Plunket Book Cover

Someone once mentioned to me that they had made a cover for their grandson's Plunket Book which I thought was a great idea. They aren't the best looking book and would be so cute personalised. My mum then purchased one at a market and I thought - I can make that....so I have.

I started with some stiff felt. I cut a rectangle measuring 33.5cm (1 cm wider than the front and back cover + 1.5cm for the spine) x 23cm.

I also cut 2 strips measuring 5cm x 23cm that the front and back cover will slip into.

For the cover I traced around some letters with a fabric pencil for Chloe's name, which I then painted in.

I then sewed around the whole cover with a fancy stitch to attach the cover holders (for lack of a better name).

At the hospital we had been given a little pink heart with Chloe's details when she was born. This has been taped to the front of her book up til now and has been getting a bit tatty. I laminated it and have attached it to the cover with a ribbon coming out from under a little felt flower. This heart will sit tucked behind 3 other felt flowers.

The flowers cut out, and then stitched down with a running stitch around the yellow centre.

All done!

Flash Cards - sort of

When I knew that I was going to be laminating Chloe's birthday invites I decided to make up some extra cards for her to play with. She has been doing well at recognising the letters from her name so I did p some cards with the letters from her name on one side and an animal starting with that letter on the other side. Then, to fill up the page, I did an 'A', 'B', 'C' with some different pics on the back.

After laminating them I trimmed the edges and rounded the corners to make them kiddie safe.

So far we have had fun spreading them out and playing a game of 'where is the...?'.

Birthday Invites

My little girl is going to be 2 soon! Can't believe how fast it's gone. For her birthday we decided to do a zoo theme as she loves going to the zoo. We were going to have the party at the zoo but decided to stay at home in the end a)to keep costs down and b) so the 9mth pregnant mum has everything handy and doesn't have to carry everything there.

The invites are made and ready to go out and I'm rather happy with them. They are modeled on the 'Friends of the Zoo' passes that Auckland Zoo does.

Using Photoshop I put together a series of 5 animal pictures for one side, and the other has the skin/fur of that animal under the invite info. My lovely hubby made a family zoo logo for it and the whole lot got laminated and put on a lanyard.

Before cutting and laminating

Now the weather just has to behave on the day!

Baby Booties - blue

Just got finished with the other style of baby booties from the Spotlight pattern. Definitely not as easy as the ballet style ones, but still kinda cute. One thing I would say is that keep your cast off at the top loose, otherwise it may be a bit tight around baby's ankle. At least it was good practice at joining yarn, though joining it to 3 stitches (the middle bit at the top the strap goes through) was not easy.

Quiet Book - Cover

I thought I should make something to put my quiet book pages in so made a cover for them. I have all this lovely girly fabric but managed to restrain myself in case #2 is a boy. I'm sure it wouldn't have really been as issue, but I am hoping that both kids will get some use out of it. After a rummage I came up with the fabric I used to make the fabric high chair. I thought this would work well as it is a sturdy, durable fabric and would be easy to find with the bright yellow.

I started by cutting out 2 rectangles that allowed an extra 3cm at the top and bottom and sides of the pages, as well as allowing 6cm for the 'spine'.

From the yellow fabric I also cut a smaller square that will serve as a pocket on the back for bits of notepaper or even holding pieces from the book if necessary.

I went to sew the pieces together a couple of times before stopping to realise that a) I need to sew the pocket on first and b) I need to do the buttonholes in the spine first. The buttonholes will have metal rings through them (the kind you get at a stationary store) so that the pages can be removed and shared amongst kids. I am so lucky to have and awesome buttonhole feature on my machine. I just found a tiny button to use as a guide and they were all done! I also used this same button to add buttonholes to my already finished pages in the corresponding spots.

Pocket and spine

Then came sewing the pieces together, right sides facing and leaving a gap to turn in the right way. I also top stitched around the edge to make the edges sit well. Then I sewed two lines down the middle 6cm apart to form the spine of the book. This will hopefully give it a bit more shape when the pages are in it. The cover is a bit boring at the moment but when I get some inspiration I'll just use some Heat n' Bond and add something fun.

Cover

Next step is get onto finishing the pages. I'm halfway through an apple tree page and have a page planned with a backpack and a small zip, and a shoe that laces up.

Baby booties

I got my latest Spotlight mailer and fell in love with these baby booties. I liked the idea that one of the styles had ribbon around the ankle so you could do them up as tight as necessary.

I started with the ballet style ones in pink:

They were quite easy to do, and not too fiddly.

I have one blue one made in the button style and will post a pic of that one when done. The button ones are trickier as you have to rejoin the wool at a couple of places at the end and I haven't gotten that perfected yet. I also found the part of the pattern where you have to cast on extra stitches for the ankle pieces a bit difficult to decipher, though what I ended up doing worked.

Another Dress

Got some cheap denim at a fabric sale - yay. Decided to make another dress, and wanted to base it on one I saw in a store that had some cute cotton under the denim.

I started thinking that I would just line the denim with the cotton, but after some thinking changed my mind and made the dress reversible. So I made the dress up in each fabric and sewed them together - easy! I left the cotton a bit longer in the hem so that it shows under the denim when the denim is facing out.

I got pink and blue buttons and meant to have them on the contrasting sides, but my mind is so muddled with being pregnant (best excuse ever) that I forgot to do this and couldn't be bothered changing it.

Needs an iron, but that doesn't get done much in our house, and it will be wrinkly again so quickly...

PJ's

Chloe has outgrown another pair of PJ's so rather than buying more I thought I'd get a pattern and make some. Took a while to find a pattern that was from age 1 up, but finally found a Kwik Sew one that goes from age 1-4yrs so I'll get lots of use out of it.

Looked easy enough thought the collar was a bit fiddly (I haven't done a collared shirt before). Happy with the result in this cute purple cotton with stars, and got some cute matching buttons.