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.

Curtain shorts

When the sudden hot weather arrived I realised that Bea doesn't yet have many very summery clothes this year so I whipped up a quick pair of shorts while she was in bed. 

I made them from an off cut of a too long Ikea linen curtain Sound of Music style and added the floral turn ups to make them a bit less plain.  a successful quick sewing project cobbled together from whatever I had available!

Stripy summer top

I pinned this lovely top ages ago on my kids clothes board as I loved the horizontal stripes and the wide white bands on the sleeves.  I had it in my mind to make something similar for Bea for the summer.

So last week I finally got round to it.  I adapted a simple pattern from Making children's clothes by Emma Hardy - basically just chopping off the sleeves and adding the white bands.

Obviously its quite different from the original inspiration but I'm pretty happy with it.  The only thing I found with the pattern is that it came up quite short - I would definitely add a couple of inches next time.

This week I hope to make a matching dress for the baby (yes, I plan to be that mother!)

Bella the ballerina

I have just added a new one of a kind cat to my shop.  This latest one is Bella and comes complete with a yellow tutu. See here for more details.

Ripples

I have finally started my first project for the new baby - although with only 8 weeks to go I'm cutting it fine!  I am making a lovely ripply blanket in bright rainbow stripes (as Bea insists her little sister is called Maka paka Rainbow it seems appropriate!) using the neat ripple tutorial from Attic24.


The pattern is easy to follow and a nice simple repeat that doesn't require much concentration.  I'm choosing the colour order as I'm going along so the stripes are random.  I'm about halfway through now  so fingers crossed I can get it finished!  Along with all the other things I wanted to make!

 

Little bow shoes

These little shoes were a quick crochet project for a new baby gift (not for our own baby, although I have at last started making something for her).  The pattern is the French baby booties pdf from Luz crochet patterns on Etsy.  As a self taught crochetist (crocheter?) I generally wing it a bit and hope the finished item turns out ok but the pattern was pretty easy to follow and I think my shoes look enough like the originals to call them a success!

Ani-mix magnets

I have just added a new product to the shop.  It is a set of handmade magnets featuring my mix and match animals.

There are six animals in the set (so 12 magnets) so you can stick them on your fridge and have lots of mix and match entertainment to pass the time while waiting for the microwave to ping!

Corners of calm

Don't let these pictures fool you - the whole house does not look like this - but after 3 weeks and a lot of hard decorating work we are finally starting to carve out some corners of calm amongst the chaos.

Just the hall and girls bedrooms to decorate now, which should be the most fun to do. I have finally almost finished the Daisy chain sampler (I'm on Z!) to go up on the nursery wall.

Just need to get it all done before baby arrives!

Planeta Tangerina

I just saw a post on ninainvorm about this fantastic Portuguese publishers and oh wow - I would love to own all of their books! Unfortunately I don't speak Portuguese and neither does Bea. I will have to see if I can seek out some English versions.

Madalena Matoso

Isabel Minhos Martins - Yara Kono

Isabel Minhos Martin - Madalena Matoso

Box city

So here is the reason for my prolonged absence. And pretty much the whole house currently looks like this. We moved house just over a week ago and are still trying to make sense of the chaos whilst decorating almost every room at the same time.

I haven't been able to make anything lately other than work orders - one of which was this lovely special set of alphabet blocks for a new baby's nursery in a pink colour scheme. I think they look very pretty!