.4 Little Honey Cowls.

These Honey Cowls have become my go-to "couch" projects. (See my first three here, here and here.) These four Little Honey Cowls have been knitted over the last few months with no particular purpose in mind.

After knitting my first little version of the Honey Cowl for Lil, I was so happy with the finished product that I wanted to use up the rest of the yarn that I had unpicked from my crocheted bag. Not sure that unpicking and reusing a yarn is technically the best thing to do, but for a cowl that is wrapped and losely worn you can't really tell that the yarn has been previously used.

Once again, these cowls were made using Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece yarn (love it). It took exactly one skein to make each cowl. This size was made by casting on 150 stitches, then knitting until 6" wide.

 

We gave the blue cowl to my niece, Maya, for her 8th birthday last week. She looks lovely in it and had a super rainy baptism birthday and wore it all day long. The other three have been put in the present box (oh, how I love having a present box!) ready for some other special little girls birthday in the future.

InstaSummer.

To say our Summer break has been action-packed is an understatement! It feels like just a few short weeks ago that school was ending for the year, and now we are getting ready for the kids to start back again next week.

We have been blessed with lots of family visits, perfect weather and the beautiful nature that surrounds us to make the most of our Summer holidays.

Whilst I haven't been as dutiful at taking photos as I would like to be, I am very grateful for the convenience of my iPhone and Instagram to help me capture some of our special moments. 

We've spent time exploring our local national park with Ranger John. This man is a wealth of knowledge and easily captures the attention of both adults and children alike. If you're ever in town, pay him a visit! * A few movies have been seen - Les Mis being my absolute favourite...wear waterproof mascara! * Lots of twilight BBQs at the park and river mouth fishing. * A rare morning sleep in followed by cuddles in bed until 8:30am. (I can guarantee that as soon as school starts again and we need to be organised, somehow their body clocks will change and their early mornings will turn into sleep ins!)

 

A brisk New Years Eve walk on the beach followed by one crazy family disco. We did have fun. * Bushwalks at National Parks and Leven Canyon with visiting family.

Many a river swim in a beautiful river taking us back to our childhood when we would swim in the river with Pop and a squealing Nan! * Farm visits with Bruce and Rhonda - one of our favourite country places to be.

Beach picnics. * Renovation rescue begins at Move Strong Gym. * We get an abundance of delicious plums from our trees this year. * Fun watching brothers and sisters tackle new parenthood! * Growing baby bumps. * Lil decides that sewing is cool. * Annual blueberry pick takes place and I get bitten by two very nasty jack jumpers on my back!

And that is a brief summary of family happenings over the last month! It's been a lot of fun and I'm not ready for school to go back yet...making the most of our last week of freedom together!

(If you want to follow me on Instagram, my username is make_it_perfect.)

P.S. And don't forget, if you haven't already gone to have a sticky beak - make sure you head over to Fabric2Go ASAP! And use the discount code Make It Perfect to receive 15% off your order until 31st January EST!!!

.For baby boy.

Truth be told, that if I could have had a choice in the gender of this baby, I would have gone for a girl. It would have evened the family up and I love having sisters and wanted Lil to be able to have a sister of her own. Plus, I've got soooo much girly fabric and patterns to use that it would have made for some very fun sewing! 

I'm excited to be having another boy though, and have started hunting out boy-friendly fabrics and sewing patterns with the intent to sew as much of this little man's infant wardrobe as I can. I do have lots of boy clothes in my baby boxes, but after two sons (plus some sharing with family and friends) most of them are looking tired. And it's always nice to have some fresh clothes for a fresh baby so I've got lots of sewing ahead of me!

I started going through my stash of Ottobre magazines to choose some practical newborn outfits. This one comes from the Spring 1/2012 edition. The pants are called "Little Houses Knit Pants" and I've sewn the smallest size - 50cm. I'm hoping that they will be small enough for a brand new baby, but it's hard to know when you don't know what size they are going to come out!

I used a combination of Hilco Campan knit in light blue and white stripe and Stella grey. For all of the topstitching, I used the honeycomb stitch on my sewing machine because I don't have a coverstitch machine.

My favourite part is the contrast bottom panel - I'm going to have fun with this in the future! Cute for me to look at and comfy for baby's big nappy bottom.

The pattern had regular cuffs on the bottom of the legs. If there is one thing I can't stand, it's bare-footed babies in the cold weather and it seems that the cutest baby clothes are footless. I'm yet to find a pair of socks that stay on a baby, so try and steer away from footless clothes. I do have a few baby suits that have fold over cuffs though - they are genuis! It means that you have the option of a regular cuff if you want to see the feet:

And a closed foot when you want them all snuggly:

 

To make them, I took the length measurements from one of my old baby suits and used the width measurements from the cuffs in the pattern. I started to use my brain to work how they were constructed, then did a quick online search and found a great tutorial by Things for Boys. I like the idea of using these for big kids jammies too - so nice to know their feet are snuggly on a cold night!

The bodysuite pattern is called "Bert Bodysuit with a henley placket". Unfortunately I messed up the placket and it sitting off centre. I'll only be making that mistake once! So annoying, but I figure that once it is on a cuddly baby it won't be as noticeable as it is sitting flat here! 

This was another easy pattern - lots of binding to sew on though!

I was excited to break out my brand new snap machine from Snaps Australia for this project. I've only had it for a few weeks and have tried it out on some bibs, but nothing as thick as this and it worked brilliantly. Went through all the thicknesses without any hassles and the snaps feel really secure and sturdy.

And that, my friends, is the first of lots of baby boy sewing! I'm very excited to use some of my favourite boy print knits I've been collecting so stay tuned!

.Christmas Honey Cowl #1.

I was lucky enough to draw two of my sisters in both of our secret santa Christmas draws this year. Girls are much easier to gift for and I'd been working on a few more Honey Cowls after the success of my first two, ready to give away for Christmas presents.  

This first one was for my sister-in-law, Ashleigh. She is stunner and it was so nice to have someone to take photos of, rather than having to be in front of the camera myself!

 

I used the free Honey Cowl pattern here. The yarn is Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece in Cotton Ball colour - a slightly off-white. I still love this yarn, it is extremely soft and silky and lovely to knit with.

I feel like I should be extending my knitting repertoire, but this pattern is so easy to put down and pick up and is really mindless knitting, so perfect for when I want to veg out on the couch in the evening. Just warning you...there are plenty more to come!

.Fabric2Go.

I've recently discovered a new Aussie online fabric store and am excited to share it with you today:

 

Fabric2Go is your "go to" store for fabrics and trims. Specialising in gorgeous fabrics and trims produced by Riley Blake, you'll find a rainbow of awesome designs at amazing prices right here in Australia.

Fabric2Go has a great range of fabrics, including the popular Riley Blake dots and chevrons, each in three different sizes. You'll also find a great range of laminates and flannels for all of your sewing projects. 

If you're looking for quality solids at an affordable price, there is a huge range of colours to choose from here. As well as a great selection of Shades *almost* solids if you want something with a big more dimension.

Not only does Fabric2Go stock awesome fabrics, they also have a huge selection of Riley Blake's Sew It Together products including buttons, ric-rac, ribbons, lace and pompom trim. 

To suit all sewers needs, you have the option of purchasing fabrics by the meter, rolie polies, fat quarter bundles, 10" stackers or 5" stackers.

Take a look around their shop, I'm sure you will fall in love. To make things even easier for you, postage is free within Australia for all orders over $50! And if you order before 2pm AEST, your order will be shipped on the same day. Wondering if what your fabric choices are going to look like when put together? Simply add them to your shopping cart and move them around on the interactive design wall to see what they look like!

I got some lovely fabric from Fabric2Go before Christmas. My polka dot stash was running low so I stocked up on this gorgeous rainbow of medium dots. I use dots a lot in my sewing, they seem to coordinate with everything else and look great when put together. 

I also added these flannels to the stash - at $12 a meter, they will be great for some winter sewing.

I've got a thing for pompoms at the moment and love this pompom trim too.

 

Along with each product image, you'll also find a photograph of the bolts in the range. I find it particularly helpful to see the fabric on the bolt when you are trying to determine the scale of a particular print - something I often struggle with when shopping for fabric online.

 

Fabric2Go is offering a discount of 15% off all orders placed between now and the 30th January. Simply enter the discount code Make it Perfect during checkout to receive bargain priced fabric! 

Happy Shopping!

.Little Girl Dresses.

It's so much fun having two lovely little nieces, this Christmas I took advantage of it and made them a cute dress each. I so wish that I was more into sewing when Lil was little, she would have had the best wardrobe ever! Oh well, for now I'll have to get my little girl sewing fix by making things for Poppy and Nancy!

This one was for Poppy. I used the free pattern for the Cross Over Pinafore found here. It was very straight forward and easy to sew. The pinafore is reversible, giving two dresses in one. I also made a nappy cover using Dana's free pattern here. Because the dress is so open in the back, it really needs something underneath, especially for Summer. A pair of tights would look cute for cooler weather.

 

And this one was for Nancy:

 

I made these dresses before I found out I was having a baby boy and while I was in production-line mode, sewed another one for myself *just in case*. I'm not sure what I'll do with it...present box for another little girl or maybe I'll hang onto it for another day.

 

SUPPLIES:
Erin McMorris, La Dee Da, Oopsy Daisy in aqua
Erin McMorris, Weekends, Dots & Loops in violet
Alexander Henry, Birdseed in pink
Sandi Henderson, Ginger Blossom, Vintage Dot in breeze
David Walker, Get Together, Flock of Birds in gray
Anthology Fabrics, Sweet Tea, Floral Burst in coral
Sarah Jane, Children At Play, Gingham in coral    

.The dollhouse.

It feels like ages ago we were staying up late at night working on the dollhouse. We managed to get it "finished enough" for giving on Christmas, it was a big job though! I didn't realise that the painting would be such an enormous task. We used a regular interior wall paint with a sheen, the only reason we choose to use this particular paint is because it was reduced to $10 for a 2L tin - way cheaper than buying a $40 tin of enamel paint. It seems sturdy enough to withstand playing and we can always touch it up if needed. We ended up having to apply SIX coats of paint to the dollhouse though to get a nice, even coverage. It took forever! In hindsight (and if we ever build something like this again) we thought we should have painted the big MDF sheets BEFORE cutting and constructing then we would only have had to touch up bits and pieces instead of trying to get our little rollers into every crevice!

I say it is "finished enough"because it is done enough to start playing with, but I still want to get around to more decorating, maybe some floor coverings, fake windows and curtains, and of course furniture to finish it off some more. But I definitley need a break from it for awhile before I start getting crafty again!

The back walls were all covered with scrapbooking paper. I measured each wall then cut the paper slightly bigger and carefully trimmed little strips off each side until it fit perfectly. I found a decent layer of PVA glue painted to the back of the paper with a paint brush to work really well, then I quickly stuck it in place and rubbed it all over with a soft, dry cloth to get rid of any air bubbles until the glue took hold. Once the glue had dried I painted a layer of mod podge over the sheet of paper to give it a bit of extra protection also.

I added a few little decorations to some of the walls to give it a bit more detail.  This little bunting was made with triangles cut from washi tape. 

For this wall, I covered different sized buttons with fabric and stuck them to the wall using a raised double sided tape.

I found some wooden cut out shapes at the scrapbook shop and stuck them to these two walls with double sided tape.

 

 This "room" of the house has potential to be the pool/deck area. I want to eventually add a pool to the left-hand overhanging piece and make it look more like an outdoor area.

I spent HOURS rolling these felt balls from wool roving to make a mini freckle rug. The balls are tiny - about 1cm in diameter and I sewed them together with some strong thread. Lil helped me make some of them and she was so excited to see them made into a rug in the house.

I filled the house with some cute mini La-La-Loopsy figurines I found at Kmart before Christmas, as well as some of our wooden dolls. Tommy got the Peppa Pig figurines for Christmas and they have since taken up residence too! We wanted this to be Lil's big present from Santa, but didn't want the mystery guy to be given all of the credit for our hard work, so told her that we helped Santa out by making this one for him! That way, it will hopefully be more meaningful to her and she will treasure it for a long time.

So that's it all done for now! Feels good to have all of the hard work finished and now we can add little bits and pieces as time goes by to fill it up and give it a bit more character.