Hana Kanzashi hair pins and clips

These beautiful hand folded flowers are called Hana Kanzashi, a traditional Japanese hair ornament made from squares of silk by a technique known as tsumami. Hana Kanzashi ornaments are worn mostly by Geisha and Maiko (apprentive Geisha) and also used in Shinto weddings. The way in which a geisha wears her kanzashi indicates her status immediately to an informed audience; according to the type and location of the kanzashi. Maiko  usually wear more numerous and elaborate kanzashi than older geisha and progress through several hairstyles where the kanzashi must be worn in a fixed pattern.

History aside, my flower clips are not as elaborate as the ones made by Japanese Artisans but they are certainly a cute accessory for your hair. The clips are great for the littlies whereas the hair pins and bobby pins are an elegant touch to any updo.

All of the flowers are made from cotton (except stated otherwise) and mostly the buttons used are ‘vintage’ so are one of’s or of a few in my stash. The elastic headhand has a extra grip on in underside making it stick like glue when your hair is out (have found that it does slip when your hair is up) and it seems to fit most heads. Both my three year old and myself can wear it comfortably.

 

 

 

Now that I have a little more time on my hands (sometimes), I have decided that I am going to sell these beauties in a few different ways.

Firstly if you live in Perth, Australia you will be able to find them at  a great boutique:

1. SOUTH OF THE BORDER,  250 South Terrace, South Fremantle WA 6162

A gorgeous jewellery store in which I endorse highly called:

2. ICON JEWELLERY, 59 Market Street, Fremantle, WA 6160 p: (08)93365100. You should check out their unique jewellery at their website, http://www.ijewellery.com.au/.  All of my jewellery come from their.

3. You can find some of the clips on an Australian version of etsy called MADEIT, www.madeit.com.au.  They can be found in hair accessories.

Lastly you can contact me on my email mellebug@gmail.com  and you can put your order in that way. I accept Paypal and for the Aussies, Direct Deposit. I am happy to customise any order.

So how much are they? If you are interested in putting an order in by emailing me the prices are as followed:

• Childrens clips are $6 AUD + $1 postage (australia only) each
• Straight and bobby pins $7 AUD + $1 postage (australia only) each
• Elastic headband with extra grip to hold $9 AUD + $1 postage (australia only) each

If you order more than one clip the postage is still only $1.

For those living overseas the price of postage will depend on your location

There are two sizes of flowers so far. The smallest having a diameter of 3.5cm and the larger 4cm wide. The length of the straight pins are 8cm long and the bobby pins are 7cm long. The length of the childrens clips are 6cm long.

I will be making larger flowers in the future, just working my way through all my pre cut fabric.

Here are a few more clips that I have made:

 

Its been too long…….

It has certainly been a long time since my last post, way too long infact. There are so many reasons to this so I wont bore you with details but I am back and will hope to continue posting.

Here we all are (minus dad) now living in our new home. We moved in about 3 months ago and are loving it. We have so much more space and I have my own little sewing nook, yippeee! Soon after moving in we found a really cheap sewing horn cabinet which holds your machines and a few bits and bots in a neat little desk, thus hiding it from wee little fingers. Amelia is now at the age that she understands not play with my stuff unless I am around whereas Jack is into everything.

So with the ability to get out the machine and put it away really easily I have been getting back into the swing of things. I have made the kids pj’s for summer, a few dresses for Amelia and dress up skirts for the little girls in my family.

I have also been making a few other things in an attempt to sell them either online or via a store in Fremantle in which my sister in-law works at. I have been making a few softies, appliqued bibs and zipped purses.

 

 I particularly liked this little linen purse, tre cute.

More softies to add to the craze of softies.

I have been enjoying making things again and certainly making up for lost time. I have posted some of these things on the Australian handmade store called MADEIT www.madeit.com.au , the purses will be available at:

South of the Border

Address: 250 South Tce, South Fremantle, WA, 6162

Phone number: (08) 94332225

Or if you are interested you can contact me on my email mellebug@gmail.com and we can arrange something.

Stay tuned for the next post. I have been making these very cute fabric flower clips.

Ciao

(arent they just too cute??)

I am still here.

Who would have thought that having a second child would leave you little to no time to sew, silly me. No, I would not have it any other way but gosh by the end of the day I have no energy to haul the machine out and whip up something. I cant get over reading other peoples blogs who have 6 kids and still manage to regularly sew and blog. Perhaps its just me, hmmm…

Enough of that, I want to show you a few little things that I have been working on. The first being a big achievement and that is of a quilt for my friends new little baby, Tilly Eva.

From Sewing 2

From Sewing 2

I am really pleased with the result but I must confess that my mum had a hand in it aswell. She did all the quilting because a. I could not find the time to finish it and b. she has a dual feeder on her sewing machine and boy what a difference that makes to the finishing of the quilt.

Hope that little Tilly enjoys rolling around on it.

The second little project I have to show is my child version of Amy Butlers lounge pants, soooo cute.

From Sewing 2

From Sewing 2

I really like making things that only take a short period of time to finish. I have made Amelia a few pants for winter and thought that if I modified the pattern slightly you could turn them into lounge pants. All I did was make a straight line from the end of the crutch down to the cuff, easy peasy. The fabric I used was from the huge bargins I picked up from spotlight ages ago, it really suits being pyjamas.

And lastly I the other project being of my now 6 month old little man (gosh time flies). Jack is a little monster, the size of a ten month old in both height and weight. He is yet to crawl but prefers to be standing than on his tummy. He has been great in trying new foods and is always smiling. His big sister adores him and its heart warming when you watch the two of them interact, she is truely a great sister to him and loves him dearly.

From Sewing 2

My next thought in what to make is perhaps a toy caddy for the car. We are moving house that is a bit of a distance from friends and family so the car needs to be equipped with things to do. Lets hope that the house we find will have enough room to leave my machine out. Cross fingers for a sewing room.

Till next time…..

Gone but not forever (i hope)

Its been too long since my last post, having two young ones can do that to you. There is certainly not enough hours in the day to look at getting my machine out so I am yet to make anything since the birth of Jack.

We are all coming along. Jack is now 4 1/2 months old and since 6 weeks of age he has numerous colds which has led us to the childrens hospital in the beginning. He ended up having some respiratory virus which can be quite dangerous in littlies but he was a trooper and recovered (slightly before the next cold).

I do have a few projects on the go, particularly for christmas and I am partially through a babies quilt for my girlfriends new little arrival due at the start of January (aghhh!). I dont know when I will get around to working on it but I know I will get it done. Its only my third quilt I have ever made and the one I have chosen is a little more trickier.

So ciao for now and I will be back some time next year.

My angels.

From family

From family

From family

More of Jack

We are all surviving, adapting to the changes. Jack is well and windy, he is having a little trouble with the bubbles in his tummy but apart from that he is a really good baby. Amelia still is very protective of her sibling and is most upset when even her nanna cuddles Jack. She claims that mummy is the only one that is allowed to cuddle him.

Here are some more photos of the little man.

From family

From family

From family

Our new little man

He is finally here, all five fingers and toes.

Jack David entered the world on the 13th of August weighing a mere 3.7 kg (I was so sure he was going to be as big as his sister who was a whopper at 4.5 kg). The poor little thing was a little man handled with the forceps and received a black eye but apart from that he was of perfect health.

After a relaxing week stay in the hospital (I encourage all to stay as long as possible particularly if you have little ones at home) I came home to a very excited Amelia who has suprisingly been very happy with the new presence in mummies arms. I was worried that she was going to be upset because every time I picked up another persons baby she would freak, luckily it didnt happen. She has smothered him in kisses and cuddles and is fascinated with how Jack gets booby milk.

We are all doing well (a little sleep deprived) and slowly getting used to caring for two little ones. Thankfully Amelia and Jacks dad has been fantastic and has helped to no end. I am not sure when you will be hearing from me next because I dont think I will be doing an awful lot of sewing but I will not be gone forever.

Birdies for the baby

I will say it again, I absolutely love these.

I am still planning on making many more but these little ones are for my little man that will be coming in less than two days now.

Sweet little birds

I am absolutely in love with these little birds.

It is still true that my sewing machine is in temporary retirement, these little cuties are all hand sewn. Of course these would be made so quickly with a machine but in one sitting you could hand sew one up, a little cathartic actually. I have and still am enjoying making these birds, I have cut out quite a few and I am slowly sewing them up as a sit like a beach whale unable to do an awful lot (I even plan to take them to hospital, a little crazy I know).  I am making a string of black, white and red ones for the baby and plan on making a few more mobiles for up and coming birthdays.

(link to the pattern in my last post)

Counting down the days now, a little terrified but excited at the same time.

Keep you posted.

Baby Beanie

With the baby being born during winter I thought that whilst smooching in front of the telly at night I could attempt to knit some beanies for the baby. The only problem that I encountered is that apart from making scarves and knitted squares I had not attempted anything that required double pointed kneedles or circular kneedles. So after much surfing I found a pattern that only required two needles and was adaptable to be made smaller or even larger.

The pattern can be found HERE.

These are the two that I have made so far and plan to make more in the future for gifts.

They look rather small but gosh do they stretch. The bigger of the two (light blue) can fit a 10 inch head up to a 17 inch head, thats stretchy.

The light blue one is made to the pattern but is possibly a little to long so I stitched up the bottom. For the red and navy beanie I cast on only 80 stitches (instead of 90) and made the ribbed band only 3 inches in width rather than 4 inches. I am attempting to make Amelia a pink one so I have casted on 110 stitches and will make the band 5 inches wide, hopefully it will fit her 19 inch knoggin. Hopefully she will actually wear it…..

I plan to take some nicer pics of the beanies when the baby comes (only a week and a half to go).

Just to end this post I wanted to show you another pattern that I found that is ultra cute and plan to (at some stage) make some.

Pattern from Spool Sewing

The Birdie mobile pattern can be found HERE.

Oh so cute…

Reversible newborn mittens tutorial

This is it! My sewing machine is going into temporary retirement until after the baby is born. These mittens are my last project that I wanted to get finished and I am glad that I attempted to make them. I think they are absolutely gorgeous so I thought that I would share it around because there is nothing really out there in the way of newborn mitten tutorials.

These cuties are incredibly easy to make, another perfect gift to make an expecting mum. They are also great because the long cuffs will hopefully (cross fingers) keep the mittens on and that they are also reversible.

Mittens in reverse modelled by Amelia's dolly Mekha

 

WHAT YOU WILL NEED:

Pattern: The pattern that I provided is a little too small. They are easy peasy to draw up by looking at the pictures.

Small amount or ribbing material, flannel and cotton.

(Excuse the pictures, I used a different camera thus equals fuzzy)

1. Cut out 2 pieces of ribbing cuff making sure the stretch is along the direction of the 3 1/4 inch side (vertical).
2. Cut out 4 pieces of the hand pattern, two flannel for the lining and 2 for the cotton outer lining.
3. Iron up a quarter inch on the base of the hand pattern that is going to be your lining. This is edge will be hand sewn to the cuff. In my case its the blue cotton animal material (it was not until later that I thought I should have hand sewn the lining on not the outer layer, nevermind, my hand sewing is pretty clean).
4. Sew a quarter inch around the circlular edge of the hand pattern, for both outer and inner lining.
5. Fold out the ribbing cuff and sew along the long edge (see picture)

6. Fold the cuff in half so that the raw edges are inside.

7. Turn the outer layer right side out and slip it into the cuff so that all of the three raw edges meet. Pin in place and with a little fidling sew around the edge. Pull out the hand part.

8. Turn the inner lining inside out and slip over the attatched outer layer to where the seam is with the cuff. Hand sew the inner lining to the cuff.

I have yet to put the mittens onto a baby so in some ways I am not sure that they will actually fit. Its very hard to picture how tiny their hands actually are but in comparison to the bought ones (in regards to the size of the hand) they are very similar in size. The pattern was also designed with the possible size of my baby which will most likely be about 10 pounds (if going by the size of Amelia when she was born, they say that the second one is bigger).

The pattern is very easily adapted to any size, whether newborn prem or even older babies.