Rachel's Mouse

I think this is our last post involving pillow cases. After making the skorts, Rachel's dress and the Bunny Bags, I was down to only a few scraps remaining of these three pillow cases, most of which were donated to the girls when they set up their sewing baskets. 

So when Rachel asked to sew something, I showed her a picture of a little mouse softie that I had seen on Pintrest which I thought would take her fancy. I was right. She was delighted, and told me when her mouse was done, it would live in her sewing basket and be her sewing companion. 

This was significantly more complicated than the small pillows that she had made. We made a pattern with paper. There were parts that needed to be cut accurately, and things needed to be sewn in stages, in the correct order. I talked her through each step and she made it. 

It's a little wonky, and the ear is caught in the side seam at one point, but Rachel loves this little mouse, and already has plans to make Sophie one too. 

There go the last of the pillowcases. Who knew fabric from three pillowcases would go so far? 

Identity Crisis

While I spent most of the first week of Easter holidays sewing, the girls, for the most part, just played. Rachel, however, came over one day to watch. The girls have seen me sew before, sewn with me at the machine, helped feed the fabric through, lifted the presser foot and pressed reverse, so this was all pretty normal. This time, however, Rachel watched the needle move up and down in my sewing machine and picked up a hand needle from the pincushion on the cabinet. 

You could almost see the gears in her mind turning as she thought about how the two were related, and how they worked differently, but had the same result. I gave her a bit of fabric and she started pushing the needle through it, weaving it in and out with a running stitch. 

So, I gave her some more fabric and threaded the needle and sent her off to see what she could do. She came back with a pretty good running stitch and asked what came next. We practiced running stich a few times, I drew lines on scrap fabric for her to follow, and then dashes to help her get the size right. Then we moved onto backstitch. again with the dashes to follow, and then without. 

Sophie asked to have a go too, but wasn't quite as committed as Rachel. Still, she gave it a good go, and they can both do running. Rachel went on, however, decided that she would like to make a pillow for Sophie's squirrel. I set her up for that, and in the process, she learnt a ladder stitch too. Three days later, and she's doing another pillow for Mu Mu. I'm thankful for all the scrap fabric, because she's going through it at a terrific rate. 

After watching the girls get into their sewing, I was at Spotlight with them (just a quick in and out visit), and the found some very cute fox tape measures, where the fox's tail is the measure and retracts back in. Spontaneously I bought them one each. When we got home, I went under the house in search of something I thought I had stored there for just this moment. 

Yes, this is a sewing basket. Retro? Vintage? I don't know the correct term, but this was given to me by my Grandma when I was about Sophie's age. I still remember sitting in the living room of the apartment my grandparents had down the coast and my Grandma showing my sisters and I the stitches. It's a bit special to pass it on to Rachel.

And yes, before you worry that I've chosen one daughter over another, this is the second box that I had under the the house.

This one came from another dear friend of 22 years, Sophie's Godmother, Melissa, who left it behind when she moved to Canada. Again, special to be passing on to Sophie. 

We filled the kits with some thread, pins, needles, their new tape measures, and even a needle threader each. The girls also got a small pair of scissors that I had from various small travel sewing kits, but they were pretty rubbish quality, so my mum came to the rescue with an upgrade for them. I gave them each some scrap fabric from the top of my rather full tub of scrap fabric, and off they went. 

Rachel likes to take her kit wherever they go, and is generous about sharing and teaching other kids. Her skills are increasing, and she's just finished something that I'll blog about next time. I never saw this coming, but it's pretty nice to share something I love with these little girls of mine. What happened next though took me by such surprise that I'm still reeling from it. 

Sophie wanted to make a cake, since she had not enjoyed the Humming Bird Cake that we had made with the pineapple from the tin for her aqua scope. So we were looking through the cookbooks. And of course, she asked to look through the Women's Weekly Birthday Cake Book. No way, was I randomly making one of those for fun, but I told her she could look. 

Rachel came to look too, and since her birthday is actually next, and relatively close, I said she could start thinking about what cake she might like. Given the bug cakes of the last five years, I was assuming she would stop on the Weta Bug from my NZ Birthday Cakes book, or something with flowers that she could add dragonflies too. 

But Rachel stopped on the Sewing Machine and Sewing Basket cakes and delightedly declared that she would have one of these. 

What? 

Who are you child? 

I've made you lady bug, snail, butterfly, bee and a caterpillar cake. What is going on? Who are you? Who am I?, if I'm not making you an insect themed birthday cake? 

The pivot is too much for me. Even an animal cake would have been a softer blow. 

Maybe I'm still cautiously thinking that this sewing thing is going to be a phase and she'll tire of it in a few weeks, but then again, maybe not. Maybe Rachel isn't going to have a bug cake this year. Or next. And that's ok right? 

I think I still need time to process. In the meantime, I guess I'll just help her trace some more patterns and draw dashes on fabric so she can enjoy this new sewing thing. Maybe it will help if she can make a butterfly with fabric to ease me into the change. 

Bunny Bags for the Girls

After making the girls Brisbane-based cousins Bunny Bags for their Easter treats, my own girls were keen to have some. They wanted ones that were a little trickier to sew, which was fine, since I was only make two, as opposed to five. 

The tutorial for this is available at the Sewing Times blog, and also on YouTube. It was a pretty simple make and again, I used gifted fabric - pillowcase fabric! 

The bags outer fabric came from the pillowcases I had already deconstructed for the girls skorts. The inner on Sophie's was also pillowcase fabric, seen in Rachel's dress, and Rachel's bunny bag had leftover Ikea fabric that matches everything so well. 

Cute and holds a substantial amount of chocolate. What more could you want?

Me Made May

I'm interrupting regular posting to talk about Me Made May. I guess to the world it might not feel like an interruption, but as I have three posts mostly written and ready to go that follow along from the pillow case sewing that is turning out to be quite a saga, it feels like an interruption to me. Anyway; Me Made May. 

So Me Made May is a thing in sewing circles that happens each year (around May as it were), where people make pledges to wear self made clothing, or a variation on that theme. I don't know where it started, but it's about actively trying to wear self made clothes, thinking about what you wear and why, challenging yourself to try different combinations. 

It's the kind of thing that can help you think about your wardrobe; are there gaps? Are there different ways you could wear the same old same old? Are there small alterations you could make to bring something back? Are there things you don't wear at all and why is that? I guess at it's core is helping people to celebrate wearing things that we have made, and to be thinking sustainably about the clothes we wear. 

I love this. So though I've never participated in Me Made May before, I felt like giving it a go this year. Not a 100% sure exactly why, or what my Me Made May Challenge will be exactly, but I'm just jumping in. I figure that if I just start somewhere, I'll figure out my goal along the way. Maybe.  

This week, I'm mostly just trying to reach for clothes I've made first, before I put on something easy (jeans and t-shirt again *face palm*). I am going to try to do one post a week to summarize what I've worn that has been self made, and what I'm thinking about it. To be honest, the hardest part of this (and we are only two days in so far!) has been actually taking photos of myself. Scary. 

Anyway, lest this be a post with no photo, I thought I'd share the first self made thing I wore for Me Made May, which is something I made last year and never blogged about. 

I love this floral jumpsuit. I got the pattern free from another Brisbane based sewer person who was de-stashing during the Covid lock down last year. Though I don't really like sewing from pre-made patterns I really wanted to try to make it. So I made a draft, fixed all the fit issues and then made the final out of this gloriously bright print. 

I've lost a bit of weight since I first made it, so it's a little looser now, but I still get so many comments when I wear it, which might give me the motivation I need to take it in a few places so it can have that really "tailored for me" fit feeling again. 

This seems like a great place to start for Me Made May. Something I love that I'm committed to adjusting so I can keep wearing it for a long time. Let's hope the rest of the journey has some similar discoveries.