Vintage Baby Quilt

My Sister had her first baby back in February last year. So of course I wanted to make her a quilt. My sister back then was really into pastels and muted colours. So I decided to make her a bright quilt. (Being the eldest of 6 children, its my birth-right to know what my brothers and sisters need, and dish it out accordingly!)

After much searching I settled on this Vintage Baby Quilt pattern. Its really really cute. The squares are not pieced into the quilt, but are sewn on top, so the edges get a lovely vintage ruffled feel.

I ordered a kit from a fabric store on Etsy called Quilt Taffy. They were so helpful. They sent me numerous photos of different bundles of fabric so I could pick which ones I wanted. They also cut all the squares for me, which was awesome! The price was really good too! (which is always important)

I thought this quilt would go together quickly, but it was an effort!! Getting each square to sit straight on the fabric and then sewing it was hard.    

 

I made this quilt bigger than the pattern, as I want it to get lots and lots of use. (The quality of the photos aren't that great because this quilt is actually in Queensland, and I had to ask my sister to send me some photos of it.) 

I love the back of this quilt! Its hard to see, but its such a sweet print, especially for my gorgeous little niece! 

I will definitely use this pattern again! Such a simple design, but it looks so lovely. I have actually been dying to make a baby girl quilt, but boys seem to be the trend amongst all my friends lately!

My sister is actually having her second child in about 4 weeks, (yep, a boy) and I'm going to make her another quilt. Cant have my handsome little nephew using a pink quilt!


Toodles!

Jessica

Second Family Reunion Dress (Oliver + S)

As promised here is the second Oliver + S Family reunion dress. When I made Little Miss I's, Little Miss E wanted hers to be the same. Its funny, some days they want to be dressed exactly the same, and others, they don't want to be anything like each other! Ugh! Twins!

When I went to the fabric store to get the same fabric, I noticed that there was this lovely pink and orange fabric, with the silver threads running through it just like the last one. So I decided to get this instead. I'm glad I did as Little Miss I is slightly taller than her twin, so I lengthened her dress by an inch or two, whereas this one I made to the pattern. I want to be able to tell them apart.

 

I swear my girls are nothing like me. When ever the camera comes out, they are full off poses. Like this one below. One leg, and one arm in the air? Perfect pose according to my 4 year old!

I put 4 little pink buttons on the front of this one. I love the detail.

For the back I found these awesome orange buttons. They kind of remind me vintage-type buttons (I'm not going to try and guess the era). I almost remember seeing similar buttons on something my mum used to wear....

Lovely button up back. I don't know why, but I love this look :) I also love the pintucks on the front and back.

And here is a close up of the hem. I mentioned this in the last post but forgot to take a photo of it. It adds a nice detail, and a bit of weight as well. 

As usual Oliver + S patterns are great! Instructions are so clear, and the results are so professional. The patterns have mentioned 'French seams' a few times. I have no idea what they are. When I finish a seam, I just zig-zag the raw edge. A French seam sounds a little more classy though...I might have to do a quick google search and find out what it is!

Later Vader,

Jessica

Monster Play Quilt

When Little Mr Z was smaller, and learning how to sit up (*sob* who stole my baby and replaced him with this cheeky toddler?), I wanted my make a thick quilt that he could use on the floor so he wouldn't keep banging his head every time he toppled over.

So I gathered up my fabrics and started cutting. I cut the fabric into strips, 4'' wide, 3'' inches wide and 2'' wide. Once I had all the stripes I just sewed them all together to make the quilt top. 

I decided after that that I wanted to make the quilt tactile, and add some little ribbon tags, as Little Mr Z loved to suck tags. I also thought it would be a good way to secure toys to the quilt so when he dropped them, he didn't loose them. 

So I went and purchased some red and blue ribbon, and unpicked small sections of my quilt to add on the tags.

I really like the tags on the quilt, and Little Mr Z does too!

I have this pattern, from the Australian designer 'Don't look now!' 

She has some amazing designs, and I really love them all! 

I decided to appliqué a monster onto the quilt.
Now I have to be honest, I don't like appliqué. My type of sewing is bang it threw my machine as fast as possible. Appliqué just seams like way too much effort, and it reminds me a lot of 'Nana quilts'. Yep, you know the ones I'm talking about. Country colours with appliqué flowers all over it (not that there is anything wrong with those quilts, its just not what I like for my home).

So I was super surprised when I actually really enjoyed making this monster! Seriously! I was considering appliquéing more of the monsters all over it!

 After my quilt top was completed, I pinned it to two layers of cotton wadding, and the back. I thought the extra layer might of made pinning and quilting difficult, but it didn't. I hardly even noticed it while sewing. 

I decided to be adventurous with my quilting, and did a whole lot of different patterns as you can see below. 

I then bound it in a great green circle print fabric (cant remember who it was from), and there you have it. One perfect floor play quilt!

This quilt has had tones of use, as during winter I also have used it in his cot when its been cold. 

Here is the back

 

I love making quilts!

Jessica

My Perfect No Cook Play-dough Recipe

Now I know that there are a million Play-dough recipes out there, and mine isn't anything special, except for the fact that its the one I like to use (which I suppose makes it pretty special!)

I like to make play-dough this way as I don't have to mix anything over a stove, and I generally have all the ingredients. It also makes super soft lovely play-dough that will last near forever (if stored in an airtight container), or until the kids decide to destroy it anyway :)

My Perfect No Cook Play-dough

Ingredients:
3 cups plain flour
4 tbls cream of tartar
2 tbls cooking oil
1 cup of salt (plus a little extra)
food colouring
2 cups water

To make this fantastic play-dough Put 2 cups of flour (not the full 3), the cream of tartar, cooking oil, and salt into a mixing bowl. Then add your food colouring. There really is no set amount for the food colouring. Just add however much you think you need. I generally add a few drops then add more if it needs later.

Mix well.

Boil the water in the kettle, and add the 2 cups to the bowl. Now, It will be HOT, so I start of the mixing with a spoon. 
Once its cool enough to put my hands in, I take off my wedding rings (really, you don't want to forget this step. I did once, and it wasn't fun!) and start mixing with my fingers.

Add more flour as needed. You want to keep kneading the dough until the colour is evenly distributed throughout. For every grab-full of flour I add, I add another pinch-or-so of salt. Keep kneading and adding flour until its no longer sticky. You should be able to put your fingers into the middle of it, and not have any play-dough stuck to you.
Viola! Lovely play-dough!

When I made mine, Little Miss E and I couldn't decide what colour to make it.(In other words they were both gripping the colour they wanted and crying 'I want pink', and 'I want blue')
So I separated the mixture into two bowls and made half pink and half blue. (They will end up mixing it together and it will turn a funny colour, but at least we avoided that argument!)

Enjoy!

Jessica

Work In Progress

I haven't finished anything for a few days, so here's what I'm currently working on....

Its a terrible photo, but the second Oliver + S family reunion dress is coming along nicely. I should finish this soon (if not tonight).

 Speaking about clothes making. Here is a lovely stack i have in my cupboard for future projects. I really want to finish the above dress so I can get started on some of this!

 

I have some cute poly-cotton on top for Little Miss E & I's next dresses, which will be the Oliver + S Ice-cream dress. Next is some lovely cream silk shantung. It was expensive at $20 a meter, but oh-so-lovely, so I decided to get some (and I had a discount voucher). I want to make the petal sleeve blouse from the Japanese sewing book 'Feminine Wardrobe'. I wont be doing that for a while yet though, as I don't want to mess it up! I will practice on the twin's clothes first :) The rest is going to be clothes as well, but I'll write more about that soon!

Another sneak preview, but shhh! This is part of Little miss E's Christmas present, and I've thus far managed to hide it from her.........

What is it? You ask, well its not finished but it will soon be this....

The picture on the pattern doesn't look terribly exciting, but I saw one made up at the Craft show in Melbourne, it was so cute! The one I saw made up was made from Sarah Jane fabric, using an out of print line. I have about 1 meter of it stashed away, and I was going to make it up exactly the same as the display, but I decided to save it. I have a quilt in mind that I want to use it for instead (and also I figured Little Miss E will probably drag this teapot set around everywhere, including outside, and the other fabric is white).

I did find a really pretty lamp-work bead to go on top though! 

And lastly, I have been thinking about making a christmas stocking for Little Mr Z. I have made one for everyone else, but I just didnt get around to making one for him last year, so I will be making one for him soon!

Here is the one I made for Little Miss E.

I really really love it. I like gold Christmas decor, so all of the stocking I made have the same gold top, and a gold patterned fabric like this one. I used a gold bead trim to line the fold-over and to put the letter on the front. I then also used some gold ribbon attached to the corner for hanging.

To attach the trim I had to hand stitch between every-single-bead! It took forever but looks really good!

The photos don't really do it justice! 
My sister asked me about my Christmas stockings, and as she lives in Queensland, (and is too far away for me to just show her) I'm going to post a tutorial of how I made them shortly!

Come back soon to see these WIP's completed :)

Jessica