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Friday, August 21, 2015

Sewing outside my comfort zone

Large scale projects scare me. I'm not the most precise sewist when it comes to sewing for myself, and I usually shy away from sewing large scale items.  But, I felt like stepping outside my sewing comfort zone and trying something new. Isabel has been great inspiration to try new sewing endeavours!

One of the things I love most about being a mom (besides slobbery baby kisses, which is Isabel's new favourite thing), is getting to relive all of the things you loved as a kid!  When I was little, I loved playing with play food (which is funny because as an adult, food-prep is one of my least favourite things, but I do love to eat!), playing with dolls, doing arts and crafts and... forts!  So, I decided to try my hand at making a play-tent.

I used the tutorial on Make-It Love-It to make the frame. It worked out really well, but I'm going to add another 1x2 board across the bottom to add some stability). To make the fabric tent portion, I roughly followed the tutorial on Make-It Love-It, but instead of doing a flat front and back opening, I added gathers and a binding along the top.  I used clearance fabric from my local fabric shop. It's a pink ombre eyelet fabric. I layered it overtop of ivory broadcloth. It's not too heavy, and feels so pretty inside when the light shines through the lace. I seriously love being inside this tent and kind of wish I had one in my living room to hang out in! This tent wasn't exactly cheap to make, since I used 5 yards of lace and 5 yards of broadcloth, but you could easily find a more inexpensive fabric, or use a sheet like they suggested in the tutorial.


As you can see, Isabel is pretty darn happy with it. I put a fluffy, faux-fur rug inside along with some of her toys. She spent a good portion of this morning chasing Oliver in and out of the tent, giggling the whole time.

"I love my tent!"

I used 4' dowels and 4' lengths of 1x2 and it made a surprisingly large tent! It takes up a good portion of Isabel's small room, but that's ok! who needs space when you've got a tent as cool as this?


I really, really, really want to make myself a tent. I'm just trying to figure out how to rearrange the living room to make one fit!

Monday, August 3, 2015

Kollabora + Long Weekend

I recently joined Kollabora... it has been on my "to do" list forever, but I am so glad I finally got around to it! It is an amazing, inspiring site. I've spent so much time already browsing through people's makes and getting ideas for my own wardrobe... If you are a maker, you should definitely be on Kollabora. It's an amazing combination of the best of Pinterest and Etsy, combined in to one beautifully designed site.

A sample of what you'll find on Kollabora!

I am also now selling my patterns on Kollabora and have been featured on their blog! It was a fun interview, and I got to talk a bit about what inspires me, advice for other designers, and what's in store for the future! You can read my feature here.


Today is the last day of a long weekend here. It's been one of the nicest long weekends I've had in a while.  Dan was off all weekend so we got to do lots of family things. We went for a short hike in Scouts Valley, went to a carnival on the waterfront and ate chip-truck poutine (which is the best poutine), and today went to the Zoo! Isabel LOVED the zoo. Her favourite animals were the giraffes and baby goats (the baby goat nibbled her fingers). I also started a new workout routine that has left me feeling old, sore, and terribly out of shape (stairs are the enemy right now). I had intended on sneaking in some work this afternoon, but I'm too tired.

Forest hikes, carnival, flamingos.

I'm enjoying Isabel even more as she grows. She's cruising around furniture right now, able to pull her self up and down. She crawls so fast and is hard to keep up with! She's already starting to want to do everything by herself, especially when it comes to feeding, so she's mostly eating soft finger foods right now. It's great, in a way... she mostly feeds herself, but also ends up feeding Oliver an awful lot of what she's supposed to be eating.  I'm having a hard time thinking of foods that are soft and easy to eat, and that she can eat with her hands. So, if anyone has any suggestions, please feel free to leave me a comment!

beautiful blue eyes.