Diaper clutch and changing mat all in one!

I have a wonderful Phil and Teds Promenade stroller, one that will eventually be able to transform to be able to push two children at once. I love it to bits, but it is pretty big and as I don't drive...yet....Im often getting lifts with people to go places and if we want to go walking anywhere I have to put little one in a carrier, which is fine, but she is getting bigger and heavier and so its not super ideal. So we treated ourselves to a new stroller - the Quinny Yezz - which was on my wish list of baby items! It is super lightweight and goes down soooo small it can be slung over your shoulder like a back pack!

The only issue I had was that it has no parcel shelf underneath or place to hang the ginormous nappy bag us mum's cart everywhere! So I needed something small that I could use to take a few nappies and wipes along with me, and then I can take a small handbag (remember those!?) with toys and purse etc in.  Pattern link after the jump.....

How to use Bondaweb - Photo tutorial

This tutorial is for my friend Esther! Bondaweb is amazing stuff and enables you to do appliqué so crisp and neatly. So this is a very quick tutorial just to show you how to use it correctly, but the possibilities are endless and can give you such a neat professional finish. (Have a look at my previous post about simple ideas to quickly jazz up a blank T-shirt here) 

I love using this to do appliqué onto jersey fabrics especially as they tend to move about when you stitch onto them, but doing it this way the Bondaweb holds the design and the fabric in place. Below are two I have just recently done, one inspired by Fi Fi Lapin and the other is just something I drew.

So if you want to know how to use it, click read more!

Crochect Chevron Blanket

I have finally finished crocheting my chevron blanket I started more a year ago! It really shouldn't of taken that long to do, but I hadn't decided on a way to finish it and so it has been left incomplete for a long time! As this was the first thing I had really crocheted (apart from the baby shoes) my tension wasn't quite right, and I'm not sure I had the correct hook size for the yarn and so my sides were a bit uneven, and I had also decided to fill in the zig zags at the top and bottom of the blanket which made it very lumpy looking.  I thought it really needed something extra to give it a better finish. So after much deliberation I decided to back it in a pale blue jersey fabric and then used matching embroidery thread to hand quilt the back to the front, much quicker and quirkier than other options. I machine stitched the jersey to the front of the blanket to create a border. In hindsight I should of planned the blanket a bit more carefully as the yarn I chose was although very smooth and soft, it was very expensive, and I needed waaaay more yarn than I anticipated! So her is the most expensive blanket I have ever made or been given! If you want to have a go yourself you can find a free pattern here.

So here it is! Its lovely and smooth for Annabelle to play on and because its so heavy it's also nice and warm to use over her in her carseat.

See more after the jump.....

Jazzing up baby t-shirts

Anabelle is growing very fast and in a bid to save some money I bought some plain t-shirts in the sales, a set of 3 for something like £2. Now that I don't have much time either (babies are quite time consuming !;-) I needed a quick and easy way to jazz them up, so I did some simple animal silhouettes using the wonder of Bondaweb and some cute ditsy print fabric! Wanting to keep traditional I decided to do woodland animals (apart from the Dashund, I just love them!), and found the sillouhettes using google images. I drew the shapes onto the paper side of bondaweb, ironed it onto the back of the fabric and then cut them out. I then ironed them into the t-shirts and stitched round the edge. I'm very pleased with the result, they look super cute and trendy. I will also be posting a "how to" bondaweb  for those who want to know how to use it properly. Let me know what you think!

More after the jump......

Easy Baby Teether!

So just recently Annabelle has been a little on he grizzly side and since her friend Jospeh (who is only one month older) cut his first tooth around her age I was beginning to wonder if the dreaded toothy pegs would be cutting through! She seems to like sucking on my cardi and other fabric things so I wanted something that was fabric and hard so it would be good to teeth on and this is what I came up with. Hope you enjoy making it, it only took me about 20minutes.

For the photo tutorial click "read more"

Baby Car Seat Canopy Tutorial

It was half term a couple of weeks ago so I had some free time on my hands AND some energy which is nice after months of feeling exhausted! I have bought loads of fabric with projects in mind, I think my hubby was getting a little nervous I was never going to use it! So I set about on my first baby sewing project since finding we were pregnant! Can't believe it's taken me this long to get started! I'd seen these types of covers online and decided rather than buy one I thought I'd make one. I've photographed each step so you can make one too. It's super quick and easy and really only took me an afternoon. Think I may knock up some more for my preggers friends!

You will need:

• Two pieces of fabric measuring 103cm x86cm for the body and lining
• 4 bits of fabric measuring 23x8cm for the straps
• Co-ordinating(or contrasting!) machine cotton
• About 20cm of Velcro (hook and loop tape)

Here you can see the lovely pop of colour from the underside, and the car seat can still be easily carried with the fabric over the handle.

Photo tutorial after the jump.....

Floor blanket for baby

I've wanted to make a small baby blanket/play mat after seeing some really cute chevron fabric in John Lewis, there are so many nice fabrics, I didn’t want to use it up on small projects, but instead I wanted to display it in a large chunk so it could be fully appreciated! I had never done any quilting before this and it was such a good starter project. I didn’t have any cotton batting and didn’t really want to buy a load in case it didn’t work well, but a friend suggested a cheaper solution-thermal curtain lining! I can get it for £4.50 a metre in John Lewis and it’s really wide as it is used to curtains, so it works out really rather reasonable. They grey fabric I used came from a double bed sheet that had a tear in it and couldn’t be fixed, so good up-cycling there! I made a paper pattern of the size I wanted and then divided it up with a pencil until I was satisfied with the division. I then cut along the lines I'd made and used the paper as my pattern pieces, adding 1cm when I cut out the fabric. then I simply stitched them together. Once I had made my back and front, they had to be “basted to the batting” (batting is the filler that goes in the middle, you can get 100% or polyester and you can get it different thicknesses depending on what you need) . There are several ways that you can baste (which basically means temporarily joining the fabrics together so that you can stitch them on the machine without them moving)
1. Basting by hand-hand stitching the layers together in big stitches to stop the layers shifting around when you stitch
2. Basting spray-Spray on quilting adhesive that sticks the layers together and doesn’t affect the finished look or feel of the fabric (this seems to be the most popular and easiest)
3. Quilting safety pins-(they look like normal pins but have a kink in them, although I used normal ones and they worked fine) joins the fabrics together and can be removed as you sew.
I decided to use the safety pin method as I was in a hurry (like usual!) and didn’t want to spend ages hand sewing. I used the walking foot (good tutorial here: Anyone Can Quilt) to stitch the layers together, I didn’t do anything fancy, just straight lines so as the stitching didn’t distract from the fabric patterns. I thought I had to use bias binding to bind the edges of the quilt and really wasn’t looking forward to it as I’m hopeless at getting the binding to sit equal on the edge of fabrics-BUT hope was at hand! I found this amazing photo tutorial from Old Red Barn Co and Diary of a Quilter that shows how to bind a quilt using strips of fabric. It means you can make your binding out of whatever you like, make it matching if you need, and it’s much easier to get it equal and professional looking. You do half of it on the machine and the other half hand stitching, but its really vey quick and easy, so don't be put off! One thing i'll say is, that I found the more lines I added the stiffer the blanket got, so now it is definitely more suitable for the floor and not so much for wrapping a child in, I’d like to try and make a more flexible one in the future, and might try some free machining,  so watch this space!

Here you can see the full blanket and how I divided up the strips of fabric, with the grey in between. I had originally bound the blanket in yellow, but it looked horrible, and so I ordered the aqua green fabric from e-bay. It's not 100% cotton, which is a shame, but the colour was perfect and I was in  a hurry to get it done to be honest!

This picture shows how I bound the corners, and also shows a bit of my straight (ish!) stitching across the blanket.

Dribble bibs DIY

In the evenings I love doing little sewing projects using the scraps of fabric from my stash. Recently as you are aware I have been making loads of baby things, mostly because they don't require a lot of fabric or time, in fact i can usually knock something up in an hour or so. SO satisfying! I had already made several Baprons (funny word I know!) from Craftiness is not optional I downloaded the pattern and I have made mine using scraps of oil cloth to make them wipe clean. Then Dribble bibs caught my eye as they are SO simple, quick and make great presents, especially as the idea is the kid keeps them on throughout the day while teething to stop their clothes getting soggy and making their necks sore.  Ideally I think they would be best made from jersey cotton with some micro terry on the reverse for absorbency. I have looked EVERYWHERE online and no-where in the UK as far as I can see sells Micro terry (which is like normal Terry towelling but tiny loops of fibre). The market near me sells the normal white terry towelling for something like £6 a metre. I bought half and have made over 10 I reckon. I made the pattern from drawing round one bib I borrowed. Below are the photos and you will see the co-ordinating headbands we made too! You can download the PDF pattern HERE.

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Here you can see the different fastenings I used, the shop bought ones tend to have the press stud set up-simiar to those of baby grows. I only had the sew on one and I just used 3 parts, in stead of two pairs, in order to give different size settings. The blue one is fastened with Velrco which makes the sizing much more flexible, I made sure to put the scratchy side so it will always be facing up and wont eve touch the skin.

This is the shape of the bib when it is undone.

Here you can see the front and back of the bib. Ideally I would of used micro Terry as the Towelling I have used is quite bulky, but it wont really affect how the bib works, It would just look more professional with the smaller loops.

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You might also be interested in:

Free Pattern Christmas Stocking

Quick and easy baby fabric teething ring Tutorial  

Baby T-shirt appliqué 

Easy baby carseat canopy tutorial

Simple baby floor quilt