Now that's a bird's nest!

This mornings bird's nest in Lilly's hair is quite impressive. How can one little girl have such a big birds nest in her hair?!

This will take quite some encouragement to get her to sit still long enough....

My first art exhibition pieces!

ICAN has organised an art exhibition this weekend (28th & 29th November) for 10"x10" art works. I am a new member to ICAN (and somehow also the treasurer!) and was very excited about this. I have made two pieces for the exhibition. They are:

Cathedral Windows

This is a traditionally hand sewn cathedral windows mini-quilt. I have always loved this style of quilt due to my love of geometric repeating patterns, and really want to make one of these for Lilly. So this was the perfect opportunity to try it on a smaller scale. This is quite a time consuming quilt! There are 25 background squares and 40 windows.

Burning Trees

The background here was created using a resist method (wholemeal flour and water paste, left to dry, cracked, and painted over). The trees were then screenprinted over the top. When we first moved into our house there were some trees out the back that had been burnt the previous summer in a little bush fire. I walked past these trees all the time and loved them. (I have a series of 'burnt bush' photos.) They have now been overgrown with new green growth.

During the weekend I will try and get a few photos of the exhibition (Old Court House, Wollongong). I will be there on the Sunday out the front trying my luck with a stall!

Scrappy Twirly Skirt for Lilly

During the heat of yesterday, while Lilly was having her day sleep I literally sat at the overlocker. I had a large tub of scraps and off-cuts and just started randomly picking out fabrics. I kept adding on until I had a new 'fabric'. I intended on making this a full circle skirt, but it got a bit too hot in the studio, so it ended up a 3/4 circle skirt! Great thing about the overlocker is that you don't have to worry about cutting the edges nice and straight - just let the machine do it for you! So here is the result:

I'll see if I can get a photo of Lilly wearing it tomorrow!

Next time I am going to make one long strip about 4" or 5" wide and make a 3 layer tiered skirt - this will give it a better twirling action.

There orange casing around the top has a split, and the tie is lace on the ends, with about 12" of elastic in the centre - this allows for growth to get more wear from the skirt. I love the 'prettiness' that the lace gives to the skirt. And you can wear the bow at the back, at the front, or on the side!

Retro stripe shorts

The fabric used in these was found at Salvos - I loved it as soon as I saw it! It looked that this was a cot sheet at one stage. It feels like a really good quality cotton - quite thick for a sheet, but perfect for some cool duds! I got 4 pairs, 1 each of size 0, 1, 2 & 3 (photos in same order). Again, destined for my market stall - which looks like it may be infront of the Old Court House in Wollongong on Sunday November 29, 2009. My favourite is the diagonal stripes!

Shorts from thrifted fabrics

These shorts were inspired by the crazy patchwork style of quilting. Fabrics used were a mix of old table cloths, cot sheet & new fabric. Both are a size 2 long short (just below knee) and are destined for my next market stall! Although they do have some flowers, I really think these are unisex. The photos show the front (left) and the back (right) of the shorts:

My first quilt

Last month "sew-mama-sew" had a competition for 'scrap busting'. My favourite was Amanda Jeans Ticker Tape Quilt. Now I am a bit of a procrastinator - I like to know exactly what I am doing before I do it! But this time I just jumped right in and I am very happy with the results. I made my first quilt (albeit a doll quilt) and here it is:

I didn't bind it the way you are supposed to - I do like breaking rules. But I do love the raw edge look, so I carried that over to the binding. (I think teddy likes it too.)

And this is what it looked like after a wash:

Touchy Taggy - baby tactile mats

Here are some "touchy taggy" tactile mats I've made over the last couple of days...like the name? They are like a 'taggie' but better - not only do they have tags, but bits that flap, scrunch, are soft, smooth, rough, furry, shiny, bumpy, ridgy... But I can't take credit for the idea. A good friend of mine, her sister made one for her little boy. He loved it! So I made one for Lilly...also a big hit! I found it great for car trips, plane trips, playing quietly in the pram... and fully machine washable! I thought I would make these in themes: colours, black-white-red, pinks, shapes.