For the babies.....

These bibs are the latest additions to my shop this week. I love working with such cute fabrics and they don't take at all long to whip up in an afternoon. Putting the fabrics together is of course my favourite part of the process and I keep finding further combinations that would look good together. I was challenged a couple of months ago by someone who has a couple of grandchildren due but was finding it hard to find suitable non-gender specific items to give before the babies arrived. When I looked at the baby items that I had already made I realised that they were definitely either for baby girls or boys so I have since been looking at my fabrics in a different light.

It is definitely more challenging to make non-gender specific items. I seem to have a lot of fabrics that are 'for the girls' because of the colours but also the motifs on them. The front 2 pairs of baby shoes in the above photo are what I came up with that I thought could be for either boy or girl. Most expectant parents seem to want to find out what they are having beforehand so it was refreshing to hear of parents wanting to wait until their bundle of joy arrived to find out whether they were having either a girls or a boy. Maybe I'm old fashioned but I kind of like the idea of a surprise at the end of all that pain of giving birth.

New cushion cover designs....

 I started these cushion covers a couple of weeks ago now but they had to go on the back-burner for a week while I worked on Amelia's ottoman in my last post. The blue/purple/green 'brick' design cover is just a simple pattern I have wanted to try for a wee while now. It is made up of some scraps leftover from making these memo boards for Caitlin's room. It always feels good to use up leftover scraps doesn't it. The big pink flower design is an idea that came to me while doing some design doodling one evening and I decided to make it while the inspiration was fresh in my mind. 

 The centre of the flower is made up of 3 different sized yo-yo's with button centres. I do seem to have a thing about yo-yo's I think :-) and yes they did take a little while of sitting in the sun to sew them all on.

 The blue brick design cushion cover is just simply quilted with some fairly random wavy lines to break up the straight lines of the piecing.

The backs are a simple slightly off centre envelope enclosure using some of my favourite buttons on each.

Available in my shop from tomorrow :-)

The Ottoman....

A few weeks back I posted a teaser of what I was working on....sorry about the delay in revealing exactly what it was I was making! My eldest daughter, Amelia, has just turned 16, making me wonder where all those years went so quickly :-) I have wanted to make one of these Ottoman's for a long time so I pulled out an assortment of mostly aquamarine blues to go with the predominate colour in Amelia's bedroom. As you can see from the above photo it has been given the seal of approval from Caitlin's cat who decided to rub up against it just as I was taking a photo.

I've had the large white pom-pom trim for a while now just waiting for the perfect project, and I love the element of fun it adds to this piece. 

Some aqua and white polka dot piping frames the bottom perimeter perfectly. As you may be able to tell it is quite a decent size. It took 54 5" squares to complete and an enormous amount of polyester stuffing to fill it properly. Amelia's cat in the background took no notice whatsoever in my photo shoot, seemingly more interested in taking in the view from her 'throne'.

Amelia celebrated her big birthday with a sleepover with 3 of her good friends,watching movies, chilling in the spa that I got going just for the occasion and eating lots of junk food as you do when you're 16! For her birthday cake I made her a 'red velvet cake' with cream cheese icing and sprinkled with pink coloured coconut, a recipe on my 'to do' list for a while now.
I have just this past week finished making a couple of items for my shop so hopefully I can find the time to show them here tomorrow :-)