Sleeping bags with legs for mobile toddlers

As a mum of two in a badly insulated house, I often seem to get up at night to check the kids are under their blankets. Invariably they are not, and I'm amazed how they don't seem to wake up despite being quite cold.  When they were tiny I loved seeing them all cosy in their sleeping bags, but as soon as they got mobile, these were shunned. Since we have alot of steps in our house I'm also worried about them getting up and trying to shuffle around in their sleeping bags and falling down the stairs. Hence the era of nightly blanket checks begun.

Needless to say, I'd rather be asleep, than worrying about whether they are warm enough. Last winter I invested in some sleeping bags with legs from babies-and-kids.com. There don't seem to be many companies which make these for toddlers, and the only ones I could find were very expensive and not particularly nice designs.  I got them anyway - anything for warm babies at night!

This year I have decided to get some pretty jersey material, like the colourful jersey materials from Farbenmix, and sew my own sleeping bags with legs.

Unfortunately I haven't finished this project yet,  or even started it properly  :o(    As anyone who sews will know, if you want to make clothes with really nice fabrics, then it usually works out more expensive than buying them. Which brought me to my next idea, as an interim solution:  buy a reasonably priced toddlers sleeping bag, and adapt it to make legs. I'm hoping i'll at least be able to post a picture of this soon!

Watch this space!

Not sewing this time...

I'm more into sewing  and not big on cakes (yet)  but I can see how you can really get into it! This was my effort at a fairy castle for my 4 year olds birthday.  Unfortunately the finished cake was huge, and the kids hardly ate any, so I finished most of it myself :o))  Next year she is having some thing easier!

Applique T-Shirts

This is my entry to the Mellow Mummy "I made this" competition, which my blogging friend Louise at A Strong Coffee told me about.

These are my favourite thing to sew.  A plain old t-shirt from the high street, a handful of material scraps, some steam-a-seam interfacing and there you are - a personalised t-shirt which really stands out in the crowd.

I've made quite a few of these, and so far using steam-a-seam and zig-zag stitching around the edges seems to produce very sturdy results.  Some of the t-shirts are now being worn by my second daughter, and the applique looks as good as new.

Here are just a few examples:

Patchwork skirt

My husband strongly objects to me sorting out his old work shirts, and commonly comes up with the comment "I'll just wear it once more". Before I know it, it has sneaked its way back into his wardrobe, and months later it is still there.  My latest solution is to convince him that his shirts wont end up in the rubbish, but can be recycled as clothes for our little ones.

This is a skirt made from 3 of his old shirts and some matching floral fabric I had in my stash.  It's a big hit with my big girl, and with the elasticated waistband it should fit for a long time yet!

Welcome!

At last, after reading many inspirational posts on friend's blogs, brainstorming over an appropriate name, and then finally managing to get it set up here on blogger.com - here it is: my blog on sewing and craft projects for young children.

As a mum to two girls aged 2 and 4, unfortunately I don't get to do as much sewing as I'd like, so I half expect this blog to end up as a general vent for my mummy activities. As my good friend Louise at http://astrongcoffee.blogspot.co.uk/ says, I also hope this blog will be a place to keep a record of my little ones, as time is going so fast!

Thanks for looking!