Baby Beanie Hat Tutorial

A friend of ours gave birth a few weeks prematurely recently to a beautiful 4lb 9oz baby girl. I have a feeling her surprise early arrival (she is doing well though) will mean that she won't be able to fit many of the baby clothes her parents have prepared for her and so decided to make her a little hat for starters and perhaps this will be joined tomorrow by a matching baby outfit... depends on how my little munchkin is tomorrow :)

Supplies:
scissors, thread, sewing machine
approx 40cm x 30cm of stretch cotton knit fabric - eg t-shirt fabric

I considered doing a refashion of an old t-shirt for this as I am currently on a re-fashion high but I didn't have anything girly or pink enough (go figure!).

To create a template either model it off a baby hat you already have or use a saucer to trace a semi circle and then add about 4 inches of straight fabric at the bottom as you will be turning it under. Place it on your fabric making sure that the fabric is able to be stretched sideways rather than up and down. This is important - it will help your hat stretch to fit bub's head. When your template is placed as it is in the picture your fabric with stretch left to right. Cut out 2.

Now you have your two pieces....

Place them right sides together lining up all edges.

Sew around the edge with a 1/4' seam leaving the bottom straight edge open.

At this point if you like you could overlock your seam. I don't really deem this necessary on this project as you are working with knit fabric and it won't fray. Fold up the open edge to the mark as indicated in the pattern.

Sew around where you folded your straight edge up to. This will keep it in place. NOTE: This is not the bottom of your hat but rather about half way up where your previous edge now has been folded up to.

Turn inside out. You can see where my stitching from the previous step is part way up the hat.

Fold you bottom edge up to the sewn line making sure to fold towards the outside of the hat.

Almost done! Iron your little fold rim to make sure it sits flat and perfect.

With a needle and thread stitch a few stitches over top of each other at each side to hold the rim in place. I managed to make my stitches so small I needed an arrow to show you where they are (that and the fact that my camera seemed to be having trouble focusing!)

And you are done! Since I don't have a newborn model at the moment (here's hoping the stalk will bring one soon!) James' teddy has offered to do the job - although he wasn't too happy about wearing pink....

I plan to embellish my little hat with a fabric flower (stay tuned for the tutorial!). You could also do a nice button (making sure its sewn on nice and tight so little hands don't pull it off) or sew some ric-rac around it... the possibilities are all there for you to imagine!

Enjoy!

Easy Maxi Dress Tutorial

My dear friend and neighbour, Karina, turned 30 today! She is an amazing woman who I love dearly.

Karina is also 29 weeks pregnant with her first child. She is naturally cute and petite and so she absolutely looks stunning with a bump! I wanted to give her a gift that would be practical and celebrate this stage in her life but also be just for her and not for baby (I'm throwing her a baby shower in 3 weeks anyway when I get to bring out all the cutesy baby stuff!) As her bump continues to grow, so does the need for clothes that fit - and coming into the beautiful Spring weather we have been having, she needs some cooler clothes. Ta-da! I'll make her a dress!

I found this wonderful tutorial over at bored and crafty and knew it would look great with a bump for an accessory!

So without further ado - here she is!

I hadn't yet hemmed the dress at this stage and I decided not to make the rosettes.

As you can see she is totally rocking the bump!

As Karina prefers halter-neck style straps, I have just not criss-crossed the straps at the back.


My Tips:

1. Unless you are making this dress for a 5 foot, size 6 person (measured on Karina under the bust so excluding the belly), make sure you buy more than 2.5m of material. 112cm width material is ok for size 6-8 but anybody in sizes above that really should aim for at least 140cm width. Also - if you are taller than 5feet - go for at least 3m of material.
2. I made Karina's dress cinch in just under the breast in order to make it flattering for her bump. However the pattern suggests to make it at the natural waistline. Choose whichever style you prefer :) 
3. Use a safety pin to turn your strap through to the other side and make sure you fold your strap in half and iron it before sewing. Do this also with the elastic casing... 
4. Karina's measurement under the bust was 75cm. I made her width at the bottom of the dress 2m. It worked out to be a good proportion. 
5. I used a non-stretch cotton but this would work really well with a knit fabric. I plan to attempt one for myself once I conquer my fear of sewing with knit...
6. Another great idea for this dress which seems to be all the rage right now is to have a slip dress as the lining and then a longer, see-through chiffon or similar fabric for the top layer. Simply cut your lining shorter (at the moment the "in thing" is to have it just above your knees) and once you have sewn the lining pieces together attach them to the top of the dress just below the neck casing. I'm sooo going to try this!

Hope you enjoy making this fantastic versatile dress!

Child's Pencil Roll Tutorial

Well, well, well... It's about time I posted a new tutorial!

So here we go - first of all - much thanks to my hubby who took some lovely photos of my un-manicured hands during the process of making this pencil roll in order for me to document this tutorial for you!

I was asked to make 8 pencil rolls for a friend's 8yr old daughter's birthday party as presents for the guests. Gladly I jumped at the chance to finally work with some real girly fabric after making things for my little boy! Kelly provided all the materials and my job was simply to make them up.

Kelly chose a rich purple drill for the inside and a gorgeous cupcake fabric for the print! I love it! Add some ribbon with love hearts on it and its time to get girly!

In total you will need:

19" x 13" of print fabric
19" x 13" of a thicker fabric such as drill or broadcloth
20" of ribbon (about 1cm wide works best)

scissors, complementary thread, sewing machine, ruler, self-healing mat (to cut fabric on), iron and ironing board.

First thing to do is cut your fabric. I cut one from each of the materials of a 9" by 19" rectangle and a 4" by 19" rectangle.

Make sure to iron out your fabric after you cut it to remove all fold marks and wrinkles - it's much easier to sew with flat fabric!

With right sides facing, sew along all 4 side of the smaller rectangles leaving a small gap wide enough to put two fingers in to turn the piece inside out.

Top stitch all the way around once you have turned your material right side out, making sure to turn under the edges of the gap as you do so to include them. Set aside this piece and take your other rectangles.

Complete the same steps as above with your larger pieces without top-stitching. Iron both of your newly finished rectangles.

Take your smaller rectangle and place it on top of the larger rectangle - plain sides facing each other. Top stitch the entire way around joining the rectangles together.

Starting at the long top-stitched side, sew straight lines approx 1.5cm (wider if you plan to put wider pencils or crayons in the roll) to the end of the printed fabric. Make sure to secure your stitching either by back-stitching at each end or if you are lucky enough to have a fancy machine that will do it for you :)

 Take your ribbon and cut approx 20". Fold it in half and stitch it down on the right inside of the roll.
NOTE: if you have ribbon like mine which has a pattern only on one side - make sure you stitch it down inside out unlike mine otherwise when you tie it you won't be able to see the pattern when you tie it up.

And ta-da! You are finished! Look how pretty!

Now insert some kiddie coloured pencils - I only had boring adult pens :( ...

And roll up and tie and you have a fancy pencil/crayon roll ready for any little girl (or boy) who loves to draw!

Well there it is. One pencil roll. Now to complete the other 7...

If you would like to check out Kelly's blog, head on over to her site.

Who am I?

I guess it's a basic question. Who am I? What do I do? How do I live?

I am a 24yr old mother of one and wife of another. My hubby is an Invertebrate Zoologist (yes - if you figure out what that means please let me in!). Our darling son has just celebrated his first birthday and has entered the tiring (for mummy) stage of walking and running.

Our family are members of a local church which is a smaller campus of a much larger church in the south of our city. We love being a part of this community life and its great being in a church with so many young families with little bubs to play with darling son!

We are a one-income, mortgage, bills, car payments family who like many others struggle from time-to-time to keep things afloat. One of my proudest accomplishments is being able to (usually) feed out little family of 3 for $100 a fortnight (and no we don't just eat bread and water!!) I will make sure to include a post on how I do this in an Australian economy! I try to manage the household finances well in order to have the luxury of being a stay-at-home-mum for darling son. Yes it can actually be done people!

As my blog name suggests, I am a bit of a creative Mummy. I try to do something creative every day. My previous attempts have included handmade rugs, paintings, cross-stitch, knitting, sewing, hand-sewing.... I really enjoy making children's items and am currently on a completely hand-sewn baby bootie craze.

Well thats enough about me for now. I look forward to sharing with you all a bit about my life, creative adventures, discoveries and moments of joy that I come across in daily life.

xx - Creative Mummy