How cute are these… or… er… boot-i-ful!

(…even if I do say so myself!)


I made these up last night… I really love making baby shoes but haven’t for a little while now.
They took me a little longer to make than I anticipated – I hadn’t actually used the pattern before even though I purchased it nearly 18 or so months ago (maybe even longer, who knows with my ‘mummy brain’ these days – can I even use that excuse???)


The fantastic pattern is from ‘I think sew’ – they have such gorgeous patterns of shoes, bags, dresses etc… (I made a few minor modifications to the pattern but otherwise it's pretty much as detailed)
Sadly, my two little princesses are well past the pre-walker shoe stage (partly my reason for not having made any baby shoes for a little while)… so that means these shoes are destined for other places to make some other little bubbas booties boot-i-ful!



Hope you like them as much as I do… they will be linked up to many fantastic linky parties which you can find on my side bar and under the linky page tab at the top of the page!
Hope you are all having a wonderful start to the New Year (where has is gone already?)
If your not already a follower… why not? LOL – just kidding but if you want to follow along I’d love to have you!

Oh and just because if you've been through it you'll know there's an innate need to brag about it... I am in the midst of toilet training for Little Little Miss M (20mths old now) and we even asked to go to the 'toy-toy' (aka toilet in baby/toddler speak) today all by herself without prompting... oooh the excitement of impending nappy freedom for me is almost too much!

Cheers xoxo

Fabulous Follower Giveaway... Open until 6th February!

 WIN WIN WIN.... a $30 SpaNGle gift voucher PLUS free postage to ANYWHERE in the world!!!! 

Read on to find out how...


  

Welcome to my first FOLLOWER FREEBIE giveaway... Now I've obviously not done one of these before so it's a little off the cuff... if you have any hints or ideas to help me improve what I hope will be a regular event here at The Quick Unpick let me know - it's all new to me!!!

                                                                        

So, if you've been reading along for a bit you'll know that I have very recently opened an online store SpaNGle hosted through the Australian site madeit.com.au...

If you've gone and checked it out you'll see that at present there are bibs, sling carriers and a couple of dress sets there - not a lot really BUT trust me more is coming... even some boys wear & some things for the mums... because... doesn't everybody deserve a little SpaNGle?

I initially thought my giveaway would be of an actual item like one of my slings... but I'd hate to limit who'd take part simply because they may not want or need that particular item, so instead I decided that I am going to giveaway a $30 voucher to my store AND because there will soon be other items there and I plan to 'diversify' the target customer audience a little I wanted to give the winner a 6 month window in which to use it...

Here’s how to take part in the giveaway:

1. You MUST be a public follower of The Quick Unpick AND
2. You need to leave a comment under this post telling me so;

For an additional entries:

• Visit my store and either ‘favourite’, tweet or like an item then come back here and in the comments tell me which item you selected

• After completing additional entry above, leave me ANOTHER comment telling me what you would like to see me make to sell in the store…

• Check out and 'like' my SpaNGle Facebook page (there's a link in the side bar under blog followers...) and leave a comment letting me know.

• Tell others about this giveaway via a blog post with a link back to here and tell me about it in a comment to this post.

You can only enter a maximum of FIVE times in total and only once via each different entry method (leave ONE comment for each entry)… The winner will be chosen using random.org one week from today (Sunday 6th February AEDT).

Good Luck... I hope you take part and don't forget to check back to see some more projects, who won and maybe who's ideas I take on board... you never know there could be something in it for you!

Oh and while your here, did you check out my 50c Thrify Refashion...

it's a finalist for the Best of January 2011 over at the Saturday Mornings Blog ... There are some fantastic finalists so check them out and if you're feeling the love give me a vote (you can vote for up to 5 entries daily!)... I'd be ever so appreciative!

 

Cheers

Amongst the Brambles...

The girls and I have had a busy couple of days... we travelled into the city to visit my brother and we had a gorgeous day yesterday, filled with berry picking, a stroll through the beach sand sculptures, a visit to the park amongst other things and just an all round lovely day....

We picked bramble berries (unfortunately the blueberry, raspberry and strawberry crops were all not ripe or had been damaged by the huge amount of rain we've had this season) at a nearby berry farm.

The girls loved it and it really was such a nice day to share with them... A $5.50 'gobbler's pass' was so worth the hour or so we spent wandering the vines...

Before we left (and the girls were nice and clean)...

And at the bramble farm....

Look at our hands...

Big Little Miss M:

Little Little Miss M got right in amongst it (check out the hands, face and dress front!):

Such a fun morning:

Check out the face on Big Little Miss M... she's not happy with Little Little Miss M taking handfuls of her precious berries.... but I guess the karma fairies got a little bit back if Little Little Miss M's expression is anything to go by!

So, berry picking done it was time for a picnic lunch in the park, a quick nap for the girls and then down to the beach to see the sand sculptures on display (Little Little Miss M looked as if she'd been dye bombed with berry juice so she had to have a dress change before we headed out for the afternoon)...

 The girls really weren't interested in sitting down for photo's, so here are a few of the sculptures... I love the pictures captured the blueness of the sky...

I didn't even notice the seagull in this next photo till just now....

And as luck (for the girls) would have it, there was a near deserted amusement park set up only a short stroll from the sculptures...

I even got in on the action on this super big slide... Little Little Miss M absolutely loved it... Big Little Miss M was a little conflicted by it - loves slides but it was a little scary (and secretly I'm with her!).

So, all in all it really was a great day... the girls were just more than a little bit spoilt but its not an every day thing and I can still hear their laughter and squeals of delight from throughout the day...

Oh and did you notice the Big Little Miss M's dress... (yep, its the refashioned pleat skirt... she love loves the twirly-ness).

Stay tuned and come by tomorrow for my first giveaway - I know, I know, I've been mentioning this for a couple of weeks but I cannot believe where this year has gone - ALREADY! But I'm committing to a follower freebie giveaway and tomorrow you can read all about it.... Till then....

Cheers



Time for another Refashion…

Straight to it tonight – it’s getting late!

Here’s the original skirt:

(I told you in an earlier post it was a ‘JAG’ brand skirt but I mixed it up with another skirt I have ready for refashioning… this one is actually a size 8 ‘OJAY’ branded skirt.

Now I’m going to try something a little different for me with this tutorial and that is it’s predominately pictures with some explanatory text contained within them. You can click on the picture to enlarge it and read the text a little easier… let me know what you think of this type of tute… is it too generalised and lacking detail? does it take to long to load?

So to begin:

Cut open skirt:

Shorten skirt to length required for dress:

My skirt had pleats on the lower portion… I made sure when I cut it open that my closing seam when I join it back up would be in the hidden crease of a pleat… but as for those pleats:

Now take your contrasting fabric and get cutting…

After cutting all your triangles you are ready to join all those skirt pleats back up…

When you get to your last triangle you will also want to join your skirt/dress back up along the opening so that it forms a tube like shape (not an open flat anymore).

I then went ahead and overlocked the hemline to neaten it up and get it ready for hemming a little later… Check this out now… no more boring pleats!

Now onto the what is now the dress bodice…. My skirt had a zipper and buttons at the centre back which I wanted to keep but because of the pleats I did not want to cut two side seams… the result of which is a seam running down the centre front. Not something I would normally do or like but the skirt had pleats to hide it on the bottom portion and luckily pin tuck pleats on the upper portion.

Nonetheless, I wanted to jazz it up a little so…..

Using the longest stitch setting on your machine sew a straight line down the centre (DON’T lock stitch the start or end)

Pull the bobbin thread once you have sewn the length of the fabric to make your ruffles.

Then attach the ruffle to the centre front of the dress…

Super easy spaghetti straps for the shoulder ties… because the dress is now pretty ‘full on’ I wanted really simple shoulder detail but I’m not sure if I’m really happy with it – but more on that later….

Whilst at the iron you might as well press the hem line of your dress:

So, now you’re ready to finish the hem and sew on your spaghetti straps…

Well, as I mentioned earlier it’s a little late here (2AM late in fact – lucky for some I’m somewhat of an insomniac…) so I can’t show you a picture of Big Little Miss M wearing the dress. This is a shame because no matter how I photographed it hanging or laid out nothing gave it justice . Sure hope it looks good on her….

Here’s the best of a bad bunch of finished photo’s:

Front ruffles…

 

I LOVE how the skirt turned out… its fuller than a full circle and I just know it’s destined to become a twirly favourite… As I said earlier though I’m not sure about the spaghetti straps. I wanted simple because the rest of the dress is quite eye catching but somehow the straps just look a little unbalanced with the rest of the dress… I will see how it looks on otherwise I might change them yet!

So, I hope you liked this refashion but do check back in a day or so to see this dress in action so to speak…

Although this tutorial is specific to this skirt you could replicate the idea with any pleated skirt of any size – even if you had a skirt that fits but wanted to give it more twirl factor… Most my refashions are applicable not only to the piece I am reworking but can be applied to any similar type clothing item with just a few modifications. If you ever have any questions or need a little guidance with something you are refashioning from one of my tutes, please don’t hesitate to drop me a line… I’d love to know I’m inspiring you out there to find some unloved clothing and turn it into something special and unique…. oh and if your not already following along, please feel free to follow my blog – the more the merrier

UPDATE: Here is the dress in action – rated a 10 for twirl factor by Big Little Miss M…. Went berry picking today and HAD to wear it (you can see/read more of that in  new post later today…)

Cheers

The Spangler