Drumming to the beat

My younger son has been doing drum lessons for a few months now, and really enjoying it.

We recently got him some proper drum sticks to practice with, so I made him a case for them to keep them together in his school bag.

He chose the fabric, and I made a long skinny pouch with a dome and some padding.

By Special Request

It started innocently enough ....


T - 'Mummy, I want to be a Ninja'

Me - 'Okay. Have you got a ninja costume in the dress up box?'

T - 'Oh .. no. But I found a picture on the computer, and you can make it for me'. (The google foo is strong in this one!)

Me - 'Oh?! Show me then'.

T- 'See, it has a dragon on the front, and it has to have ... and ... and.... and you can make it for me!

Me - 'That looks a bit tricky to make ...'

T- 'But you are very good at sewing, Mummy :-) '


And thus, I was suckered into making a ninja costume.

I took the cheats way out, and purchased black pants and a long sleeve tee, while hoping I could come up with a good way of getting a ninja-like dragon on the front.

We googled images, and found one that he was happy with, and I thought I had a hope of pulling off.

In the end, I vaguely traced the image onto some red fabric, and then appliqued it to the front of the tee. Cut around the circle on the outside, and the dragon in the middle.

Job done!

Tablet covers

My children were fortunate to have been given tablets for Christmas. Both were the same, along with matching cases.
To tell them apart, and also to provide them with a little more protection, I set out to make them covers.

I used a free tutorial from Create Kids Couture, which offers instructions for cases in several different sizes for different tablets.

My only change was to replace the elastics with cotton/lycra fabric I sewed into a tube. The elastic I had on hand was either too firm or much too narrow.

These work quite well, and my only addition will be to pop a velcro dot on the back of the tablet for added security.

Teacher gifts - Infinity Scarves

As we reach the end of the school year, I needed to come up with an idea for a teacher gift.

After to-ing and fro-ing on a few ideas, I settled on infinity scarves. I considered doing a lightweight cotton one as we are coming into Summer, but then decided I would go with a wool one and have it as a Winter gift that actually gets used!

I found a fairly straightforward tutorial on the H is for Handmade blog. The only change I made was to make the initial width 20" rather than the suggested 22", and was thus able to get three scarves out of my length of fabric.

I came across a really nice suit weight 100% wool in nuetral tones that seemed to really suit the styles of both teachers I was gifting to.

Modelled by 'Fred the Head'

Birthday Present Sewing

Another one of those things 'they' don't tell you before you have children, is that children will make friends, and get invited to a LOT of birthday parties! And it seems we are in the midst of birthday season.

I am fortunate to have crafty friends who appreciate a good handmade gift, so the search was on for a great idea. I came across this Art-on-the-Go kit, and decided it would be perfect for the varying ages I needed to make gifts for - mostly 3 - 7 year olds.

These are great as they don't use much fabric, so I have been able to make use of my leftover offcuts from previous sewing projects.
I have also been able to match the fabric and colours to the child I have been making them for.

I have so far made at least half a dozen of these, and my own children are making noises that they would like one for themselves.

As well as the examples pictured, there have been art rolls made from denim, shirting stripes, sock monkey print, pinwale cord, and I have used what I had on hand for the batting layer - mostly towelling, polar fleece and flannelette.

Christmas Ornament Swap 2012

A few months ago, I signed up to the New Zealand Handmade Christmas Ornament Swap. The basic premise is you are assigned a swap partner, for whom you make one Christmas ornament and a card.

This sounded like a fun activity to take part in, in the lead up to Christmas so I signed up.

The ornament I made was a ribbon pine cone. These are fairly simple and quick to make - using sequin pins, you attach rows of folded ribbon to a polystyrene egg.

They can look quite effective if you group several together in a bowl or dish for a table centerpiece, particularly if you use coordinating ribbon colours. (Not like the ones above!)

I was assigned Gillian of Mudbird Ceramics as my swap partner, so I packaged up my pinecone and card and posted it off to her.

The very next day, I received a package from Gillian, and was delighted to discover a lovely wee ceramic dove and card featuring one of her other designs. Thanks, Gillian!

This has been a great experience to take part in, and I'm sure I'll be playing along again next Christmas.