This is…

the dress my daughter has chosen to wear for her Primary School graduation, my 1st baby is growing up!

A custom order ‘Pleated Beauty Bag’ for Ali

The fabric I am playing with today.

With Love

Weekend Retreatin’ by the Beach

I spent the weekend with 9 precious crafty friends, on a creative retreat, and had a FABULOUS time of sewing, eating (no cooking or dishes!), laughing, staying up late, chatting, consuming chocolate etc… We stayed at the Sisters of Saint John of God Retreat Centre in Shoalwater, WA. Here are a few action photos from the weekend.

Our sewing/scrapping/crafting room.

Lisa & Vicki working on their quilts.

Ali clipping Vicki’s shaggy quilt, whilst Jenny & I sew bags behind her.

Michelle, Zoe and Chanoa working on their photo albums.

Shelley with her finished quilt & Cheryl with her WIP.

A HUGE Thank You to Cheryl for organising this fantastic weekend, I can’t wait for the next one :)

I made 7 bags on the weekend and came back with 5! This bag below is based on the ‘Pleated Beauty Bag’ from Bend the Rules Sewing by Amy Karol – and now lives in Busselton with Chanoa :)

I also finished a few more bags today for an upcoming market, I love bag making.

With Love

Babushka, Babushka, Babushka-ya-ya

It’s one of those song choruses that gets in your head and stays there for days. I don’t really mind though, you all know how partial I am to babushkas :) I have made some babushka girls bags to go with Anna's gorgeous children’s clothes – Gooseberry Bush Kidz. Here is a sneak peak…

Anna is going to be at Market Girl Boutique Markets for boys and girls this Sunday 7th November 10-4pm at the Joondalup Reception Centre, Boas Ave, Joondalup (next to the library).

I finished making the other bag from the Butterick pattern in my previous post. I used a yummy red blended linen fabric from work. The pattern has a set in, gathered base which works really well. Please excuse the dusty cupboard slats in the background :)

 

DH has just put the kettle on, so I am off to have an Organic Earl Grey tea – many thanks to my Bergamot supplier in Melbourne ;0)

Hope you have a great weekend!

With Love

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