Cushions!

New in the shop are these cushion covers featuring my new prints.

They are printed onto lovely soft smooth Kona cotton and all have contrasting piping.

The bears on bikes cushions will soon be available personalised with a name hand embroidered by me.

I love them so much I'm already working on the next range!

Dressing my girls in my drawings

I have been creating some fabric designs lately which has been lots of fun.  And its even more fun to make them into something!  These designs are really for new products for the shop I couldn't resist trying them out on clothes for the girls.

I made Bea a Geranium top (pattern by Made By Rae) in my Bears on Bikes pattern.  The colours will be great for spring.

For Nell I drafted my own pattern for a little A line dress with collar in the Foxes in the Rain fabric.  Its pretty cute.

Can't wait to for my much larger order of these fabrics to arrive so I can transform it into cushions!  Meanwhile you can order these fabrics plus coordinating designs from my Spoonflower shop (link in side bar).

There are a couple of new faces in the shop.  Meet Lily the rabbit and Odette the cat.  Lily is dressed in a vintage sheet skirt and Odette is a clown in pink stars.

Claude

Just a quick post to introduce Claude, the latest of my one of a kind handmade toys.  He is available to buy in my Etsy shop and you can read all about him here.

September seaside party

So firstly I'd just like to say that anyone who manages to organise a party and take beautiful photos of all the details has my total admiration.  Despite months of forward planning I was still running round like a headless chicken the whole time during Bea's 4th birthday party.  So that's my disclaimer for the not so brilliant pictures, here they are!

We went through quite a lot of theme ideas from Bea before she decided (with persuasion - she had some pretty crazy ideas) on a seaside party.

I of course started looking for inspiration on Pinterest (my board is here) which is where I saw the idea for lolly invitations.

My husband made a lovely sprinkle number four to match the invitations and I sewed up some simple paper bunting.

Instead of lots of chaotic party games we set up a few activities for the kids.  We had Catch a sea creature (bath toys in a paddling pool to catch in a net) which was suprisingly popular, Get a glitter tattoo, and Make your own windmill.  We also had a colouring table with seaside themed pictures to colour in, and we did pass the parcel at Bea's special request!

After all the fun the food was served in yellow boxes with a lolly name sticker on each.  The food in there was pretty healthy, to make up for the jelly and ice cream and ice cream shaped cupcakes that came afterwards!

I was really pleased with how these looked, and apparently they didn't taste too bad either.

Loved these mini honeycomb decorations from Ikea.

While the kids were eating we served fish and chips (from a quick dash to the chip shop) for the adults in cones.  The birthday cake was another wonderful creation by my sister - a sandcastle of course!

The party bags were mini buckets and spades full of goodies including a stick of rock and real seashell.

All the photos I took of Bea at the party are literally a blur as she was whizzing around having such a good time.  This one was taken before the party and is of her 'excited' face.  Her dress went with the theme pretty well!

Phew, thats the birthday parties done until next summer.  On to Christmas then!

A Geranium for Nell

After making a Geranium dress for Bea I loved the pattern so much I wanted to make a coordinating one for Nell.  I also wanted to try cross stitching onto fabric using waste canvas so I decided to combine the two projects and came up with this cross stitched heart Geranium.

I lined the sleeves again just because I'm not a huge fan of the raw edge look, this time using the floral fabric on the outside as well.  I cross stitched a simple heart on the bodice and was really pleased with the way it turned out.  The waste canvas was great and I love a bit of embroidery on handmade kids clothes, it makes them feel a little bit more special.  I used the same linen look cotton for the skirt as it is so soft and lovely, especially after a few washes.  I may even make myself something from it!

I made the dress back in July but only recently managed to snap a couple of photos of her wearing it - she never stays still these days!

Bea's rainbow dress

I found this unfinished dress that I started to make for Bea last summer.  It was mostly sewn up - it just needed a button and some details.  I'm thinking it was probably the arrival of little sis that put this project on the back burner!

Luckily it still fits (just a bit shorter than intended!) so I decided to finnish it off.  It definitely needed colour so I added some little pockets made from vintage fabric.  When I showed it to Bea she insisted it was lacking in the rainbow department so after a brief head scratch I added a quick running stitch rainbow to one side.  Its slightly crazy but I like it!

Stop the bandwaggon, I'm hopping on

I've finally made my first Geranium dress!  I've seen so many beautiful versions of it floating around the web and when I came across this linen look cotton fabric it came to mind as the perfect pattern for the colour block dress I had in mind.

I made the age 5 with fingers crossed (the pattern only goes up to age 5 so I was praying it would be big enough) but luckily it fits really well, with even a little room for growth.

I wanted to line the flutter sleeves in the same fabric as the bodice lining as I thought it would look cute peeping out so I rejigged the sleeve pattern piece a bit to allow for the extra seam.  I love how it turned out.

The fabric is really soft and drapes nicely.  I went for the gathered skirt option.

Bea objects a bit to my button choice, but at least she can't see them once its on!

And Miss Fussy is happy with it thank goodness!  I will definitely be making more geraniums for both girls.  I can see why the pattern is so popular!

Summer sewing

I've been cheating on the blog a bit lately with instagram (@juliastaite) but here is a look at some summer dresses I made for the girls recently.  The pattern is the madeline dress by sew sweet patterns on etsy.  Its a lovely classic dress with a great collar - very cute!

The pattern was simple and came with clear instructions.  Its quite a quick dress to whip up apart from the dreaded buttonholes (my worst part of sewing!)

I did however have major sizing issues -  Bea is pretty tall so I cut out the age 5 for her (shes three and a half) but after partially sewing the dress together it was very clear it was way too small.  So as not to waste the fabric I cut it down to fit Nell.  Shes 9 months old so I cut out age 2 after the first came out so small and as you can see below its fits - but probably won't for long!

I made Bea a bigger one (age 7!) and it fits well for length but still comes up a bit snug in the width.  Its a shame as its such a sweet little dress.  Maybe it was just me but I would recommend going up at least two sizes if you're making your own.

Finished!

I just finished this cardigan for Nell last night.  I used this pattern from Drops and added a crochet edging shamelessly copied from Alicia Paulsons version.  I also added these cute buttons from this lovely Etsy shop and I'm pretty happy with the results!  And the only upside to this stupidly cold weather is Nell will hopefully get some good wear out of it.

Itchy fingers

I haven't made much lately that isn't for the shop.  In fact not since Nell was born and shes nearly 7 months old now.  Last week I suddenly started craving a new project so popped onto ravelry, picked a pattern from my favourites list, got some yarn and now I'm knitting a baby cardigan.  I love baby knitting as its so quick!  Although Bea has requested I knit her something next (I'm thinking short sleeved top for speed).

I have also started planning dresses for the girls for Nell's 1st birthday in July.  Its good to have busy hands again!

A pink post

One of the best things about June is that I can have a lovely bunch of Peonies on the table.  Made me feel a little bit summery despite this ridiculous weather!

I made some more teeny baby shoes as a gift for another baby girl due soon.  I got the pattern here on Etsy and made them in a couple of hours - just the quick kind of knitting project I like!

A few finished projects

As the biggest project round here is finally nearly finished (the new baby is due next week)  I have been trying to get a few other things finished.

The nursery is done but has nothing on the walls yet so I made this little embroidered initial and elephant.

Bea has been ousted from her cot bed as we needed it for the nursery so to make the transition to big bed more appealing I made her a couple of new cushions (she is a girl who loves cushions) with this very cool vintage fabric I bought on Etsy (here)

And finally a little dress for the baby to match this top I made Bea a while ago.  Hopefully we can get some cute photos of them in their matching clothes!

A very British Jubilee

It was a couple of weeks ago now but we were lucky enough to have a Jubilee street party arranged in our street.  It was a pretty big event in the end with loads of people, games and food.  The weather wasn't great and we had a few showers but it didn't spoil the fun too much.

There was a fancy dress parade in which Bea took part.  I must say her costume was more to join in rather than an attempt to win first prize but I thought she looked like a pretty cute queen, Corgi and all.
The crown we made together then I whipped up a simple cloak.

I also made her a Jubilee dress that she could keep on all day.  I only got a couple of quick snaps of it before it got jelly down the front.

(Excuse the grimace - that is what passes for a smile round here at the moment).  I wanted the dress to have a vintagey feel so added a little collar with ric rac to a simple dress pattern, and a wide polka dot border at the bottom.  I really liked how the dress turned out and hope she gets a bit more wear out of it over the summer just as a cute (if very patriotic) sundress.