Wednesday 28 December 2011

New Years Resolution

I don't have a very good track history with blogging..... I usually post once or twice and then forget about it! But I'm happy to say, so far I have lasted just over a month and blogged 8 times! (this blog makes 9 woohoo) great record for me!

I have never been good at keeping a diary either... I have a friend who has a diary every year and writes every little thing down in it, and when she can't remember something, she just pulls her diary out and there it is!

A friends daughter asked me today what Emelia's first word was and I was shocked to realise I don't remember :-( how sad is that? She is only 16 months old!! Of course if I kept a regular diary, then I could check that!

This is going to be my new years resolution, keeping this blog regularly updated and keeping a diary. My hubby bought me a lovely diary for Christmas, so in this I can write what custom orders I have, dates of markets, and other important things!

What are your resolutions?

Tuesday 20 December 2011

Sewing Bee and Pillow Case Dress Tutorial.



Recently I found out about a Charity called Dress A Girl Around the World, and it stuck a cord with me. I have always wanted to do something to help disadvantaged children, but I just didn’t know what... I don’t know how to build, so there goes helping to build Schools and Churches. I have no Teaching Degree, so there goes teaching the Children. I’m not a Nurse or a Dr. I just didn’t have any skills to help these children, except my Christian Faith, My love for God and my heart for young Children. I have had on my heart for some time now that I needed to do something to help disadvantaged Children, especially Children from 3rd world countries, when I found out about this Charity; I knew it was from God! I know how to sew, and I suppose I am quite good at it, it is a skill that has been given to me by my Heavenly Father, so now I can do something with that skill to help these wonderful Girls!

So I got it in my head that I needed to organise a Sewing Bee to make Dresses for these Girls, I thought I might be able to get 5-6 Ladies together to help me sew up 20 or so dresses to donate to Dress a Girl Around the World - Sydney and Australia, so I posted on Gigi's Dress a Girl (DAG) Facebook page and a few other facebook pages. Created an event from my own facebook page, and shared it with everyone I knew, hoping to get donations of fabric and possibly some Dresses. A couple of Days later, a lovely lady called Karin, commented on my post and we got chatting, She was also very passionate about this cause and we decided that we should try to make this event REALLY work! Soon the 20 or so dresses that I wanted to make turned into 100 dresses, and now a few days later, that even seems like a too easy goal! Shall we go for 200? We have over 20 people attending our event so far, which is booked for the 24th of March 2012. We need to find a venue, and of course we need donations of fabric, and money to get this thing off the ground. We are looking into having a few fundraising events to pay for posting the dresses, fabric, cotton, bias, elastic, hire of a venue, tea and coffee for the sewer's and food for the sewer's.

We still would LOVE for people to sign up for the event, the more Dresses we make, the more smiles we will put on beautiful little girls faces.


So I have had a few people say they would like to make some dresses, but won’t be able to come to the event, they have asked for a pattern for the Pillow Case Dress, and I thought I would do one better and write a tutorial, now bare with me, I have never done a tutorial before! Please note, that this is the way that I make Pillow Case Dresses, if there is another way that you know of please feel free to do it your way!

What you need:

1. Standard Pillowcase or about a metre of fabric
2. Thread whose color more or less matches the pillowcase and/or fabric
3. 60" of bias tape or ribbon
4. Lace or other trims which you can use to embellish your dress but this is optional5. Sewing Machine
6. Scissors or Rotary Trimmer
7. Iron and Ironing board

Length Guidelines:
I used the following length guidelines for the dress -

6 - 12 months    15"
2 yrs old           19"
3 yrs old           21"
4 yrs old           23"
5 yrs old           25"
6 yrs old           27"

And so on. I added 2" for each additional year
*Make sure you cut your fabric about 2" longer than you need to allow for hemming

Step 1: 

Fold your fabric in half lengthways so that the selvages are touching. Cut your fabric to the desired length - I am making a 12 to 18 month’s size so I have cut the fabric at 19"

I have used a Rotary trimmer, but you can use scissors
 
Step 2:

Unfold your fabric and cut down the middle to create two separate pieces.


 

Step 3:

Put both pieces together and fold in half lengthways again. Cut 2 J shapes for the Arm holes. Make them about 4" Long and 3" wide



Unfold the fabric and it should look like this






Step 4:

I now use an overlocker to tidy the edges.


 

If you don’t have an overlocker, you can just double up the fabric when you hem the dress.

Step 5:

Place the two pieces of fabric together, right sides facing, and sew or over lock the sides together

you want to sew from under the arm hole to the bottom of the dress

 
Step 6:

Now the binding: I have just used some pre-made bias binding I have bought from spotlight. Pin the bias binding open onto the right side of the fabric all the way around the arm hole.


And sew along the crease closest to the edge of the fabric



Then Iron the binding over onto the wrong side of the fabric




Sew over the bias binding again, closest to the edge of the bias binding


 


Step 7:

Make the casing for the ties: Fold over the top of the dress about 1 - 2 inches and press.



Sew a straight line along the edge to create the casing ( If you have not over locked your edges, you will need to press it so that the raw edge is enclosed in the casing - fold it about 1cm press then fold 1-2 inches and press again) Do this for both sides.

Step 8:

Fold up the hem about 1" and press. Sew the hem.



Step 9:

Now the main part of the dress is finished, you just need to make the straps.

I cut 2 pieces of fabric, the whole width of the fabric, 4 inches long. Fold in half and then press.




Sew the strap together


 
And turn the right way 

I use a safety pin to do this.
 
Once turned, Iron it flat again, sew the ends closed and thread through the casing on the dress 






Repeat this step to make a second strap.

Step 10:

Then tie your straps together to make two big beautiful bows and your dress is finished!



I have made this dress quite wide (I used the whole width of the fabric) so when the little girl who receives this dress grows up, she can wear it as a top!
I hope this makes sense!


And of course if you can’t sew, I am also accepting donations of fabric and money :-) please email me at millyandmummy@gmail.com if you would like to donate!

Thanks to my wonderful hubby who sat with me while I was sewing and took all these awesome photo's for me! xxxx

Monday 12 December 2011

Sneaky Peaky

In the new year I am going to be offering a few different designs. I have had these designs in mind for some time now, but have just been unable to get time to make them!

Well on the weekend we were heading out to our Church's Carols in the Park, and I just wanted my little Miss to have something pretty to wear. So I got out some BEAUTIFUL Tanya Wheelan Fabric that I ordered some time ago, and havent had the chance to use yet. This Fabric is not christmas Fabric, but I thought it would make a gorgeous Christmas Dress

Tanya Wheelan - Delilah
I used a Lily Bird Studio Pattern, that I bought from Patterns Only.

and this is the finished product

Little Rudolph!

So what do you think?

First 3 custom orders for 2012 have been filled already!

Bec xxx

Thursday 8 December 2011

Pig tails

When I was pregnant with Emelia, eveywhere I went I would see these gorgeous little baby girls with a beautiful mop of dark brown hair, I would dream of how Emelia would look and it always included beautiful brown hair.

Well when she was born, there was very little hair and what was there was RED!!! (We kinda knew it was going to be red, history of it on both sides - I was fooling my self about the dark hair) The hair that she was born with all fell out a month or two later, and my baby girl was left VERY BALD

Emelia - 3 days old

6 weeks old, and a tiny bit of fluff on her head

4 months old, Yep - Bald
She had a bit of a mullet going on for a while as well! Quite funny

what could be more attractive than a red mullet?

I would make sure that she was wearing pretty headbands all the time, because even if she was wearing pink somebody would always say "whats his name" grrr so frustrating. Then Slowly it began to grow

see the little Tuft?
and then it developed curls!

cute little ringlets

and more curls

hehehe this has been fluffed up
and then finally today, after waiting for 15 months, and wishing, hoping, praying that it would grow, I was able to put 2 little pony tails into her hair!!! YAY

Oh hi Mum! dont I look cute?
check out the colour! Red is in baby!
Im so excited, now I can make some cute little clips and put cute little bows on her pig tails hehehehe

Love my girl xxxx

Tuesday 6 December 2011

Change is in the air

Change is good right? Usually I LOVE change, I thrive on change, But this change, I'm scared to make.

I suppose I should explain..

For awhile now I have been accepting more and more custom orders, my list keeps getting longer and longer, it just seems like I finish a couple of orders and all of a sudden I have a heap more. Now I Love doing custom orders, its fantastic that I get to work with a customer to make something that they and their child will love, BUT (there is always a but isn't there) it unfortunately does not leave me any time to create new designs, and to use all the beautiful fabrics I have sitting on my shelves. If I don't create new designs, then my business is not going to move forward. So I have been umming and arrhing about a solution to this problem. With the help of friends I have come up with a couple of solutions:

1. I have enlisted the help of a friend (possibly 2) to come on board as admins on my Facebook page, She (or they) will do her best to answer all questions, and just free up some of my time so I don't have to spend it on facebook (even though I'm addicted to facebook)

2. All custom orders from now on will require a 50% non-refundable Deposit. I have resisted this, but unfortunately I have made up a few orders that have not been paid for after I have made them. This then leaves me with items that I need to reduce the price of to sell. It is also time spent that I could have been making other custom orders. I fully understand if people wish to cancel their order, and will refund the deposit if they contact me before I make their order.

3. I will be posting daily which orders I am up to. If you are in doubt of what order the custom orders are in, there is a photo album labelled "custom orders list" which has a photo with all the custom orders listed underneath. These are in order of when they were placed.

4. As of the 1st of January, I will only be taking 2 custom orders a week - You will need to be the first to comment to gain a custom order. This will leave me time to create new and exciting products! I will have a market night once a month, and in the market night I will offer up extra custom orders.

I hope these changes work to make my business run a little more smoothly! I will also be doing about 7-8 markets next year, so hopefully all my local likers will have the chance to pick up some cute outfits!

thank you all for your wonderful support! I love you all!!

Bec xxx