Corduroy Creations!

Last weekend my mum and I decided to make some corduroy creations. We made a pair of pants for myself, and also a corduroy dress and corduroy ra ra pants for a very special little girl for her birthday. I'll show pictures of the other two later on.

My pants took mum and I 4 hours in total from cutting the pattern to threading the cord. We first went to Granny Kathleens to find a pattern. We found a pattern for the dress but no luck for the pants. Next stop was Lincraft were we found a pattern for my pants and for the ra ras. Then we bought some red material for my pants and for the other creations.

The colourful cordy that we used for the trims, we found at a small shop in Brisbane called Just Plain Gorgeous, which is an awesome shop that has so much great crafty goodness it made mum and I squeal with delight!

On my pants I thought I could personalise them by adding one of my own designs on them. So I put a cut out of a mushroom I drew on one leg and we made a pocket on the other.

While mum was sewing the pants together I was making a swing behind our lounge room watching a movie and mum sew. We thought it was a pretty good try for our first attempt, especially for the fact that they fitted me perfectly.

On Sunday we went to the local markets where I wore my pants for the first time and I got lots of lovely comments. Also, mum found a big box of fleece to spin on her spinning wheel on our way out of the markets.

 

These pants are very special to me, I cant wait till winter cause I just know I'll wear them to death! They remind me of my mums childhood because her mum used to make her all kinds of clothes including shorts, shirts, jumpers, even undies and now my mums doing the same for me and I can't wait to see what else we will make together! Mum has taught me alot to do with craft and sewing and making these pants has taught me how to read patterns and the patience that is needed to make something great! 

My Drawings!

Hey! I thought Id show you some of my drawings that I've been doing. I love drawing and creating my own pictures. Lately I have been right into drawing mushrooms, owls, trees, animals and loads more!

Heres some of the many pictures I love to draw: 

Anyway I hope you like them!

Homemade Pencil Cases!

Lately my mum and I have been making our own pencil cases! We use material and zips that we find from the op-shops or use some that my grannys has, we buy the plastic to cover them from Lincraft which I think costs about $10 a metre and i design the front and maybe the back and then of course we sew it all together. 

These are great homemade gift ideas. We have used them for christmas presents, birthday presents and just made some for ourselves to use as pencil cases for school, making small ones for wallets, long ones for holding knitting, and they are great for holding hair ties or hair clips or even use as a phone case.

Now, in case any of you would like to try making one here's how we do it:-

1.First make sure you have everything you need to get started including- a zip, material, plastic covering, a sewing machine and pins.

 2.You can have as big of pencil case as you would like although it mostly depends on what size zip you have. So to cut the material to size (i recomend ironing it first to get all the crumples out but either way is fine), you can measure any length but the width must be the same as the zip.

3.Then once its cut to size you can start designing the front and back. I think its nice to personalise the pencil cases by putting the name of the person its for on the back but it still looks great without it.

4.Once you have designed it sew it on to the material you cut to size, making sure you leave enough space around the edges for seams when you sew it all together. Then pin the material to the plastic covering and cut around the edge.

5.Next do a zigzag stitch on your sewing machine around the outside of the plastic and material to hold them together.

6.Now comes the hardest part of all! This is where you have to sew the zip on and to do this you must have a zipper foot on your sewing machine which is made specially for sewing zips on. When you have attached the zipper foot fold the top of the front part of the case over and pin onto one side of the zip as close as possible to to the metal part. Then flip them over so that the material is facing up towards the the foot then sew along the zip and repeat for the other side.

7.Now last but not least turn it inside out and sew all around the edges, ( And so that you can turn it back the right way again pull the zip half way across so that it is partly open.) 

Well give it a try! It might take awhile to get a hang of but just give it a go and dont hold back!

Anyway I better go. See you next time!



Crocheting a flower pillow!

Hi! This morning my mum and i finished the pillow i have been crocheting. This was my first attempt at crocheting a square and some flowers, so i decided i would make some use out of them.

I got the instuctions to make these cute little flowers on the blog Attic24 - she has some great craft ideas which has really got me motavated see here http://attic24.typepad.com/weblog/crochet-flowers-and-leaves.html.

Hello!

Good morning! My name is Emily Dan, I am 12 years old and this is my first time at blogging and I thought that I would like to introduce my family and tell you a bit about my life. First of all my mums name is Megan and my dads name is Jason. I also have 2 brothers, Michael and Steven. I live in a shed on 30 acres and I have a dog - Casper, a cat - Maui, and 2 rats - Precious and Patches. Our acreage has a dam and creek running through it which I love playing in and we have a garden outside our shed with 11 square garden beds and 35 fruit trees. My hobbies are crafting, knitting, crocheting, drawing, sewing, climbing trees, and designing things. I really hope you enjoy reading my blog. Here are some pics of my family:

Michael & me

Steven, Dad & Michael

Mum & me

My Mum & Dad

Me & my brothers dog (Bruiser)

Casper

Me & my Cousin

Casper

My rat when she had babies

The 2 rats I kept (Precious & Patches)

& of course my little Maui!

Well that should sum up most things!