Fancy Flappy Welt Pockets

You might remember this pattern from before. It's the Ottobre Relaxed Cotton Pants from the Spring 2013 issue. I made Liam some school pants, using some gabardine back in March.

This time, I decided to include the fancy welt pockets on the back with the flaps. Instead of making button holes and sewing on buttons, I've used my snap press to apply some jeans snaps. I love the way they turned out, don't you?

I also think I may have mastered the fly, although there is a mistake here, can you tell what it is? Clue: these pants are for a boy! Yes, I have the fly back to front, just like Lauren did in The Great British Sewing Bee. I am sure that I followed the directions properly for the fly shield and that dictates which way the fly goes, so I am not sure what went wrong there? Anyway, the fly still works, I doubt anyone witll notice, but next time I will be looking carefully at which way everything goes before I start to put it together.

Oh, and I used a completely different technique for putting the fly together this time too, and I think it really made the whole job way easier and quicker. I watched this video, by Sandra Bezzina on how to insert a fly, but I put the fly shield on first, and just flipped it out of the way as I sewed the rest of the zip (there is no zipper shield in this video) and then flipped it back when I did the bar tacks.

The fabric I used was the stretch drill that mum got for me recently. It is quite sturdy, and has a really good stretch to it. Perfect for climbing all over the play equipment at school as Noah demonstrates here. These are actually Liam's pants, but it was tricky finding time to photograph him in them when the light was right, so Noah is my model.

I also made Liam this windcheater. It's not exciting enough for a whole blog post, so I will pop it in here. I just used a pattern from the Kwik Sew, Sewing for Children book. Between the pants and the windcheater, I estimate I used about seven fat quarters.

YST13 Running totals: in = 172, out = 51, total = +121 

PS. If you would like to add more fabric to your stash, then I suggest you enter my giveaway. There's a rainbow felt pack and an Anne Kelle FQ pack up for grabs!

You have to spend money to make money...

....and sometimes you need to buy fabric in order to use it up. At least that is my story and I am sticking to it! I already had the fabric at the top of the pile, but added the purple and the floral this morning. This adds four fat quarters to my "stash" but more will come off when the dress is made.


SYST13 Running totals: in = 172, out = 44, total = +128

PS. If you would like to add more fabric to your stash, then I suggest you enter my giveaway. There is a rainbow felt pack and a fat quarter pack up for grabs!

Two Blue Birdies

My cousin, Sonya has a fantastic on-line shop, Two Blue Birdies, with beautiful, brightly coloured quilting fabric. She also stocks premium quality pure new wool felt from Holland, fun toy patterns from Ric-Rac and Melly & Me, as well as an array of zippers in multiple colours and sizes.

Two Blue Birdies is celebrating their first birthday this month and to celebrate, Sonya has asked me to have a giveaway! There are two awesome prizes up for grabs including a rainbow felt pack and a fat quarter pack.

The felt pack is valued at $40 and consists of seven pieces of pure new wool felt as per the above photograph. They are 45cm x 25cm in size.This felt is 2mm thick and is perfect for all sorts of projects. You can see the full range of felt in the shop, here.

The fatquarter pack is made up of six fat quarters of Anne Kelle fabric as per the above photo. Three from the Ready Set Go collection and three from the Remix collection. This prize is valued at $30.50. More Anne Kelle fabrics can be found in the shop, here.

All you need to do to enter, is visit the Two Blue Birdies shop, and then leave a comment on this blog post telling me something you would buy from there and what you would make with it.

The two most unique and creative answers will win! 

You can enter once a day, for each day of the competition, but each entry must be unique.

Terms and Conditions can be viewed here

Hottie Challenge - 2013

The Hottie Challenge is on again! You may remember that I participated in the Hottie Challenge in 2011? You can see my entry below. If you are new around here, you might need a bit more background information....


The Hottie Challenge is organised by the Margaret Pratt Foundation who raise money for research to help improve the outomes of organ transplant recipients. The basic idea is that we make a (creative) hot water bottle cover and donate it to the foundation to sell. The hotties don't have to be functional, and can be made from any medium that you like.


My friend, Cam, aka CurlyPops is a recent recipient of a double lung transplant. Cam has heaps more information on her blog, where you can sign up and she will mail you the stuff you need to get started. It only costs $5 to enter and it is such a great cause.

It was a great feeling last time, when my Hottie sold on opening night and raised much needed funds for the foundation. Are you going to join in? Do you have some creative hotwater bottle cover ideas that you could share with me?

Amélie's Jump Rope Dress

As part of Kids' Clothes Week I decided to make Amélie the Jump Rope Dress by Oliver + S. I bought the pattern as a download late last year and it has been sitting in my to-do pile ever since. There were lots of different fabrics in my stash that I would have loved to use for this dress, but it required more fabric than usual. Most things I have about 1m of, but I needed about 1.5m for this dress as the skirt is quite full.

There are some awesome details in the dress. I love the pockets. I was initially thinking that navy or red buttons would be nice, but finally decided on pearl snaps. Pearl snaps may just be my "thing". I love the way they look and they do make getting clothes on and off much easier.

I also love the little tabs that hold up the sleeve cuffs. For the pockets and the sleeve tabs, I just used a snap, the way you would use a stud - with just the female part on the back. They don't need to come undone.

The dress used about 1.5m of fabric, which is equivalent to six fat quarters.


SYST13 Running totals: in = 168, out = 44, total = +124

The Tip of the Iceberg

I visited the AQC (The Australian Quilt Convention) last weekend. I was pretty reserved with my spending at the AQC, limiting myself to just these five fat quarters from Ballarat Patchwork.

Five fat quarters - not too bad, hey? Except that on the way to the AQC we paid a little visit to Rathdowne Remnants. I've been wanting to get some fleecy for Liam for school windcheaters, so I grabbed four metres. I also got a metre of polar fleece to make him a nice warm jacket.

A couple of weeks ago, mum also grabbed me five metres of stretch drill. It will be great for school pants.

All of these fabrics are around 1.5 metres wide, so all up there is ten metres, and each metre is about equivalent to six fat quarters. This means that I have just added 65 fat quarters to my stash! This does not fare well for the SYST challenge....

I saw lots of amazing quilts at the show. My favourite was the rooster quilt called "Cock of the Walk" by David Taylor of Colorado. The detail is amazing.

SYST13: Running totals, in = 168, out = 38, total = +130
Oh dear! We're supposed to be using fabric, not acquiring it!

Kids Clothes Week

It's time for Elsie Marley's Kids Clothes Week. This year it has had a revamp and now has it's own blog and happens four times a year - one for each season. Although it is hosted in the Northern Hemisphere, we can still join in "Down Under", we'll just be sewing in the opposite season, so this time I plan to make Autumn and Winter clothes.



At this stage, I have plans to make Liam a few items for school (oh, I know - booooring!), as well as a dress for Amélie. I'm not sure what else I will make at this stage, but it will most likely be Oliver + S, Ottobre and Kwik Sew patterns I will be using. I might even whip up something from the book, "Sewing Clothes Kids Love". I hope to get some stretch sewing done, as I have some lovely stuff from Crafty Mamas fabrics that is tucked away in my stash. Speaking of Crafty Mamas, if you're a member of their forum, they are having a bit of a Winter Sew Along as well, so if you wanted, you could go and sign up and join in with the fun over there, too.



If you are looking for some inspiration, you can see some of my previous efforts from the challenge here, or you can check out the Kids Clothes Week blog's Flickr group as well.



The challenge runs for seven days and all you do is sew for kids for one hour (or more) per day. You can join in the challenge and check out the blog for more details, by clicking the icon, below.

If you're joining the challenge, especially if you are a fellow Aussie, I would love to hear about it. What are you making?