Catching up

How slack am I??

Two and a half months since my last post! Really, really slack.

Well, I have no excuse. I've been crafting up a storm, so there shouldn't have been any problem! Anyway, to make up for it, I'm going to endeavour to do a catch up post every night until I have caught up.

So, today's post is going to be about the beautiful ABA forum. I joined this forum when my Mr McGillicuddy was a few months old. I wanted a bit of support with my feeding troubles and this was the perfect place to go! Two years later,  I am still hanging around there, for the wonderful warm people and the fabulous parenting tips.

One of the ladies on the forum had a health scare last year and we all rallied around to try to do things to help. One of the things we did was to all knit or crochet squares for a blanket. Another one of the ladies was going to stitch all the squares together, but the arrival of her gorgeous second baby meant life got a bit busy so I offered to finish it off.

A couple of weeks ago, a group of us met up to present her with the blanket -

I think it turned out well! The seaming wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. I can't wait to make another blanket now!

What comes first? The duck or the egg?

Hey Bubbles had a duck themed party recently - see here.

We were lucky enough to be invited and we were all so excited! I started hatching plans (pun intended) for knitted gifts. I'm really really into Susan B. Anderson's book Itty-bitty Toys - I particularly love her chapter on reversible toys.

But what do you knit for a one year old who is having a ducky themed party?

Why, an egg of course!

But this isn't just any old egg. This egg is just about to hatch. Can you see the cracks?

It's hatched! Look, a little duckling!


This wonderful pattern from Itty-Bitty Toys usually has a little blue bird inside of the egg, waiting to hatch. But I wanted to stick to the party's duck theme, so I made a little modification to turn the little blue bird into a duckling. As usual, it was down to the wire in terms of completing the gift and I was crocheting in the car on the way to the party. You'll be pleased to hear that my husband was driving!

Kanzashi Flowers

I've just come home from a fantastic "Kanzashi" workshop with the lovely Melanie from Kimono Reincarnate. The workshop was part of Saviour of the Lost Arts (SOTLA).

I was lucky enough to be one of the 20 people registered for this workshop and along with two of my friends, got to make one of these.

The workshop was fantastic. Melanie explained how to make the "Kanzashi" flowers very clearly. We started off with some beautiful vintage kimono fabric which we cut into squares.

We then did a little bit of folding and sewing and ended up with this -

A little bit more fiddling, we then added some beads etc and voila!

Thanks so much Melanie! I had a great time and I'm so happy with the beautiful "Kanzashi" flower that I made. I can't wait to make some more!

P.S. The photos with the black borders were taken by my lovely and talented friend who also came to the workshop :) - thank you!

Festival of bags

I love to give hand made gifts to people, but I do get a bit stressed out at the thought that they may not like them. I've been looking around for some nice gifts to make for 5 year old girls. I'd thought of the pencil rolls and they're nice, but whenever I've given them as a gift, the recipient has been less than enthusiastic!

But I've had three birthday parties this month and I was wracking my brains for present ideas. So when I saw this tutorial, on Living My Sweet Life's blog I suspected I might be onto a winner! I bought some very very pretty fabric from the wonderful Peppermint Stitches and away I went.

I made a couple of modifications. I didn't do the applique, because

a. I am lazy
and
b. I can't do applique.

I didn't double over the pocket, I just hemmed it. This was because I didn't have quite enough material to double it over, so I did a 4 by 10.5 inch pocket with a hem.

The other difference was that I put the pocket on both sides of the bag (which is why I didn't have enough material for the pocket!)

I also used interfacing, because I had a bunch lying around that I wanted to use up. I don't know if that made any difference to the bag. It certainly gave me a lot of grief!

I also did the strap differently, mainly because I couldn't inside out the strap, I'm too uncoordinated. Whenever I try to inside out things, I end up ripping the sewing! Instead, I cut two 21 by 1 inch pieces of my main fabric and two 21 by 1 inch pieces of my lining material. I turned each long edge in and ironed, then I put one strap of main together with one strap of the lining material and top-stitched along each long edge.

I've made 4 - one for each of the birthday girls and one for my daughter. I think they're really nice - I'm planning on making one more for my son and another for myself, to put my knitting and crochet in. I just have to work out which is my favourite!

Sew-sew

Lots of crafting lately, not a lot of blogging!

I have been knitting, crocheting and sewing. Projects on the go include, a reversible toy for a friend's baby, a shrug for myself, a bag with crayon holder pockets and I'm sure there is more - but true to form, I can't remember any more!

Ages ago, I made a mini nappy bag for a friend's baby shower. It's from One Yard Wonders - which is a pretty cool book.

It looked pretty easy, so of course I left it till the last minute. What I didn't realise was that the change mat was actually sewn into the bag - so assembly was a little trickier (ok a lot trickier) than I thought it would be! It turned out ok in the end.

Nice little gift though. I need some practice with using interfacing, I got into quite a lot of bother with the interfacing in this project. Kept having to rip it off and start again!

Flutterbye

I get a bit confused sometimes. Recently, I spent a couple of weeks crocheting a dragonfly, only to discover that it was in fact a butterfly! Never mind, it is cute...

The butterfly is for a friend's new baby. It was fairly easy, but took a bit of time as there are lots of pieces in this. It's from Kyuuto! Japanese Crafts!: Amigurumi which has loads of lovely little projects in it.

In other news, I sewed sheet bag for Mr McGillicuddy. The poor little fellow has been going to childcare with his sheets in a crusty old grocery bag and we can't have that! I haven't ever sewn a drawstring bag before and because I'm lazy, and always in too much of a hurry, I kind of made it up as I went along. It turned out ok - the drawstring part is a little dodgy, but it works.

Listen

This week, I have three new song obsessions.

Slow Show - by The National

Sunset Mirage by Ghostwood

Pumped up Kicks by Foster the People