Back To School

Noah started school this year, and I must say that he has taken to it like a duck to water. Only he isn't water-proof. Or paint proof. So I made him this art smock. I used the "Don't Look Now" art smock pattern, just as I did last year for Liam.


This year, Liam was able to use the same Art Smock, but he needed a new pencil case. To start off with, I made this pencil case, using this cute tutorial from Gwenny Penny. Whilst it is a cute pencil case, it is far too small for Liam's needs...


...so I made him another one in a more suitable size. I didn't use a tutorial for this one, and pretty much made it up as I went along. There is plenty of room inside this one for all his pencils and textas.


The pencil case features an extra pocket on the side for all those little bits and pieces, such as his eraser, sharpener and his black-lead pencils for writing, whereas all his coloured pencils and textas can go inside the larger section. I think it would be nice to have a go at upsizing the other pencil case for Noah for next year when he needs a pencil case.

Liam is Six

It's hard to believe, but Liam turned six last month. He is right into Skylanders at the moment, and loves collecting and playing with the characters that go with the game. For his birthday, I made him two Skylanders cakes. One for the night before, when we celebrated his birthday with a family dinner, and then again on his actual birthday when we were celebrating my 40th.


One of the things about Liam that I am loving at the moment, is that he is learning to read. I was a real bookworm as a child and constantly had my nose in a book, so I really enjoy seeing his progress. The school Liam attends uses Magic 100 Words to teach reading, and Liam also likes to play Reading Eggs Eggy Words to help practice his words. I am constantly amazed at all the jumps he is making with his reading, and Liam has been getting a new Skylanders character each time his teacher signs off a level at school.


Liam was thrilled with his cakes and the bonus Skylanders he got with them. He also got a tablet, so he can play his Eggy Words on there, instead of using my phone all the time.

Fancy Flappy Welt Pockets

You might remember this pattern from before. It's the Ottobre Relaxed Cotton Pants from the Spring 2013 issue. I made Liam some school pants, using some gabardine back in March.

This time, I decided to include the fancy welt pockets on the back with the flaps. Instead of making button holes and sewing on buttons, I've used my snap press to apply some jeans snaps. I love the way they turned out, don't you?

I also think I may have mastered the fly, although there is a mistake here, can you tell what it is? Clue: these pants are for a boy! Yes, I have the fly back to front, just like Lauren did in The Great British Sewing Bee. I am sure that I followed the directions properly for the fly shield and that dictates which way the fly goes, so I am not sure what went wrong there? Anyway, the fly still works, I doubt anyone witll notice, but next time I will be looking carefully at which way everything goes before I start to put it together.

Oh, and I used a completely different technique for putting the fly together this time too, and I think it really made the whole job way easier and quicker. I watched this video, by Sandra Bezzina on how to insert a fly, but I put the fly shield on first, and just flipped it out of the way as I sewed the rest of the zip (there is no zipper shield in this video) and then flipped it back when I did the bar tacks.

The fabric I used was the stretch drill that mum got for me recently. It is quite sturdy, and has a really good stretch to it. Perfect for climbing all over the play equipment at school as Noah demonstrates here. These are actually Liam's pants, but it was tricky finding time to photograph him in them when the light was right, so Noah is my model.

I also made Liam this windcheater. It's not exciting enough for a whole blog post, so I will pop it in here. I just used a pattern from the Kwik Sew, Sewing for Children book. Between the pants and the windcheater, I estimate I used about seven fat quarters.

YST13 Running totals: in = 172, out = 51, total = +121 

PS. If you would like to add more fabric to your stash, then I suggest you enter my giveaway. There's a rainbow felt pack and an Anne Kelle FQ pack up for grabs!

School Pants

I had a bit of left over fabric in my stash from some time ago, I think it is gabardine? Liam was also in need of school pants. Since there were none left in the shops in his size, the solution was obvious.



I used the "Relaxed Cotton Pants" pattern (19) from the latest Ottobre magazine (Spring 1/2013). The pattern has elastic in the back, but is flat at the front, which gives them a nice, tidy, but comfortable fit. I didn't bother with the back pockets, I cut the pants shorter so as not to bother with the turn up hem, and I used a jeans snap instead of the button and buttonhole. I still need a bit of practise perfecting the fly - I don't know if I am doing it wrong, but the fly shield in these patterns always seems a bit short to me, even though I add seam allowances? Is it just me, or does the fly seem a bit short as well? I would love if anyone else with more experience has some advice or suggestions? This magazine has some really nice jacket patterns both for boys and girls that I would also like to make.



Noah wanted to have his photo taken too. When my boys are sitting down, Noah is taller, but Liam definitely has the longer legs. Maybe I might regret not having the extra length later on in the year?

SYST13: I used about 4 fat quarters of fabric from my stash for this project.
Running totals, in = 103, out = 38, total = +65

All Smocked Up

It's really hard to believe right now, but on Thursday Liam starts school. When I was reading through the information pack, I noticed that he needs an art smock, so I made him one, using some fabric that has been in my stash for more than three years! The space fabric is Space Cases, by Patrick Lose and the Green fabric is by Amy Schimler - both are from Robert Kaufman.



I used Kellie Wulfsohn's tutorial to make the smock. If you have an A3 printer, you can print the top half of the patterns on A3 in landscape format and sketch out the rest.

I'm not sure I am ready for my first baby to go to school yet, but at least we have his art smock all sorted.

SYST: I used approximately five fat quarters for this project.
Running totals, in = 103, out = 21, total = +82

10 Kids Clothes Week Day 3

Karen over at And So, I Sew is hosting the Great Pattern Destash. This is not about getting rid of patterns, it is about freeing them from the packet, and using them for their intended purposes! If you've got patterns, stashed away, never seen the light of day, then you might want to pull some out and dust them off and get sewing. I'm going to commit to using three patterns from my stash this month. What about you? Pop over and let Karen know that you're going to join in.



I've started with this "Snappy Tie" Creative Card by Make It Perfect. My making this was actually a compromise. Noah and Amélie were both having afternoon naps and Liam wanted me to play Mario Cart with him. I wanted to sew. I was sew not interested in playing video games. So I suggested we make him a tie. It was a quick enough project that I was able to hold his attention for long enough to make it.



And of course, because I made one, I must make a second (and potentially a third, we'll see how we go). Noah and I made this one this one this morning, whilst Liam was at Kinder and Amélie was napping.

2. That's what little boys are made of

Before the dead-line, I managed to scrape in two more hats. There is nothing like leaving things to the last minute! Of course, I once again used Nicole Mallalieu's (You Sew Girl) Kids' Hats Pattern. I should mention that if you are looking for options, this pattern has them. You have three sizes, small, medium and large. Then added to that, you have a range of different brim sizes and also brim finishes to make your hat just how you like. I personally like to go large when it comes to brims and give my boys lots of protection from the sun, so my brims are the second largest brims and the boys are wearing medium sized hats.



My favourite thing with these hats, I wasn't really sure wasn't going to work. I love the appliqué. I applied some Steam-a-Seam 2 to the back of some left-over lining fabric and then cut it out a couple of frog motifs, really carefully. I then peeled off the backing and ironed them onto the (already interfaced) crown pieces. I lowered the feed dogs and used my free-motion foot to stitch them down.



I was really worried about those long, skinny toes, but it seems to have worked. I did three laps around each frog, matching the main colour of the frog on each one. When I did the toes, I didn't so much go around the edges as I did kind of meander along them.



I have made these hats before using corduroy, which has really stood the test of time. The boys hats have been through the ringer and so abused, yet they still look really good. The lining in the old hats was a Kokka cotton-linen, so it will be interesting to see how well the quilter's cotton holds out.



I'll be back here very soon to do the wrap up from the sew-along...

Noah's Ark

Every year, Embroidery Library send me a voucher for my birthday. I went for a bit of a look around their site to see what I would like and found this awesome "in-the-hoop" Noah's Ark Puppet pack. In-the hoop means the whole puppet is made in the hoop. There is no having to stitch it all together at the end, the embroidery machine makes the whole thing. Ingenious!



I ended up getting a pretty good deal out of the whole thing. In addition to being able to take $10 off my order, the same weekend as my birthday, they had a deal going where you could get 40% off your order, and receive three free designs as well. I was able to combine this deal with my birthday deal and ended up paying about $5 for a $25 set. Embroidery library always has great deals going, so I hardly ever end up paying full price for anything there. If you've got an embroidery machine, they are well worth signing up to. Just make sure you tell them your birthday.



Anyway, so I had a bit of fun sewing up these cute little puppets. I am very tempted to go back and buy the fairy-tale set as well. I've told myself that I need to make more of the animals before I start buying any more puppet packs. Really, being a Noah's Ark set, I should be making two of each.



A few little tips I would give someone making these:

• Instead of spray glue, get yourself a Sewline glue pen. It's nowhere near as messy, and much easier to just put a dab where you need it. You use it instead of using pins just to hold everything in place. I found the spray glue stuck a little too well, and with some of the felt it stretched it out of shape a bit.

• Use good quality felt. Some of the felt I used was cheap polyester stuff from my local shop and from Spotlight. You can really tell the difference between the two tigers. The one on the left was made using felt from Plushka, the other was made using the cheap felt. It is so worth spending the extra money to get really nice felt, these little guys don't use very much anyway. The zebra was also made using cheap felt, whilst the Panda was Plushka and the pig and the Monkey were made using felt from Winterwood.

• You can skip a lot of the colour changes by using the same colour thread for a bunch of steps. For most of these puppets I used just three colours of thread, one to match the main felt colour, and then the black and white for the eyes (though sometimes I used silver and dark sepia). Generally, for the first four colour changes I used the same colour thread as the felt and then again for the last colour change.

It's been great fun making these little finger puppets. I would like to try more different kinds of puppets, maybe even design some myself? Do your kids like playing with puppets? Did you play with them when you were little? Have you ever made any puppets? Do you know of any good puppet patterns?

Come and join me and some other crafters over at And Sew We Craft...

Kwik Sew Hoody for Liam

Excuse my blurry photo, but I think the smile is irresistable. That's my handsome Liam in his new hoody that I made for him last Friday. It's one of the items I promised to finish in this post. I did the embroidery a bit earlier, whilst I had a bit of a cleaning frenzy in my sewing room (not that you can tell anymore). We've used it before, but it's the one Liam chose for this top and it's from the Embroidery Library. I have a voucher they sent me for my birthday*, I must remember to go and spend it.



The pattern is from Kwik Sew's Sewing for Children. We've finally moved up from the Toddler book. Now that McCalls have taken over Kwik Sew, I'm wondering if these books will stay, or become a thing of the past? Apparently, the lovely paper patterns that Kwik Sew has are disappearing and being replaced by tissue. What sort of patterns do you prefer, paper or tissue? Do you have a favourite Kwik Sew pattern that you think should be snapped up before it gets switched to tissue paper?

*they do this for everyone, if you have an embroidery machine it is well worth signing up

Yoplait Picnic

Product Talk By Nuffang

Today we were blessed with a public holiday co-inciding with a lovely, sunny day. Perfect for a picnic at one of our favourite playgrounds. This picnic is sponsored by Nuffnang and Yoplait.

When we arrived at the picnic, the kids were given some 175g tubs of strawberry yogurt. These tubs are a great size for snacks for little kids. I think they would also be good for morning playlunch at school or kinder. Yoplait is full of calcium, so it's great for growing strong bones, and it doesn't contain any artificial flavours or colours which is a real plus in my book.



The kids were enjoying them so much, they even licked the lids clean. You could say they were lid-lickingly good. Just for fun, Yoplait have printed some great little facts under the lids, like this one:



Happy people live nine years longer. Good thing my kids are happy people, then. I want them to live forever.





For a special treat, I made some Berry Yogurt Slice. The recipe calls for three cups of low fat vanilla yogurt. The 1kg tub of Yoplait Vanilla was perfect. There was even some left over for later. The vanilla flavour is really good, it even contains real vanilla pod.



I had a few problems with this recipe, when I poured the jelly on top, it stirred up the yogurt a bit, so there was yogurt in my jelly and the whole thing was a bit more wobbly and errr.... mooshy than my usual jelly slice, too. We had to use plates and spoons to eat it. I did leave the yogurt part to set overnight, so it wasn't that. I'm thinking next time I might use a little more gelatine? The flavour was really good though, better than the condensed milk version I am used to. One tip though - when pouring the jelly, pour slowly!



I also made some Honeyed Strawberry Dip, this time I used the Yoplait Vanilla from a 1kg tub. The recipe suggests reduced fat "natural" yogurt, but I wasn't able to find any. It was very sweet though, so the honey in my opinion wasn't really necessary. I gave the kids some bananas and strawberries to dip in it, and it was a winner. Not too sweet for them. I'm thinking you could save yourself a heap of trouble though, and just use some of the fruit flavoured yogurt without adding anything to it. It contains real fruit, so it would be just as good.



After our little picnic, Maxx and the kids went off to play in the playground. Amélie has just mastered going up and down slides by herself, so she was really keen to try out the slides at the park. She started out with some of the smaller slides, but was keen to go on the bigger ones.





After a few goes with me, she did it by herself!

Pajamarama

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I managed to get all the pajama pants finished yesterday! I'll be back tomorrow with the tops. I had a little set-back today with no suitable buttons in my stash, so I had to go on a bit of an expedition to find some. The boys are happily wearing new pajamas to bed tonight. Amelie seemed a little disappointed that there weren't any pajamas for her, so I may need to make her some too now.