from this...

to this...

A little bit cryptic, but this is my little present to my retreat buddie Jodz and I don't want to give it all away - just a sneak peek! ;)

I discovered the neat retro purple apron in the sock bag, of all places, and I decided that it would be better re-fashioned/up-cycled into something great for my purple loving friend Jodz!!

On a side note, I am LOVING my little wristlet pincushion, so useful and comfy on my wrist! :D

And yep, I am starting the countdown to this weekends retreat now! Only 4 sleeps to go, hehehe!

just a little more creativity...

Some little gifts for a special 18 year old I know - Hi Rebecca! 

some more creativity...

So, what do you get for an 8 year old girl who has invited your daughter to her birthday party?

I thought I'd make her a quilt for her doll, especially since Briahna LOVES all her's, so I made one or two (or four!). I got a little carried away with how fun they are to make.

And then, when Briahna came home from school and told me Holly doesn't like dolls - I had to think of something else to make her. Needless to say, some of these doll quilts will be up in my etsy store in the next couple of days!!! I decided to try making one of chickpea's everything pocket bag's. I've been wanting to make one for ages!!!

A little chickpea sewing studio

Everything Pocket Bag

Filled up with coloured pencils, I think it makes a great gift. What do you think?

I'm trying really hard to be thrifty and wise with our money lately, and so handmade gifts are my choice to make a better world. :)

No Spend Challenge...
I have a confession to make. I feel a little like Rebecca in Confessions of a Shopaholic, but at least my spending didn't go on the credit card!

I was naughty yesterday and went to Spotlight after they enticed me in with a spend $100, get $40 off voucher. I couldn't resist the temptation and bought lots of fabric, some embroidery threads, and some more neat bees wax crayons for crayon wraps! I managed to get the quilting fabric for Hope's 13th birthday quilt for under $30 for the top, and it's great! :D So, whilst I did fall over on my no spend challenge see sidebar it was all for a good cause!

new skirt 4 Jodz...

What do you think? This cute little skirt was made from a neat old retro tablecloth and some fabric given to me by my good friend Lianne! Lianne was going through her stash and doing the big chuck and I held my arms open and said "give me, give me"... :) Hehehehe! Like I really need more fabric!?!

After the day Jodz had last week, I knew she needed a little cheering up and a cute skirt never goes amiss! :D It fits her perfectly and looks smashing!!

Talking about having way too much fabric, I've been inspired by Lianne to go through all mine whilst the kids are away. Every day this week I will be washing a huge drawer full and sorting it into will-use, won't-use-yet, and will-never-ever-in-a-million-years-use piles. It's something that HAS to be done because my craft room is looking like a fabric bomb exploded in there and it's near impossible to sew in. You know you have to do something when that happens!

It's on yer back...

Another pressie for a special girl who's turning 6 tomorrow! Happy Birthday Jaymee girl!!!


And look at the neat wee kitten I was given today!

Sophia

It's a wrap...

Hehehe!, well actually it's a crayon wrap! :)

Avert your eyes, Rebekah and Jodz, or you'll ruin the surprise!

Today is the first day that we are kidless! Well, they left yesterday, and today's the first full day away from them. Can you tell I'm missing them already? Well, kinda, at least it's given me some wonderful time to get creative!

I wrote my first review on Filmguide late last night after watching Australia - go check it out and tell me what you all think! The first part of the review was written by Mr Sew-Funky and the second part, by me! A kind of "he say's, she say's" review!

Back to the original reason for this post - the crayon wrap!

I don't know if you've ever been stuck with lot's of broken crayons before, but with three budding artists in the family, I am. So what to do with the useless little bits... Well, you can make new ones, rainbow ones if you like... And so before I even made the crayon wrap prototype I wanted to make some wee crayons by recycling the old. :)

Here's how;

You need something to melt them in, I chose an old gem iron, but you can make them in muffin pans too!

You need some old worn out crayons, my girls have plenty! :) Don't worry if they look awful, they won't look bad for long!

Put baking paper in the gem iron (so they won't stay in there after melting!). Break up the crayons and put them in. I chose similar colours, but you can mix the crayons up for a rainbow effect!

Put them in the oven at 180 degrees Celcius for about 15 minutes. Look at them melt, this is after around 5 minutes.

They're ready to take out when they look like this! Leave them to set in the gem iron. :)

This is what they looked like when I took them out of the iron, all ready to put into the new crayon wrap!

Tah Dah! All ready to use by little hands!

And here are the gorgeous little wraps that I made for Miss Jodz Stuff and for my cute little nephew Mo!

Do you notice I used the fabric I bought the other day? :D

This is what they look like when they're open. They have a little flap that covers the crayons. :)

Seriously cute, don't you think?

Tag Blankies

I have been thinking about making some little tag blankies for a month or so now. They're apparently good for wee babies, and in my own experience, it always seems that babies are more interested in the tags hanging off toys than in the toys themselves!

Of course I had to wait until the cast came off. And so I forgot all about it until looking at Twenty Cent Mixture's latest post, where she made one! This afternoon I had a little bit of spare time and so I came up with my own design, based upon TCM's one. They are so neat, it makes me wish I had another of my own littlie's again - just to try them out! :)


These two tag blankies are going to be little pressies for two special 6 month old babies I know (Averie - of last post's fame, and Ruby - my gorgeous little neice!) They're made from polar fleece and a wide range of ribbons, cotton tapes that I had in my craft supply. A great way to use up the stash without buying any more crap to fill my craft-room!! :D

Remember to enter the draw to win Amanda Blake Soule's book - the creative family here on my blog.

Aimée's amāta facecloth

This cloth was designed for my almost 10 year old daughter. Her name means beloved and she sure lives up to her name! :) Aimée was diagnosed with High Functioning Autism when she was 5 years old. She currently attends a satellite class at a special school, and is doing very well there. So much so, that our sweet girl is going to be moved up a year at school and will be attending intermediate early! :)

Love was the first word she ever learned how to spell and is a word that would describe our little girl to a tee. She struggles, as do we, with her diagnosis. And yet, there is something other-worldly about our girl. She is at times able to be untouched by the world we live in. There is an innocence about her that I love.

Name meaning from wikipedia:

Aimee, or Aimée, is a female given name and a version of Amy. Both names come from Aimée, which means beloved/loved in French (for a female), from Old French amede, from Latin amāta, feminine singular past participle of amāre "to love". The masculine form is Aimé.

By the way, purple is her favourite colour. Has been for forever, honestly I swear she'll love you if you wear it. She is the purple spotter! :)

Anyway, without further ado, here is the pattern for the face cloth...

Aimée's amāta

Materials: 1 ball worsted weight cotton yarn, size 4 mm needles. I used Lion Brand Yarn's Lion Cotton, 147 Purple.

Instructions:
Cast on 18 stitches.
This cloth is made up of 6 wedges, all exactly the same. When you finish knitting a wedge, you just carry on knitting the next one. Then the edge is sewn together, the threads are sewn in and the cloth is complete. :)

Every wedge:
Row 1 : K to last 6 sts, P2, K2, P2.
Row 2: K2, P2, K2, YO, K to last st, turn.
Row 3: K to last 6 sts, P2, K2, P2.
Row 4: K2, P2, K2, YO, K to last 2 sts, turn.
Row 5: K to last 6 sts, P2, K2, P2.
Row 6: K2, P2, K2, YO, K to last 3 sts, turn.
Row 7: K to last 6 sts, P2, K2, P2.
Row 8: K2, P2, K2, YO, K to last 4 sts, turn.
Row 9: K to last 6 sts, K2, P2, K2.

Row 10: Cast off 4 stitches then K1, P2, K2, YO, K to last 5 sts, turn.
Row 11: K to last 6 sts, K2, P2, K2.
Row 12: P2, K2, P2, YO, K to last 6 sts, turn.
Row 13: K to last 6 sts, K2, P2, K2.
Row 14: P2, K2, P2, YO, K to last 7 sts, turn.
Row 15: K to last 6 sts, P2, K2, P2.
Row 16: K2, P2, K2, YO, K to last 8 sts, turn.
Row 17: K to last 6 sts, P2, K2, P2.
Row 18: Cast off 4 stitches then K1, P2, K2, YO, K to last 9 sts, turn.
Row 19: K to last 6 sts, P2, K2, P2.
Row 20: K2, P2, K2, YO, K to last 10 sts, turn.
Row 21: K to last 6 sts, K2, P2, K2.
Row 22: P2, K2, P2, YO, K to last 11 sts, turn.
Row 23: K to last 6 sts, K2, P2, K2.
Row 24: P2, K2, P2, YO, K to last 12 sts, turn.
Row 25: K to last 6 sts, K2, P2, K2.
Row 26: Cast off 4 sts, K across row.

You can find a printable version of this pattern here: Free Dishcloth Patterns from sew-funky.blogspot.com.

© SewFunky 2008
http://sew-funky.blogspot.com
etsy store: sewfunkynz.etsy.com

new hairclips...

I am so proud of my efforts... You see, I have never really done much if any embroidery, and here are 4 new clips using satin stitch, detatched chains and back-stitch. I was inspired by my good friend Lianne's gorgeous clips Lianne you really must get your blog up and running;).

The last time I made hair clips I used buttons and embroidery thread to embellish them see pic below.
I made these clips back in July last year. They're not as good as the ones I made today imho. :)

I just LOVE cupcakes and after mastering the flower clips wanted to try making some. It's so great to try something new and have it all work out!!! I am on cloud 9 at the moment.

My first attempt at applique | new cosmetic bags for the girls...

So, here it is.  My very first attempt at applique using the double sided iron on stuff...  (What's the correct name Lianne?) :) 

I love how they turned out!

Some recent wee home made love...

Last week I posted about the retreat Jodz and I went on - if you head on over to her blog you can read her impressions of retreat. You can also see a photo of me there too - eeeeek!

We had a whole heap of fun and this is a photo of what I made for my sweet friend...

some yarn, a knitting needle roll, a starfish cloth and a cool teapot napkin ring

With my sister in the country, I couldn't resist giving my niece a little something...

some little shoes made by Lianne, a little baby star cloth and some neat soap
I picked up when I was on retreat last weekend.
I just love the way the baby star cloth can be folded into a heart shape - so cool...

And my sister had her birthday at the end of last month, and I made her some shoe bags for traveling and a little cloth. Happy Birthday Erica...

the dishcloth being blocked (is that the word?)
This cloth's edges love to curl up, so you won't be finding the pattern on the sew-funky blog and I won't be knitting it again. I am thinking of re-doing the pattern though.

the neat little shoe bags - I hope you liked them Erica! :)

D.

gift | baby bibs

My good friend Joanna had a sweet little girl 3 weeks ago, and today we got to meet her! What a sweetie she is!!!
Here are a couple of new bibs that I whipped up for little Selah! Notice the fabric is the same as the pj's I made for Bree! I had a fair amount left from the metre I bought to make them, so I expect I'll be using more of it in some up coming projects - waste not, want not! ;)

new baby arrives...

One of my favourite people gave birth this morning to a new sweet daughter... One day early and with a head of beautiful dark hair, Averie Mae is truly gorgeous. Unfortunately, I don't have a photo to share with you, but I do have a photo of the little gift I gave. Three bibs, one knitted and two using the pattern that's available on the sidebar.

I was so happy to be able to visit Mum & Bub at birthcare only 8 hours after she was born, especially since I missed the baby shower on Sunday afternoon. I am so tired of feeling sick and having sick children, especially since I had great plans of making lots of things to take with me to Christchurch. :(

POSTSCRIPT;

me and averie mae - photo courtesy Averie's Dad

Navy & Burgundy Soap Sack

So, my dad is turning 60 this year and we (me and my 3 sisters) are going to be giving a special surprise gift(s) to him. I needed to find 15 presents for him and boy that was harder than it sounds. I think men are a lot harder than women, when it comes to present choice. Especially when one is short of cash and the recipient lives 14,000 miles away (a guess).

I have just today finished all 15 items and will be sending them off to him tomorrow by airmail, I'm really hoping he'll get it by his birthday on the 4th of May. 60 years is pretty special as far as birthday's go and he's gonna be pretty much alone on the day, with my mum being in Aussie with my sister for the birth of her first baby.

As one of the gifts, I made a really nice knitted soap sack (using this pattern) with two strands of Sullivans 4ply cotton (Navy & Burgundy). It turned out really nice and I am sure to make this pattern again. Funny, how the photo doesn't much look like navy/burgundy, it's darker in real life.

Yesterday, I got to meet one of my blog readers for the first time. Hi Di! It was strange since she knows so much about me vicariously through my blog. It was like we'd known each other a while even though it was our first meeting. In a way we weren't too much of strangers, she works with a friend of ours and we know other people mutually. My husband has met her and her hubby through his volunteer work with FilmGuide too. Di is a budding crafter and I'm excited to see what she will come up with on her brand new blog in the coming months. :)

Knitting Kits for two 11 year old girls

Hope and two of her friends ran the games for Briahna's birthday party. They were great and I felt that I needed to give them something to show my appreciation for what they did.

I know that Hannah loves to knit, but I'm not sure about Rachael, still knitting is always a great skill to learn!

Included in the kit; knitting needles, 2 balls of yarn, beginners instructions and a homemade tote bag.

Rachael's kit

Hannah's Kit

Hope and the gifts for her friends

Gorgeous Harrison and his Mum!

No, I didn't say George Harrison!!! Hehehe!
Here is the cute recipient of my work last week, and his mother's work the week before! ;)
Look at that beautiful head of red hair, just like his Mum! :)

And, yes, I did get to have a wee hold!!! He is oh, so adorable! Makes you feel just a little clucky inside! :D Liz & Scott, what an extra special bundle of joy you have there! Well Done!

Harrison's present

I was wondering how I could pull Harrison's gift together - how could it be packaged?! When, I had a lightbulb moment - a drawstring bag, that could carry dirty nappies when Liz was out and about! So here are Harry's gifts in all their glory...

the bag

I am pleased with how the bag turned out, I sewed across the corners to make a squared bottom, and used some cool american crafts ribbon to match the cute fish I appliqued onto the front.

the gifts
(booties, fish & bibs)

the complete package!