Upcycling old bathmats into baby changing mats

A while back Mum passed onto me some old bathmats to use as changing mats. I had some time spare on Sunday for some therapy in my sewing room ... I needed a quick project!

I pressed them, then trimmed the large hem off the bathmat and squared it up with the rotary cutter.

Next, some bias. Two strips of 2 1/2 inches of fabric, sewn together to make a long strip. You can either run this through your bias maker or fold half, sew to the bath mat and then press and sew again (like you would for a quilt).

Next some applique ...

And some more applique ..

And now the finished product. Some funky changing mats for the boy, to either grace the changing table or something to be thrown into the nappy bag.

I'm rather happy with the result!

Boomerang Gift Set

A few weeks back I was asked to do a gift set for a little girl. The client picked the fabric and we embroidered her name on the bag. The thought was if she went to childcare, this could be a good sized bag to put all the essentials in.
I was given quite a bit of freedom with the components of the gift set. The client wanted a bag and the shoes and whatever else was upto me. She had fallen in love with the Boomerang fabric as it looked quite "Australian" in design. I decided to do a little changing mat with a toweling backing. I use one of these with my daughter and it is very useful for both changing, eating and general moping up of baby mess. Once I did the embroidery on the bag, it was quite easy to do the embroidery on the face washer (the finished gift set had a red and black face washer). The embroidery machine required both back interfacing and also "ultra solvy" to prevent the needle pulling the toweling back through. Ultra Solvy then rinses out under some warm water


The bag was lined with the same fabric and there were some pockets sewn into the inside of the bag, along with the pockets on the outside of the bag.
The size of the shoes were 6 - 12 months. Hopefully little Elisa will be cruising by then!

Baby Gear for Georgia

I am quite busy getting a number of custom jobs done. One of them was a "collection for a baby girl" inspired by a few pictures that were given to me (Confederacy, The state of Georgia, American Civil War). The task was very much a Project Runway moment ...but on project runway the designers don't have to take care of a grumpy 11 month old at the same time! I sketched out a few ideas and decided on five items; a dress, a hat, shoes, a bib and changing mat.

The dress took me longer than expected due to the hand sewing that I had to do on the cord work. The design is from the cuff of a confederacy general's jacket. I definitely have to buy the attachment for my sewing machine that makes cording easier to sew on! Here is my gorgeous daughter modeling the dress which is a little big for her.

I had to also make a matching hat, so I opted for more of a "bonnet" style hat.

I did some matching shoes and decided to do some cord work on them to see how my machine would handle the stitching of the cord.

The changing mat and bib had embroidered stars on them and also a lining that was water repellent. These two items are quite striking.

Last night out of frustration I spent a some time working out how to make garment labels on my embroidery machine *grins* ... at the moment I am embroidering twill tape - doesn't look too bad. Better than the cashs' labels that I got done as a trial, and certainly cheaper than the $400 I keep on getting quoted for "real" labels. The advantage of doing them myself is that I can change the colours, size and tape colour to meet the needs of the garment or object I am making.

Yesterday afternoon I went off to the etsy meet up at fed square. It was a worthwhile afternoon, lots of ideas and things to follow up on and lots of interesting people to talk to.