like losing my right arm.....

ok, I'm being a touch melodramatic but I left my camera at my parents house over the weekend and now I feel lost without it! It's funny that pre-blogging and pre-child I only used to get the camera out if it was a special occasion or I was going somewhere, but these days I take photos pretty much every single day now.  It probably explains why I have more than 10,000 photos of Anna and she's only 27 months old..... I've also never had so many photos of myself either, although most of the photos of me aren't of me doing exciting things or in exciting places - just me in my lounge room awkwardly posing in my latest creation.  I'm sure you all understand and have the same photos too.

Anyway all this babble is aimed at setting up an excuse for the following very ordinary photos, I had to resort to my little automatic camera which has copped some battering since I let Anna play with it to keep her away from my DSLR.  She has surprisingly snapped a few randomly good photos though - maybe I have a little Annie Liebovitz in the making?

Not that I've done much sewing to photograph, I've been alternating between being really busy and being really tired but after doing a wardrobe clean out of my little beanpole I realise that nearly all of her clothes are now too short, and since it's getting cold around here sending her to day care in three quarter pants or mini dresses just wasn't going to work.  So I made her a little shift dress from a brand new still in it's packet 1970s pillowcase, that is a good thick polished cotton and will look awesome paired with a long sleeved top and some tights:

I just cannot imagine what sort of bedroom decor someone would have for this vivid purple, black and blue pillowcase to be a good choice, but it makes a bright child's dress.  No photo yet of Anna wearing it, but it got her seal of approval because she ran around with it saying "oooooh pretty".

Next up I made her some jeans in dark denim left over from a denim skirt I made last year.  That's what I love about little kids clothes, you can eek them out of the smallest bits of fabric, not that it's made a real dent in my scrap basket yet! 

I used Kwik Sew 2216, which is OOP, just because I've made these several times before and I knew which size fit Anna.  In fact I think the first time I used this pattern was about this time last year, how's that for symmetry! This is an older pattern (1980s?), so it has a bit of room around the butt for bulky nappies, is a bit high waisted and has surprisingly skinny legs for a kids pattern:

I top stitched in certain areas using the triple stitch feature with a traditional orange/brown thread which resulted in a satisfying store bought look.  The orange snap instead of a button isn't the greatest look, but a button is too fiddly to do up on squirmy Anna, and those hammer in metal snaps drive me bonkers! I also made the legs extra long so that she could wear them with turned up cuffs, which seems to be what all the cool kids are doing these days:

The only thing I've noticed with kids jeans, and the Ottobre pattern I used recently did this too, is that the yoke and back pockets sit really low, right down the backs of their legs.  I guess their little butts just aren't big enough for those to sit on their backsides like adult jeans.

Not a very exciting blog post today I'm afraid, but better than blog silence.  I don't want to leave my blog quiet for a few weeks in case I lose all of my wonderful followers, but also in case I run out of steam and never return.  And I don't want that - I love having connections with fellow sewists all around the world, and I certainly value each and every comment you all leave me.

And now I have to go and sew some tracksuit pants for Anna because we're going camping this weekend and it's going to be very cold.  And I mean real camping too, none of this powered cabins in a tourist park but honest to goodness tents in the bush with no showers, toilets or electricity! Luckily we're going with my parents who have a fully kitted out campervan and we're going to the same spot we've been camping at since my sister was 6 months old, which is a good 30 years ago now.  But still, it's going to be interesting getting Anna to sleep in a tent. Wish me luck!

One last thing - no more mention of the failed dress please people! It's annoyed me so much I've already ripped out the invisible zip for re-use in another project and the fabric is in the scrap bag - maybe I'll make Anna a mini corporate dress one day from it!