He's 5

Wow I can't believe it, my little man turned 5 on the weekend. Besides now being the boss of everything!! he's a bit in awe of it himself, it took soooo long to get to 5. During the past year he's had these goals that when he turns 5 he can do all sorts of stuff, like watching (what he calls) scary movies. He tried a scary movie out today, maybe when I'm 6 mum!!

So this is the cake, for the first party, with his little friends.

The big man of the house made the cake, his forte, and I decorated it. We hired a number 5 tin from our local, very ace, cake shop. (if only we had a fabric shop this close by too!!). You can buy the cake mix and butter cream icing in tubs there so all we had to do is mix the dye in, messy business but fun. I had been flicking through the Aus Womens weekly birthday cake book, and got inspiration in there for making the cake into a race track. So there you have it. Lot's of cake which didn't really get eaten, brought out Nan's cup cakes a bit too soon I think. There was so much cake we ended up only cutting that for the afternoon too. But I still made this...

If you haven't gathered by now, Little A likes his cars. So I couldn't go past making a VW Beetle cake in the same colour as our beetle. My sister used to own our beetle and when she did I gave her this cake tin, which has now come in useful.

So there you have it. The end result of my creative thoughts of this week.

Now hopefully some sewing this week. Gotta start on the name tag for Sew It Together, time is running out. My to do list is massive!!

TTFN

My Creative Space

I have nothing to show for my creative space this week, (I could show the same photo as last week but that would be boring!!) It's all in my head and I don't think you want to see that. So in my creative head this week:

• Idea's for my new nieces birth present
• Little A's birthday cakes for this weekend - he is having 2 parties so 2 cakes are required. He's having a car theme so I'm thinking number 5 with racing track, and we have a VB beetle tin, so that will need to be decorated the same as our beetle.
• Decorations for the party, I did have all these grand plans of making stuff but that kinda went out the door, I work full time, what can you do!!
• Party games involving cars, any ideas very welcome ;-)
• Aidan's birthday present, I was thinking a photo board, got any great tutes? Not going to get that finished by sunday!

So there you have it, I assure you more was going on in my head this week, but this unfortunately, was about it for creativity. Hopefully I'll have photos of the out comes. Wow I've been a mum for nearly 5 years, time has flown.

For more creative spaces head here to kootoyoo.

TTFN

Library Bag for James

I may have mentioned a few posts ago that I was off to make a library bag for Little A. We'll I ended up making one for my friends son James instead, don't worry, Little A's will be made!!

I ended up making up the pattern, not too difficult. I just used bits and pieces of what I have learnt on bag making over the past year. If anyone is interested in a tutorial please let me know. When I get around to making the next one I'll document it as I go.

I'm going to have to put the crazy nine patch quilt on hold for a bit, my sister gave birth to a daughter yesterday so now I'm busy planning on something special for her. Very exciting :-).

TTFN

Electronics Case

I made this for my sister for her birthday. I gave her a clutch purse last year, she was being very inventive and using it as a case for her hard drive, so I thought I'd make her another one with a bit more padding!! Again, the pattern is from the Sewing Calendar 2010. This little calendar is coming in very useful for little projects. I quilted it with radiating straight lines from the centre, spiral like, and used a press stud instead of a button. I tried making a button hole with a sample but my machine just wasn't coping, layers were a bit thick I think.

Edit: I also changed the size so it would fit an external hard drive.

The design is by Ayumi Takahashi of Pink Penguin. You can also find the pattern on her website as a tutorial, along with some other lovely looking tutorials which I'm going to have to try.

TTFN

Sewing with Little A

This was a couple of weeks ago, sorry only getting around to writing it now. It's going to be a bit lengthy, I want to record it all.


Little A had decided one evening that we needed to make something, "with your machine Mummy". I told him we need to plan these things a bit more in advance. So after a few temper outbursts he was happy with the idea of dreaming up a really good idea for what to make. So when we got home from school the next afternoon we decided to make something. A few ideas flew around then I got some books out with patterns. Of course all the patterns he wanted to make from had to be enlarged. 


*** side rant *** I really love craft books, but why do they all now have patterns that have to be enlarged? They assume you can get to a photo copier, which i can only do on the off chance at work. It also limits a spontaneous softie making session. Not all books now have patterns that need to be enlarged and I thank them for that, but I don't want to buy a book based on how they have included the patterns. *** ok rant over!! ***


Then I looked through my sewing calendar and found a few things we could make in a couple of hours. I also didn't know how long his attention span was going to last, and I'd have to finish it. But we settled on a little robot pillow.

No patterns as such, just dimensions for squares, excellent. To the material box. Little A chose the fabric he wanted. It happened to be a fabric bundle I'd bought at Spotlight, so everything matched. He chose what colour should go with what part of the robot then we got the iron out and ironed all the material. This was the first time I'd let him use the iron so he was very chuffed ( He was very closely assisted, but even so). Next came the cutting mat and roller cutter. I lined everything up then with my help he rolled the cutter, very proud of himself. We read the instructions again (he's very big on me reading the instructions all the time) then matched the fabric up ready to sew. The pieces were very small so I let him guide the fabric through once, then he was in charge of raising the foot and turning the wheel. After a few seams sewn he decided that using the hole punch for a while would entertain him better. So while he was doing that I sewed the face and some tricky bits. But he came back wanting to do more which was good, cos it was stuffing time. He loves this bit and is often my cheif stuffing holder and getter out of the bag while I stuff softies. But this time it was his turn to stuff, which at times he did with a bit too much vigour but all was ok. I thought I'd be the one sewing the gap closed but no he wanted to do it. So I doubled the thread over, pinched the seams together for him, then he sewed the opening closed, guess he has been paying attention!! I grabbed the camera and the rest is history. Very proud of himself he was and I of him. He even took it to show and tell. 

TTFN

My Creative Space

I've decided to get on the band wagon and post my creative space for this week. I've been a bit absent from my blog of late, life stuff, so I thought this might get me back in.

I'm only working on 2 things at the moment, shock horror, with a million and 1 things in my head wanting to be made. I have started the stitchery from Melly and Me's Kaleidoscope book. It's the first bit of stitchery I've done in a while, after almost 15 years of intense cross stitch (which I haven't done for about 5 years now) it's nice to get back into some hand sewing in the evenings. But I have to say, what has happened to dmc thread? I needed to buy more black and it's not nearly as nice and smooth to stitch with as it used to be. I thought maybe it was because I wasn't stitching on aida cloth, but then I switched to another colour from my old stash, nope, it's so scratchy and the old stuff so smooth. Oh well.

I've finished all of the crazy nine patch squares, yay, and I've even trimmed them. Now I'm just a bit undecided as to how to put it together. There are a lot of patterns in the fabric and put together it's a bit too intense so I think I might border each with white. I'll post some mock ups soon.

And just to finish off, Little A's create space.

For more creative space go visit kootoyoo.

TTFN

It's all gone

World's Greatest Shave yesterday was a great success. Thanks to everyone who donated.

Before

After

For more in-between photos go to Mark's Flickr

TTFN

Patchwork Ball No 2

Another Patchwork Ball, this time for the cousin of the first ball I made. Confused, I am, it's my cousins daughter so does that make her my second cousin? And the first was given to my other cousins son. Anyway, I fussy cut the fabric again from a very cute fabric I found at a local material shop, Darn Cheap Fabrics. It didn't come together quite as nicely this time, I think it stretched a bit when sewing together, it was also very hot the day I decided to put it together. So there you go, another one done. I highly recommend this pattern for a relatively quick to make and useful gift for a 1 year old.
TTFN

Anna Maria Horner's For Kicks Patchwork Ball from Seams to Me. Handmade by MandyMade

First squares done

I have now completed 18 squares for the crazy nine patch quilt I mentioned.I'm making this. These are the first nine.

Too Chrismissy? What do you think? I'm going to have white squares in-between the lattice.
I've been having a few problems lining up the (not so) squares. I'm trying a few different things  to try and make them join up better. Any hints? It's also been really hard to cut through 9 layers of fabric (more when there is a join) so I've stuck some masking tape to my cutting matt and I'm lining them up and cutting that way with only a few layers at a time.

I was lucky enough to receive Denyse Schmidt's Book for my birthday so I've been reading that from cover to cover on my train trips. Now to decide which one to make first. I love them all but need to take baby steps!!

Off to make a school library bag for Little A. It's already a month late so I better get a move on.

TTFN

Thank you

originally uploaded by MandyMade.

Thanks for all the birthday wishes. I had a lovely weekend filled with friends and family and lots of ace pressies . Don't worry I will blog more soon when I get more of a moment. Please check out my flickr if you would like to see what I've been up to. More sewing than blogging, more housework than sewing, shock horror!!

TTFN

Edit: Sorry forgot to mention, these flowers were picked by Little A (with permission) from his Nan's garden for me, how sweet :-).