Presents for 1-year-old boys

Matilda and I went to a lovely 1st birthday party yesterday. The mum had gone to such a lot of effort - baby-friendly foods (including homemade dips, courgette muffins, cheese straws etc), a music session, bubbles, and just a handful of people so it wasn't too overwhelming for any of the babies. The birthday boy even drifted off to sleep while we adults chatted and the babies played. Matilda had a lovely time - sometimes at parties she doesn't really smile and I wonder if it's all a bit much for her - but she was all smiles yesterday, and because it was mostly people she knew she was happy to join in from the start. Much better than a party we went to a few days ago which was mostly for the adults - Matilda was lost in a sea of grown-up legs!

It was another little boy's birthday yesterday too - he and his mum were at the party too - and as both boys' mums are good friends of mine I had two little presents to make. I bought a pack of t-shirts from M&S and used some of my fabric scraps to create applique designs. I also made cards by sewing squares of fabric onto a piece of card.

Applique t-shirt

For my nephew's third birthday present I appliqued a truck design onto a t-shirt. The applique fabric was old t-shirts I picked up at a car boot sale. The truck was a bit wonky but considering how new I am to this applique lark I didn't think it was too bad!! Here's my lovely assistant displaying the front of the t-shirt:

And the back:

 

And a close up of the applique:

And sitting out on the front step before the weather turned cold:

A bag (and first attempt at applique)

This weekend I made a bag for my niece for her 5th birthday. I used a pattern for a small shopping bag which I had from a 'learn to sew' course at my local knitting/sewing shop. Some new Ikea fabric formed the bottom half and the handles, and the denim was left over from some old jeans I recently cropped. My niece loves all things pink so I used some dark pink thread for the top stitching.

I had decided to add an applique butterfly using some fabric from a japanese-style satin-like top I bought at a car boot sale. I ironed some bondaweb onto the reverse of the top, drew a butterfly shape onto the paper backing and cut the shape out. I then ironed it onto the bag fabric and zig zag stitched around the edge. I'm really pleased with the result - I love the look of applique but when I tried some out before (on some scrap fabric) it went all stretched and the shape was warped - possibly because I didn't use any bondaweb, or possibly because the fabric was t-shirt jersey so had some stretch in it. Anyway, this worked really well - two non-stretch fabrics probably made it easier - so I'm feeling enthusiastic about trying some more applique in future!