to use different shades of yellow and white to sort the clothes by size, ie all 000 go on bright yellow hangers.
These would also make cute gifts and presents for other little baby boys in your life. After all what little man doesn't look dashing in a tie?

Lisa x

A pennant quilt.

After I finished my first quilt, I think I caught the sewing bug. Another quilt idea that interested me was making a pennant quilt so I thought I'd give it a go. I choose to use a range of yellow fabrics (left over from my first quilt) and buy a few small pieces of black fabrics.

Each of the triangles are 5 inch triangles and I used a rotary knife and ruler to measure them all accurately. In total I cut 24 triangles.

The plain yellow, yellow gingham and floral triangle fabric was thrifted while I did buy the rest of the fabric. I'd love to thrift more fabric but nice fabric in thrift shops is hard to come across.

Once I had pinned a rough layout,  I used some heat and bond lite to make sure the triangle stayed in place while I sewed them down.

 Heat and bond lite is a fantastic product that makes the fabric stiff and stick in space. It is a little expensive so I tried hard to not use extra than needed. Firstly lay out the triangles on the heat and bond lite and then iron it down. Don't iron directly on the heat and bond lite as it will stick to the iron.

 Then arrange the pieces in place once again before peeling off the heat and bond lite backing and ironing down the fabric in place.

 Now the triangles are in place and ready to be sewn down. This next part caused me a whole lot of trouble as my sewing machine is very old and doesn't have a zig zag stitch. I tried going to a few friends places to sew the pieces down with zig zag stitch but it was quite time consuming and in the end I borrowed a friend's machine to take home and finish off the zig zag stitches. While they are not perfect, the quilt definitely had a charming homemade feel to it at this stage.

Once the zig zag stitch was completed,  added some black gingham print fabric around the edge of the quilt, using my handy ruler and a rotary knife to cut the gingham fabric to size.

I then sandwiched the quilt together with the front, inner quilting wool and the backing.I choose a floral black, white and yellow print for the quilt backing ( also used on updating my thrifted lamp). When all three layers were sandwiched together and pinned in place I put on the quilting foot and sewed three lines across each row of bunting. I also used the quilting foot to sew around the ditch (edging between the white fabric and black gingham fabric.

I purchased some plain black discount fabric and cut it into 21/2 inch strips for the edging. I sewed the fabric together to create a long piece of 2 1/2 fabric and ironed it in half using my iron.
I then pinned the bias binding in place on the backside of the quilt. Once pinned in place, I sewed it onto the fabric. Then I folded the bias over the front edge and pinned it in place. I then machine sewed the bias onto the front of the quilt. This was a little different to my first quilt as I hand sewed the bias binding onto the back, while this quilt used a machine to sew all the bias.

I just love the end product. It it so beautiful and the perfect colours. I think the colour choice means a little boy or girl can use it and it's a nice size so should last the bubs a few years and hopefully be a bit of a special quilt for the baby and good for tummy time.

One more project crossed off the list and finished :)

Lisa x

Bunting addict.

It's been a little while since I sewed any bunting but as I had a bit of fabric left over from my hot air balloon and a quilt I'm almost finished, I decided to make some bunting for our room. This bunting may not stay hanging here forever but it is always a nice touch to a room and could be taken outside or into the lounge room for parties etc. I feel like I've worked out how to make bunting easily and it looks neat and beautiful when finished.
Today I thought I'd share my step by step guide to making bunting. There are so many other ways to make it but this is the way that works for me (and my limited sewing skills).

You will need:

-a paper triangle template (make your own)

-fabric

-pins

-an iron

-a rotary knife (optional)

- a sewing machine

-paperclips

-cotton

-bias binding

1) Draw a triangle shape that you would like each piece of your bunting to be. Use scissors to cut out the material . You will need two triangles for each piece of bunting. When they are cut out pin them inside out.

2) Use a straight stitch to go around the two longer edges of the triangle and then fold the triangle inside out. Once I have done this I then iron the triangles nice and flat and use a rotary knife to ensure that the top of the triangle is straight.

 3) You can make your own bias binding if you want but as I have a large stash (from a garage sale goodie bag), I used some turquoise bias binding that I already had. I pinned the triangles in a pattern along the bias binding and then sewed it into place. I sewed it so the bottom of the bias binding connected with the fabric.

4) Using paperclips, I pinned back the bias binding so it wrapped around the other side of the triangle and carefully hand stitched it in place using some turquoise cotton so it is barely visible at all.

When you've finished hand stitching the back bias down you end up with a lovely, professional looking string of bunting, perfect for a bed, party or just crafting up an area of the house.

I'm still working on understanding the lighting in our master bedroom and how best to capture it as soon I'll share the entire master bedroom and some future plans. If you haven't sewn bunting before, do have a go, it's easy and fun and a great way to use up leftover fabric :)

Lisa x

For details sake:

'we should probably cuddle now' cushion- society 6

bedspread- manchester warehouse

throw- laura ashley

bedroom furniture- enfield furniture

lamps- beacon lighting

Cloud mobile.

Okay, I'll admit it- sewing nursery items is just a whole lot of fun.  The room is just bursting with homemade goodness and all I felt it was missing was a little mobile.I felt that a little bit more colour on the walls was necessary so I wanted a mobile that tied in the colours of the nursery (yellow, green and grey). I really love my cloud shelf and wanted to make a mobile that tied in with the same theme using some supplies I already had around the place, especially as my craft room is still bursting with supplies and using existing items fits my tight budget better.

To recreate this mobile you will need:

Scrap pieces of felt

White thread

Toy stuffing

White embroidery floss

A small piece of ribbon

For this mobile I used white, grey, aqua, mustard, lime green and citrus yellow felt scraps. I choose these colours as I already owned them and they fit with the colour scheme of the nursery. 

To make the cloud I simply free handed a cloud shape and cut two pieces to size. Thankfully a cloud is one of the easiest items to draw. I then stitched the two cloud shapes together and filled them with toy stuffing.

For the rain drops I made a raindrop pattern and cut out 18 pieces this size. I used blanket stitch to stitch two pieces together and filled each raindrop with a little bit of toy stuffing.

Once I had made 9 raindrops I worked out a colour pattern and stitched the raindrops together (roughly the same distance apart) using some white embroidery floss.

To complete my mobile I sewed a small piece of ribbon to the top to hang the mobile from. Then to attach the mobile to the wall, I simply nailed it in place.

For some reason I can't quite get the walls to look as minty green as they really are. I have tutorials on how to sew the quilt and elephant softie.The cot was a gumtree purchase and I'll share more details when I post a nursery room reveal.

I think it turned out just right...another handmade touch for my little munchkin and the room is complete for now (except for the most important little person of course!). Thank God for the blessing of this little one growing in my belly and time to work on my sewing skills.

Lisa x

My first quilt.

It's finished! I can cross off my my new years resolution of sewing a quilt off the list. First step was finding some pretty materials for my quilt. I wanted it to be grey, yellow and white but after much searching for patterned grey material, the quilt has ended up being more yellow than grey. I also purchased a piece of grey felt and a sheet of yellow felt. I was able to thrift the plain yellow and yellow gingham print and bought some the plain grey and white fabric and the scallop and chevron yellow material. I purchased a metre of each and have leftovers for other projects. I received some grey printed material for the edging, reused the plain grey for the bias binding and purchased some grey and white patterned material for the back. I also needed to purchase some wool batting for the inside of the quilt.

Once the squares were cut (20cm x 20cm) I lay them out to work out the best order for the fabrics. I initially had decided to make the quilt 4 by 4 but ended up making it 4x5 as it was a more appropriate cot size.On the plain white squares (there were 3), I cut out elephant shapes in grey felt with yellow ears and hand sewed them onto the white. I just drew my own elephant shape as a template and choose an elephant as they are one of the easiest animals to draw (a trunk and giant ears make them pretty distinguishable).

To put the quilt together I sewed the rows of  5 together and then sewed the 4 rows together. As I am quite inexperienced with sewing, it's not perfect but I still like it a lot and the little flaws prove that I made it! 

I then cut four pieces for the border and sewed these round the edge. Once this was done, I cut my grey and white backing material to size and made a sandwich with the quilt front, batting in the middle and backing material. A lovely family friend helped me through these steps and with using a quilting foot to make diagonal lines across the front squares (except for the squares with the elephants on the front).

Then I cut the grey material to size to make the bias binding and sewed it around the edge. Once I had attached one side, I then folded it over and hand stitched the other side. Then it was finished! *This whole process also involved A LOT of ironing.

Isn't it cute? I just love bubs new quilt. As I get more and more confident with my quilting, I'll share more detailed instructions and process steps but I am still unsure if I'm getting all the steps right myself. Whatever I did though, I am so pleased with the end product, it's just so cute! And matches the wonky little cushion I first sewed...

I'm getting addicted to sewing and still have some of the material left over so I've already started on another quilt. This one is a bit more adventurous though so I may take a lot longer to complete it.

Lisa x

P.S I'm linking up with

The Dedicated House
C.R.A.F.T.
My 1929 Charmer
Nifty Thrifty Things

Learning applique.

I've wanted to learn how to applique fabric images onto fabric for a while now and finally learnt for myself about the amazing 'heat and bond lite'. How did I not know about this stuff before?

For my first applique project I was gifted a plain white muslin wrap with a gingham border and decided to make it all a little bit exciting using some scottie dogs. I had thrifted a small shirt covered in scottie dogs and cut it up to use the dogs on projects I'd actually use.

To applique, first iron the pictures onto a piece of 'heat and bond lite'. Then the 'heat and bond lite' will peel off the back and the back of the fabric is sticky. Arrange the pictures as you like and then iron in place. Once they are ironed down they won't move off and this means no pinning! To attach the pictures blanket stitch around the edges of each picture and you're done- very easy :-)

After finding this so easy I had a go doing some more applique houses on newly bought white tea towels for friends. I used a range of scrap fabric to make the houses and they ended up being such cute little tea towels. I think I might need to make one for myself as well.

The possibilities are endless... know that I will be sharing with you the many more ideas I come up with to applique. This is only the start!

Lisa x

P.S I'm linking up with
Elizabeth & Co
Romance on a Dime
The DIY Dreamer
The Winthrop Chronicles