The Flipsy skirt

Two posts in one day, go me!

Here's my latest little project, the Flipsy Skirt from Make it Perfect. It's another reversible project and as usual I spent waaay too long trying to decide which fabrics to use. In the end I decided to use up the rest of my Sandi Henderson Medallion Bloom in pink (gosh I'm boring) along with a print called High Tea from Michael Miller. The tea print was an impulse purchase from the fabulous Hawthorne Threads and I was really pleased when it arrived in the post as I liked it much better in real life than on the web. It really suits my little girl who is always hosting little tea parties and offering everyone a 'cup of teeeeeaaaaa!'. The third fabric I used was a green polka dot from Michael Miller that coordinated pretty well with the other two fabrics.

The skirt itself was very quick and easy to sew, although I didn't have much patience for sewing and then attaching the belt loops (10 in total). They were so narrow that the feed on my machine had trouble picking them up, and then attaching them with the tiny buttons (I used translucent pink) was tedious.

Speaking of belt loops, you'll notice that the belt is nowhere to be seen. I haven't actually made it yet - no excuse other than laziness! It's the same green dot fabric and I have promised myself I'll get it done this weekend!


Side one: medallion bloom by Sandi Henderson. Love this, but I have a real soft spot for...


...this side! High Tea by Michael Miller house designer.


Sweet pea modelling the first side


And the second side. She told me she was 'so cute' in this one, as only a two year old can.


The skirt with the hat I made last month. Just wish I had the foresight to use the high tea fabric for the reverse of the hat.

Lazy day hat

I'm a bit behind on the blog, this is a hat I made about six weeks ago. I feel terrible as I initially bought the pattern to make for my son, but so far have only made one for my daughter (my excuse - my son's six month old head is growing at a rapid rate and I don't want to 'waste' the cute fabric I bought to make him a hat that he will outgrow before next summer).

The pattern is the lazy day hat by Make it Perfect. It's a great pattern and is pretty forgiving of some dodgy, messy sewing from me. I suspect I'll be using it a lot over the coming years. As it is my daughter goes through about 3-4 hats per week... the ones she wears at home get covered in vegemite/dirt/crayon, and the ones she wears to daycare get covered in paint. The constant washing wears them down a bit.

As the hat is reversible I used two fabrics from Sandi Henderson's Farmer's Market range - the pink medallion bloom and the stripes. I adore these fabrics! In hindsight, using a striped fabric on a round hat was never going to work, so my daughter just wears the hat one way. The stripes do look cute peeking out from the 'lining' though.

I'll definitely be making more of these hats. I am picturing hats to match my daughter's dresses next summer, and of course I have two hats ready to sew for my son next summer, one with little frogs and one with rockets and aliens.


Although it's reversible, my daughter only wears the hat this way. Just love that fabric!


And this is why... those stripes on the round hat make just aren't right.


But they do look cute peeking out as the 'lining'.


My little sweet pea wearing the hat on her way to the merry-go-round on her 2nd birthday.

Sweet and simple bloomers

I have Spring and Summer babies, so they spent many of their early days in nothing but a nappy and a singlet (in fact that's all my son is wearing right now). A couple of friends have recently had babies so I decided to make them some cotton bloomers to cover their nappies and keep them cool.

The pattern is from Lotta Jansdotter's book Simple Sewing for Baby. The projects in this book are sweet and very basic, so suited to a beginner. More experienced sewers would be able to whip up most projects in an afternoon or less.

The bloomers turned out well, although I think next time I will adjust the pattern slightly to widen the crotch.

I used Sandi Henderson's Ginger Blossom fabric for the girls' bloomers. The orange boys' bloomers are from a scrap I found in my cupboard (!) and the blue fabric is from Amy Butler's Belle collection. It also happens to be one of my all time favourite fabrics.

I'll use any excuse to make button clips, so I made a couple of pairs to match the girly bloomers.


Just love, love, love that blue fabric. I have metres of it!


Bloomers and matching clips using fabric from Sandi Henderson's Ginger Blossom collection.


Taking them for a test drive! Bloomers by me, cute tush by my son.

Hairclip holder

I reckon my little girl have somewhere in the region of 150 hairclips and ties... It's excessive, I know, but I just can't help myself, especially now that I have started making button clips (and anyway, she loses them so often that I can kind of justify it).

Anyway, I have been thinking about making her a hairclip holder for a while now, to keep things organised and pretty up her room a bit. I still haven't gotten around to making my daughter one but I did whip up one for my friend's daughter's first birthday this weekend.

The design and construction was very simple. I trimmed a scrap of fabric from Sandi Henderson's Farmer's Market collection (just love the colourful stripes) into a plaque with rounded corners. I then found a font that I liked (I think it's called Harrington) and sketched it directly from the computer screen onto some aqua polka dot fabric. After ironing on some vliesofix I cut out the letters and fused them to the fabric plaque. I finished it off by back-stitching around it using fine silver embroidery thread.





The plaque is backed with the same aqua polka dot fabric and has a medium fusible fleece inside to give it a bit of structure (otherwise the weight of the clips would cause it to sag). It's finished with a topstitch around the edges.

I used pale pink grosgrain ribbon to attach the clips to and sewed a button and buttonhole at the bottom to attach the hair elastics.





Of course I made a dozen or so button clips and ties too!

Now I just need to make one for my little girl.