Showing posts with label applique. Show all posts
Showing posts with label applique. Show all posts

Wednesday 24 December 2014

The handmade gifts from granny and grandad

I have always loved handmade gifts. How dear is to receive something in which much thought and love and effort has been put in.
I wished my children realized that and appreciated the lovely handmade toys their granny and grandad hade made for them this year. For now such appreciation is not seen, as I they are too young, but hopefully with time they will learn to.
I remember that a few weeks ago I mentioned to my dad that the kids liked playing with playdough, always "cooking" something with it - a pizza, spaghetti, cakes and much more and I was wondering whether to get them a little play kitchen for Christmas. That's when my dad decided to make one for them. That was going to be his surprise for them when they come to stay for Christmas.
So here it is. Ready for them to play.




No need to say that they love it. They haven't said it but you could see it from their being around it most of the time. It never looks that tidy of course, they are really messy cooks!
I forgot to mention that the kitchen didn't cost a penny as my dad used some wooden boards he had left from something else.
In addition he made a little doll's bed.



My mum made a little mattress, a pillow and two sheets for it. She even found the time to stitch a little applique.
I can't say I was suprised to see the wooden toys they had made. When I was a child they often used to make stuff for us - little wooden chairs and a table, a doll's bed, my mum had sewn clothes for my dolls and even knitted jumpers for them. Most of our pillowcases and duvet covers were decorated with beautiful appliques. That's where my interest in sewing and crafting must have come from.

Merry Christmas!

Wednesday 8 October 2014

A little baby gift

A friend of mine had a baby girl recently. She has always liked my creations so I thought I could surprise her with a little stitched up gift.
My first idea was to make a little baby dress. But then.... I remembered how tiny newborns were. How on earth I was going to sew such a tiny outfit. And the fact that babies grew so quickly meant that it would probably end up being worn once or twice.
For these reasons I decided to go for something more practical - fabric storage bin. Who doesn't need one?!


In the past I had made one fabric bin with baby feet applique in blue (here) so this time I could make one in pink (or coral in fact) for a girl.


I wanted to add something else to the present so I stitched up a hanging ornament for the baby room. The idea about this came when I saw a hanging moon ornament from An from Straight Grain.


To make the ornaments, I laid two layers of fabric with some polyester waddling in between and followed the shapes I had drawn on the fabric with a decorative machine stitch. Then I trimmed the excess fabric and waddling. It worked better than I thought it would.





I attached strings and some beads. I added the beads in an attempt to take the attention away from the little knots I had to make on the strings. I hope that they are not so noticeable.


Baby gift mission completed!

Now I am in a process of sewing a duvet cover and a pillowcase for my son's bed. Half an year ago I bought some cotton fabric(I wrote about it here) with the clear idea to make it into a bedding set and I finally got to do that. But I do it with a really slow pace. Today, all I managed to do was to machine stitch the buttonholes. Tomorrow I hope to get the chance to sew the buttons.

And before finishing the post I would like to share with you some beautiful words I read tonight in a book given to my son at school for home reading. It is about a mummy monster who goes to the little monster's bed and thinking it was sleeping whispered to him :
 " I love you my darling,
     I love you my Small,
       But there's so much to do in the day
  That it's hard to sit down and to make enough time
       To say all of the things I should say.
  And it's funny, but now that you're sleeping
       And everything's quiet and calm
  The words seem to be much more easy to speak.
       You're everything I always dreamed of
         You've got so much beauty inside
  The way that you smile, that you laugh, that you dance
      Makes my heart want to sing out with pride.
  You live as though life's one huge present
       Unwrapping a bit every day
  That's just how we should be living, my love
      And look at you showing the way!
  And sometimes I know when I scold you
       You feel that I'm being unfair
  But please understand that it's just out of love.
    There are things in this life that can hurt you
         They come to us all - that I know.
  But they all give us chances to learn, darling Small
        And they all give us chances to grow.
  So when you get knocked down, my sweetheart
       Look up at the sky without fear
  For sometimes we need to be flat on our backs
        Before starlight begins to appear.
     And please, above all else remember
      Keep love in your heart, little one
  Reach out to the world like a beautiful flower
      Stretches out to the warmth of the sun.
  It's the only sure way to be happy
        The only sure way to be free.
  Believe in yourself and believe in your dreams
    And you'll be what you dream you can be.
  My beautiful, wonderful, glorious child
  You light up my world. "
The little monster heard it all and drifted to sleep with a big smile.

Very touching and heart-warming tale (at least for me). Unfortunatelly, my son who is four and a half couldn't get to the point of it. Partly because english is not his first language and partly because it probably sounds boring to him. He was more interested in the illustrations and kept interrupting my reading asking me other questions.

By the way the book is called "I love you, little monster" by Giles Andreae and Jess Mikhail.








 


















 












 
 







Friday 24 January 2014

The Dinosaur jumper

 
In one of my previous posts I have mentioned that I had to draw a dinosaur for a project. The so called "project" was my funny attempt to hide a few stains on my son's jumper. Everyone would agree that stains on kids clothes is something quite normal. I also agree that, but in my case there were a few important points:
1. I quite liked that jumper
2. The jumper had been worn just a couple of times
3. He was going to be able to wear it only at home
4. The jumper was large enough to fit him for an year ahead, which was leading to number
5. Apparently I had to see these stains every time he wore that jumper for a whole year

that is how the jumper looked before the makeover

Someone might think that this is the most important jumper in the world, after having written so much about it. All I wanted to do was just to explain why I had to applique that dinosaur on it.
Now you would probably ask "Why a dinosaur?". My boy had several books, featuring dinosaurs, so I thought I could easily trace or draw one of them. Amazingly when we started flipping through the pages none of them seemed to me attractive enough to be sewn on the jumper.


The funny thing was that my son liked the first dinosaur he saw and declared that he wanted that one. But with his body shape, it definitely wouldn't have been able to fulfil its purpose of hiding all the stains, plus it wasn't good-looking. And I certainly couldn't tell him "No, you can't have this, I don't like it" so I had to find a way to trick him out of it. I told him that the dinosaur in question didn't fancy orange colour, that's why he couldn't go on his orange jumper, but mummy would draw one that truly loved orange colour. That's how I ended up drawing a dinosaur.


 I took the body of one dinosaur, used the head of another, added some spikes and here it was. Not too bad, I think. And what was more important, my boy liked it.
For the applique I used felt. It is so easy to work with it. The only downside of felt is that after washing small bobbles (is that how they are called actually?) form on it.
So do you like the new look of the jumper or you think it's too bright?

 
If you like my dinosaur, feel free to use it for your own projects. Just click on the image below and save it on your computer, resize it if necessary and print it.

Thursday 16 January 2014

"Helicopter" cushion


"Mummy, sew me a helicopter", that's what my little son told me when I asked him what he wanted to have on his cushion.



To be honest I was quite relieved that he chose a helicopter. And I would have been equally relieved if he wanted a plane, or a ship or any vehicle. Just not planets, the Moon or a spacecraft.
I was terrified he was going to ask for them, as for some time he has been very interested in them, asking a lot of questions and often looking at them in his book of the Solar system.
I couldn't imagine how I was going to make the planets with some bright felt. Undoubtedly these would have been the most ridiculous, funny and unrecognizable planets, you have seen.
For the cushion itself I used soft polyester fabric, originally from a blanket I had bought from IKEA two years ago. I had bought a white blanket and a red one to use in my sewing projects rather than as blankets. They were quite reasonably priced at about 3.50 £ each, which came cheaper if you had to buy the fabric from a fabric shop.


I have almost used the whole white blanket making the helicopter cushion and a kind of blanket for the buggy. With the small piece of white fabric left, I was thinking to make baby shoes or booties for my little girl, but as she is growing, she wouldn't need such any more so I have to take these off my 'To do' list.
Now the Helicopter cushion proudly sits on my son's bed. Somehow it feels great knowing that something that I have done with so much love for him sleeps next to him.


If you fancy the helicopter applique, please feel free to use the template below. All you have to do is just click on the photo, save it, resize it if necessary and print it.