A Much Better Changing Bag

Changing bags are expensive!  Even the plain ones seem to cost a small fortune, as well as being a bit boring.  A friend who recently came to this conclusion asked if I could make one for her.  Suddenly the changing bag world expanded!  Naturally I spent some (read "a lot of") time on Pinterest and found one that met the criteria, which were a) that my friend liked it, and b) it was within my capability!  This tutorial by the Crafty Couple was clear and easy to follow, as well as being patternless - which is ideal as I don't have a printer and could just cut the fabric straight to size.

There were a couple of websites that we looked at for oilcloth fabric (so that the bag was waterproof inside and out).  These were Only Oilcloths and Norfolk Textiles, although I'm sure there are many others.  The fabrics we went for were Stampede Pastel Gloss and Lisbon Denim Matt from Only Oilcloths.  We opted for 135cm x 100cm of each, to ensure we had enough (and the cost was the same for this size or smaller).  The total cost of the bag was just under £30, which is pretty reasonable for a one-of-a-kind totally practical bag of this kind.

Before cutting out I worked out which pieces I wanted in the patterned fabric and which pieces were going to be plain.  

I had enough fabric to make a changing mat to fit neatly in the back pocket.  I did this by cutting two oilcloth rectangles 30cm x 60cm and one 30cm x 60cm in a lightweight wadding.  I arranged the pieces as follows: wadding, piece 1 right side up, piece 2 right side down (ie right sides together).  I pinned and sewed around three edges (starting with a long edge).  I then turned the piece right sides out, folded in the remaining seam and top stitched around the whole rectangle to close up the open edge and neaten it up.  Folded in three the mat fits just right!

I had a few left over scraps of the fabric so a few days later I made a waterproof zipper pouch, which I'll tell you about properly soon!

Rosi's Mobile Making Baby Shower

I love a crafty baby shower. It gives the event such a lovely feel; all making something for the new arrival. For mine we each made a flag for bunting and for my sister-in-law we all painted a little canvas for the nursery wall. So when it was my turn to organise the do for my wonderful friend Rosi I wanted to do something similar, but not something any of us had done before. Cue lots of pinning! As well as the above ideas there were some other good ones, like bib and babygro decorating.

Here's what we did...

A couple of us took along bits of card, paper, ribbons, buttons and anything else suitable for sticking together. I also took along a little kite shaped template. We then all made a kite to our own design to then hang together in a mobile. 

It was lots of fun, and still left us time to eat cake, drink tea and open presents within a couple of hours.

It then fell to me to put the mobile together! It was trickier than I expected as it became something of an exercise in engineering and balance! I made a large cloud using 6 pieces of white card cut in symmetrical cloud shapes, which I folded in half and glued together with prittstick. I then used the trusty glue gun to stick a long length of cotton to each kite. This was in a different position for each one in order to balance them in a good flying position (due to everyone's individual designs). I used a needle and thread to attach a kite to each arm of the cloud. I also made a couple of small clouds to use as additional balancing weights and give it a bit of visual balance too. 

And this is how it turned out:

Happy New Year!

Okay, so I'm a bit late.  But when I started maternity leave in September I gave myself until the new year to have undivided baby time before making plans for what I was going to do next.  Jola was born on 10th September 2012 and she is just amazing!  And I've been having so much fun that it's now February, but I've finally started getting some ideas together.  Big Tree Little Moose is me and I make things; things for your babies, things for your friends, things for your friends with babies.  That's what I'm going with.

And this is the new blog!  Eek!  The purpose of this is for me to ramble a bit initially, but I'm hoping it'll help me join things up and in turn do the same for anyone else who's interested!  And besides, blogs look fun!  I'm not a writer though, so you'll have to bear with me.

I'll be debuting my creations this Friday 2nd March 2012 9.30am - 2pm at Lewes Makers Market in the Needlemakers in Lewes.  I'm mostly excited.  But a little nervous too.  Mainly because I was planning on having a mega week of sewing this week but Jola's been poorly.  Which means I'm running behind.  Already.  And I haven't even really started.

Wish me luck!