I guess there is a theme happening here...

Not sure what it is about fabric but it is a beautiful thing. Maybe it is the colour, the feel of 100% cotton or maybe it is the excitement of what you can create with it. I still get a little nervous when I have beautiful designer fabric in my hands that maybe I should use some of my more reasonably priced "spotlight" fabric, but of course when you actually sew with the better stuff, you understand why you pay more for it.  Anyway, there are birthdays coming up, markets coming up so I hauled out my increasing stash and prewashed and dried the fabric in preparation for a cutting out session in front of My Kitchen Rules and Parenthood this evening. The plan is to do a bunch of cutting out tonight then make the most of my child free afternoon tomorrow and sew as much as I can. Dresses and frilly knickers are the go I think, but then it will be onto skirts and headbands. My first Twilight Market is coming up on April 16th so this gives me a decent leadtime to get together some beautiful kids clothes and accessories. 

Here is a piccie of my first bunch of fabric to start with. This pile features Heather Bailey, Michael Miller and Patty Young for Michael Miller.  I am hoping to get another bundle ordered online at etsy tonight as I discovered another pile that looks beautiful with some more bold colours. I think little girls can get away with wearing bold colours and I love the way dresses now push the boundaries with bold patterns and colours teamed together.  You can peruse for hours on websites and get great ideas of how to match colours and patterns together - beautiful stuff! 

Well the baby is sleeping so time for me to cook dinner before I pick up Ms Isabella from daycare. I love the sound of silence!

As promised...

Here is the final product on Ms Isabella. I think it is a cute design, but may need a few tweaks to withstand my daughter and general toddler playing, but it isn't far off.

Guilty pleasures

I have to admit it here (while my husband is not looking) that I have an addiction - it is to FABRIC! I love the stuff. It wasn't till last year that I discovered beautiful fabrics could be purchased (gasp) online and it didn't matter that I lived miles away from a fabric shop!!! Since then, my stash has slowly increased and I sometimes think that I use the ruse that I am buying fabric for my little handmade business as an excuse... I also have discovered that sometimes you can buy MIY kits with beautiful fabrics that are already cut out (aahhh) at a fantastic price. I haven't purchased one of these packs for ages, however I discovered in my stash the other day a kit I had purchased one over a year ago for my eldest daughter and had just not got around to sewing it. I have just finished the dress and LOVE IT! Mainly because it has gorgeous Joel Dewberry and Sandi Henderson fabric that I wouldn't have thought to team together - but man they look great together. That's another thing that I love - discovering online how people have managed to team beautiful fabrics together to make something look even more special and unique. I have to wait sometimes up to 3 weeks for my fabric to arrive from the States but you know what, I think it is worth it when you see what you can come up with! Here is a piccie of the dress I have just finished for Ms Iz. I am thrilled with the finished product and am thinking seriously of adding a similar style to my collection.

Lovely new fabric coming!

I have braved my phobia of buying fabric online after my previous experience was a little less than enjoyable e.g. it went missing in the post! But if I want to do some more sewing I need more fabric, and that is that. So after seeing a recommendation from someone elses's blog I am checking out www.hawthornethreads.com this time.  I am also trying out some new patterns to add to my lines. It looks like the new lines are going to be pillowslip dresses and frilly bum knickers. I am also only going to be a few hairclips and focussing on more fancy headbands as I love doing these so I hope people love them too! Anyway, fingers crossed that this package makes its way safely to South Hedland and doesn't disappear in the post. To be fair, the other package may just turn up in the post one day too. Fingers crossed...

Getting started

Well I have finally worked out how to start my blog which is pretty cool for a techno-phobe like me! So what's the plan with this? Well now that Facebook have made restrictions on what you can and can't do regarding giveaways and competitions, I will be able to do links to my blog so people can actually do competitions and the like on here. Also, it will be a chance for me to post some of my other creative things that I do here. Blogs have been fantastic for me to get ideas from so hopefully I can do the same for other people too!

Well I am off to enjoy what I can of Australia Day despite our yellow alert for Cyclone Bianca. The rain is bucketing down!