Wet Sunday, Occupied Child = productive afternoon

With a little friends 4th birthday looming and the mother falling in love with a skirt Amelia wore to their place recent for a play date it was decided said friend would like a/some skirt/s for her birthday...

We head off to Spotlight to see what if anything was left of the summer prints, it was pretty dismal when we were there a few weeks ago. Amelia declared 4 skirts would be made and she was in charge of the fabric! Once again she has done me proud with her selections.

A lovely aqua blue with tiny fish, an old English Rose, a yellow and blue butterfly print and quite a bold flower print. The little girl these are destined for is a redhead. As I know full well. being a redhead myself, there are some colours best worn away from your face! Pink and yellow are 2 such colours BUT they are this little girls favourite colours so I have done my best!


This little girl is also not afraid of showing her knees, unlike my modest little girl, so these are a bit shorter than I would have made for Amelia. I wanted to make one skirt a little different so rather than just the band at the bottom I have added the pattern fabric as well. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't? I like it... I have taken a total guess with the waist so fingers crossed!

I love the petrol blue with the fishy fabric and I adore the lime with the flowers!

For the yellow and blue butterfly fabric I wanted to do something a bit different. Inspired by a creative person on Mel's Blog I decided to try making a dress with this fabric. I am also not a fan of halter necks on myself and Amelia swings between neck to knee coverage and wearing nothing so quite possible wasted on her I decided to give this a whirl. If it isn't worn it is no big deal!

The Oliver+S lazy day skirt pattern is SUCH a great pattern! I made ALL of these today in 4 hours! Even I am impressed!!

I hope this little girl likes them, I am sure she will.

Lazy Days skirt #4

The last of the 4 skirts for Amelia, the pink with ladybugs on it. I have a few more pinned ready for sewing but sadly my machine started to play up and has gone away for another service. Worst timing in the world as I was really enjoying whirring away an afternoon...

So here is the pink skirt














and here are the 4 I made over the course of the week all together... I have really enjoyed doing this and will probably participate in another sew a long it was fun!

Lazy Days skirt #3

Today we have tackled the tiny flower fabric. Originally I was going to match this up with either the pink or the orange border but common sense got the better of me and I bought this lovely rich rusty terracotta.

Sew-a-long day 2

Day 2 and this is possibly my favourite skirt of the bunch. I thought the material was a bit ho-hum when Amelia chose it but she pulls it off so nicely. I went back to Spotlight the next day and picked up an iron on flower in orange to decorate a plain white t-shirt, the skirt couldn't really be worn with any thing other than white in my opinion! (certainly NOT with a purple Disney Princess PJ top!)



And in action at the park today before our Swimvac lesson... these were taken on my PDA and not going to win any photographic competitions!

Swirly Skirt Sew-a-long day 1

So, simply put, how bloody easy was this skirt to make? Challenging? Nope, not in the slightest! The only challenge is going to be to know when to stop making these! There are only so many skirts a girl can wear...

Skirt one - blue star fish with a plain blue border. I have enough of both fabrics to make one in reverse which will go in a parcel to my friend in Melbourne for her little girl, in fact Estelle might end up with a few skirts! I have a feeling anyone who is under 10 and has a birthday will end up with one of these as a gift boy or girl!!














Now, I have to say, Amelia saw Mel's post with Bella jumping. The skirt Bella is wearing has a border not ribbon or trim so, that is what Amelia wants with her skirts. When Stef has forgiven me for spending as much as I have both in time and in money in Spotlight recently I will venture in again and emerge with ribbon and fabric and make one strictly as per the pattern!

tomorrow... orange, pink or multi coloured flowers... oh I wonder...

A sew-a-long

A week or so ago I was reading Mel's blog and I saw the invitation to a sew-a-long. An Oliver+s lazy days skirt. Now I am pretty new to the sewing scene and I thought to myself, yeah, wouldn't mind but didn't know if I could do it and if my sewing would be of sewing bloggers standards! The lure of an 'easy and really quick to sew skirt' was the big draw card. Then I got my dates muddled up and thought the week it was on was last week and we were away... but it is next week, we will be here, Stef is off work and Amelia on school holidays, it is all good!

So today we went to Spotlight armed with Daddy - for some reason it was important to Amelia that Daddy be along on this trip. She walked him from the car to the store and through the store straight to the fabric section . She even got the isle right!! Wandering the bolts she ran her fingers along the material and was saying yes this one is nice, this one is okay, I don't like this one and then those lovely 8 words, straight out of a 4 y/o's mouth 'Hey Mum, this would make a pretty skirt' and with that she whipped the bolt off the shelf, thrust it AT Daddy and moved along to the next bolt... I am a little intrigued by her fabric selection but I am beginning to learn that she does have a good eye...

4 skirt fabrics selected, blue starfish, pink ladybugs, orange and green flowers and a random bright colour little flowers, we headed off to the remnants bin to find some plain contrasting material when we spotted a bolt of polka dot material the same as the one we used on the top of the hopscotch (posted 7/9/09) but in Christmas colours AND it was marked down from $12.99 to only $4 a metre! BARGAIN!! I'll have that thank you very much, all of it, no idea what for but I have some plans for doing something Christmassy so it shall be stored and used.

Then there was a discussion overheard about a denim skirt, 'What's denim mum, is that like my Winnie the Pooh skirt?', 'yes, why?', 'it's a bit small, could you make me another one like that please?', 'sure, we can give it a go'. So off we headed to the denim fabric and she spotted the purple one, done, easy. Off to the checkout.

I am pretty proud of the selections she made and I am also glad Stef came along as he got involved as well and our haul came in at under $45! Did I get ripped off? 3.5m of polka dot, 4 .5m, some random remnants, 1m denim and 2m of rick rack and a box of buttons. Not sure about the orange material but I think it will grow on me...


So, come Monday these will be created into skirts apparently and blogged!

And here is the purple denim and some rick rack I will decorate the skirt with. I might even be tempted to make a bag to go with it... there's no stopping me!

Block 2...

What seems like forever ago Amelia and I took a drive upto Country Pickin's at the Corner in Dural and purchased block 2 of Natalie Ross' Blossom Creek... About 2 weeks ago one Sunday morning while we watched Marley and Me (with a box of tissues!!) while Stef was sleeping after night shift, I traced and cut out the pattern, did the Vlisofix thing and on Friday night I set up the ironing board and set about putting pattern to fabric.

Amelia has discovered she 'likes to do the ironing' now so that chore is now relegated to when she is asleep i.e.: at night when I am knackered, unless I want help! Don't panic, I am with her all the time when she wants to iron, don't take my eyes off her for a second. Her idea of ironing is to do the front of the tee-shirt and nothing else of that particular garment! I don't think she would earn her brownie badge in ironing with her current technique!!



And here we are... all set ready for stitching... I stuffed up a little with the placement of some bits but with a 4 y/o standing on an Ikea step right under your feet, touching things as you are trying to heat them... say no more.

We are off to Canberra in the morning, checked the weather down there for the next few days, in a word FREEZING not to mention WET... but we are going none the less and will take lots of warm clothes. And Candy Corner will come with me, to do inthe car, in the evenings, whenever the mood takes me really...

I haven't done the borders for block one yet, I thought I would wait and do block 2 at the same time, give me a better idea of layout and stuff. And besides, the sewing machine hasn't been out for a few weeks with Amelia's birthday party preparations taking over my life! All behind us now. A great party!!