Bye bye 2011, I really liked you. Hello 2012, I think I'll really like you too!

So it's 2012 now.  Wow, 2011 has flown by!

But it has been fun.  Since my sister forwarded me a link to Made by Rae's Big Butt Baby Pants back in January, I discovered the awesome wide world of internet sewers, and subsequently renewed my love of sewing, and started this here little blog.

So, inspired by Sophie's lovely post here and Jessica of "a little gray"'s The Year in Sewing, here are the highlights from my year in sewing (with a little knitting added in)!

It's nice to see it all laid out, when you're just doing a project here and there it doesn't necessarily feel like you've accomplished that much, but by recording in on a blog and gathering it up in a collage, you realize you did!  And the collage above isn't even quite everything!

So 2011 made me more confident in my sewing.  It felt real nice to know my sister and mom (who has been sewing for decades and decades) were proud and impressed by the growth of my sewing abilities and my endeavours!

To sum up the year in sewing:
- I discovered the awesome world/community of sewers on the 'net
- I learned more about sewing with knits
- Got more confident with zippers
- Learned the importance of pressing and pinning and became ok with ripping out seams.
- Making handmade gifts is awesome (I love the process of finding and deciding on projects)
- Oh and I learned to knit!

So what's in store for 2012?
- Get even better at sewing, and tackle more complex patterns.
- Make more adult stuff, particularly dresses (I'm currently obsessed with vintage shirtdress patterns for example) and not be scared of altering a pattern.
- Try some refashioning (I have some of R's (aka Mr. Bear's) clothes just waiting)
- Make more cute things for M of course (aka Squiggles)
- Continue to not buy any new clothing as much as possible (and make things when needed)

So to finish this post off, I just want to add a thanks to all the awesome bloggers/sewers/pattern and tutorial makers etc out in Internet land for sharing all your awesome stuff! Here's to more lovely awesomeness in 2012!

J

Handmade Christmas

So I had a plan to make something for my family in town this year.  And I actually succeeded!  The planned projects changed in a few cases, but in the end I was pretty happy with everything, and I think the recipients were too.  So just cause I want to, I'm gonna show you some pictures and a bit of info on the things I made.

First up in no particular order, a chair organizer for my Father-in-law made using this tutorial at Sew for Home

Gardening aprons for my sister from the pattern in One Yard Wonders.  Fabric for all of these are various Amy Butler designs with some co-ordinating fabric purchased from a great local quilt store.

One for My Mother-in-law

And 0ne for My sister-in-law

An apron for my Mom (last one she had was made by my sister some 20 years ago) of my own concoction, as I couldn't find anything I thought she would like.  Every pattern was either too simple, or two frilly.  I'm not super happy with it, but I think she like it.  Fabric is from the Metro Cafe collection by Robert Kaufman, purchased from the the lovely Fresh Modern Fabrics

Manly cowls for Mr. Bear and his brother using this tutorial for the Boy Trifecta (fabric for both is soft brushed cotton from the local fabric chain store)

I also made a notebook envelope (from One Yard Wonders) for my cousin's 9 year old daughter as part of the Sinterklaas gift exchange with my extended Dutch family earlier in December.  These pictures are way awesome than mine because my cousin is a great photographer!  I aspire to eventually take lovely pictures like her!

And lastly, my Mother-in-law had a birthday early in December so I made her a tote bag.  She loves dusty rose pink and tealy blues, hence the fabric choices.  The main fabric is Amy Butler with some other fabric bought along with the tote bag pattern again from the local quilt store

Phew! Glad that rush is over, now what to make next?  Maybe something for the boy?  Or for me?  If you check out my boards on Pinterest, it may become obvious I'm currently obsessed with shirt dresses, particularly vintage shirt dresses, maybe I'll have to make one of those next!

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and holiday season!

Midwest Modern Baby

I've been sewing up a storm lately, but alas, I haven't been able to blog most things due to their gifty nature.

But finally I can start!  I gained a new niece back at the very end of November, and so I sewed her up a few cute girly things and sent them off to Australia.  It's nearing summer there, so I thought she needed some sun protection, hence an excuse to make another of Rae's Peekaboo Bonnets!

Note how I was actually able to centre and line up the fabric nicely in the different sections, I wasn't sure it would work!  I also just piped the printed side, because I like the look better, and just lined it with some left over yellow fabric.   I love piping, and in hind site,  I wished I'd made piping, as the pre made colour selection at my local fabric store is pretty lame!

And of course, I needed to make something to go with the bonnet, so I made up a little jumper.

It's a slightly modified version of New Look 6576.  I reversed and rounded the button closure, and added a pocket for extra interest, inspired by these jumpers I saw on Soulemama. I had dreams of trimming the whole thing with bias tape, but that turned out to be a very silly and almost impossible (at least for someone of my current skill level) idea.  I'm loving the look of piping/edging things, so I'll have to try again with something else soon!

The fabric is both from Amy Butler's Midwest Modern line, and I thought it was perfect for these, as my brother doesn't like pink, and I thought my sister-in-law would like it too!  Not your typical baby clothes fabric, but for that I like it!  And I have a super soft spot for bluey greens!  While they aren't perfect (like looking at it now, the pocket might be a bit of kilter and maybe should have been put on a bit higher), I really love these pieces, and I hope my little niece (and her parents do too!)

I'm dreaming of a tealy blue Christmas

It's Christmastime!  Just a quick post to say that and show you some of the felt ornaments I made using various inspiration/tutorials I collected over on my Holiday board on Pinterest.

I made them in a bid to make our tree more toddler friendly.  Did it work? sort of, at least when he pulls them off and runs around with them, injuries are less likely :)  Otherwise I've just cut down on the number or ornaments/decorations, and try to distract him away!  Good luck to me I say!

Either way, some of them turned out, some not so much.  And there are more I'd like to try next year.  One bonus with making your own ornaments is you get to pick the colours you want, and I love my teal blue, green and bronze colour scheme, but finding nice tealy blue ornaments was hard, so these ones have upped the tealy blue ornament quotient on the tree.

Yay.  Next post up will be my first one showing the gifts I've been making for people.  Most I'll have to wait to post till after Christmas, but a few can come earlier!

Gifting a figure eight

Just a quick post today to show you the scarf I made my cool sister-in-law for her birthday.   Yes blog readers, this a post with adult clothing, shocking, I know...

I just gave it to her today (a few weeks late, sorry sis!) but I hadn't quite finished it last I saw her.  I blame the hand stitching required to finish it up and leave the fabric loop open and have it sit nicer :)

Either way, now I can finally blog it!

I first saw this scarf on Made by Rae, and though, oooo pretty.  She used Anna Maria Horner's blog tutorial found here to make her scarf, so I did the same!  AMH uses a lovely voile and velveteen combo, and I did something similar, using those pretty fabric I've been meaning to make something with for a while (which I think could be called a voile, or close to it anyway), and some plain purple (yes it is purple, despite what my crappy quick shot above makes it look like) velveteen from the local chain fabric store.

The velveteen definitely makes it cozy, with the light voile keeping it light.  But boy, that velveteen can stretch if you let it!

I love this scarf, and will definitely be making myself at least one, very, very soon!

Where has all this fabric come from?

The fabric I ordered a few weeks ago on Etsy from Fresh Modern Fabrics has arrived!  And boy it's nice looking.  Originally I had just planned to order some of Melody Millers "Ruby Star Rising" Transistor radios and viewfinders for Squiggles.  But then I saw that they still had some of Lizzie House's Castle collection.

Let just say I really really like castles and Medieval stuff, so I had to get some.  For what? Not sure yet, but I wonder if I can pull off making something for me from it?

The other bit of fabric is for a christmas gift.  We plan on a pretty minimal Christmas this year.  We are only buying a few things, the rest I'm making.  And I'm not necessarily making that much either.  We really want to move to quality, not quantity and start to teach Squiggles that he doesn't need to get lots of stuff to have an awesome Christmas.

I also visited a local quilt shop to buy the rest of the fabric for the handmade gifts.  This store stocks some of the nice designer fabrics I see online.  Like Amy Butler, as seen frequently below.

They also had this awesome fabric with a print of an old paris map. Awesome.  And since then, I've seen online that the same collection (3 Sisters for Moda)  includes fabric with old building plans on it.  Even awesomer, I'm hoping they get some of that.  And if so, I will be buying a bunch to make something for me!

I do heart fabric, yes, yes I do...  Anyone else already planning/making Christmas gifts yet?