Some of my recent sewing.

The baby carrier was made using a pattern from here: http://www.mediafire.com/?whdfr3hbm9t and the cubby inspired by these two posts: http://aussieorganicgardening.com/?p=232 and http://melissagoodsell.typepad.com/day_to_day/2007/09/fabric-cubby-ho.html

Folded up (reverse has little cars on it – can’t really see them in the photo tho)

So I got the $15 bargain from Woolies! Plain black, tragically boring! After some inspiration from a fellow baby-wearing addict Mel (http://pimpmycart.blogspot.com) I decided to get sewing!

Stupidly, I forgot to take before pics… just imagine ‘booooring!’ … but here is the ‘after’.

Closeup of pocket on flap. Originally the flap had rounded corners, I chopped 4cm off the bottom to square it off and re-did the binding.

I added a loop of elastic to the flap and a button on the back to hook it over for when I need it to stay open (It was a pain trying to get things in and out of it at times yesterday with the flap in the way)

I also added a knitting needle (it was skinny, the right length, strong but light and not being used ) into the front seam to help it have a bit more shape and stay open. I just unpicked an inch or so of the front seam and pushed it in then sewed a bit around the edges to keep it in place

Yay for granny trolleys!!! I love it!!!!

Now to make myself a wallet to match…..

I stitched around most of the big circles on the fabric – and to be honest the stitching is horrendous… I used the ‘freehand quilting’ option on my machine, and figured it’s one of those things that takes a bit of practice (also don’t actually have the right foot attached, but hey, it was fun!) It has a waterproof backing, which is why I didn’t stitch through all layers just the wadding and top layer (the PUL on the back wouldn’t be quite so effective with holes all through it! )

I made this mei-tai for a friend a few weeks back. I also made another one yesterday for a swap I was a part of, but can’t post pictures of it until the person I sent it to receives it

Modelled on my duct tape dummy with a doll

So Wednesday night I started cutting…. and Thursday morning I finished putting it together. During the day Thursday Patricia helped me move our furniture around, and I ran around trying desperately to find all the little bits and pieces I wanted to complete the room (while Patricia stayed home with the -slightly crazy- children – Thanks Trish!!!!!). Turns out Ellia had some kind of bug, was crying about a headache all day, and finally threw up around 4pm then was fine…. then Malachi threw up everywhere around 6 – fun stuff!!

I finished the cushions *just* before dinner, sewing on the buttons while sitting outside chatting with the kids and our next-door neighbour, put the kids in bed and made a new hammock for Ezra, sewing the last seam about 5 minutes before Mary arrived to stay with the kids while I went to get jer….

It was all worth it!!!!!

The final result: (The photo’s not great as I took it on my new phone and I haven’t really set it up properly yet)

Total cost:
Quilt $75
Sheets $40
Lamps $22 (including bulbs)
Fabric for cover, hammock and cushions $15
Buttons for cushions $20 (they were worth it!!!)
Cushion inserts $12

Total: $184 – I saw quilt covers for that much while I was looking around!!!!!!

Edited to add: Jeremy LOVED it!!!

Please excuse the blurry photo.

So Cute!!!!!!

I made it by pulling apart an old jolly jumper, used the blue bar and the door attachment. tied some strong ribbony stuff thru the holes in the bar to attach to an elastic thing that attached to the door hanger bit and made a hammock out of calico and tied thru the same holes… lol – is that completely confusing??? (ETA: I used the elastic strap because i didn’t like the spring on the jolly jumper – i’m using the spring again now tho with this bub)

I bought the calico in a packet, precut from spotlight, I think it was 3m x 90cm – the base of it is about 30cm wide and all i did was to hem the long edges, fold the fabric so that there were three layers in the middle then loop over each of the ends, triple stitch all the seams and thread the ribbony stuff thru them… rough diagram attached, hope it doesn’t just confuse more!!

I have been praying for a new sewing machine for about a year or two. When we first got married mum said I could use hers, which I did until it finally died about 6 months ago or so. Erica (a friend) then lent me hers, but even it was struggling to keep up with some of the sewing (particularly polar fleece and knit fabrics) that I needed and wanted to do.

A few months ago I purchased a machine on ebay… long story short, it never arrived, we had no way of getting the money back and the seller was not replying to any communication we sent. I’m not sure why the Lord allowed all of that to happen, but I do believe that He will/has taken care of it in the way He wants to and that “all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28)

I hadn’t really put a lot more thought into getting a machine, I figured that I would just keep praying, I knew there wasn’t money to spend on one and I would just have to trust that if the Lord wanted me to have one, He would provide it! Along rolls my birthday…. and mum suggests we have a look at sewing machines, maybe she can pay the deposit on a laybuy for my birthday. Whilst the idea seemed nice, I have to admit to not being terribly convinced – I still felt like there was no way I could save up enough to actually get what I wanted and I didn’t want to waste money on something that was just going to frustrate me because it couldn’t do what I needed to do (I knew I was going to want to spend at least $700, possibly more like $1300). I was given some money for my birthday from Jer’s parents and from Liz McClure … and started to wonder whether I should put it into a “sewing machine fund” … even tho the end goal seemed somewhat impossible. Jer wanted to buy me some jewellery for my birthday and had some money set aside for that, but when I told him about the sewing machine idea, my indecision about whether or not I saved up for it etc, he told me that depending on how badly I really wanted it, I could put that money towards it too if I wanted to…. more decisions!!!! I finally decided that I would do that, that even if it took another year or two at least I had a start, and I would just put aside what I could, when I could.

So thus begins the “sewing machine fund”. October 23rd, Balance of Sewing Machine Fund: $130.

Now comes the exciting bit

Some months ago I did some web design work for a church in victoria. We had told them once we finished that we didn’t expect payment, that if they wanted to send us something that would be fine, but we would leave it up to them. We hadn’t heard anything, and to be honest, I figured that was the end of it – and that was fine, I was glad I had been able to help out. However, on Thursday, as we were leaving the house for our “family day” activity the mailman arrived with some mail for me I was completely blown away to open it and discover a cheque for a very substantial amount of money for the job I had done. We banked it straight away and then started to work out what we would do with it. The Lord has really helped us over the last year to have a much more stable financial position and it was very nice to not have to automatically use the extra money to pay outstanding bills but instead to be able to consider our current needs and what He would have us do with it.

We were taking the tarago in the next day for (more) repairs… so some was going on that, at that point we were unsure how much. I asked Jer if maybe I could use some of it to get a sewing machine… he said yes!!!!!!!!!!

There were some other things we have been waiting a while to get for our house that we decided we would use it for as well – so we went on a small ikea spending spree and finally purchased a rug for the lounge amongst a few other things.

Anyway…. over the course of the next week or so we were able to pay for the car repairs, purchase some really lovely things for the house, use some of the money to be a blessing to others, and I ended up with approx $800-900 to spend when the shopping day came around (Mum had come down to look at machines with me).

I was still a little unsure as to what I wanted to get. Whether to spend $700 or $1300 (which would have required waiting a little longer obviously) on a new machine … whether the price difference was worth the difference in the machines … or whether to try and find a second hand machine that did some embroidery as well at one of the sewing shops that was similar to the one i had hoped to purchase on ebay (I wasn’t really sure if I would end up doing much embroidery even if I had a machine that did it, but wanted the opportunity to find out). I prayed the night before and as we left again in the morning that the Lord would help me to find a Janome Memory Craft second hand within my budget. The ebay machine was a MC8000 – and I had purchased a scanner for that to do my own embroidery designs before I realised the machine wasn’t coming!

We went to the Janome shop at Everton Park. I wasn’t really very keen on the idea of travelling all over Brisbane looking at machines so was pretty determined to just buy something from there. The lady showed me two of the new machines (the same two I had looked at a few months ago, the $700 and $1300ish ones) … and as she was talking I realised there was a Memory Craft on the table towards the back of the store… I asked about it and it turned out to be a MC9000 (the next model up from what I had hoped for) and it was only $599!!!!! (She said they are a lot cheaper now as the newer machines have a much bigger memory for embroidery, and because the screens and boards are no longer being produced, rendering the machine useless if either dies).

We had a look at it, had a quick sew… and decided to buy it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Because the machine ended up being cheaper than expected, mum said she would buy me some embroidery threads and bits and pieces for it for my birthday. So not only do I now have a fantastic new machine that sews beautifully, quickly and just about any fabric I can put near it… but a wonderful range of lovely embroidery threads and all the bits I need to make that work!!!!!!!!!

And after all that, we still had money left over to buy a new futon mattress for a frame we were given for the lounge room!!!!

God is so good and so totally exceeded my expectations – though that really shouldn’t surprise me! I learnt a good lesson in “Do what you *can* do and God will do what you *can’t* do” – I put aside the money I had, knowing that finding the rest would be impossible on my own… but less than 2 days later, the Lord provided abundantly above what I could have hoped for!

So that’s the long-winded story of how my new “baby” arrived…. I’m glad now that I have something to keep me busy while we wait for the next Smith baby to arrive! (Anytime now would be fine!) There will be lots of photos of new creations as I test out the scanner and the embroidery (the girls already have a new hankie each with their name on it – they really enjoyed watching the machine “write” their names ).