My first Favourite things free tutorial list!

I spend all this time searching for tutorials and find so many I like, so of course I bookmark them, but then I can never remember what the bookmarks are, so I decided that I would do up a list of some of my favourite tuts with pics. I will be doing this regularly from now on, so check back if, like me you are a tutorial fan!

My first favourite things list is of gorgeous decorations and christmassy things.

First up is this awesome take on an old paper folding technique: This one is done using felt,but I made up my own using fabric. If you want me to do up a tut, let me know and I'll tell you how I did it.

Next up is the wonderful Gail Pan, she has about 9 of these wreath type embroideries on her blog. My embroidery group did up a charity quilt using these stitcheries, but we did them in Hexagons.
This was my Hexi that I did after my last knee recon.

Gail also has this super cute stitchery pattern for free.

I've wanted to make a tree skirt for years but just never get to it, this one is cute and uses up scraps! I've got plenty of them, so this goes on my list :)

Here's one I thought the kids could help with. How cool would it look instead of tinsel, (I'm not a big fan of tinsel on my tree) or as a garland with chrissy cards hanging on it.

Next up is somepaper projects. These would look equally good in felt though, or by fusing fabric together.

How cute is this basket! I think it would look great with little choccys or nuts in it, or evenas an easter project. This project is at the bottom of the last tutorial, so just scan down to the bottom.

How effective do these look! Maybe a set of 3 of these will be my centre piece this year.

These are so cute! They are so Me! I love the idea of having a new colour scheme. So why not citrus! Very Australian I think. After all, Snowmen wouldn't last 5 minutes in my yard at christmas, and anyone in mittens would be classed as a fruit loop in my neighbourhood hehe.

And finally, my absolute favourite blog of all time! Sewmamasew has a list every year with heaps of free tutorials evey day in November! Grab a cuppa thoughbecause you could be there for a few hours! Then once you've gotten through this years list theres always the 3 previous years lists :) Like I said, you'll be there for hours! :)

Oh and I nearly forgot, here's one of my own. These are my favourite christmas treats! Apricot balls! You can also make up the mix and spread it out in a slice tray and drizzle them with chocolate. Yum! and less time consuming than rolling up all the balls.

Well thats it for now, but I'll be back over the coming weeks as I find more tuts and make up more of my favourite things lists.

Don't forget my christmas giveaway too, look at the last post for details.

Hugs Paula

Oh and leave me a note if there is anything that you want me to look for in particular for you? I loooove reading comments and like a puppy, I respond very well to praise ;)

Giveaway Time!

I love christmas So I thought I'd have a little giveaway as my gift to you!

I've been making some changes and decided to add some of my handmade items to my etsy site instead of just selling patterns, and I've created a facebook page!

So what do you have to do to win my giveaway? Easy peasy, click on the 'follow me' button and then on the Facebook 'Like' button, leave me a comment and your in the draw!

But what will you win I hear you ask?

Well I've put together 5 of my favourite Fat Quarters from the Eva by Moda range, Plus two of my favourite Christmas issues of Handmade and Patchwork and Stitching magazines!

I will be drawing the giveaway next Wednesday the 8th (my time) because its the eve of my birthday and its always better to give than receive :)

I've also been doing a heap of looking at online tutorials lately, so come back in the next day or so and I'll have a list of my favourite christmas project tutorials!

Hugs Paula

To market we will go

So I decided that this little sewing habit of mine might actually be able to help pay for christmas :) With that in mind my gorgeous mum and I got busy and made up a heap of things to take to our local markets. Heres a few pics....and heres some of the other bits and pieces. I will also be listing some stuff on etsy, heres some of the bits I have at the moment. As a christmas special, check out my facebook page for a discount code to use in my etsy shop.

This is Lionel Lizard, the Camo Gecko :)

I love his little feet!
These little cuties are my Babys favourite toy! She can easily grab their legs and necks and just loves giving them a big chomp! :) She's a piranha! hehe

These are Dee Dee the Dolphins, Of course designed by Melly and Me. The green ones are made using Minky, soooo soft and yummy, My girls keep saying they hope they don't sell, so they can keep them. lol little do they know, mummy has some stashed away for christmas ;)

Have a great week :)

Hugs Paula xxx

Mr Magoo

Have I told you recently how much I love Melly and Me ;)So I was at my local (patchwork shop) and I really was just going in to find my mum! Really I wasn't going to spend any money! I promise! But then of course I see the pattern for the gorgeous Magoo and how could I say no??

I'd been admiring the gorgeous Magoo on Melly's website for ages and so I had to buy it, Didn't I??

How could I make just 1?

I just love their patterns so much! So easy to use and it only took me about 4 hours to make all three Magoos! Awesome!

Now all my munchkins have a Melly and Me Softie. Molly has Bubbles the Unicorn, Chloe has Bella Boo the Bunny, Jack has Melvin the Moose all from the Kaleidoscope Book, Cousin Leah has Leo the Lion and now my precious Emma has her choice of Magoo's :)

The others can sit on my book shelf and wait for a new home. They give the best cuddles! Those long arms stretch right around my neck. Love em!

Snowman Softie for christmas

It's not long now until Christmas!

If you've been reading my blog for a while you may know that I absolutely loooove Christmas! I also Loooove everything made by Melly and me. I have been making heaps of stuff by Melly and Me over the last few years and went through a real softie stage for a while last year. I was so inspired by Melanies patterns that I made my own softie. This gorgeous little Snowman.

I just love how happy he looks, anyway I have decided that as my little gift to you this year I would like to offer you the pattern for free! So head on over to my freebie blog and grab this free pattern. I will only be leaving it up for free until the end of November (then he will be for sale), so grab him now, Oh and don't forget to email me a pic or pop one on the flicker page if you decide to make your own.

Merry Christmas!!

Hugs Paula

PS. Melly and me are releasing 2 new fabric ranges!! How excited am I!!! Also check out the new Monkey pattern, all I can say is OMG is that the cutest thing ever!

Leahs Apron

Well hello again, it has been too long since my last post, but with 4 kids including a 3 month old and a very boisterous 2 year old, my blog was put in the too hard basket for a few months. Sorry about that :)

Anyway, I have been busy sewing too and have been making some new designs to hopefully take to our local markets and make my fortune! hahaha maybe some pocket money :)

Hopefully some of these little cuties will sell well. This is one of my kids size hand puppets. Sorry about the quality of the pics, but as usual my computer is playing up and so I had to take these pictures on my phone, upload them to facebook and then copy them over here using my mums computer. arrrg Computers and me not fun sometimes. But then I wouldn't be without them :)

Anyway, do you like her dimple :)

My neice is having her 4th birthday tommorow and she was telling me that "In my dreams I got a pretty pink apron" how precious! So of course I had to make that dream come true. A Frilly Pretty pink apron covered in unicorns, perfect for a precious 4 year old. This is my Chloe modelling the apron.Would you be interested in a pattern?

And finally today these are some cubes I made to display some smaller cubes that I hope to sell at the markets. I just love the pink and brown fabric!I will try to get some better pictures soon I promise :)

And finally I will end with a question, do you think I should list my puppets on Etsy or sell them from my blog? I was planing on charging $15 for the small ones that are perfect for 4 to 16 year olds and $20 for the adult size ones. I would love some feedback... Enjoy your weekend!

Hugs Paula xxx

Make it Perfect's Uptown girl Jacket

I haven't really had a huge amount of time to sew lately, but I did get my girls jackets finished! Here's my little miss in her jacket, It is made with some super cute denim fabric that had the flowers already embroidered on it! I love it! I also made one for Molly, but she threw a tantrum when we were trying it on her so it went in the cupboard for a few days as punishment hahaha. I hope this lasts, that they love the clothes that I make them so much they can be used as leverage hehe.
Sorry about the pic, my camera battery is flat and so I took it on my new phone and copied it from my facebook page! Ahh technology, don't you love it! :) Please excuse the rediculously messy sewing room in the background, thank goodness you can only see the bookshelf :)

Sean's Pics

I have been a little bit busy lately so have only done a little bit of sewing and I've started a punch needle project but I haven't had the chance to take any pictures, so I thought I would take the opportunity to show off my extremely talented nephews awesome photography.

Sean is my eldest nephew, he just turned 16 and has a passion and an eye for photography. He has recently started a blog so if you would like to see more of his pics, head on over here. Just keep in mind he is 16 and the odd swear word slips out :)

Sean is a surf junkie and most of his pictures are of the surf and his friends, some of whom are quite well known in the surfing world. Occassionally though he takes pictures of other things, this is one of my favourites:

Sean also likes taking portraits of his little cousins, here are all my babys:

MollyChloeJackAnd Emma

What a lucky mummy I am!

I will try to take pictures tommorow of the gorgeous bag I made for Chloes' first day at "little big school" (she is starting at the preschool tommorrow which is located at her sisters big school hehe). It is the mushroom bag from the Melly and Me book 'Kaleidoscope'. I think I have a thing for mushrooms hehehe. I absolutely Love the book and have made more things out of it, than any of my other books. I made Melvin the Moose, Bubbles the Unicorn and Bella the Bunny. There is pictures here and here, anyway, While I was looking for the web address for Melly and Me, to get the link, I found that Melanie has just made up a pattern by 'Make it Perfect', it just so happens that I just bought a pattern from them the other day to make a jacket for my girls, I really should get onto that before winter is over :).

My newest creation!

She has finally made her entry into this big world.

Emma was born last Friday a perfect 6 pound 12 oz. She is of course absolutely gorgeous and dispite a little time spent under lights for jaundice, everything went really well.We are finally home and although very tired, as is of course to be expected, we couldn't be happier! Thanks everyone for all your beautiful messages!

Hugs Paula xxx

It's Baby Time!

Well tommorow is the day! I'm so excited, but a little apprehensive as well. Anytime you go under the knife its a little scary, but the thought of holding my little bundle of joy in my arms will make the last 9 months well and truly worth it!

There's nothing like leaving things till the last minute and that was me today. I still needed to make a new nappy bag for my little girl and I had been looking at pretty much every single bag tutorial on the internet and ended up going with this amazing tutorial! It is one of the best tut's I have ever used and would have been more than happy to pay for the pleasure of using this awesome tut!

I only made a few little changes, I decided that I didn't want velcro on the pockets because it just gets in the way sometimes. I also decided not to divide one of the inside pockets (the back one) into 3 sections because I find sometimes you just need a big pocket.

I think the only other things I would do next time is put a heavier interfacing like timetex in the base, so it stands up better on its own, and I would put interfacing on the inside back panel as the zipper tends to weigh it down and it droops when its not full. Other than that I am just soooo happy with my bag! It even goes with my Amy butler Weekender bag that I use for my never ending hospital trips

I'd love to know what you think!

With that I will sign off for a little while and will be back in webland next week!

Hugs Paula xxx

What should these become?

I gave you a sneek peak the other day of some more of my little tweeters and when I finished stitching them I thought I should give you another look.

My idea was to combine some old fashioned crewel type embroidery with applique in a new funky way. Then I threw in some pencil shading just for fun :)

The original plan was also to make this into the front panel of a bowling type bag to use for toiletries, but having finished the embroidery I'm not so sure.

Now I'm thinking a needle case or a book cover or something similar.

What do you think? I'd love to hear your thoughts....

On the baby front,my Blood pressure is still up, but we are trying to make it to 38 weeks so its bed rest for the next week. Ho Hum, lucky I have a comfy bed :)

Till next time,

Hugs Paula

More Baby fun!

I have been having such fun in my new sewing room!

Its an incredible mess with stuff everywhere, but I can wheel myself around and get to everything that I need. It's so great to be able to just walk in or out whenever inspiration strikes.

Thats what happened this morning, being 38 weeks pregnant I haven't been sleeping much and so when I was lying there trying to sleep this morning I decided that I wanted to add some applique to the white t-shirts that I bought for baby Emma. I also decided that I needed some pants to go with it. So when I got up, this is what happened.....

I am soooooo happy with them! It is the first time I have made my own pattern and have it be successful. Yeah!!

The pants are simple elastic waist pants and I'll have to wait till Baby Emmas arrival to see how they fit, but they measured up to a 000-00 next to some of the 'store bought' pants we have.
I sent a picture of them off to Victoria Thorpe the editor of my favourite magazine 'Handmade Magazine' and she loves them and wants to publish them in the Kids Issue thats coming up in a few months time! How exciting!!

I made some little sandals to go with them, but I'm not too sure about them. They are pretty cute, but need a bit of refining I think. (I'm not game to show you a pic yet :)

On the baby front, Emma may be making an earlier appearance than expected. I went for a check up yesterday and for some reason my blood pressure was through the roof (147 / 98). I had pre-eclampsia with both my other girls so she may have to be born earlier than next Friday. Another check up tonight will see the Dr make a decition. So If I'm a little quiet in the next little while, I'm sure you'll understand why :)

Baby needs a new pair of shoes!

Could these be the cutest thing you have ever seen in your life?

One of my favourite pass times of late is spending hours proweling the Etsy website looking at anything and everything. A few weeks ago I found these adorable little baby shoes in the sweet pea pattern etsy shop and just fell in love!

A few nights ago I was once again drooling over these beautiful little shoes and thought, 'Why the Heck not' and so I bought the patterns!

I chose the 3 for $12 option and when I emailed the lovely Cheri and told her I was having my 4th baby, I think she took pity on me and threw in an extra pattern for me! Cool hey!

Anyway, I told her I would do a bit of a review of her patterns and so here goes....

Let me start by saying I am a self taught sewer. I learn as I go from trying new things. One thing I have had trouble with is following the patterns from people like Butterick etc. so when I first did a quick read through I was a bit worried because it was written in such a professional way, especially the cutting guide, I was worried I wouldn't be able to follow it.

I must admit that my first effort was not perfect (when is a first effort ever perfect) but once I decided that I would just follow the tutorial one step at a time, the pattern was incredibly easy to follow.

I guess the problem I have is that I'm a quilter, not a dressmaker and certain things like a 1/4" seam are a given for me. In fact I find it hard to do anything else, so when I see things like draw a 1/4" stitching guide I just skip over that and move on to the next step.

What I learned with these patterns though, was that if I just do each step as it is written and don't try the old 'I know a better way of doing that', It works out perfect ever time. Funny that :)

Anyway onto the pictures, These are my first attempt. As I said I did have a few problems and one was miss reading the pattern and using fusible web instead of fusible fleece (ie. Pellon). This caused me to have to have the seams showing on the inside of the shoes, as once I ironed the top seam it had fused the top and bottom fabrics together and so I couldn't open it back up to hide the seams, but in the long run I think it was an O.K. effort for a first go.

I sent Cheri an email and told her of my mistake and she adjusted the pattern with the different wording, we both assumed that different countrys call them different things. How good is that! Some people can get very touchy when you offer constructive criticism.Cheri did suggest having a trial run of the pattern, but of course, me being me I just jumped in. :) I still like these Mary Janes and just want to add a little button or bead onto the tab for an added cute factor.

So Lessons learnt I moved on to the second pair and again made the Mary Janes pattern (I'm very stubborn, I have to get them right :)) This was my second attempt.I chose to use ribbon this time and am thrilled with the results! This time they are reversible as the first pair should have been, Yeah! The only disapointment is I prefer the pink and brown fabric I used in the first pair. I will definately be making another pair of these.

Next up was the Kimono Shoes (I chose to do these two first because I didn't have the elastic I needed for the Bella and seamless crib shoes). I found this pattern so easy to follow after my success with my second pair of Mary Janes.

My only critisism of the patterns is that there is a bit of wasted fabric using the suggested layout, again though I think this is because as a quilter I hate throwing any fabric away. :)

I think next time I will adjust the way I cut out the pieces to minimise wastage, but as I said before, if you decide to buy these patterns, follow it word for word the first time, or make just one sample with muslin or calico, so you 'get it' first.

I absolutely love these kimono shoes and I'm going to make another pair with polar fleece on the inside to use as slippers, nice and warm for my new cherub.

The beauty of Cheris' patterns is that each one comes with heaps of different size options, so I can remake these shoes as my angel grows. They go up to a size for 18 month olds.

Now I just need to make some matching outfits :)

I made the spotty ones to go with the spotty bibs I made the other day, they look so cute together.

I was going to give you a sneek peak at a new birdie project I started today too, but this post is already very long... oh why not, just a pic for now though. ;)

A bit obscure but just wait. A bit of embroidery and all will be revieled!

Early Bird Christmas Crafting & a new quilt!

My dear friend Judith from Creative Studio is inspiring us all to get organised for Christmas early this year, what a great idea huh! The challenge is going to be heaps of fun with prizes galore and amazing inspiration, not just for sewers, but for paper crafters and knitters too!

One part of the first challenge was to create a project with 2 fat eighths of fabric and any embellishments you like, these aren't technically christmas pressies (although they could be) I decided to create some new bibs for my baby, who is due to arrive in just 12 more sleeps! Yeah! I've been a bit slack with making new things for this baby, so the challenge was just what I needed to get motivated!

I was also inspired by Judith and all her birdie talk to sit down and do some sketching yesterday (something I haven't done for wayyy too long). I decided that I wanted to applique some birds on a new quilt I have been working on and as a test run I put a few of these little cuties on the front of the bibs. I have never done this type of machine applique before, so it was fun to get in and have a go.

Sorry about the quality of the pics, it was quite dark when I finally turned off the light in my sewing room :)

Another part of the challenge was to create something fluffy and cute with 1 ball of wool.

I had some chenille wool in my stash and so another baby project was created. The pic doesn't really do this little bunny justice. He is soft and cuddly and the perfect comforter for my new angel. I decided not to put eyes or anything on it because of the dangers of such embelishments for newborns, but I think she will love it. The head is actually stuffed with the leftover wool. Cool idea huh! I got the idea and pattern from here. From memory I think you have to be a member to get the free patterns, but it doesn't cost anything and they have a massive range of free patterns available.Finally tonight a quick sneek peak at my new quilt that I'm working on. Made with the Moda charm pack 'Hushabye' Which I absolutely love!! I decided that I want it to be a bigger quilt, so I got on etsy and ordered some more fat quarters to add another border or two. Anyway in the blank squares I am going to applique some of the birds I was talking about and maybe some hand embroidery in the white borders. I'm hoping that when this one is finished it might be picked up by a magazine. Fingers crossed.Anyway thats all for tonight, but get on over to Judiths Blog for heaps and heaps of inspiration, theres links to stacks of free tutorials, so why don't you join in the fun!

My new Bathmat and a new library bag

Well what a productive morning I have had! Not only did I finally finish the bathmat that I started last week for my new ensuite, I also finish my big school girls Library bag. Only a term and a half late. :)

I couldn't be happier with both though! The bathmat I made using up scraps of some adorable Robert Koffman fabric I had. I can't really call them scraps, I had a fat quarter pack and have really only used a few bits from it. I still have a stack of it left, but no idea what to do with it.... Oh well, no rush I suppose, it's been sitting in my stash for probably a year already. :)

I backed it with a towel as I have a habit of slipping over on wet floors and it also makes it wash really well. (was highly influenced by this awesome tutorial)

I didn't want to just turn it through though, I wanted to bind it, I just couldn't decide which fabric I wanted to bind it with, so I cut up a heap of bits and pieced them together for the binding and just love how it came up. I put the white Quilters Muslin in to break up the colours a bit. Hubby was complaining I always make everything girly, but really there's only a little bit of pink, and hardly any flowers at all ;)

Mollys Library bag came out great too! Thanks to Nan for all her help! I had 30cm of these 2 beautiful fabrics that I only just discovered are Amy Butler, She is the best designer!! Anyway, We cut them into 6 1/2 inch strips x the full length of the fabric and joined them using french seams. (I just did a quick search and there's heaps of tuts out there, if you don't know what they are. Just google French seam tutorial)

I also made the sides using french seams, This does away with the need for a lining as there is no raw edges to hide.

With the top, we folded over about an inch of fabric, leaving the selvedges as they all lined up perfectly. We then made 4 button holes down about 7/8" from the top, 2 on each side for the cord to go through and folded over the top again (about 3/4" this time so the button holes are on the outside) and stitched it in place. Then threaded 2 pieces of rope through and made knots in the ends.

Finally I made a pocket for the front, which was really so I had something to put her name on. I used a plain piece of matching fabric and used vlisofix to iron on the letters. I had been wanting to try raw edge machine applique for ages, so thats what I did. With right sides of the pocket together I then did a quarter inch seam around the edge of the pocket leaving a gap at the bottom. I turned it through and did a double row of stitching at the top, and attatched the pocket to the front of the bag.

Easy Peasy! But best of all, Miss Molly Loves it!