Tuesday 26 January 2016

An All-in-One Romper or Dress

I like to find inspiration in baby clothes that I see on other people's children. This unusual outfit is based off a little skirted onsie that I saw on a friend's baby. It was of course made up in a stretch fabric and therefore was able to be very close fitting. I like the idea of an all-in-one romper and dress for a few reasons. Firstly, babies crawl and dresses cause problems with crawling. The aim of this outfit was to have the skirt short enough to stay out of the way when crawling. The other reason I like it is that the design is so unique and provides so many opportunities for adjustment in the pattern.
Make it as an all-in-one outfit, make it as a romper or make it as a little dress.

The pattern is sized to fit babies aged 6-12 months. To complete it, you will need some sewing experience.

You can find this pattern online at my Etsy shop, RP Original.





Sunday 17 January 2016

A Crocheted Headband for a Baby

So I haven't done too much crochet lately as it has been warm. It feels horrible to work with warm wools and sweaty hands... or even just to have the wool sitting on your lap. But over Christmas, I had the opportunity to help my husband photograph my newborn niece and I thought that a crocheted headband would do the job nicely.

I used a grey 8 ply wool for the band a a soft white 4 ply for the flower. The band is simply two rows of double crochet worked in a strip with a picot stitch around the outside. The band was then joined together and the join hidden under the flower. The flower is made up of two simple 5 petal flowers stacked on top of each other and sewn onto the band. I love it that I have become comfortable enough with my crochet to make up my own patterns!

I'm currently working on a vest for Jeremy to wear in the winter, so keep an eye out for progress on that! In the meantime, enjoy the pictures of this gorgeous baby doing a fabulous job of modelling the headband! Photo credit to Daryl Pereira Photography.





Monday 4 January 2016

A Train Birthday Cake Step by Step in Pictures

My sweet boy turned 2 a few days ago and you cannot have a birthday without a cake. So I turned to a beloved birthday companion of my childhood, the Women's Weekly Birthday Cake book. In this marvellous book Jeremy and I found a train cake that appealed to him and I got to work.

To make this cake, I started with a double butter cake mix and baked it in a rectangular slice pan. This made a large cake of a good height to work with.

I then cut this rectangular cake into three strips about 8 cm wide. I had a fourth strip left over that wasn't quite wide enough.



As you can see below, I have cut each 8cm wide strip in half to create the train and carriages. I then cut one of the halves in half again to make two think pieces of cake to give some height to the carriages. The jam roll sits on the front of the train as a rounded nose.


I iced each section of the train with a different coloured butter cream icing. The original train has four carriages, but two were enough for me!


I then cut liquorice traps into thin strips to outline the train and carriages and used choc mint biscuits for the wheels. The liquorice also forms the train tracks.


Then I just decorated with smarties and liquorice all-sorts to create the windows and lights on the train. I used a large marshmallow with a pipe cleaned stuck in it to show the smoke coming out of the smoke stack. The carriages are filled with marshmallows at Jeremy's request.



Finally, I stuck the sleeper sections of the train track onto the cake board with icing and stuck some smarties onto the wheels. Hooray! An amazing cake for a little boy.




 Jeremy absolutely beamed as we sung happy birthday and was delighted with his cake. He sampled the marshmallows immediately! Success.


Sunday 3 January 2016

Welcome to 2016!

Hello dear readers and welcome to 2016. A new year has begun and I am keen to get back into regular blogging about my projects. The holidays are a busy time for us as I am not as free to sit down and blog away after lunch as I am while school term is on.

My holidays projects have been many and varied and I look forward to sharing them with you soon. Meanwhile, we have moved to a new city (Toowoomba) and are in the process of putting down some roots and finding our way around before Daryl gets back to work. The Christmas period has been busy with delightful family gatherings and birthdays... truly my favourite time of the year.

I have sewn for my first niece, starting planting a vegetable garden and involved myself in my husband's wedding photography. I even managed to sew a new dress for myself. Life is good and God has brought us safely to a new year. I'm looking forward to seeing what unfolds in this next chapter of life in Toowoomba!