Draught Stopper

We're back in NZ for our holidays and much to Tamati's delight it has snowed, snowed and snowed.  The temperature has certainly been a big change to what we are used to in Tanzania.  We are staying with my MIL, and she mentioned that she was after a draught stopper.  A quick search on Pinterest found me this site, and one hour later we had a completed draught stopper.

It was a simple sew, two long rectangles sewed together and filled with rice.  It did take 5 kilos of rice and I'm worried that it may be to heavy and rip the stitches, but we'll see how it goes.

I love the fabric and was hoping there would be enough left over to make a dress for Arahia, but no such luck.  Will need another trip to the fabric shop, oh well!

 Two pieces of fabric, 9" by 36".

 Right sides together, sew around the two long edges and one short edge.  After sewn, pack with rice and sew final end.

Arahia giving it her seal of approval.

Enjoying the snow.

Darth Vadar Costume

 Tamati's latest obsession is Star Wars. I have been promising him a Darth Vadar costume for ages, so as soon as I finished his sisters quiet book he informed me that the costume was to be my next project. Like most four year olds Tamati is not the most patient so in order to speed up the process I bought a cheap black t shirt and pants to build the costume around.

I copied the mask from here using black felt and white embroidery cotten. I backed the back of the mask with another piece of felt so all the loose threads didn't get in the way. 

I used felt to sew on the details for the T-shirt, using this pin as my inspiration

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The cape was a simple sew. Just a rectangle of black fabric. I sewed Velcro at the top to make it easy for Tamati to get it on and off. Overall I was pretty pleased with how it turned out, as was Tamati. 

Quiet Book 8 - The Finished Product

Finally, after 2 months, Arahia's Quiet Book is finished.  There are parts that I'm really proud of and other parts that I wish I could have done better.  I'm quite disappointed with how the cover turned out,  I wish it could have been stiffer.  Overall though, this is a project I really enjoyed and I hope my daughter enjoys playing with it as much as I enjoyed making it.

Please refer to my previous blogs to see where my ideas where copied, adapted and stolen from.

Quiet Book 7 - The Princess and the Dog

Here are the photos of my last two pages.  Again, under the photo is the link to my original inspiration.  I am now working on the cover and am hoping to have the book completed by the end of the week, stay tuned!

My Inspiration

My Inspiration

The dog also has a lead and clip, but it didn't make it into the photo.

Quiet Book 6 - The Owl and the Ballet Slipper

And here are the next two pages.  Both of these pages I pretty much directly copied from pages I found on Pinterest.  I have attached the links to these under each photo.  My Quiet Book is getting close to finished, only two pages to go.

My Inspiration

My Inspiration

Quiet Book 5 - Clown Stacking Rings

Stacking rings is one of my daughter's favourite toys so I thought it only fitting that her Quiet Book should have a stacking rings page.  Having used velcro on almost all the other pages I decided to use buttons for this page and was very pleased with how it turned out.  This pin was my inspiration.

Quiet Book 4 - The Cupcake Page

I have been making this Quiet Book for my daughter, Arahia.  She is only just 8 months, however, so is obviously not ready to give me any feedback on how I am doing.  Thankfully my four year old son, Tamati has taken on the role of Chief Page Tester, and he informs that this is his favourite page so far.  My original inspiration for the page was this pin.

Quiet Book 3 - Ladybird Counting Page

This page is one that I directly copied from here.   I have seen some pretty amazing quiet books on Pinterest but the ones from her blog are incredible.

Quiet Book 2 - Toadstool house

I’ve always had a thing for toadstool houses so I knew this quiet book just had to have one.  I used this pin here as my initial inspiration.  I also knew I wanted to have finger puppets in my quiet book after seeing this cute farm animal page.  The design for the fairy’s came from here.

Quiet Book, page 1 - Dress Up Doll

Over the last few months I have been busy making a quiet book for my daughter, Arahia.  I have copied and adapted from pages I have seen on Pinterest.  I am almost finished, with just a few pages and the cover left to complete.  Today I am sharing one of my favourite pages from the book.  

This is the original pin that inspired this page, and I decided to adapt it to a Disney Princess theme.  I have pinned all the sites I used for the dress-ups here.

Simplicity 1921

I found this pattern in a second hand shop in my home town for only 50 cents.  Considering the price of brand new patterns I was very happy with my find.  I consider myself an O.K sewer, maybe an advanced beginner, and I have tackled a lot of different patterns.  This pattern had me beat though.  It took a couple of days and lots of help from my Mum to sort out the pleats and the layered skirt but we got there in the end.  Notice, however, that I am including no photos of the back view. After two attempts at getting the back hems to match up I gave up and decided near enough was good enough.