a little Christmas stitchin

What can you do in a few spare hours?  A little Christmas project to get you into the christmassy mood!



I picked this kit up at Winterwood last week and thought she would be a very cute start to the silly season! Katherine and I got together last night for our regular Dear Jane evening. The grand plan being if we set aside time to do a block each month we may eventually finish the quilt top by the year….2029. I have, however, managed to talk Katherine into doing something else the last few Dear Jane nights (didn’t take too much convincing!) and Little Holly was the very productive result of my latest Dear Jane Procrastination Session :)



I have never attempted any wool felt projects quite like this and I really enjoyed making her. She’s quite tiny, the base being about as big as a 20 cent piece. The pattern is from De Witte Engel and there are other flowers in the series, ooh the possibilities.



Hope your Christmas preparations are full of fun and stitchin!

Zig Zaggy Bag

I brought home a new bag pattern from work on Tuesday night, to make up as a sample for the store. It’s a Butterick pattern – B5449 and comes with 2 bag patterns. It also happens to be in the ‘See and Sew’ range so it’s quite cheap ($5.80 AUD/$2.99 USD).

I chose to make the frilly one first, here is a close up of their version…

& here is my version

the Zig Zag fabric is ‘Pink Brick Path’ from the Woodland Delight Collection by Paula Prass for Michael Miller. I also used pink cargo drill for the lining and orange velvet trim. My DD has put her hand up for this one :) I hope to get the other bag finished on Friday, my other sewing day!

With Love

Creative Catch Up

I love to spend time catching up with friends, especially when they are like-minded! Last night I went out with my book club friends to see Eat Pray Love, starring Julie Roberts and Javier Bardem.

We’d read the book as a group earlier this year, and went to an Italian restaurant to discuss it – as well as enjoy some extremely delicious food. Going to see the movie was the icing on the cake, it was great to see visually some of the locations/characters that were described in the book. We had a mini debrief in the cinema afterwards too.

Today I caught up with my bloggy friends Lisa and Susan, at Susan’s home. Our get togethers often seem to include chatting, book browsing, eating & gift giving – today was no exception.

From Lisa I received a copy of Stitch magazine (complete with a couple of her projects within), a reindeer cookie cutter, some divine twine and some Lindt chocolate :)

From Susan I received some gorgeous Babushka tape and some groovy muffin cases. These precious girls bless my cotton socks off, not just with gifts, but with love, encouragement and wisdom too. Thanks heaps xx xx

We also got to do a little crafting too, Lisa brought her Cricut along and Susan allowed me to dip into her paper stash to create these…

I will have to ask Susan what paper ranges we used, it has totally slipped my mind!

(edited to add – Basic Grey ‘Kioshi’ and ‘Lemonade’ papers)

My friend Vikki had a birthday last month, but she didn’t get her present till last week. You can probably guess what she received – but what colour did she choose???

Answer: Silver.

With Love

Where did that 2 weeks go?

With school holidays, and being sick with a virus, the blogging has been on the back burner. Now that I’m on the mend, I have been doing so more sewing therapy to brighten my mood. Before I do some show and tell, I want to say a huge THANK YOU to Katherine and Kylie for a wonderful time spent together in Melbourne. It was a Joy to hug, chat, shop, laugh (& cry), eat, stitch, giggle & sew together. You can read more about our ‘Immerse’ experience, and see the stitching projects, at Leanne & Rosalie's blogs.

Rachel requested something to decorate her room, that would match in with her new quilt – so I made my first baby some bunting :)

She loves the finished product, so do I.

The next bit of sewing was an 18th birthday present for Emma, our junior at work. She is studying dressmaking and design at Bentley TAFE. She is quite fond of my rose bags, so I made her a limited edition one in Ivory with bamboo handles.

I have managed to get a few more limited edition colours for the rose bags.

If you are interested in any of these colours, you can email me at janellybellybags@gmail.com I will update the shop very soon.

Off to watch the AFL grand final – again! I hope your team wins…

With Love