Spotty Wrap Dress

There's a lovely little dress in a shop in town, which I would love for Baby, but they only make it in sizes up to 12 months and she's now 22 months old. :-(

This is the dress...

http://www.mothercare.com/Humphreys-Corner-dress/dp/B0031NOZDQ/sr=1-2/qid=1272052090/ref=sr_1_2/276-1987948-9217856?_encoding=UTF8&m=A2LBKNDJ2KZUGQ&n=42764041&mcb=core

I decided to try making a version myself, without the elephant embroidery and without the big bow on the front. I think it turned out quite well.

Instead of the spotty strip and white ruffle around the bottom I used this cotton trim. I bought a full 100m reel of it on ebay for about £1.99 when I was making frilly bibs for my first baby, 7 years ago. Since then it has been used on skirts, dresses, doll clothes, baby blankets, bibs, etc. and there is still quite a lot left!

I started overlocking and one of the needles snapped. I can't find the hex key to replace the needle at the moment, so I did a 3-thread overlock instead which wasn't great (I didn't get the tension quite right) but was preferable to raw edges.

Topstitching the trim.

The bodice.

The almost-finished dress. All I have to do is add the poppers (snaps) to the back and sew in the last loose threads.

I Finally Finished the Quilt!!

My YCMT quilt has been sitting around unfinished for about a year, during which time the baby has grown up so much that she won't be able to use it as a pram quilt!

We've had a very full year, and I've hardly been near the sewing machine. Our eldest daughter was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in July 2009. In February 2010 our son (just turned 5) started showing symptoms too, and he has been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes too. It's a lot to cope with, but we manage, and the injections, carb-counting, etc. are becoming a routine part of daily life in our family.



Today the two eldest children went back to school after their Easter holiday, and the baby decided to have a good nap, so I thought I would try getting a bit more of the quilt done.


Here is the quilt top pinned to the wadding (batting).

I chose to use the same pink flowery fabric for the backing as I had used for the border.

All ready to start stitching!

The back. I decided not to do anything too complicated.

Almost finished! The binding sewn on at the front and pinned at the back, ready to be sewn. It's not a magic, self-standing quilt. Somewhere behind there, there's a 7-year-old standing on a chair! :-)

The camera batteries ran out before I did the blind hemming, but as it basically looks exactly like the pictures above, you don't really need another photo.

I'm glad it's done, but wish I'd finished it while "the baby" (now nearly two years old) was still tiny enough to use it in her pram. It would have looked gorgeous.

This isn't a creation of mine. It was made by my daughter, who is 6 and has type 1 diabetes. It's a "diabotic". See this blog to find out about diabotics.

Introducing ... Diane Botic. She has purple spiky hair and an antenna made of a calibration strip. Her tummy is also a drawer which apparently makes ice cubes for dispensing to children at injection time.

Wipe-Clean Spelling List

The children have a list of spellings each from school, and until now I was writing them out on A4 paper and blu-tacking them to the wall. It wasn't ideal, so last weekend we decided to make wipe-clean spelling lists.


Take one piece of A4 card. Centre a piece of A5 paper on it, and draw around the edge.

Cut out some pictures, or find some stickers that you like.
Stick the pictures and stickers on the border of your cardboard. Make sure you leave the rectangle in the centre clear, as this is the part you will write the spellings on.

Strips of patterned paper look good around the edges (and are a quick way to make this, if the children are impatient!).

Laminate the finished sheet.

Fix the sheet to the wall (we used blu-tack) and write your spellings onto it with a whiteboard marker. When you want to remove them they can be removed by wiping with a dry cloth.

Note: We accidentally wrote the words on with permanent marker the first time, and the children were very upset that we couldn't remove them, but we discovered a way to take permanent marker off these laminated sheets. Take a whiteboard marker and write over the permanent pen. While it's still wet, wipe it off with a dry cloth. You will need to work with small areas - maybe one letter at a time - but it works!

It's so long since I wrote anything on here! I'm half-way through making dozens of things, but my eldest child was taken into hospital last week with diabetic ketoacidosis and has been diagnosed as type 1 diabetic, at age 6. It's a huge shock, and a big change as we have to do blood glucose tests 4 times a day now, and give her insulin injections morning and night. We also have to count the carbs in all her foods, and make sure she gets regular meals and snacks to keep her glucose levels steady. Add to that the fact that the baby is teething, and all three children are at home due to the school holidays, and you have an action-packed day. All this means I haven't had time to go near the sewing machine, and probably won't for a few weeks.

Purple Set

This is a little set that I made for a friend's daughter's first birthday.

RRP fitted nappy in purple farmyard flannel.

Tag toy.

RRP wrap in purple farmyard fleece with a pink microfleece inner.

Booster. Purple flannel on both sides and microfibre inside.

Flannel bib.

Fleece pinafore dress.

Another Dress

This dress is one I made for my eldest daughter at the weekend. We were visiting Nanna, and I wanted her to have a pretty summery dress to wear. I used the "Perfect Dress" pattern from YCMT, and made her a matching hair bow.