Christmas is nearly here...

and I have made these cute Lego sacks which I talked about in my last blog post. I actually finished these over a week ago but have been too busy organising for Christmas to take the photos and write this post! One of them is for Henry and I am giving the other to my nephews at Christmas time.

The two bags - empty and closed

Both of the sacks were made out of a lightweight denim on the outside with quilting cotton on the inside. If you wanted you could reverse it so the print was on the outside and it would still work fine. The ties are bias binding which I made myself using one of those little binding thingamagigs - which are so much fun to use!

Making these sacks was so satisfying, it's great to make something so easy that will really come in handy. The kids can play with the lego on the surface and then once they're done they just pull the ties and it all stays in the sack without any more cleaning up to do! My cousin had one when we were little and I still remember how much we loved it.



Henry's bag - filled with Duplo

The open sacks

At first I thought they were a bit on the small side even though I used the full width of the 112cm quilting fabric. So when I filled Henry's with the big Duplo sets which his Grandad bought for his birthday I was pleasantly surprised that there was plenty of room left in the bag - awesome! 



It looks just like a big prawn dumpling when it's closed!

If you are interested in making one of these, the tutorial is on the Make it Perfect blog.



I like big butts

....and I cannot lie, the cutest big butt is Henry's cloth-nappied one! Now that summer has come it is so easy to dress him - a cloth nappy and singlet or t-shirt and away we go. The cloth nappies look so sweet on and there are so many advantages - it's way better for the environment and you save loads of money. Only thing is, sometimes you want to dress your baby up a bit more, and most commercially made baby pants are designed for disposable wearers. I can generally squeeze them on over Henry's nappies but they are darned tight and normally won't cover the nappy at the top so they don't look so great on.

So you can imagine my surprise and delight when I stumbled upon this great pants pattern for cloth nappy wearers on Rae's blog. It was just what I had been looking for!

They are pretty easy to make, with only three pattern pieces to cut. I cut a few inches off Henry's to make a summer shorts in lightweight denim. I did make a pretty vital mistake at the beginning, by not lining up the rear panel properly to one of the leg pieces. I should have unpicked it at the time but I thought a bit of wonkiness wouldnt matter. That is typical of my sewing style - I am still learning patience and can be pretty lazy at times...it made for a little bit more work for me later on with lining up the hems! Oh well, I think they still turned out pretty cute and on the plus side they fit Henry so fantastically that I will definitely be making some more. Oh, and I also did an applique on a singlet to match, because I loved the cute Kokka fabric soooo much. Please ignore the shocking look on H's face in the second photo - a very bad shot I know!

Next stop will be lego sacks for Christmas gifts which I' m hoping to get started tonight!!

Hello world of blogging

I'm so excited to be writing my first blog post. I have been reading an awful lot of sewing blogs recently and for some reason I feel the need to share my creations with the world too, even if no one cares to look.

I'm like so many of the other sewing mamas out there. Mum taught me to sew when I was little on a really bunky old singer sewing machine. I always loved art and crafts as a kid but in my teens and early 20s I was more interested in other kinds of fun so it was only in my late 20's that I began slowly to rekindle my passion.

Now with a one year old boy, I have every excuse to sew and am loving it. I am by no means great, just a beginner but with every project I learn something and my skills (and patience) are starting to grow. There are also some great fabrics available now and thanks to the internet I have access to buy them all, even though I live in Perth which has so few great fabric shops.

Anyway, here is project number one completed: a christmas present for my wee man Henry. It is a Peekaboo Toy Sack - a free (YES, FREE!) tutorial on Toni Coward's Make it Perfect blog. I'm filling it with little wooden musical instruments for him and I think he will love it. It was so much fun and so easy to make that I can't wait to whip up some more and solve our burgeoning toy storage problem.

It only took about an hour to make, so if you like sewing I would highly recommend this as a fun project. I'm also planning on making a couple of lego sack's from Toni's blog for Christmas for Henry and my nephews. I am trying to make more meaningful gifts for Henry in a world where there are so many plastic toys.