A Lizzy House / Tula Pink Patchwork Pillow

My dear little nephew turns six today.

In years gone by I have made his sisters birthday gifts, but this year it's his turn. My sister (his Mum) is a very clever crocheter and was making him a blanket for his bed, so I whipped him up this patchwork pillow.

A match made in heaven - two of my favourite designers

His new blanket is all blues, yellows and reds, so hopefully this will go nicely.

I'll be honest, I find little boys a bit of a mystery. I struggle with his gift every year more than any other. I mean, would a full of beans little boy think "woo hoo" to receive a quilt? With this pillow I started my fabric selection with the red dinosaurs. I mean, find me a six year old who doesn't like dinosaurs. And I know my nephew does. Then I just pulled fabrics that I knew would go with the decor in his room. The other challenge I faced is that a lot of my fabric I would say is a little on the girly side.

I bound it in the matching Constellations print from Natural history and backed it with some blue gingham that was in my stash.

For this pillow I did an envelope back. It was my first time because I didn't have a zipper the right size and even though I followed a tutorial I found online I had an issue with gaping in the back. I usually get a cushion insert that will make the pillow nice and plump. Even after cutting open the insert and removing some of the stuffing I still had a horrible gape. I ended up stitching it up by hand - having bound the pillow top, I didn't really want to undo it all to remake the back. It's a bit of a pain, because it means that if it needs to be washed it will need to be undone and sewn back up, but on the plus side I stitched it up with red embroidery floss and I think it looks really cute. Plus the red floss echoes the red I used for the quilting on the front.

Not the closure I envisioned, but it sure looks cute

His party is on the weekend so hopefully his gift is well received. This is a finish off my Q4 FAL list.

A garment a month - Geranium Top

My garment for the month of August was the Geranium top (pattern by Made by Rae). 

 

Now, I know that this isn’t a garment for me, but it is still a garment and I did learn some new things so I am still counting it as a win.

 

Last month we had book week here, so the girls for school had to dress up as book characters. In the past it has always been dress up as any character from a book, but this year Ms Moo had to dress as a character from the particular book they were reading in class: A House of Her Own, which is a lovely little story, but I’ll be honest – doesn’t have a lot of scope for variety in costumes. The main character is a little girl called Audrey who wears a red spotty dress, green shorts and a big hat.

 

In the tradition of all parents, everywhere, I started making the costume at 8pm the night before we needed it. I had been sure that I had red and white spotted material and green material in my stash. Yes, I did, but not enough to make anything...sigh. With some clever improvisation I managed to make a top with a red spotted yoke and a green skirt. My dear daughter was less impressed...Five year olds, they are so literal. But she came around to loving it by the end of the day.

 

So the pattern – it was easy to follow. I made the View A top with flutter sleeves and the View B skirt and it was all pretty straight forward. I managed to have the entire thing finished by 1AM from taping the pattern PDF together to sewing the last button on, which in my view is pretty quick. I did have some issues with the skirt being too big for the yoke and had to add some extra pleats, but I am pretty sure that was user error because it was pretty late by the time I got to that stage.

 

Making the flutter sleeves was a new experience for me. I am not sure how the edges will wear in the wash since they are just finished with a zig zag stitch, but the basting worked like a dream and I am keen to try the gathers on my Sailor top which is up next in my garment a month challenge. 

 

I also need to work out how to do button holes properly on my machine. They were a bit wonky. Nothing a bit of Fray Stoppa won’t fix though.

 

The low point of making the top was when I was zig zagging the edges of the sleeves, I was concentrating so hard on sewing around the curve that I actually sewed right through my finger. Do you know, I had always wondered how it was actually possible to do that? But it isn’t actually that hard as I found out. (STOP READING IF YOU ARE EASILY GROSSED OUT). The worst part was that the needle broke and was stuck in my finger and I had to pull it out. And making the sleeves is right at the start so I still had to push on. And I had to get a tetanus shot. On the plus side, the needle was so super sharp (titanium coated) that it pretty much resealed itself and healed up really fast. Swings and roundabouts.

 

Anyway, there are definitely more geranium dress / tops on my horizon for my littles. I am going to try all the ways. I have visions of Lizzy House unicorns on Christmas Frocks.