Beep beep bib

Here we have some pictures of Munchkin looking grumpy in her new beep beep bib. I had to tempt her with crumpet to look at the camera.

The front is my car stamp in red fabric paint, on recycled chambray, and the back is red cotton sheeting hand stamped with black fabric paint.

This is a special bib which will go to grandma pickledweasel's house - she has limited bib numbers and Munchkin is currently refusing all feeding assistantce at meal times, meaning she gets through three bibs per day :)

She is getting quite good with a fork or a spoon, but she inevitably resorts to hands after a bit. She is a big fan of dips, after we had one of those packs from Tesco with four different sorts in. She's become very inventive with her dipping technique - last week she dipped toast crusts in her weetabix.

Matchy mommy and matchy munchkin

My local Asda has inexplicably started reducing bits of clothing to £1 and putting them on a little rail next to the 'Travelator'. Most of it is useless - bikini bottoms with no tops, or huuuuuge bras*, but there have been a few star finds.

A few weeks ago there were two sun dresses made from lovely cotton, one a size 22 and the other size 24. 'No problem' I thought, 'All the more fabric to play with!' Here's dress No. 1 in its original state:

And here's the top I made for me:

I cut it a little too short initially, so I added a band at the bottom to lengthen it a bit:

Here's the back:

The elasticated bit was already in the dress, which gave the top a nice shape around the chest and then made it a bit smocky as it widened out.

And here's the skirt I made for Munchkin:

This was so easy. All the hard work was done, as I used the bottom of the dress as the bottom of the skirt. I just sewed up the side, made a casing at the top and popped my elastic in. And I still have some fabric left over! Enough to make another Munchkin skirt, although she doesn't really need two.... maybe I'll make it and run a giveaway.

I still have to tackle dress No. 2, which is a lovely sage green colour. It's just a shame it's now autumn and I'm going to have to wear chunky big cardigans over my new sun tops :)

*Ok, maybe these things would be useful to people who don't mind topless sunbathing, or who have huuuuuge bosoms.

Toot Toot!

Another car tshirt for munchkin. I'm not so happy with this one - the font isn't quite right, and it needs an exclamation mark.

I've also made a bib with the other stamp, and backed it with some keraazy hand printed 'Beep' fabric. It took chuffing ages to print all the beeps, but it looks cool :) It just needs a popper to finish it, and then I can take some pics, if munchkin will be obliging and model it for me. Meal times are becoming a bit of a battle ground of late, so the pictures may be 'action' shots :)

Beep beep!

Munchkin is crazy about vehicles. She likes cars, diggers, trucks, lorries, cement mixers, steam rollers, bin lorries, cranes, cherry pickers, trains....the list is never ending. She started at nursery for one afternoon a week recently, and on her first visit the only thing that would stop her crying was a big Caterpillar truck

She has quite a few vehicle toys, but as of yet no clothing to reflect her love of things with engines. I tell a lie, she has one top from Next that has a camper van appliqued on the front. But there appears to be little else out there if you're a girl and like cars. So I set to work :)

It was sooooo easy! I just made up a block stamp with foam shapes, et voila! I did a few test prints first to work out which fabric paint would be best.

The foam that the shapes came from works well as a stamp too, and I've printed up another tee with it, but it needs some words underneath - I'll try and finish it today. The tshirts were from a pack I bought in the sales, and I'm customising all four. Photos of the other three as and when I finish them. Toot toot!

More neck warming

Just a quick little post, as I have a jam packed weekend - BBQ with mr pickledweasel's work mates this evening, shoe shopping tomorrow day, super posh belated wedding anniversary dinner tomorrow evening, ironing, general recovering and Twighlight on dvd on monday.

I've been cobbling together more of my blanket squares, and have another lovely soft neck warmer in preparation for autumn.

I like the colour of this one, it will go beautifully with my grey wool winter coat.

I've started knitting munchkin a neckwarmer too, as scarves and toddlers don't mix. A well meaning great grandma knitted her a lovely fluffy scarf last winter, but it was quickly removed every time I wrapped her up in it. Hopefully she'll be a bit more tolerant this year, and I'm thinking it'll stay on longer as she has to work out how to get it over her head :)

The moon on a stick please.

I have another wedding in late October (it would appear 2009 is the year to get married for my friends), and I have no idea what to wear. Ideally I'd like to a) not spend a fortune, b) be warm enough, c) look halfway decent.

Unfortunately the dress pictured does not fulfill criteria a) or b), but it would blimmin well fulfill c) and then some :)

However, it only comes in black or cream, is far too short, and is £95. So my plan is to try and make a lookey-likey (but with a back and a bit longer). It's basically a boat necked shift with some bits on the shoulders and a peplummy thing........can it really be that hard? Hmmmm. Why do I get the feeling this isn't going to be easy?

From blanket to neck warmer

I have a confession to make - I'm a bit scared of knitting. The language of knitting patterns seems alien to me, too many abbreviations and special codes. It's like some sort of secret club. I can do your bog standard knit, purl, cast off scenario, but anything other than that and I get the fear.

So when I found out I was pregnant with Munchkin, I came up with a form of knitting therapy to help me resolve my issues and transform me into a confident and prolific knitter, churning out matinee jackets and bootees by the day.

I took some lovely soft chunky wool, and knitted practice squares using different stitches. The idea was to sew them all togther at the end to make a snuggly blanket. I managed to do quite a few, but then couldn't find any more patterns that fitted in with my square size - I was doing some complicated thing whereby the sequence had to be 17 stitches long plus or minus 2 stitches or something. Anyway, the squares were put in a bag and stuffed in a cupboard.

I recently retrieved them and was determined to find a use for them. So they have been very cunningly (if I do say so myself) been turned into a neck warmer. I took four of my squares and sewed them together into a scarf. I then overlapped the ends diagonally and stitched them together. Hey presto! It's a bit like a bandana shape, which I'm loving. And it felt really quick and easy and satisfying because I did all the hard work about two years ago :)