Keeping it clean

It's sometimes hard to think of a gift for ladies who fall into that 'older' age bracket - grandmotherly age I guess.

I tend to think of funky bags or hairclips or even a handmade brooch for friends my age but am not sure that this is right for the more mature lady!

So I wanted to come up with something that suited this age - just a small gift of thanks for four great ladies who run the playgroup that our two eldest girls attend each week.

I wanted to do these tea towels and pot holders but for the life of me could not find plain white waffle tea towels, which I love the look of, anywhere.

Once I had these in my head nothing else would do of course.

(If you know where to get them in Melbourne, please leave a comment and put me out of my misery!)

I came up with this little care pack of tissue cover, matching hand-towel and soap.

I still used the tea towel tutorial above by 'I have to say', just did it on a hand towel. Then I used this tutorial by tutti frutti for the tissue holders, which are super-easy to make.

The fabric is all from Anna Maria Horner's chocolate lollipops range that I bought from Amitie a while back.

Soaps were a pack of five I got at a discount department. I took the outer wrapper off, then added a piece of spotty chocolate grosgrain ribbon using some double sided tape.

My husband said this gift perhaps implies I think they are snotty, dirty and smell bad.

That's definitely not the case, I'm sure they won't take it that way.

I just need to buy the tissues and wrap them then we're good to go.

Gifting season

The season of gifting is upon us again and for me it starts with a few pre-Christmas birthdays.


This little skirt was part of a gift that also included the tiered Grand Revival skirt I blogged here, and a matching appliqued T that I didn't take a pic of.

It's a super-simple pattern by Kwik Sew - 3055; and is a straight-fronted, elastic-backed skirt.
I decided to make the waist adjustable and picked up some button-hole elastic to do it with.

It was easy to do - just make a button hole on the front piece of the skirt close to the side seams, prior to turning over the waistband.
Then sew a button in front of the button hole, thread the elastic through the waist and hook onto the buttons.

That way you can pull more elastic through to make it tighter or set to a looser fit just by playing around with the elastic.

In doing this I hope that the little girl it is for will get a little more wear out of it.

There are a few more on the cutting table getting read for Christmas.

Sisterly love

A friend of ours took a bunch of family pics for us a few weeks ago.

These are just two of my favourites of Miss L and Miss A enjoying each others' company - there were so many to choose from!

Aint it grand

Grand Revival that is.

This skirt was made up using some of the Erin McMorris Park Slope range that I showed you back here, using a free tutorial (don't you love a free pattern from the web) known as the ruffled skirt from Grand Revival.

It's a well written and easy to follow tutorial and would suit a beginner as well as more advanced sewers so give it a go.

I'd go so far as to say that this is a small fit - the pattern says it's a size 5-6 so I made it from that wanting it to fit a girl about to turn 4 and I think it will just be OK, hopefully not too small.

I have plans to do an appliqued T to go with it but that hasn't happened yet.

Stay tuned.