Helping Premmies

Over 6 years ago, I gave birth to twin boys prematurely. They were born at 29 weeks. 

Back then, there was no Facebook with support groups where you could enlist the advice of lots of other people who had 'been there, done that'. Thankfully these days those wonderful groups do exist and I am lucky enough to be part of one. It is a premmie support group. 

Not only do we support one and other, we also go above and beyond and make up beautiful little packs for new mums of premmie babies. These packs consist of 3 singlets, 3 sleepsuits, 3 outfits, 1 crochet blanket, 2 sensor blankets, 3 hats and a pair of mittens and booties. All of these items are size 00000/prem and donated or handmade. I joined the group and told my story and then saw that they were desperately low on stock for the packs so I piped up and said I could sew! I then became the chief sewer of the sensor blankets.

To begin with, I had no idea what they even were but soon got educated after lots of questions. They are used when premmies are in humidicribs. Mum and baby have one each. Mum puts hers down her top to collect her scent and baby hugs its one and then they swap. So important and so sweet!

So basically the sensor blankets are super easy to make. It's a double sided 30cmx30cm square. I make one side flannelette fabric and the other a soft cotton. Trouble is, I have so many to make and just not enough hours in the day. I have made over 30 so far but still have lots to make to keep in stock.

Here's a look at some so far...

Coming up soon is my little princesses 3rd birthday!!

Here is a sneak peak of the dress I am making her...

Hope you have all had a lovely weekend and until next time...

The 'Paige' Skirt

As a new Army wife, I have made a lot of Army wife friends. I have really enjoyed getting to know them and have became really good lifelong friends with a few of them. One in particular I see daily and not only do we have a fantastic friendship, our 6 children (she has 3 too) are also wonderful friends. However, I don't think I was ever prepared to watch my friend say goodbye to her husband for 6 months as he deployed to Afghanistan. 

Anyways, I remember when the school holidays started, my friend said to me that her daughter (7) needed some new clothes as she seems to have grown so much since last summer. With her not having hubby around, I thought it would be nice to make her girls some clothes, I know that I dread taking 3 kids to the shops on the best of days by myself! The first thing I made was a skirt for her 7 year old. I had some beautiful Japanese Cotton material with some cute little pandas on it and I knew that she would love it. I whipped up the skirt and forgot to photograph it to show you all...oopsy! But, my friend sent me a text/pic message the other day with her wearing it and a message saying that she had picked out her daughters clothes for the day but she put the bottoms back and put her skirt on. I think that was the third day in a row that she had worn it so I think she likes it :) Here's the blurry iPhone pic...

Tonight I decided to make her 6 year old sister a skirt as well. My plan is to make them a skirt each and a pair of shorts each. Her other daughter is 1 and has a lot of Chelsea's outgrown clothes so I won't make her any at this stage. 

For the second skirt, I found this material in my stash. I bought it a long time ago from Spotlight. The little white petals are a slightly raised puffy paint. Its gorgeous...

and I teamed it up with this lace that I bought for 50c from Vinnie's today.

I made a basic skirt with an elastic waist, not just for her ease and comfort but also because they are quick and easy to make :) 

This is how it turned out and I now call it my 'Paige' skirt. Any guesses as to what my friends 6 year old's name is??

I'm sure she will love it. Now to get onto their shorts. I can't believe that I had my sewing machine pack away for almost a year, my passion is ignited once again!!! I have so many exciting projects running around in my head that I'm looking forward to getting stuck into.

Until next time...

It's me...it's really me!!!

I'M BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Arggg how exciting!

After nearly a year which included a move interstate, becoming an army wife and getting a dog, I finally got the good ol' sewing machine out and off I go!!

I had forgotten.......

Forgotten how damn much I love to sew!! Plain and simple. The spark has been re-sparked and I can't wait to get stuck in and create so much.

Anyways, its late so I better get to bed but I can't wait to show you what I have been working on in the last week  :)

Till next time....

100 Projects: #3 - Haahoo!! + Tutorial

Chelsea's favourite show is 'In The Night Garden'. She has loved this show since before she was 1. Her best friend in the world is her 'Upsy Daisy' doll - which is a character of the show. She once lost her Upsy doll, what an ordeal. You can read about that story on my other blog here.

Anyways, Chelsea is turning 2 soon. Her actual birthday is at the start of February but because Nick is heading away to the Army for 3 months on Monday, we have brought her birthday forward to this weekend. She won't even know, she'll just be excited about cake and presents.

Since I wanted to make her at least one gift for her birthday, I decided to make her a Haahoo (other characters from the show). As you can see from the pic above, there are 5 of them. I made the first one for her.

Here is how it turned out....

Here is a quick tutorial for anyone out there who has an 'In the night garden' obsessed child like me.

What you will need:

- Fabric. I got mine from spotlight and it's called 'Rainbow Dots' by Sugar and Spice.

- Toy fill/stuffing

- Felt for the eyes and mouth (or you could use fabric)

- Pins and a needle

- Sewing Machine, thread etc - your usual sewing stuff

- This Template (Body, eyes and mouth). I enlarged it, printed it out over 4 pages, taped it together then cut it out.

What I did:

1. Cut out 2 main body pieces using the template, 1 front and 1 back. Then I cut out the eyes and a mouth using felt. I cut out 2 black eyes, 2 white eyes slightly smaller to give black frame and then 2 pupils. If you wanted to, you could just cut out 2 white eyes and 2 pupils and stitch around the white with black thread. Up to you!

2. (Optional) As a personal touch, I wanted to add some embroidery on the back. We call Chelsea "Chel Belle" most of the time so I embroidered that onto matching fabric.

I cut around the words in a heart shape and then stuck it on the 'back' body piece and did an applique stitch around it.

3. I then moved to the 'Front' body piece and attached the eyes and mouth. I did an applique stitch around those as well. I use this stitch because it keeps the edges secured down.

4. With the main body pieces complete, I placed them together (right sides facing) and sewed around the outside. I used a 1/4" seam allowance and made sure I left a gap open to turn and stuff.

5. I then turned in the right way and ironed all the seams flat.

6. Once ironed, I opened the gap and stuffed it full of toy stuffing. Once stuffed, I hand stitched up the opening with invisible thread.

There you have it. One Haahoo. I am sure Chelsea is going to love it. She found a picture I printed for the template and carried it around for the day. Can't wait to see her face when she opens it.

This is my first ever tutorial so if there are some things that don't make sense, please let me know :)

Hope you have all had a lovely day, we went to the beach again which was nice. Thank you for reading!!

100 Projects: #2 - Voodoo Owl Pincushion

I needed a new pincushion as the one I had been using was great but too small. I recently went out and bought heaps more pins because I am sick of running out but I guess what I should have done was completed all the pinned half done projects to get most of my pins back. Now I have an abundance and my lovely old pincushion was just too crowded.

Since I love owls, I thought I would make an owl pincushion. I downloaded the pattern from www.thediydish.com and got to work.

For the main fabric I used some fabric that was left over from a few other projects. It was a FQ from the Big W of all places that caught my eye and I had to have :) For the wings I used some scrap fabric that I used for my MIL's birthday quilt and for the eyes and nose, I used some felt.

I filled the owl only to about 3/4's full with hobby fill and then filled the rest of the space up with rice so it would have a heavier base. The pattern actually says to use walnut litter (strange!!) but I stuck to rice.

I was happy at how fast this project was and how it turned out. So cute and sweet but then....

I had to start poking pins into my sweet little owl. I felt so mean! I suppose I never really thought much about the project and just went charging in. Anyways, I pinned around the little guys eyes, nose and wings so I don't feel like an evil witch doctor performing voodoo on a nearby owl.

I am still going to use my old one as well. It has some 'yucky' pins on it and lives on the ironing board so when I get all the way upstairs with something that I need to iron a hem on etc and have forgotten my pincushion, it's no biggy, I have one close by!

Hope you all had a lovely weekend! Mine went far too fast and I am sure next weekend will go even faster, just because I want it to go as slow as possible. It is now 1 week until Nick leaves to go to Army training for 3 months. I am going to miss him so so much :(

100 Projects: #1 - Spare Underwear Pouch

My quest to complete 100 projects in 2012 has started well.

One of the first projects I have complete so far is a couple of spare underwear pouches. As Hunter and Zade are starting school this year, I am busy organising school stuff. Uniform, shoes, labelling etc etc. I have everything ready to go but I was a little worried about what would happen if they had a little accident at school. Hunter has been known on several occasions to be 'too busy' to go to the toilet (TV seems to be the main distraction).

Anyways, if they happen to have an accident at school because playing in the sandpit is more important than going to the loo, I don't want them to be upset or embarrassed. I made them a little jockey pouch each so that should an incident occur, they can take their pouch to the bathroom (with a spare pair of school shorts), take out the clean pair of jockeys, put them on and then put their wet pair in the pouch, zip it up and put it back in their back. I lined the pouched with plastic so there will be no leakage as well. Clever eh?? hehe.

The boys picked out their own fabric from the stash so they are happy with how their pouch looks. Hunter's choice was 2 charms from a charm pack (Meadow Friends) that I recently bought and Zade's choice was a boy army drill fabric that I got from spotlight a while ago.

Excuse the divots in the chair.
Chelsea and a pen thought it would look good...I did not!

They have the boys seal of approval so now I just have to hope that they actually remember to go to the toilet and don't have to use their pouch all that often.

Project #1 complete. Stay tuned for project #2....it's a hoot :)

Have a fantastic weekend and thanks for reading...

New Year....

Hope you all had wonderful celebrations over the festive season. Ours, as always, was a busy one and now we need a bigger house after the tonnes of presents the kids received.

When the new year ticks around, I usually make a huge resolution list and then put it somewhere safe. By May, I have lost the list and forgotten what is even on it. This year, I am not making any resolutions. I am just going to promise myself to try and be as healthy as I can and to enjoy the ups and downs that this year will bring.

Please don't think that I am starting this year with negativity by saying downs, I'm a realist and as Nick is entering the Army in less than 2 weeks (will be away initially for 3 months), I know there will be downs but I am going to look at the silver lining and buy a bottle of wine or two...maybe lots more :)

Anyways, also this year I am going to keep myself busy by crafting. My goal is 100 projects this year. 100 projects in 52 weeks. That's roughly 2 a week. Totally do-able and I have even done 2 already this year and we are only on the 4th day. Yay me! I will post about those 2 projects in the next few days.

Also, today is my Nana's birthday....Happy Birthday Nana! I will bake you a nice cake when you arrive home from NZ :)

Thanks for reading and have a nice day :)