Christmas has gone….

Gosh …doesn’t time fly? Well Santa has come and gone

See…..he ate the Crunchie and drank the wine and Rudolf had some of the carrot.

My son’s master piece in front of their house.

The New Year is now here and its half way thru January already!!

 

We went to WA to my son’s and daughter in law’s place for Christmas this year, and it was terrific as its been 5 years since I had Christmas with my kids and grandkids. This was the first Christmas I have had with my son and daughter in laws baby boy. He is just so adorable!! I love him to bits and it was so good to have cuddles with him.

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My daughter is due to have her baby on the 20th January and so I am off to WA again….I am hoping to get there before she has her bub and so I will be flying out on the 17th January. I can hardly wait :)

Awwww you look gorgeous Zo :)

Happy New Year everyone and I hope this year is the best for you all and the next time I post I will be able to tell you what my new grandchild is!

Hugs To All….

A tutorial using my new Go! Baby Fabric cutting machine.

I had a design in my head and I needed to get it out….Once I got my new Go! Baby Fabric Cutting machine I could start!!

I got 3 dies with my Go! Baby….they are

The 2 1/2 inch strip cutter, The Rick Rack, and the Go! Birds. I have put links into the pictures which will take you to the web pages that they are on at Accuquilt.

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First up I cut two lots of strips of the green fabric and then two strips of the pink fabric and then sewed these together along the length of the strips.

Then I laid these strips on to the strip die cutter and cut several pieces for the 4 patch squares.

Then I cut 4 squares of the pink fabric to make the centre part of the wall hanger.

The centre pink lengths and outer borders were cut on the 2 1/2 inch strip die cutter too. I love how easy it does this for me. There is minimal wastage too.

After this I cut the Rick Rack using my Rick Rack die cutter on my Go! Baby fabric cutting machine.

I love my Go! Baby fabric cutting machine…..

I put the thinner Rick Racks on the corners and blanket stitched these down. You can either do this by hand or machine…I did mine by machine.

Then folding the larger Rick Rack in half and pressing them, I then trimmed one side of the humpy bits and then blanket stitched these onto the front of the wall hanger.

To get this.

Then it was time to cut out the birds.

I didn’t cut mine with vlisoflex ironed onto the back but you can do this if you want to. I lightly glued the birds onto the wall hanger and then blanket stitched around them. I have yet to stitch some legs for them and do the quilting but I will do that. I just wanted to show you how much fun I had.

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Then I cut more strips for a quilt I am doing and these were folded to get the width of the fabric lengths. I will use these for the bindings on the quilt.

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I am flying over to Western Australia on Wednesday to see my new grandchild. He/she will be born tomorrow by C-section and I am so excited and of course the proud parents are too.

This will be Nick and Tara’s first child and it nearly was born on their wedding anniversary but won’t and it will be on the 11th October 2011. So 11-10-11…..how special is that?

I can hardly wait to have cuddles of my new grandchild and to see my kids and get cuddles from them and my two gorgeous grandsons as well. Ohhh…lots of cuddles for me soon. It’s been a while. The last time was when my son got married last October.

Getting a little bit emotional here now. Squish squish. lol…..remember that show Absolutely Fabulous when the mother was supposed to be all sad and cry and she couldn't so she would just say squish squish darling! Loved that show.

I will be taking my laptop with me so will be able to keep track of all the goings on in blog land etc. and will be able to show off my new grandchild too …… I am coming home next Monday, so not going for long this time.

Take care everyone and hugs to all

Covering a tin….

I had these tins waiting very

patiently for me to cover them.

This adventure meant I had to find my hot glue gun so I could use it.

Then I had to sort out two different fabrics for each tin.

I picked two different reds for one and two different greens for the other.

Measure the circumference of the tin and add an inch by the height of the tin plus 5 inches.

So my tins fabric worked out to be a 13 1/2 x 9 inch rectangle.

The top is 13 1/2 x 3 inch rectangle.

Fold back one end by 1/4 inch and press. Wrong sides together and the shorter end.

Place dots of glue up the tin and place tin on the fabric on the end that hasn't been turned back. (Wrong side of fabric on to tin). Roll the tin over the fabric so to encase the tin. Put some dots of glue on to the bottom of the tin and fold back the fabric so that it sits flat and smooth.

Dot some glue around the inside top of tin and fold back the fabric in to the tin, making sure it is smooth.

Next…

Fold over 1/4 inch on both long lengths onto wrong side of fabrics of Top rectangle and press. Fold over one end (wrong sides together) and press.

Place around the top of tin and making sure it is evenly placed around. Lift the corner of the end that isn't folded back and dot a glue under and then secure this end. Randomly place dots of glue under the strip to secure and making sure the ends are aligned dot with glue and secure the folded end in to place.

Decorate with buttons or bows or what ever takes your fancy and use the tins for storing pencils or your bits and pieces.

When I was doing Folk Art and Decorative Painting any tin that took my fancy would be painted.

I did these quite a few years ago and my daughter Zoei has them all now as she loved the bees on them. It was an Annie Lang design.

These ones I painted for a friends daughter.

I have done quite a few different designs on tins over the years I was painting but haven't painted much at all lately and now its fabric covered tins and the hot glue gun and burnt fingers!

Hugs to all…….

More little dresses and show and tell.

Sewing always gives me pleasure and for some reason it calms me and makes me think the world is a wonderful place.

Stroking and stashing fabric is another thing that gives me pleasure. I love looking at the beautiful designs on the fabrics and the lovely colours too.

When I used to sew dresses etc. for my daughter, Zoei, when she was little, there wasn't a lot of different prints, so adding lace, smocking, ribbon or pin tucks was a way to make the little outfits more pretty.

This dress I did pin tucks across the top yoke and along the bottom of the dress. I added ribbon to the ruffled capped sleeves and a bow on the front. The ribbon in the pic below looks black but it is red and the bow has long gone.

There is little apple buttons on the back….

She had pretty red ribbons in her hair and red sandals to match. She won the best dressed competition that was running at an event in the town we lived in way back then. Plus she won the competition of the Beautiful 2 year olds. I was so proud of my little girl *big grin* I am still proud of her today *more grins*

Another dress with smocking was made by my auntie and she is also my Godmother. She used to sew professionally many years ago and didn't need a pattern….just cut the fabric out and away she went…so clever!! She does that with knitting too.

Zoei was about 2 1/2 years old there

Close up of the dress…..

Zoei doesn't wear many dresses today…..I wonder if she is like her Mum and loves wearing jeans, pants, track pants or shorts the most. Now and again I will wear a dress or skirt….but only on very special occasions.

What’s your favourite thing you like to wear?

Have a great weekend and

Hugs to all…….

Some almost vintage teddy's.

Remember how I said I would take some pictures of the things I got out of the storage box in this post? Well I have finally taken them.

My son’s wife is due to have their first baby next month and Nick (my son) knew I had his teddy from when he was a baby packed away and asked if I could send it to him as he wanted to show his wife (Tara).

So that prompted me to dig around and find it amongst all the other baby things I had packed away. Nick is 37 and so this teddy isn't young and almost a vintage one….I think something has to be 40 years old to be classed as vintage. Anyway along with this darling teddy was this very much played with teddy.

 

He is missing his eyes and was rather shabby and I wasn't game enough to wash him like I did the blue one, so will leave him ‘as is’. Although I think he should have new eyes tho.

I washed the little dresses I sewed for my daughter Zoei,  that I had packed away too. I kept a few of the clothes my baby's wore as mementos.

These ones I sewed ‘smocking’ on them and I taught myself how to sew clothes and smocking from books, so I was pretty proud to have done these for my baby girl. Zoei is now 30 so these little dresses are not new either.

So that is a couple of the dresses I did and will show you more another time.

I sewed quite a lot back then and even sewed some clothes for a friend who had a daughter two weeks after I had Zoei.

Loved it then and love it now …..nothing much has changed hehehe.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend and it’s Father’s Day here in Australia on Sunday. So hugs to all the Dads!

Hugs to all……

Happy Birthday to my daughter :)

It’s my daughter Zoei’s birthday today and she is 29 yrs old!! Zoei is my baby and I can’t believe it’s 29 years ago that she was born.

Happy Birthday my darling and I wish I was there with you to celebrate your day but Melbourne is just a bit too far to hop in the car and pop over to see you.

This was Zoei when she was a little tot :)

and here she is today ….well a few months ago :)

Love you Zoei and big hugs sweetie pie :)

hugs to all………Vicki