The cutest kitty baby Hula Hoop dress

Who can resist something so perrrrrfect? I mean its a tiny dress with colourful jolly cats on it!

I was inspired to make this dress by one that I saw in John Lewis. It really was a beautiful dress but I just looked at it, and I looked at the price label and I just thought meh, I can do that. So the search for the perfectly cute kitty fabric commenced and I came across these cats in cotton by Dashwood studio.

The pattern is another from my very favourite children's pattern designer and its the Hula Hoop dress from Puperita. This pattern is so classic and yet modern for little girls. The shape is pretty timeless with the high waistline and gathered skirt but the square neckline make it feel much more modern and interesting.

The sew itself was very straightforward. As usual the instructions from Puperita were clear, with good photo's to help you along the way. The facing on this dress was probably my favourite bit, it was just so satisfying. After I stitched it it lay so perfectly with the top pattern it made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. The sleeves were a bit fiddly, but they went in easy enough and the rest of it was easy as. I managed to sew the whole thing together (with all the associated ironing, god I hate the ironing!) in one short evening.

I love the little bow on the front, its such a cute little detail. I did think about adding some piping to the waistline but I didn't want to risk ruining it so I missed it off this version. I definitely would consider adding it if I make another, it would help draw attention to the waist detail. This is such a lovely pattern for woven fabrics. The gathered skirt design means that it copes well with a more structured cotton like this. It is also easy to pair with a long sleeved top or cardi for the colder months.

I made this in size 0-3 months, its so dainty! I hope Miss Fox will be able to get some wear out of it before she is crawling around.

So, which are your favourite cats? I think for me it has to be the pink and yellow one, mostly because of the colours. It needs to be more common for adults to wear clothes like this!

Mexico Kitty Ceramic Pot

I am so excited to show this little fella to you, he is the first thing I made in my ceramic workshop and I'm so pleased he is finally home. He is named 'Mexico Kitty' as he was inspired by some Mexican art I saw, with the painted design. Isn't he the cutest!

He was made using the snake pot technique; i.e hand built using long snakes to form a pot. I really like the shape of him, he sort of curves in like a nice plump kitty but I think its a really aesthetic shape. I then added four legs onto the bottom. Sadly I don't think I secured them well enough, so as you can see here they exploded off on the first firing but they have been very cleverly attached back on by David when dip glazed. David also put a hole in the bottom of my pot for the water to drain out so I also made this little stand for it to catch any water that drips through. This I just made out of a flat rolled piece of clay which I made dint's in for the legs to sit in so its all nice and sturdy.

The pattern was hand painted on using some oxide and water after I added the blue slip to colour the main pot. I really like the way this looks actually, its definitely something I will try again. I like how delicate the brush strokes are on something which is otherwise quiet chunky. With the face I cut away from the clay and then painted in the gaps but as you can see the oxide has burnt away during the firing process, which is a shame but I really see all this as a bit of a learning curve, there are no errors only happy accidents!

The final shiney glaze was added by dipping him in glaze, this helped to stick his legs back on, but we would normally paint the glaze on to the pot. After firing the shrinkage of the clay caused the glaze to crack which is the effect you can see above. David suggested that we paint over the pot with a watery acrylic paint to show off the cracks it has caused. We gave it a test on the bottom of the plate and it looked really nice so I applied it to the whole pot. I think its a really interesting effect.

I hope you like Mexico Kitty :) It just goes to show just how easy it is to make something amazing. I love this pot and as I said at the beginning this is the first one I made so it just goes to show what you can achieve when you give things a try. I have put David's flyer below for anyone who is local and fancies giving ceramics a go. 

Now I need to go and get on with trying to finish some of my sewing projects! Honestly, I have a pile so high of half done makes that I really need to tackle, they are in the way if nothing else!

Exciting Announcement: Magic Little Monsters

I am so excited to share this post with you as it's something I have been working on for a little while now and I have finally got to a point where I feel I can legitimately spill the beans.

As you know I've become a become a bit obsessed with clothes sewing, especially for Master Fox so I have been working on a self designed pair of baby/toddler trousers... Yes, you got it, Fox trousers!

These adorable little joggers are made from cotton sweat shirt fabric so are really comfy and warm. They are a lovely relaxed fit to make sure the nappy fits in there and there is a good ease of movement. Finally they are finished off with an elasticated waist so they are easy to get on an off that wriggly toddler (especially at bottom changing time!).

My favourite thing about these trousers though is that the fox face is on the back. This might seem weird when you look at these on a hanger but when those little ones start to crawl and roll around that little bottom in the air makes these the cutest item of clothing ever. Look at little Master Fox demonstrating this perfectly :)

The even more exciting news is that I have launched a new Etsy shop: Magic Little Monsters where you can get your very own pair of Foxy baby pants. The plan is that these will be made to order, but I will from time to time put listings up there for ready made items and hope to be able to launch exiting new designs in the future. I hope you go and check it out, and recommend it to all your friends!

I really hope you love these trousers as much as I do, I can't wait to get started on drafting up my next design. Please feel free to leave me a lovely comment, and if you have any inspiring ideas from seeing this and want to leave a comment to make suggestions of what I can look to designing please do so.

xxx

Jumpy romper

How awesome is this little romper! I love it, Can I have the pattern in adult please? I'm actually quiet serious about that, this little girls romper suit is the business. Its so soft and comfy, can you imagine it as a type of onesie to slouch about at home in, it would be great. Its quiet simply lovely and one of the nicest things I have sewn up recently.

The fabric I'm sure some of you will recognise is some mint Elk Grove knit jersey by Birch fabrics. It wasn't exactly the cheapest of knits but the quality of it is truly sublime. I bought this fabric in my early pregnancy when I was secretly hoping for a girl and thinking of all the cute dresses I could make. I tried to persuade myself it could be classed as unisex, but lets face it its not very masculine is it. Now before you jump down my throat I have no problem with son playing with dollies or tea sets or whatever the hell he chooses but; I decided that making it into an outfit for a little lady would do the fabric much more justice and it would get much more love and wear. I had contemplated making it into some sort of summer PJ's for myself, but I know I'm just never going to get round to that and I only bought one meter so it wasn't a lot to play with.

The pattern is the reversible Jumpy Romper which is another pattern from the wonderful Puperita. This pattern was no different to the other ones I have made up in that it was an absolute dream to follow and so easy to make. I made it up in 12-18m for a friends little girl and the proportions look great. I used the overlocker for this one because I wanted a really quick satisfying project after all the fitting I had to do with Margot dress and this certainly delivered. I managed to whip this up in about 2 days. I absolutely love the pink jersey with the mint of the elk grove knit. Its such a beautiful colour combination for a girl, and I think one of my favourite. As I mentioned the pattern is reversible but why would you want to hide those handsome deer?

I would offer a word of caution about sewing this whole pattern on the overlocker though. Whilst it is possible, as you can see here, sewing around the top popper sections is very difficult and the finish is a little clumsy. Next time I will do the sides and the ankle cuffs on the overlocker then the top section on a regular machine. All the seams are hidden inside so they don't need to be perfectly neatened off. It is a bit of a shame as the one issue with trying to sew will baby sleeps/with a baby is the constant changing from sewing machine to overlocker to iron and back again. I am yet to find my perfect nap time project. If you have any ideas about this I am desperate to hear them.

So I would definitely recommend the fabric and the pattern. The fabric also comes in a lovely multicolourway and the pattern is newborn - 6 years! How many versions am I going to be able to make before these babies grow out of these patterns! I have some lovely skull print jersey which is screaming to be made into a pair of these but again I bought it for Master Fox and having received it I think its just a little bit on the feminine side so I'm not sure what to do about that yet. Watch this space (though not too closely its probably going to stay in my fabric stash for ages while i find the perfect project!). 

Christmas dungarees

Its time to one up the Christmas Jumper with these incredibly festive baby Santa dungarees! We all know the joy of having a kid is so that you can dress them up and Christmas is going to be no exception to that. Little girls get all the love though with pretty festive dresses and tutu's where as boys only really seem to get the jumper. I therefore couldn't resist the temptation of making him a pair of festive dungarees to help him celebrate the season. Especially as his social calendar was far busier than mine this year!

The pattern was again from Puperita and is the Little Birds Romper pattern. The fabric was Riley Blake Santa Claus Express cotton and the lining is just some red cotton both from Ebay. I love the Santa fabric so much, those little smiling Santa's are so cute. I also tried for ages to find some buttons the size the pattern recommended, finally settled for some which didn't really go, then found out they were too big for my button holes anyway and ended up searching the house and finally finding some self cover buttons (which reminds me I need to get some more). I think these work loads better though, those buttons are adorable with the little smiley Santa face on.

This was another exceptionally good pattern from Puperita. It was really simple to follow and being a cotton it was a dream to sew and the finish is top quality. The fit is really nice on them as well, they sit really nicely on his shoulders but also have a good amount of room in the waist to allow him to move about in. I did have the benefit of being able to measure these in the leg exactly so that the leg cuffs sit perfectly. I will definitely be making more of these as he grows up because they fit and wear so well. I can imagine all sorts of versions: cute cotton prints, corduroy, denim, it lends itself so well to so many woven fabrics.

I would be lying if I tried to tell you that I didn't try to pattern match these, but as you can see it went a horribly wrong (how am I so bad at this?) It's not the end of the world and I'm not going to cry about it but I don't understand how I always fail at this. I'm sure I will get there in the end.

The only disappointing thing about these dungarees is that Christmas is now over and he will soon grow out of them :( Having said that though because you don't need much fabric for baby clothes I certainly didn't spend more on these than I would have buying him a Christmas outfit from the shops. However Master Fox had something totally unique that made him look so damn cute.

Have you ever made your kids festive outfits, or yourselves for that matter? I would LOVE to see them.

Baby Makes: The first of many (Starry Romper)

I have been doing so much baby sewing lately and am LOVING it! Honestly I'm completely obsessed by it. If any of you out there are parents yourselves you will know that once you have a little one in your life all your attentions and money go straight into them and you care so much less about your own needs and appearance. Your little ones will be dressed in the cutest little outfits whilst you are still trying to rock a pair of leggings and oversized tshirt which you have owned for 4 years!! It's therefore no surprise that my sewing has taken the same turn and I'm now happily turning out gorgeous little outfits for Master Fox. Not to mention the fact I need to make the most of the fact I'm currently allowed to choose what he wears which won't last forever.

After seeng one of my friends babies in an adorable little handmade cotton romper I did some internetting and discovered Puperita patterns on Etsy and I love them. I bought the starry romper pattern as I wanted to make a pair of jersey dungarees and this looked like the perfect fit for this type of fabric. I specifically wanted to make them from jersey as it's such a comfortable and giving fabric for a baby. These little things are still developing, and at the time of making these in particular he was just trying to find his hands and feet and start crawling and so I didn't want to make something too restrictive for him. Not to mention jersey is soft on the skin, warm and most importantly washes well, perfect for little babies. I bought this particular jersey on eBay from a seller in Germany (how come wider Europe has much better fabric than we do here in the uk!). 

 

The pattern was so simple to follow and really quick to sew up using both the sewing machine and overlocker and it turned out simply amazing I am really proud of it. I did try and do some pattern matching but didn't realise there were 2 monkey repeats and lined the fabric up to the wrong ones!! Oh well we need to make these mistakes to learn don't we! I should also say you don't need to use an overlocker to make these and the pattern works just as well with cottons as it does jersey but you will need some stretch fabric for the cuffs. 

 

I hope you love this little romper as much as I do, I think the pocket is one of my favourite bits of the pattern, I keep putting things in there for him ;). I also decided to make a matching dribble bib using one of his existing bibs as a template. I think it's an excellent use of some of the left over fabric and now he can be coordinated!!

Right well that's it for this post but don't worry I have so many more to show so watch this space for more rompers, some joggers and most importantly his amazing handmade Halloween outfit which I am particularly proud of!! X

Happy Christmas Puds for a Crafty Christmas Fair

 

The world is definitely split in two when it comes to this time of year and the Christmas stuff starts to appear in the shops. There are those that grumble and groan about it being far to early and then there are the others, like me, who start jumping up and down with excitement at the prospect. To say I LOVE Christmas is a bit of an understatement, I just find the whole countdown really exiting and I still have sleepless nights the night before because I just can't wait. I guess I'm just a big kid at heart. Having my birthday so close to Christmas though probably doesn't help, its just a whole season of celebration and now I have the birth of the little man to look forward to, who is due just just 7 days before! Bets on whether it will end up being a Christmas day baby? Who knows, we will just have to watch this space. 

For a lot of us creative types Christmas really does usually start in August when you start thinking about Christmas craft fairs, Christmas related inspiration prepared in advance etc and so I am obviously no exception to this. In addition this year we are also going to be re-running the charity craft fair we did at Easter to see if we can raise even more money for a good cause. The idea is to make handmade items out of the goodness of your heart and donate them to the fair so that others can purchase them, all funds raised going to charity. With that going on I am obviously thinking about what I can make to contribute and these little guys are perfect no? You will remember my Christmas Pudding Tutorial from last year? Well if not check it out. This is just a slight modification on that where I stitched a tiny little happy face on to the icing because we all know food should have a face!

I hope you like these little guys, and are not offended by their appearance on the blog in September! You should so have a go at making some of these yourselves with your little ones for Christmas using my tutorial I linked above.

I don't really have much to tell you about my weekend this week, we had a lovely quiet one at home for a change and I really haven't done a lot at all. I don't know why quiet weekends go so quickly, they should be slow and dull but somehow they just aren't. I also didn't do any of the jobs I intended to but I did enjoy spending time with Mr Fox so I'm not going to beat myself up about it at all. I hope you had a lovely one whatever you have been up to and I wish you a productive crafty week ahead.

Crochet Baby Bear Hat

Who's been sleeping in my bed...? No one at the moment but it won't be long I'm sure till we have a tiny person trying to hog the covers as well as Mr Fox! 

Not having the craft room hasn't been a total disaster, I have managed to crochet this awesome little baby bear hat. Anyone that knows me will easily be able to tell you that my child is going to be nearly permanently in some fancy dress or another! You can't wait can you!

It's still a couple of weeks till we find out the sex so I am still trying to craft neutral, Bears are a great way to cover this even if brown is not exactly my favourite colour. 

The main body of the hat was crocheted using the following Velvet Acorn pattern. The face was self drafted from felt pieces and sewn on with a blanket stitch. Finally the ears were self drafted. I did start off with two giant pom poms for ears but they didn't quiet look right so I made up a new set. 

Using the same wool and hook as the main pattern (you will have to purchase it for that info):

Make a magic loop and sc 5 times into the loop, do not join

Turning the work 2sc in each stitch around (10 sc), do not join

Turning the work sc in each stitch until you reach the last one (9sc), slip stitch, fasten off.

You then just need to sew them on to the body. I don't think mine are quiet equal but meh!

In other news: The Kitchen fiasco continues, we can't get a worktop for 2 weeks so they have had to put in a temporary fix and then they will come back and finish it off. Not ideal, but at least I can use the kitchen for now. We had a major storm, I should not have been laughing at us not flooding at the top of a hill, the garage was underwater, though nothing major so we are counting ourselves very lucky. Also Mr Fox bought a Harley! I am a little gutted I can't have a go until next year but I am really pleased for him, he was so happy!

I hope you all had a lovely weekend. p.s. if you have any cute animal baby makes to send my way for trying please do... I probably won't be able to resist.

Ice Cream Brooch Kit by Tugba Pop and Giveaway

What better than ice cream on a Bank Holiday? Well its not actually been that great here, so instead of enjoying a cool lolly to keep the heat off, I delved in the these beauties instead! They are much cuter and definitely better on the hips don't you think (though of course this doesn't stop us have real ice cream as well!).

Anyone who has been following my Pinterest will know that I have been eyeing up this brooch kit since before Christmas. You can get your very own from Tugba Pop Illustration and I purchased mine from their Not on the Highstreet shop for a mere £5! I mean, why wouldn't you? Honestly, go do it now (well after you have finished here of course).

So what do you get for your money? Quiet a lot actually. There are detailed instructions on how to make your brooch, templates, tracing paper, leather to use as the backing, 5 fabric samples to make the pretty designs and a brooch back. The only things you will need to add are a sewing machine, thread and some glue (and more brooch backs if you are like me and were savvy enough to get a couple of brooches out of this one kit).

As you can see I opted for some sweet treats and choose a traditional ice cream and the fab style lollypop. The instructions in this were really easy to follow and the whole process was a delight. My favorite bit was deciding which fabrics to use, it took me so long there were so many variations! All in all it probably took me about 30 minutes per brooch, which is no time at all. This is a great little thing to make for some instant gratification. I didn't even use my leather machine needle, nope, you just need a normal sewing needle and some normal thread.

So, because I managed to get more than one treat out of this kit I thought I would take this opportunity to offer up a little giveaway for you to win the fab style lollypop brooch I have made using this kit. All I want you to do is write a comment below and let me know what your favourite thing to do on a summer day is. I will then pick a winner at random. I will leave the competition open until Midnight Sunday 01st June and will announce the winner on Monday 02nd.  Good luck everyboby and I really hope you enjoyed your bank holiday weekend.

DIY Panda Balloon Tutorial

Happy Monday to you all, I have a lovely post weekend treat for you today:

We went out for a good friends birthday this weekend and I was tasked by her other half to think about decorations for venue. Its a big birthday, but I didn't want to rub it in, because although she is a wonderfully social person, she doesn't like to be made a fuss of. So I got to thinking about what she loves, and she LOVES Panda's (who doesn't love a cute fluffy panda?).

So I got ebaying and googling to find some panda balloons to buy for the occasion. Much to my surprise there is a distinct lack of (cute) panda balloons out there. So I then thought to myself, ok, you must be able to DIY a panda balloon right? off to pinterest I went, but nothing. What is wrong with the internets? it couldn't give me the panda love I needed. So I bought some white balloons and here my lovely friends is what happened!

You will need:
White balloons
Sharpie
Craft glue
Black crepe paper (normal paper will probably work fine)
Scissors

Step 1: Blow up your balloon

Step 2: Cut out two semi circles of your crepe paper, and have little tags at the bottom on each side. It also helps to have a little curve in between the two.

Step 3: Using your sharpie draw some nice big panda eyes on your balloon and colour them in. You might want to draw up a quick template if you are worried about getting the eyes the same. My panda is looking a bit evil here, but he will look cute in a minute I promise.

Step 4: Draw a little nose and smiley mouth on your balloon, I find the closer to the eyes, the cuter the panda.

Step 5: Fold up the tabs on your ear pieces and pop a little bit of glue on the bottom.

Step 6: Stick the tabs on to the top of the balloon, place the tabs pointing towards the face, and it helps to angle them in a little bit so you get a nice curve on the ears, and this helps them to stick up rather than fall over. A bit like pointing your big toes in towards each other.

And you are done! Hazzah! Panda balloon to the ready How cute and easy was that!

Photo credit: Ian Plumpton Photography

Now all that is left to do is prance around pretending you have a panda for a head!

I would love to see your versions if you decide to give this a go. Maybe think about other animals, I would love to see a kitty cat.