Busy Fortnight

In the past fortnight we have been busy teaching my toddler to sleep in his toddler bed. Oh my! It has been interesting with night time waking’s, difficulty getting him to stay in bed when put there (he was under the impression it was a good game to get up and open the door before running back to throw himself into bed). We have made great progress, no more getting out of bed when put in, minimal night waking’s – however the day now seems to start at 5/5:30am – not impressed! Now to see if shifting bedtime helps.

As I get more into my sewing and crafting I find myself buying more books and supplies and now my cupboard is literally overflowing! One of the books I recently purchased is called Sock and Glove. Since I’m trying to learn new things I decided to tackle making a glove animal from the book. I purchased a few pairs of gloves and went to work making a Glove Pig following the instructions from the book. Somehow he is just not quite right… I followed the instructions exactly only making a couple of modifications during the sewing process in order to work with the gloves that I had. So far my conclusion is that I’m not fond of glove animals, however I’m going to try again just in case it’s me that’s the problem!

Also from this book came the pattern for my Sock Elephant. I finally finished him and whilst I think he has turned out well, I do have some modifications in mind for in the future – for one, bigger ears! I also am unsure about the shape of the tail – somehow it doesn’t seem quite right for an elephant.

In this past week I also asked my Likers on Facebook what animals they would like to see made into sock animals and one of the suggestions was to make a cow. So I undertook the challenge to make a cow.

I used a plain pair of white socks, felt and embroidery thread. Once I had figured out the shape of the cow, I had to individually cut each of the black patches from the felt and sew them on – not so hard to do. Embroidering the nostrils, sewing on the eyes and mouth – not so hard to do. Harder to do: get ears and horns in the correct shape, size and placement. In doing so I managed to waste a bunch of felt, and break my sewing machine needle when trying to sew through fabric that was too thick. I think the end result has turned out well though. The next time I make a cow though I’m going to use a funky pair of socks and match the colour of the patches, I think it’ll be cute.

I also went to the WA Craft Show over the weekend. OH MY GOD!!! I was so amazed by all the talented crafters around the place. There mostly were quilters there, and it has brought me inexorably to the conclusion that I need to take quilting lessons. There were so many cool quilts there and I want to be able to have the talent to make awesome quilts for my kids.

The final thing that I undertook in the past fortnight was to cater the cupcakes for an engagement party. The cupcakes were chocolate with either chocolate or vanilla buttercream frosting. I had a lot of fun making them, but my back sure did ache when I was finished!

In the coming fortnight I’m going to be finishing off a fathers day gift for my dad, planning my sons’ birthday party (he’s turning 2), and trying some new sewing projects. I’m not 100% sure just what they’ll be – you’ll have to see what strikes my fancy when I post about it!