Advent

Well this is really where my love of making things started again after the sewing machine had been in its box for a few years. After having a $2.00 'Mr Men' advent calendar for Christmas 2010 it was my mission to make one for the girls for 2011.

I could picture what I wanted to make but didn't know where to begin. After searching the web for inspiration I came across a tutorial for a really beautiful advent calendar again on 'The Purl Bee' site which I thought I could attempt (in my own amateur way).  By this stage it was early November so I bought all the felt, thread and other bits and bobs but of course didn't actually get started until the 19th November. The most time consuming part was cutting out all the squares and matching the colours. Thankfully the chain stitched numbers didn't take too long and I would try and do a few between the girl's afternoon naps, evenings and weekends. 

It was a relief to get all the squares stitched on to the background of navy polar fleece even though the last line was a bit on the wonky side!! I was up to almost midnight on the 30th November putting the finishing touches to it so it would be ready for the 1st December.

As well as the traditional treats of chocolates and sweets I thought it would be nice to have a daily Christmas activity such as reading a Christmas book, making shortbread etc but the girls favourite activity was going out at night to see some Christmas lights at a local church which were really amazing. It was worth staying up so late to see Natasha's face the next morning, and of course the chocolate helped!

Kindy time!

Apologies for my posts talking about past projects, only getting organised now after a busy start to the year.  I seem to have had a run of little projects happening from the end of 2011.

With Tash starting Kindy in January she needed a sheet set to fit on the little beds. They sold them at Kindy for $45 but I thought I would give it a whirl.

It was lots of fun picking the material and Kindy provided all the measurements for both the plain top sheet and the elasticated bottom sheet.

To finish off I stitched Tash's name using chain stitch on to some felt and attached it to a little drawstring bag made out of some jersey fabric. I loosely followed a tutorial for the drawstring bag from 'The Purl Bee' although I didn't put a gusset in my bag. Tash is pretty proud of her bird sheets, me too!

Next on the list was a library bag for 'Kindy Book Day' every Tuesday. Tash has been very taken by the Dr Seuss books lately, especially 'Green Eggs and Ham' almost to the point where my husband is thinking of 'misplacing' it if he has to read it one more night :-)

I found some amazing Dr Seuss material, while on a rare visit to the city without two small people in tow, and just had to get some :-) Along with some red cord for the drawstring and denim lettering, courtesy of hubbies old jeans, the library bag was completed!

Travel Project

I thought it might be useful to make some little travel pillows for our upcoming trip to New Zealand for both the car and the plane. I had bought some 'festive' material last year and had high hopes of making something 'Christmassy' but of course never got around to it. I couldn't resist using it as they are both such cute designs and I'm sure the girls won't mind too much :-)

After making the pillows I had caught the sewing bug and decided to make some little drawstring bags which could be used as library bags or for toys and books for travelling. I found a fantastic tutorial for kids wash bags on a beautiful sewing blog site called 'Handmade Jane' and adapted this to make the bags. 

One of these days I may progress to actually making something which involves a little bit more than sewing in straight lines :-)

Travel pillows

Library/toy bags