pint size pinafores plus...

Now that little miss is getting bigger I am loving the opportunity to embrace a bit more dressmaking. Her clothes are smaller than my own so are much easier to unpick when I inevitably stuff something up!!

Here are the latest dresses and skirt I have made using the fabulous, easy to follow patterns from PaintMyQuilt

Positively a shrinking violet isn't she!

I adore this fabric range from Spotlight!

Cheeky monkey!

Fantasy island

Years ago I fell for these lovely fantasy cross stitch patterns and knew someday I would love them in our nursery - even more so since the invention of Harry Potter.

My personal favourite is the dragon; mostly since I know how horrid it was to do ;)

My favourite puggle photo

Just in case you didn't know what a puggle was, here is a super cute one!

Puggle ponders

Here is my own little Puggle choosing fabric for her next dress from Grandjen

Wedding Quilt for Q & M

Last year my friend Q invited me to his wedding in gorgeous Oxford, UK. Unfortunately, being eight and a half months pregnant at the time and in the middle of moving house, we were unable to attend what promised to be the shindig of the year!

To make up for this, rather than purchase something ''materialistic'' from I decided to put some love and attention into a material gift - my first king size quilt.  Quite ambitious I can tell you!

Through my etsy surfing addiction, I was lusting after this Riley Blake layer cake - Isabella.

I didn't quite have enough with the layer cake so I added a few extra pieces from The Quilters Store and planning began.

I created this beautiful disappearing nine patch quilt!  I thought the sandwiching would be by far the most difficult part; this was a two person job being soooo big, but actually it was the quilting.  Although a fairly simple squiggle swoop design, having used a wool batting to keep Q & M warm in the freezing UK winters, sitting under it to quilt it in the heat and humidity of a Queensland summer without aircon was challenging.  Luckily for me, my machine isn't sophisticated enough for quilting so the sweaty job fell to Mum ;)

Only 10 months late with the gifting, I am very pleased with the result and Q's reaction when he opened it!

(Credit to my mother for her quilting)

1st Birthday Quilt for A

I have a bit of a Red Riding Hood thing going on of late. I think it's because people keep telling Puggle "What big eyes you have!"

So after falling in love with all the fabric at the Samford Quilt Show I showed great restraint and only bought A Walk in the Woods by Aneela Hoey for Moda.

There has been much argument with other quilters as to whether these are foxes or wolves.  I reckon they're wolves as it seems to be Red Riding Hood however I concede that they are very foxish wolves.

Using a charm pack and a few extras from the trunk at home, I put together this simple bento box quilt for my friend's daughter's 1st birthday.  It has very simple diagonal quilting and the remainder of the fabrics as binding.  The border is a lovely pink from the Beatrix Potter range.

Here 'tis:

 

'Twas a stupid idea putting blocks in the corners instead of the middle strip like I would normally do as the sandwiching had to be absolutely perfectly straight which of course it never is, hence the odd blue borders.

Still, nice and bright and girly.

Big Brother Quilt for L

With my soon to be niece now sorted, I felt it was important that her soon to be big brother not feel left out.  I purchased some masculine coloured, kid themed fabrics from Spotlight.

As he is a connoisseur of all things mechanical, I scoured all my local quilting supply stores for an appropriate fabric.  Truck! they had nothing suitable!  On to eBay and thankfully I found this:

After some seriously bad cutting, I needed to hodgepodge together a couple of patches.

And voile! A quilt for L.

Baby Quilt for Emily - Nov 2010

With my sister in law's baby shower on the way, I decided that a more personal gift might be to make a quilt.  Little did I know what a slippery slope I was starting down as this became the first of many baby quilts to come.

I used this free pattern sheet from Spotlight and the Spots and Stripes range they had in at the time.

After a bit of fudging around with the cutting, I was on my way.

I have since bought a proper rotary cutter and my Mum bought me a great mat which have made things soooo much simpler - definitely a worthwhile investment.  I also had a borrow my mum's machine as mine is an older one with an angled arm for which you cannot get a 1/4 inch foot (dammit!!).

I used a sprinkle-esque spot for the backing fabric and the leftover spots n stripes for binding. A simple diagonal quilting was quick and easy.

Here 'tis, girly but not too girly.

    

Alpacas and Elephants

When I found out Puggle's godmother was pregnant it was the perfect excuse for (yet) another baby quilt.  With the gender a mystery (good on her!), GM informed me the nursery was yellow and grey neutral themed so I set about sourcing some appropriate fabrics.

Thanks to the lovely ladies at Peppermint Stitches, I got a lovely range of both.

As GM lives way out west and has her very own alpacas, I was thrilled to find this Zoology fabric from Hullabaloo range on etsy for the backing.

Using the Chutes & Ladders pattern from LittleLouiseQuilts, I created this gorgeous gift.


So I get the layers sandwiched and ready to quilt thinking I have a good month to get it finished when GM calls to let us know her little one simply couldn't wait to get here!!

It's funny, in the last year two of my closest friends have both had daughters named Eva. And they're literally Eva A & Eva B! I reckon it's a forgone conclusion what name another pregnant friend whose surname starts with C will go with ;)

Ragged Blossom Skirt

Since I didn't know what gender Puggle was going to be it was difficult to decorate the nursery especially when it was important to me to avoid animals not native to Australia ie woodland creatures, under the sea etc.  So when I found May Gibbs' gumnut babies at Spotlight recently it was a no brainer.

I used the patterns on Babyrabies for cot skirt and rail covers.

Although I adored the whole range, I kept to fairly gender neutral colours...

but I couldn't resist the wattle babies. They're so cute!

The photo beside her cot was taken by Puggle's godfather on the day she was born. It is a solar eclipse taken through Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park - that's the real one, not where Yogi Bear steals picnic baskets ;)

The contoured change mat was a bit more difficult but I found this terrific tutorial on E Tells Tales

Ridiculously, it was impossible for find anything for the nursery that didn't have animals we simply don't have here in Australia.  Etsy was the only place I could find anything remotely plausible.  The koala mobile was custom made by HingMade.  I put it over the change table as Puggle is a little wriggler and needs the distraction - plus everything I read online said a mobile over the cot would stimulate her thus keeping her awake.

Kudos to my friend MM for inspiring the cot rail xx

Welcome one and all

Welcome to Puggle Patch, the blog of a first time Mumma and novice sewer.

Puggle is a colloquial term for a baby echidna or platypus. Being Aussie through and through this resonates... Plus the little jellybean that crawls up into its mumma's pouch was just how my own little one looked in her first ultrasound!

My mother has patch worked for as long as I can remember. Our playgroup as kids was also a patch working bee. (We all still get together for Christmases!)

So during maternity leave, with time on my hands and the need for something to call my own, I started patch working. Here are the fruits of my labour. Enjoy xx