Treasured

Here's the finished result of what I was up to yesterday.

A friends little boy turned one last week. Sam's birthday party clashed with Nico's (I swear, the babies and toddlers and kiddies in my life have more social events than me), so I'm visiting him today.

A few people commented on the clown fabric yesterday. It's a few years old now, but it's Michael Miller Clown Capers.

Funnily enough, Sam's mum had originally bought the fabric to make something for his old brother (who is now four), but she never got around to it and so the fabric was gifted to my stash!

Anyway, I whipped up a couple of drawstring bags to hold his treasures, using my quick and easy tutorial.

I still had a little size 1 t-shirt in the stash, so with a little bit of dragster design, and some applifix....

... he now also has a very cool little man tee!

Tutorial - An easy way to create fabric letters for applique

A friends little boy has a birthday coming up very soon, and he needs a new pencilcase.

I really wanted to personalise it with his name, but I also wanted to use my favourite font, so I came up with this super simple solution.

Download the PDF Tutorial 

You will need the following:

A sheet of A4 sized Freezer Paper
Inkjet printer
A piece of fabric large enough for your printed letters
A piece of fusible webbing the same size as your fabric (I use applifix)
Sharp scissors
Iron

Step 1:

Create your chosen letters using Microsoft Word (or any other such program). Place the sheet of A4 freezer paper in your inkjet printer, taking care to ensure that the print will end up on the paper side (not the waxy coated side).

Print the letters onto the freezer paper.

Step 2:

Cut your piece of freezer paper down to an appropriate size.
Cut your chosen fabric so that it's a bit larger than your freezer paper.
Cut your piece of fusible webbing the same size as your fabric.

Step 3:

Place your fusible webbing onto the back of your fabric (making sure the fluffy gluey side is touching the back of the fabric), and iron into place.

Leave the backing paper intact.

Step 4:

Place the freezer paper on top of the fabric and iron into place (waxy coated side faces the fabric).
I used a rajah cloth on top to protect my iron from the ink.

There will now be a paper layer on both sides of the fabric.

Step 5:

Using a very sharp pair of scissors, cut the letters out.

Step 6:

Peel the backing paper from the fusible webbing and place your letters onto the piece of fabric which will be appliqued, and iron into place.

It's best to use a rajah cloth or scrap of fabric to protect your iron from the ink.

Follow the correct manufacturers instructions for the brand of fusible webbing that you're using.

Step 7:

Once cooled, carefully peel off the freezer paper.

Step 8:

Now you can choose to do whatever you wish - machine stitch, hand stitch, straight, blanket, zig-zag.... whatever takes your fancy!

 
I used the Zippered Pouch project from Nikki's book, You Sew Girl to create this fully lined pencilcase using my Dragster Dominoes Fabric and the appliqued fabric letters.

Now I just have to wrap it up for the birthday boy!

A different type of gift...

Appliqued tees - Dragster Dominoes Fabric

I'm off to a little christmas lunch gathering on Friday with a couple of girlfriends and their kiddies.

In previous years, I've managed to make all of their christmas gifts myself, but as the families have expanded, it's become a little more difficult.

This year I started making, collecting, and swapping earlier.


Sam, Cate, and Lily are getting some lovely Beccasauras appliqued tees (which I forgot to photograph before they were all wrapped), Belle is getting a gorgeous Beccasauras tunic top (also forgot to photograph).
Cate is getting the superb Polly Pratt dress that I won at Sew It Together, and Lily is also getting a little dress that I made a while back. The girls are also getting some beautiful hairclips that I bought at the Daylesford Makers Market a few weeks ago.

I actually managed to make the pressies for Connor and Jack. I followed Nikki's tutorial for the belts. I had no idea what waist size the boys are (and there was no-one on hand to measure), so I just googled garment sizing and used those measurements - hope they fit eeeek! Also, I didn't have the right size D-rings on hand so I substituted small slide-adjusters instead.

I know that kids don't get very excited about receiving clothes instead of toys for christmas, but at least their mums will be happy!

PS - Thanks so much for all of the lovely comments on yesterdays post and via Facebook - some very generous people have already called 131495, or booked their next blood donation appointment online - what a superb effort!

A Birthday Wrap

It's Nico's 3rd birthday today, so he's having a little BBQ and party..... and they've even decided to run the biggest horse race in the country on the same day to celebrate (maybe I should have used a horse print)!

I've made him this sweet little texta wrap....

With a velcro closure for little three year old fingers.

I decided late yesterday afternoon to make a couple of appliqued tees to go with the texta wrap, only to find that I've either completely run out of applifix, or I've just lost it amongst the mess (which could be entirely possible).

Desperate times called for desperate measures, so I came up with an alternative.

I used some medium light interfacing on the back of each fabric square, and then used basting spray to hold them in place on the tees while I stitched them down. I tried to do a close zig-zag stitch all the way around, but for some unknown reason, my machine just hates doing the zig-zag. Even though I use gutterman thread, it constantly breaks and jams up. Drives me nuts!

Anyhow, I did lots of extra stitching because I didn't have the applifix to secure it. Hopefully they'll wash and wear just as well as normal.... fingers crossed.

PS - Just a little end note: Lots of bloggy peeps seem to have changed their settings lately, which means that your blog can't be read in a reader such as Google Reader. No photos show up, just a few lines of text from the beginning of a post and that's all. Might be worth checking up on if you have - I'm missing out on reading lots of my faves at the moment.

My Creative Space

In todays creative space.....

Mr X and I are working on a birthday pressie for the twins who are turning two very very soon.......
Wowee how time flies!

A couple of t-shirts from Rivers, a robot drawing by Mr X, and some nice colourful textas.

We're using all of these to create one of a kind appliqued tees using the ink-jet printable fabric that I have left over from my Supasel Softie..... except that now my scanner has decided to chuck a conniption and won't talk to the PC. Aaaggghh!

The queen of creativity.

Twins Update

I spent the day with the twins today (Zane on the left, Noah on the right).......and they were wearing the gorgeous appliqued tops that Corrie gave them...they looked so sweet!

They spend most of the day asleep so it's very hard to get a photo of them both awake together at the same time.

Twins Pressies

I promised a photo when I posted last week..... it took a while but here it is....
This is the gorgeous pressie that Corrie made for my sisters twins who are now due to arrive on June 10th.

Beautiful appliqued singlets and nighties....aren't they cute!

Lovely Mail

I had a lovely unexpected suprise when I checked the mailbox thisafternoon!
A gorgeous quilted potholder from Nicola at Nicola's Daisies all the way from New Zealand...

I'd completely forgotten that she was going to send me a Pay It Forward gift.
Look at that beautiful hand stitched binding......I haven't had the patience to try hand stitching a binding yet but this may just give the inspiration to have a go!


There's also beautiful hand stitching on the applique and also around each of the petals.
Thankyou so much Nicola, I love it!