Made By Bronwyn

Life goes on

2012-02-10T23:51:00.003+11:00

A new year, a new school and new school clothing to label. No reason it can't be done creatively! Inspired by a Craft Gossip post featuring a project by RadMegan of In Words and Pictures, Austin's hat will stand out from the crowd.

Template cut from paper (printed from PC)

Chalk used to outline letters

Hand embroidered

Finished!

A Missoni Maxi!

2011-12-29T17:17:00.001+11:00

Yes, got my hands on even more missoni fabric - this time from the fabulous Gorgeous Fabrics, who called it the "Super Fabulous Milan Novelty Knit - Multi." Maxis being the in thing right now, I calculated that a generously cut yard would go around me, and be long (wide) enough to fit from shoulder to floor. Fortunately Gorgeous Fabrics do cut generously, and this is the result.

80% of the dress was completed in one night - the divine Sarah, who actually went to fashion school, pinned the fabric onto me, we sewed, cut, sewed some more, bound the neckline, cut the binding off the neckline, re-cut and re-sewed the neckline, drank wine and shifted furniture, all in about 3 and a half hours. The binding on the arms was completed in another hour, another day. Sarah tried to get me to use a pattern, but when you are built like a stick and have a tank top you can copy, who needs a pattern? As I kept saying, "let's wing it!" And we did!

Cardmaking with Vintage Papercuts

2011-11-27T12:01:00.001+11:00

See Vintage Papercuts for details of how to purchase.

A patriotic patch

2011-10-11T09:27:00.000+11:00

Before

During

After

(And I'm not even Bristish). Inspired by Make it and Love it (via Craft Gossip), I mended a hole in Austin's jeans with some striped fabric:

Austin's Gruffalo birthday party - the play

2011-09-12T07:20:00.000+10:00

We held a Gruffalo birthday party for Austin for his 4th birthday. We acted out the story ("The Gruffalo" by Julia Donaldson). The family played all the parts - Austin (4 that day) was the Mouse, Thomas, (7) was the Fox, the Owl and the Snake and Jonathon (old enough to know better) was the Gruffalo. Bronwyn narrated. Click here to see the video.

Some stills:

Austin's Gruffalo birthday party - the costumes

2011-09-11T22:21:00.000+10:00

The Mouse - felt ears and a furry tail

Ears sewn onto an elastic headband

The Fox - an orange jumper, cat mask
painted in fox colours, and two pieces
of fur to make a bushy tail

The Owl - wings inspired by Prudent Baby
and round glasses

The Gruffalo - more fur than you ever want to see, cut into pieces and sewn onto a t-shirt.
Purple spikes, horns and tusks made of felt. Orange sunglasses from eBay

Baby Gruffalos - felt horns and fur ears

sewn onto elastic headbands for all guests

Austin's Gruffalo birthday party - the games

2011-09-11T22:16:00.002+10:00

Well, there was really only one game (apart from "Mouse Mouse Gruffalo", a version of "Duck Duck Goose"), and that was "Stick the Wart on the Gruffalo's Nose"! I printed a picture of the Gruffalo's head onto two A4 sheets of paper and stuck them together. Then I bought some green stickers and cut them into wart shapes (you could use dots, but I couldn't find any poisonous green ones in time). I wrote the guest's names on the stickers too, so we knew who stuck what, where!

Even the Gruffalo got into the game!

Austin's Gruffalo birthday party - the party favours

2011-09-11T21:53:00.001+10:00

The possibilities offered by the story of "The Gruffalo" for take home party bags were most entertaining - mouse droppings (chocolate covered sultanas), snakes (lolly snakes) and poisonous warts (again) (yoghurt covered sultanas dyed green with food colouring). No prizes for guessing which ones we had left over at the end....

Austin's Gruffalo birthday party - the food

2011-09-11T21:38:00.005+10:00

Readers familiar with "The Gruffalo" by Julia Donaldson will recall that there are a number of references to food in the book, making catering for a Gruffalo party pretty easy....

There's roasted fox
(potato wedges)

and there's scrambled snake
(made into sausage rolls)

there's owl icecream
(idea from My Cake School
via Craft Gossip)

There are also lots of other ideas in the book for turning into food - the Gruffalo's purple prickles (blue corn chips) and poisonous warts (green grapes). The birthday cake showed the story's hero, the mouse, sitting on a log in the deep, dark, wood....

A cake for Michelle

2011-09-10T19:07:00.001+10:00

For Michelle's 40th birthday. Thank you to Fiona Ell for the royal icing and to Helen Hall for the cookie cutters used to cut the royal icing.

A charming snake (or a snake charmer?)

2011-09-08T20:42:00.000+10:00

I had to make a snake costume for Thomas (for reasons which will soon become apparent), and was stuck as to how to do it. I had a "snakeskin" print shirt from a St Vincent de Paul charity shop, but most snake costumes end up looking like a kid in a tube of fabric.

Instead I started a word association, and came up with a snake charmer. Essentially I turned the snakeskin shirt into a long tunic or kameez, which comes down to the knees, with a nehru collar for good measure, and used the offcuts to make a turban - decorated with a jewel and feathers.

Why a snake? Watch this blog!

The zipper foot is really getting a work out!

2011-06-26T16:10:00.000+10:00

Having conquered my trepidation over inserting a zip in a garment, I've gone zip crazy!

Thomas needed a new pencil case for school (as, ironically, the zip broke on his old one). He desperately wanted a Smiggle zipper one, but they were all out of the large size at the local Smiggle stores. So, as is the lot of children with crafty Mums, he got a home made one. Initially reluctant, when I pointed out that this meant he could have any colour he wanted, he soon decided it was a good idea and we set to work.

The zips were purchased at The Needlecraft Emporium and Fabric Cave for .50c each, They had a great range of colours. However, if you want a cheaper option, The Remnant Warehouse has them for 3 for $1! Perhaps not as wide a range, but it depends what you are after. The Remnant Warehouse also has other great trims, like the tape measure tape we used.

We laid out the zips in the order we wanted the colours:

These are all different lengths as I was going for particular colours, not necessarily sizes. If doing it again I would make sure all the zips were at least 5cm (2 inches) longer than the finished size, so there would be plenty of length to play with, without the danger of sewing over the metal end point sof the zips.

Then I sewed them together (suing a zipper foot). Put right sides of the zips together and sew along the edge using a small straight stitch. Sew them all together so you have a tube of zips. Then get ready to sew down the sides.

Open the zip at the top that will be your main opening zip during this process so you can turn it the right way out when you have sewn down the sides.

I also sewed a heavy binding over the raw ends of the side seams inside the case.

Another lesson - make sure you use an odd number of zips, so you don't get all the zip tops meeting at the same place on the sides:

Finished!

The happy recipient.

Who's afraid of the big bad zip?

2011-06-23T10:28:00.000+10:00

Not any more! First garment I've ever made using a zip! Fabric purchased from The Remnant Warehouse on Saturday 18 June; sewn up on Sunday 19 June and worn out that night! A new record from shop to sewn.

Wool fabric with border design; left over flower appliqued above design on right in photo. Fabric sewn into a tube, invisible zip inserted, and darts in front and back.
$14.95 for fabric (1m) plus .40c for zip.

Baby bunting

2011-06-18T16:38:00.001+10:00

Two months, 3 friends, 4 (four) baby boys! Congratulations to Susan, Tina and Caroline. I made each of you a card:

(Spot the two little onesies, above?)

A 1910 costume for Thomas

2011-05-25T14:19:00.001+10:00

Cap from Sarah, white shirt from Vinnies, pants from Josephine, vest from a bag of old clothes (again from Sarah's), socks from Dad. Shoes model's own!

My costume was similarly cobbled together - hat, blouse and boots my own, dress from my Mum (made in 1979!), jacket from Vinnies too.

Another cake for Isabella

2011-05-22T22:11:00.000+10:00

This time for her birthday party.

Isabella's birthday present

2011-05-22T22:08:00.000+10:00

Isabella's Mum Jean mentioned that Isabella would love a papercut of a bird in a cage, as seen here. So I made her one.

Cake for Isabella

2011-04-26T16:25:00.005+10:00

Jean is fast turning into my best customer! Ballerinas piped in coloured white chocolate onto baking paper with stencil behind (used these images, resized in PhotoShop). Cake iced in buttercream, with ballerinas simply placed on.

An upmarket chalkboard

2011-04-24T16:47:00.002+10:00

Take one frame from a secondhand store:

Add a board from a hardware store, blackboard paint, and a little bit of work, and this is what you get:

A doona cover for Austin

2011-04-21T16:39:00.001+10:00

The doona cover was "made" by me, in as much as it was a queen sized doona cover and is now a single doona cover!

Cake for Jean's mother-in-law

2011-03-31T13:08:00.000+11:00

Thanks for the commission, Jean!

A little something on the side

2011-03-24T10:34:00.001+11:00

It's not that I haven't been busy, I've just been elsewhere - at Vintage Papercuts. Please come and visit, or see you at our market stall on Saturday 26 March 2011 at Greenwich Public School, 32 Kingslangley Road Greenwich.

A 21st birthday tower

2011-03-13T15:13:00.001+11:00

We were invited to the 21st birthday party of Emily, our neighbour's daughter. I offered to make a cake for the party, and this is what I made:

The component parts:

60+ cupcakes
70+ chocolate butterflies
2 cups of buttercream

Cakes fit for a princess

2011-02-12T20:53:00.005+11:00

Do you have a little princess in your life? Here's a simple cake decoration, made with coloured white chocolate, that will (literally) crown your next lot of cupcakes!

Here's the how to:

1. Put jam tart pan (like the one in the picture - the sort with round depressions in it that you would make jam tarts in) in freezer.

2. Melt and colour white chocolate. (For Australian residents, it seems Spotlight now have colours for white chocolate, amongst their party / cake supplies [at least at Birkenhead Point, Sydney]. This colour was achieved using the red.)

3. Put white chocolate in snap lock bag, squeeze out air and seal.

4. Snip corner off bag for piping. If you are concerned about using snap lock bags for piping, the Mega Crafty blog shows you how to reinforce your zip lock bag for piping.

5. Retrieve tart tray from freezer. Pipe a line of chocolate across the deepest part of the pan, side to side.

6. Choose a mid point, and pipe loops above it, starting and finishing on the first line. Continue to pipe loops starting and finishing at roughly the same point. Five or six loops should do it.

7. Pop tray into freezer.

8. In 5 minutes chocolate tiaras should be set, and can be slid from the tray.

9. Make cupcakes, slather on the butter icing, and crown with a tiara. Ta-da!

Thank you to my friend Sarah, who not only (cleverly) had a daughter with a party this weekend, but made the cupcakes and took photos of them.

I made the front page of Babyology!

2011-02-07T17:26:00.001+11:00

So, not much "making" as such going on, but a whole lot of self promotion! My earlier post about Austin's 3rd birthday was turned into an article for Babyology:

I made the top 3!

2011-01-11T21:48:00.000+11:00

On 6 January 2011 Craft Gossip listed the top 10 most viewed posts on Craft Gossip:

And there at number 3 was Craft Gossip's link (see below) to my pettiskirt tutorial! Yay!

Thank you Craft Cossip and all the readers of Craft Gossip for making me top 3 in 2010!

A cake for Lisa

2011-01-05T22:23:00.000+11:00

It was Lisa's birthday while I was visiting Perth so I whipped this little number up for her:

And here's what I learnt. Don't make the chocolate butterflies too flimsy, or they are hard to work with. And if you put a ganache covered cake in the fridge it will sweat when it comes out of the fridge. But then when it's summer in Perth you don't have much choice. And it was delicious!

Take one "free size" kaftan...

2010-12-12T16:33:00.004+11:00

I loved the fabric, and it was half price, so I thought I'd see what I could do with it...

How it looked
on the website

How it looked on the floor

Next step - sew
offcuts together

A little work with the scissors and

sewing machine, and "Voila!"

A pettiskirt for Jess

2010-12-12T16:19:00.000+11:00

Jess' Mum asked me to make a pettiskirt for her for Christmas. She asked me months ago - so when did I start? Last Friday, of course! But it turned out well - in fact I think it's the best one yet! The bottom layer is about 12m long. The frill used at least 35m of chiffon ribbon.(Looks familiar? Sue said she wanted one just like the one I'd make for the Greenwich School Fundraiser). Thank you Sue for being my first paying customer.

Costumes for a (small) class production of Little Red Riding Hood

2010-12-06T15:45:00.001+11:00

When my 6 yr old son came home from school and said he and his friends wanted to perform "Little Red Riding Hood" for the class, I sprang into action.

We needed an axe for the Woodsman (cardboard, tape, tin foil, on a stick), a mask for the (Big?) Bad Wolf (downloaded, laminated, cut and strung with elastic) a no sew hood for Red Riding Hood (from A Simple Nest - thank you!) and a granny's bonnet (old pillowcase, cut into a circle, create a casing for elastic, thread elastic through), and a basket to carry it in. Done!

Halloweening

2010-10-31T21:15:00.001+11:00

Halloween in Australia is basically a festival pushed by retailers to sell more stuff. The only way to retaliate is to not buy, but make stuff. And when your son wants to be one of these (a Weeping Angel from Doctor Who), you don't have a choice.

And this is how it turned out:

Whilst nowhere near as complicated as this Weeping Angel costume, it turned out pretty well. The mask is a download from the Doctor Who website, although I altered the colour to match the fabric and laminated it for durability. The wings are from the $2 shop, sprayed grey with a water soluable spray paint. Sheer luck meant they turned out the same colour as the costume.

The body of the costume was made with some fabric scrounged from The Fabric Cave, a remnant warehouse, for $6. It was some sort of polyester. I sewed it into a large tube, leaving the top and bottom open, and spaces for sleeves. I then gathered the shoulders, and made a casing for a ribbon around the neck. So the neck is big enough to step into, then tightens with the ribbon. An elastic band around the waist pulls it in for the draping effect. It was easier to do sleeves than to think about how to colour arms!

Slots were cut in the back to allow the wings to poke out. I also made a casing around the hem and inserted a wire coathanger for weight and shape.

And we painted Thomas' ears grey, and sprayed his hair grey too. Next time we'll paint the hands as well!

Gratifyingly, some people on the Trick or Treat trail recognised what he was dressed as!

More Missoni

2010-10-31T11:07:00.003+11:00

Regular readers will now realise I am mad for Missoni. What you see on this site is only a small porportion of the yardage I have of it. I even have a skirt I made a year ago that I have no photos of. Like the owner of Tessuti, where I buy most of my fabric, I swore "no more". But then the owner/buyer for Tessuti saw this, and like me, she couldn't resist.

I purchased the fabric about 2 weeks ago. That's about the fastest "shop to sewn" garment I've ever made.

Why a jacket/cardigan and a skirt? Because for 1.3m of fabric, you can get both, given the width of the fabric. You could make a dress instead, but I think two pieces is more versatile.

I made a movie!

2010-10-15T13:22:00.000+11:00

Thomas came home from school in the final week of term 3 with two bean seeds, which we dutifully planted in cotton wool in a cup. They grew, and one day I noticed that the leaves had turned to face the window. We decided to do an experiment, captured with time lapse photography, to show his year 1 class as news.

Here's the movie on YouTube, made with Windows Movie Maker and some online tools for converting music to the right format.

It's to illustrate how plants turn to the light. The last two frames are the same as the first and (3rd) last frames in the movie (pictured here) to illustrate how much the plant moved - in about 30 mins.

Austin's 3rd birthday

2010-09-11T20:32:00.007+10:00

As featured on Babyology!

Have you ever seen those pictures of impossibly glamorous party tables with colour co-ordinated cupcakes and napkins and party favours? Well, I gave it a go. The theme was red, white and (two colours) blue bunting. Thank you to Creature Comforts Blog for the printable cake bunting and cupcake toppers (which also went on the party hats and party favour noodle boxes), to Sally of Tiddalids for the beautiful fabric bunting (look closely - or click on the picture to make it bigger - to see it in the tree behind the table), and to Kate Landers Events for the printable "happy birthday" bunting strung between the cake stands.

Tablecloth from Ikea, balloons from Balloons and Blooms, Crows Nest, noodle boxes and party hats from Spotlight, cupcake wrappers from Iced Affair and Kitchen Capers and paper plates from Woolworths (home brand!).

A pettiskirt for Darcy

2010-09-04T14:19:00.003+10:00

It turns out that Darcy's birthday is the same day as Austin's, so that seemed like as good an excuse as any for making her a pettiskirt. And I figure the more I make the easier they get????? So much so I have gone back and revised my original tutorial...

My earlier attampts were never as full as the ones you can buy, and the only way around this is to make the bottom layer longer. In my original pattern I had 6 pieces in the bottom layer - ie about 9.6m of fabric. This time I put 8 pieces in - ie 12.8m. The only limitation is the amount of fabric you have and your patience.

You are rewarded with a lot more swing:

And the happy recipient!

Biscuits for the Greenwich Public School election day cake stall

2010-08-20T22:33:00.003+10:00

Saturday 21 August 2010 is Federal Election day in Australia, and as my son's primary school was a polling booth, the P&C decided to have a cake stall to raise funds.

I spent Friday afternoon and evening baking and packaging (chocolate chocolate chip biscuits, peanut butter biscuits, passionfruit yo-yos [melting moments], and, in a fit of enthusiasm, apricot and orange muffins the next morning!) and the P&C had requested we label items with an ingredients list.

Inspired by a recent posting by Emily of Saltwater Kids, I decided to make really nice labels (and I wasn't about to write out an ingredient list 5 times for my 5 bags of chocolate chip biscuits!).

Because I had a lot to say on my labels, I only printed and cut 2 from each 10x15 photo (which I printed at home, as it was the night before!).

Thank you Emily, and thank you Craft Gossip for pointing me in her direction.

A sundress for Fiji

2010-08-09T20:59:00.001+10:00

Spotlight (left) had some jersey fabric, shirred at the top, and hemmed at the bottom. My friend Sarah bought the red and white stripe, which inspired me to buy the navy and white for a sundress for my Fijian holiday.

Sarah kindly marked the hem for cutting (as I stood, as generations of women having their hems taken up have, on the coffee table - Sarah says with wine glass in hand, but it's not true!).

I used the (copious) offcuts for the straps and frill.

Then off to Fiji for some serious location modelling!

Rainy day photoblocks

2010-06-24T22:00:00.008+10:00

Usually when Dad visits he gets to replace all the blown halogen lights in the house. This left me with a stack of these:

I'd been thinking about making some photo blocks for while, since seeing others on CraftGossip.com, but didn't want to make them out of fabric. Nor did I want to make them from wooden blocks, as did Missie Krissie, as my youngest is a "thrower". So small square cardboard boxes were just the ticket.

If I was doing this again I would start by covering the boxes with plain paper and glue, to give a plain base to work on. As it was, I simply sized photos to fit the side of the four boxes, then using PhotoShop, cut the photo into quarters, and "spread out" the photo on the page before printing. This was so I would have paper to wrap around corners when I was sticking it on the boxes:

Choosing photos was fun. You don't often get photos with the subject isolated; often there is another head in the photo. This can work well, and make the puzzle a bit more tricky, if there is a quarter of someone else's head in the shot too.

They came together pretty quickly, and as a final step, and to protect the print and the paper, I wrapped them in clear packaging tape.

(Left) Austin in a photo block;(right) Austin gets to grips with the photo blocks.

My $21.90 Missoni Scarf

2010-06-20T14:47:00.006+10:00

20cm of Missoni Big Jagged Spring @ $89m: $17.80

20cm pink jersey @ $20.50: $4.10

Wearing your new Missoni scarf to the supermarket on a Sunday: Priceless!

Happy Birthday Letitia

2010-06-19T20:37:00.012+10:00

Letitia invited me to her birthday party and I volunteered to make the cake. The "party" was in fact a sit down lunch, but after spectacular entree and mains, people wondered what dessert would be. That would be Bronwyn's cake! Lucky I made a big one. My first ever double decker cake!

Yo Yo biscuits (melting moments)

2010-06-10T16:17:00.006+10:00

My Mum is famous for these, so I want to preserve the recipe for prosperity:

6oz Butter

6oz Plain Flour

2oz Icing sugar

2oz Custard Powder

Cream butter, then add all dry ingredients.

Mix until it forms a cohesive dough; this will take a while. For 5 minutes you will be thinking "there's not enough butter!", but eventually it will come together.

Use a teaspoon to pick up small pieces of dough - about half a teaspoon full (they will expand by about a third on cooking).

Roll dough in your hand to make a smooth ball.

Put on tray.

Use a fork to push ball down and make an indent on the back - but not too firmly.

Bake in a 180degree oven for 10-15minutes, or until they start to brown underneath.

Remove from oven and cool on a rack.

Make icing - icing sugar, little knob of butter, hot water, and your choice of colourings or flavourings (half a passionfruit added to the mix makes a delicious icing).

Put a dob of icing on a biscuit and push another on top - but don't squeeze too hard.

This is why they are called YoYos.

Eat and enjoy!

Now for something completely different

2010-05-22T18:51:00.007+10:00

Can you spot the difference in these photos?

Yes, that's right, Princess Leia has a head!

A couple of months ago the Greenwich Public School in Sydney, Australia, held its annual "Drinks by the Harbour" fundraiser. The theme was "white". My friend Jean was persuaded to go as Princess Leia in the ceremonial scene in Star Wars: A New Hope; ie:

(and see this video on Youtube.)

By "persuaded" I mean that I pointed out that she has the hair and the cheekbones, and I would make the dress and the necklace if she would agree. So that was that.

Turns out we aren't the first to try this - see Kay-dee's page (thank you Kay-dee for the detailed information) and Padme's closet. We used a white maxi dress from Supre (an Australian chain store a bit like UK's Top Shop), a bit of white georgette from my fabric stash, silver lame for the belt, and cardboard and tin foil for the necklace.

Working with the white dress as the base, I made wide straps to cover the shoestring straps of the dress, and also to give me something substantial to sew the georgette sleeves onto. I simply cut large bell sleeves and sewed them in. It is not an accurate copy of the costume (as Kay-dee has made) - more of an homage!

There are lots of suggestions on the web for making Leia's necklace - along the lines of modelling clay or getting a metalworker to beat some metal pieces for you. My idea was simpler and cheaper - cardboard, white glue and (craft) foil.

Simply cut pieces of thick cardboard into pieces roughly the size and shape of the pieces in the necklace, and cover with splodges of white glue - thickly. When dry they will look something like this:

Then, cut pieces of craft foil big enough to wrap around the cardboard, and press into the contours formed by the glue. Then string the pieces together - I used a needle to make a tunnel at the top of each piece of cardboard, under the foil, and threaded tiger tail filament through, finishing with a clasp so I could open it.

Here's another view of the finished necklace:

Finally, I couldn't resist trying it on before I gave it to Jean (we made a better belt than this, though).

And here's Jean rocking the look on the night:

But wait, there's more!

2010-05-17T12:05:00.001+10:00

Mary Ann doesn't like chocolate, but she likes white chocolate, which made the decision about which cake to make for her birthday easy - more (white) chocolate butterflies. Maybe more than strictly necessary, but then it was a big birthday, so I tried to do as many butterflies as she was years old!

When you are onto a good thing.....

2010-04-17T21:30:00.004+10:00

I wondered what the butterflies would look like piped in white chocolate, on butter cream icing... is it just me or do these look like little shepherds or cottage pies (with piped mashed potato on top)?

Made for the mothers' group 6th birthday celebrations.

A smaller group this year (see previous posts for previous years' cakes), hence the smaller cakes.

A pettiskirt for auction at the Greenwich Primary school fundraiser

2010-04-16T22:21:00.001+10:00

And here's another one...

Fabric from AFC-Express. My husband had a trip to the US (from Australia) in February so I addressed an order from them to him in his NY hotel. Ve have vays....

Both boys wanted to model this one!

(Think of the traffic I'd get if I called this blog "Boys in Pettiskirts"!!)

Another butterfly cake for Thomas

2010-03-21T22:07:00.016+11:00

Last year, when he turned 5, Thomas wanted a cake with butterflies on it. This year he didn't specify what he wanted, so I did! And it's another butterfly cake, but not like the last one.

Inspired by Not So Humble Pie - http://notsohumblepie.blogspot.com/2009/12/mini-chocolate-butterfly-cake.html - this is it:

The chocolate butterflies were piped onto oven paper, then set in the freezer. After spreading chocolate ganache on the cake, the butterflies were simply arranged on top.

In terms of effort versus outcome, this is a winner.

A pettiskirt for Ayesha

2010-03-17T21:55:00.002+11:00

Anneliese is a very dear friend from my mothers' group, who has now moved a long way away. Anneliese does a lot for other people but rarely has time for herself or anything as fripperous as making a pettiskirt for her daughter, Ayesha, so I thought I'd step in.

As nylon chiffon is next to impossible to get in Australia, this was an experiment using a stretch tulle. It wasn't as "pouffy" as chiffon, but it swings beautifully, as illustrated by eldest son here.

Austin's counting book

2010-02-17T14:36:00.005+11:00

When my first son, Thomas, was little, I made him a bedtime book as a Kindermusik exercise. One day I'll post some pictures of it - it was a cloth book, sewn of pages with photos and text, printed on fabric. Friends warned me that I was setting myself up for more work - whatever I did for my first I'd have to do for any subsequent children!

Fortunately by the time Austin came along I'd found out you can buy blank board books, and adhesive paper to feed through your printer, and hence this book was born!

It was designed using PhotoShop, then the pages printed on adhesive paper, cut to fit the pages, and stuck on the book. I did set up some of the shots specifically for the book, but others were ones I had already taken.

First, a few pages in the book:

And here are all the pages:

A pettiskirt - or What I did on my summer holidays! (With pattern diagram!)

2010-01-29T22:45:00.003+11:00

So I joined the craze and embarked on a pettiskirt project, assisted by my Mum. The skirt is for Alice, daughter of Michelle. Alice is about to become a big sister so we thought it would be nice for her to have something new and special when the baby arrives.

But there are a lot of people making pettiskirts out there - what's my point of difference? Well, one thing - apart from the fact I had my toddler son model the skirt for the photos, as the recipient wasn't available (and anyway it's a surprise) - if you scroll down, you'll find a PATTERN LAYOUT DIAGRAM for how it's constructed, plus photos of how it came together, to assist anyone else who'd like to make one.

I am indebted to two sites - http://www.sewmamasew.com/forum/index.php?topic=242.0 - and

http://sewingmamas.com/b/downloads.php?do=file&id=414 for their helpful explanations. How does the saying go? "If I have sewn further it is by standing on the sewing machines of others"? Something like that!

And Kerri (@sewmamasew) is absolutely right about polyester chiffon - it frays and it will drive you mad. Remember this when you are at the fabric store. BUY THE NYLON! We forgot and had to overlock most of the skirt....

But it was Sandrahd (@sewingmamas) whose photos made it all make sense. I think I have a visual learning style. For anyone else who needs to see a pattern or a diagram, here goes:

The waist piece (in a satiny fabric) will be, in the finished skirt, one third its length. As you are making a double skirt (with inside layers and outside layers), the waist will be twice one third (ie two thirds) times twice your skirt wearer's waist measurement. Most preschoolers will have about a 20" waist, and twice this is just less than the roll width of most cheap satins (105cm*), so to make your life easy, just cut a piece selvedge to selvidge. Similarly with the layers - you will need at least 18 pieces one third the length of the finished skirt, and the same width as the waist piece - and the ONE GOOD THING about polyester chiffon is that it is easy to tear in a straight line selvedge to selvedge, so it was easy to create the 18 pieces.

This is what it looks like laid out - in diagram, and real life:

The more pieces you add, the more full your skirt. Or, you can add more to the bottom layer for more "pouffiness".
Here's the 18 pieces laid out on the floor. The bottom tier is bunched up to fit in the photo.

The best way to work is to cut all your pieces first, then work from the bottom up. It is much easer to sew each layer onto an ungathered layer, above it, than to sew it togther when all gathered.

First, gather your "fluff", or the frill for the bottom. You will need two or three times the length of your bottom layer, cut into 5cm or 2 inch wide strips (or buy pre cut strips in rolls). Stitch along the middle of the strip with a gathering foot on your machine, or a long stitch if using an ordinary foot (but try turning the tension up and it may gather for you). Pull the threads to gather, but don't gather too tightly or it will be difficult to sew onto the skirt.

When you have a mountain of gathered fluff, stitch it onto the bottom of the bottom layer of the skirt. Don't cut the fluff if it is longer than your bottom pieces - just keep feeding new pieces in until they are all joined by the fluff.

Next, run a gathering stitch along the top of your bottom layer (or use a gathering foot) to gather. Now you'll need to remember your maths. Gather it tightly enough so that the gathered tops fit the (ungathered) bottom of the layer above. So if you are sewing two pieces onto one piece in the layer above, gather each of the bottom layer to half its length.

Sew the bottom layer to the top (ungathered) layer.

In this photo, I've gathered the bottom tier and attached it to the top tier of chiffon. As you can see, I gathered each piece seperately. As I was gathering by hand, it was easier to keep it in manageable chunks, then sew it all together at the end. With the mountains of gathering you are creating, you wont see the joins.

Next, gather the top of your first tier of chiffon. Again, once gathered, the lengths should add up to the length of your satin layer.

All the gathering is done, and the next stage is to join the ends of the satin, so you end up with satin tube with frills.

Then, fold it in half (as indicated by the pressed line, below). Create a casing for the elastic, add a bow, and it's made.

Other websites have a lot more information about the process and the amount of fabric required (at least 4m for a 12" long pettiskirt, I'd say), but I hope that this is helpful to someone.

* I'm in Australia, where we buy fabric by the metre, but most advice sites are in the US, where everything is in inches. Isn't this how the Mars Rover project came apart? Lucky we are only making pettiskirts!

Personalised alphabet board book for Lily

2009-12-31T16:32:00.001+11:00

Lily is the 18 month old (as at Christmas 2009) daughter of friends, Alphonse and Michelle, in London. Using photos of Lily posted online by her adoring parents, a blank board book, adhesive photographic paper and Photoshop, I (secretly) created this personalised alphabet book. (I have pixelated faces for privacy.)

When unwrapped on Christmas day, Alphonse wrote: "Lily’s gift from you is exceptional and drew gasps of admiration from us all. Perfect time for her to receive it too, as she is, of course, massively interested in herself and her immediate world and is becoming interested in letters. Would love to know how you did it." All I can say is thank goodness they had a cat named Viola!

Christmas cards a five year old can make (with a bit of help)

2009-12-19T21:37:00.001+11:00

Thomas wanted to make Christmas cards for some of his classmates and teachers, so we decided to make them together.

We've marbled paper before using the shaving foam and food dye method, so we decided to make marbled Christmas tree shapes on cards. This is how:

1. Marble your paper. Obviously for a Christmas tree, greens are going to dominate. This one had yellow swirls in the green, but red swirls were more seasonal (you just have to be careful not to swirl too much and end up with murk).

2. Grab a stencil - or a cookie cutter - in the appropriate shape, and trace around it.

3. Here's the cutter and the tree shape cut from the paper. Depending on how simple your shape and how dextrous your child, get them involved in cutting out.

4. Lots of Christmas trees.

5. Stick them to blank cards. We added a gold star at the top for a finishing touch.

6. Other uses for marbled paper, cookie cutters and blank cards. The dinosaur shapes are very useful for using up "murky" coloured marbelling, and make great boys' birthday cards.

A prize winning cake

2009-10-26T21:44:00.004+11:00

For Austin's second birthday I made a Gromit doghouse cake, and, as you do, uploaded it to the Wallace and Gromit website (http://www.wallaceandgromit.com/forum/read/39817/1). I then received this email:

Subject: Wallace & Gromit Creation of the Month Top Bun Winner!

Hi there,

Congratulations on your cracking creation! You are the winner of the ‘Top Bun’ award in September's 'Creation of the Month' competition! Please send me your name and address and I will arrange for your Baking Kits to be sent out.

Kind regards,

Kirsten

Kirsten Williams

Web Production Assistant

T: +44 (0)117 984 8994

http://www.aardman.com/digital

Cakes for Kim's Baby Shower

2009-10-26T21:44:00.003+11:00

At last the $10 cup cake stand got a workout!

Less sewing, more baking

2009-10-26T21:43:00.003+11:00

This cake was made for a parent at Greenwich Public school who successfully bid ($40!) for my cake making skills at the annual fundraising silent auction.

Frog Cakes

2009-10-26T21:43:00.002+11:00

These were made for the final Kindermusik class of term 2. We'd been doing a frog song ("There once was a frog who lived in a bog who played a fiddle in the middle of a puddle...") so it seemed like the thing to do.

A witch's cape for Thomas

2009-09-25T13:40:00.002+10:00

Thomas was invited to a fairy party by Sophie Allen, in his class. Surprisingly, he didn't want to go as a fairy, but wanted to go as a witch. Here's how it turned out:

Greenwich Public School's Art Auction

2009-09-22T16:06:00.005+10:00

Every second year the school has parents work with children so that each class creates an artwork to be auctioned to raise money for the school's Parents' and Citizens' Association. I put my hand up to work with Thomas' class, KLM. At the end of second term (July) a bunch of other Mothers and I helped the children marble paper. We achieved some remarkable pages of colour:

(I wasn't just looking for pink, but when more than half the class is girls, that's what predominates!)

I then scanned the marbled pages and reproduced the marbling on thicker card stock, and, inspired by Catherine Swan's work and emboldened by my earlier attempts at something similar, spent the July school holidays hand cutting butterfly shapes, until I had over 50!

Another Mum and I arranged them, mounting them on rice paper, before framing in a shadow box.

The finished picture was over 1m (3 feet) high by 50cm (one and a half feet wide).

This is the children's reaction when they saw it!

At the auction, it sold for $500!

The most amazing art was produced by other classes, too. These are the artworks from the other two Kindergarten classes:

A collage of wrapping paper torn into small pieces or cut into the shape of children's hands.

A colour blindness test made of painted wooden circles, some of them with children's hand drawings on them.

Greeting cards were also produced of the artworks.

This is the butterfly image from the card:

Purple Missoni cropped cardigan

2009-06-13T21:42:00.002+10:00

And here's the cardigan, with the leftover Missoni fabric. Fully lined in purple. Seen here at Christine's 70th birthday party. Obviously the sleeves weren't well matched to the stripes on the body, but then again I'd already had to lengthen a a bit of fabric to cut the second sleeve (hence the binding on the sleeve shown in the photo), so it wasn't too bad an effort.

Purple Jersey Dress

2009-04-25T20:08:00.000+10:00

Here's something I made earlier this year. The fabric was a clearance item at Spotlight, at $4 a metre. This is half of it (ie $5 worth) (plus about three times that in trim!), and the rest became a skirt. It was really just an experiment in sewing jersey for the first time.

Purple Missoni Skirt

2009-04-23T21:40:00.001+10:00

Tessuti were selling this Missoni knit for about $80 a metre. From it I made this skirt, and (photo to come) a cropped jacket. I bought about 1.3m, so 2 garments for just over $100 isn't bad. I finished the elastic in the waist in the car on the way to Justene's farm in April 2009.

Our first school holidays

2009-04-14T14:49:00.010+10:00

Inspired by the art of Catherine Swan, and after a trip to IKEA to spend a $10 voucher on a white shadow frame, Thomas and I marbled paper using the shaving foam and food dye method, then cut and mounted butterflies. The cutting and mounting was more my department than Thomas', I have to admit!

The cake for the mothers' group birthday party

2009-04-04T21:30:00.000+11:00

It has become traditional for me to make the mothers' group birthday picnic cake. Here they are in order:

The first year was a cupcake tower (2005):

The second year (2006) was a number 2 cake with animal candles:

Then a number 3 with smarties (2007):

A number 4 with racecars driving through fields of flowers (2008):

And this year (2009), a number 5 with a rainbow:

Thomas' 5th birthday cake

2009-03-21T20:09:00.000+11:00

Thomas asked for a pink cake with butterflies, but not a butterfly cake. This is what he got. He seemed pleased.