Teepee DIY

Tell me I'm not the only one obsessed with teepee's at the moment? Call me a follower, as I'm aware they are the latest fad, but seriously! I love them!!!

And, because of my love for them, I decided to make one for my daughter. She is coming up 16 months and I thought she would love her very own little hideaway.

Now, before we move on, I must put a disclaimer out there... I am by no means a sewer. I am however, learning. Jono refurbished some old furniture over christmas and made me a sewing space in our spare room. I just love it!!! I will one day do a post on it, because it's just amazing! 

He knew I was quite keen on learning to sew. I mean, I'm pretty much home 24/7 these days, I needed a hobbie!

So with that out in the open, I feel happy enough to continue on with my very own Teepee DIY.

There will be no sewing lingo, as I have no flippin clue what any of it means. But I hope it's clear enough for you. 

And hey, if I can make one! So could you!

Materials needed:

Tape measure

Fabric - for the same size teepee, you're looking at about 2.4m in length by 1.8m (or 2 single flat sheets :)

Dowling x4 - 1.8m lengths

Thread

Sewing scissors

Sewing machine

 I picked up these retro single flat sheets from the hospice store for $4 a piece.

Lay out fabric in a big open space. The lounge has the biggest open floor space in our house, so that was the go! Oh, and if you have children, namely a toddler, do this when they are sleeping :)

Jono and I had pre cut the triangles from the first sheet. Here we had pinned it on the 2nd sheet and used it as a guide, this way, I got 4 perfect triangles that matched!

The measurements we used were 1200mm across the bottom of the triangle and 1600mm on the sides.

Jono took a sneaky pic of me 'hard' at work. Yes, I am wearing onsies. Yes it is about 3 in the afternoon.

Basically once you have all 4 sides cut out, pin them together. If you are using alternating fabric, make sure you space it out :) This pic shows the teepee sewing together, pre door and dowling. I love the fabric!

When you have decided what side you want to have the door on, find the centre, so in this case it was 600mm along the bottom of that triangle. Cut a slit up the centre to the height you desire. See below.

 I then pinned the door, ready to hem it.

Pre sewn

Now, this is obviously not the finished product... but it is awesome! I didn't take a picture of the sleeves to hold the dowling (wooden poles) in. Partly because it took me so much mucking around to get them perfect, even then, they are not picture perfect. But imagine if you will, the sleeves on this teepee holding the poles, but in the one I made the sleeves are on the inside of the teepee. The concept is pretty much the same.

Next time though, I think the above picture would be a better way to go!

The finished product, set up in my daughters room!!!! The dowling has been inserted into the sleeves and there is string holding them together at the top so that they don't slip. 

My daughter playing with her BFF's, two of Mim's kids. Seriously, this kid is totally obsessed with them!!!

Daddy came home and she grabbed his hand, and her towel and took him in to her new teepee.

I am so happy with how it turned out. It is such a cool feature in her room.

If you guys are game enough to give one a go, please tell us about it! If you have already, send me a link, I'd love to see it.

Much love,

Kate

done and dusted!!!!!!!!!

I have just posted my final essay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can't quite believe it. After 3 years of study it is all wrapped up and only the student loan remains, but really who care about that! :)

I am just so pleased it's done. I won't know what to do with my self. But actually I do, I have so many things I have not done and put to the side because of my study. The biggest has been my fitness and my craft. I just have had no spare time for these things because nagging in the back of my mind was always  the next essay.

I have a list of things I really really want to do this term so here goes:

My fitness!!!!!!!!! it's quite hard to believe i actually used to be fit, in fact i actually used to run often an hour a day!!!!!!!!!! I have put on 5kgs this winter and while the weight does not bother me the fact that i don't fit my clothes and fell all gross does. So in the weekend I brought some new running pants (don't lie I know you all do it too, buy new gear when you begin your new exercise kick :) and I will be using them 2moro morning.

Reading!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have so many book I can't wait to read. I LOVE reading but really just felt guilty and didn't have the time cause of all my massive loads of txt books. I have some wonderful Alexander M'Call-Smith books just waiting for me....yay.

Quilting: I have the best quilt ever to finish. Last christmas I made me and my sisters memory quilts out of fabric from both grandmothers, mum and my stash. I finished theirs but not mine!!!!!!!! and i can't wait to get it done. My sewing machine does not have a quilting foot so it's the old school way and all done by hand. 

My room: tama made us a new bed and bedside cabinets and that inspired me do give our room a mini makeover. I have started with making a great cushion and finding some fabric to re cover a lamp but there are so many things yet to do. I need to remember to take before and after pics too!!!!!

My rose garden and vege garden: It really is so so so bad. It needs some tender loving care, it is terrible!! poor garden, not a lot of weeding or pruning NO tender loving care, so that is a must!!!

I can't wait to get started!!!!!! perhaps after a good nights sleep

Homemade Bunting

So I am a bit of a bunting maker, I LOVE it. I love how quick and simple it can be or tricky if you want to add embellishments, and how it can just tie any room together. 

These are two of my latest projects. The first is 'engagement bunting' One of my very best friends is getting married. She is really creative and quirky and loves autumn tones so I decided to create some engagement bunting for them. I really wanted to give them something handmade and something that was unique to them and found some really great fabric, some I had and some I thrifted. 

I am so stoked with the end result. And yay they loved it too.

I enjoyed adding doilies I had found, I think they just added a neat touch

This next one is for my friends daughter for her 3rd birthday. She always wears these colours so I was stoked to find fabric that all worked in together well. My favs are the little scotty dogs and the wee birds.

Yay bunting love

How to make a simple baby blanket

So my sister has just had a baby!!!!!!!!!! We are off to New Plymouth to visit and i am so excited. I really love giving handmade gifts especially to new babies. She already has some lovely woolen blankets made by our Grandma so I didn't think she needed one of those. 

I came up with the idea to do a soft blanket that she could pop on the ground when she wanted to pop the baby down but not put her on the floor.

I got this beautiful soft winsette fabric in two different colours So she could pick which side she wanted to use. It also has a quilted inner so it makes it extra soft. 

Here's what to do: Pick some fabric, you could choose the same for both sides or different.

 Next i cut both pieces the same size. I did these just under a meter square. Make sure you place the right sides together.

Next cut you quilt wadding the same size again to fit

I then pinned all three layers together. This is so when you sew it, it comes out flat and none of the fabric layers bunch anywhere. If you have ever made a quilt this is part of the process. I pinned prob a fist apart all over the whole blanket.

The next step is to sew all three layers together. I used an over locker but a straight stitch leaving a 10cm edge would be totally fine too. Make sure you leave a gap to pull it all through and take the pins out after you have sewn it.

Once pulled through you need to sew up the gap. I just did a running stitch.

How it looks all sewn up.

And there we have it!!!!!!!!!!!! so simple and so soft and nice. Easy to pop in the machine and wash too.

I can't wait to wrap my neice up in this!!!!!

the fluffy pencil case

So my youngest daughter had a bit of a sad weekend. She found out her best friend is moving :( We are all pretty upset as the family is pretty special to us.

To cheer her up we popped into town (I use that work loosely as we only have one main street of shops, small towns gotta love them!!!) as she wanted to buy a fluffy pencil case.

Well due to the a fore mentioned lack of shops we could not find one anywhere. I suddenly remembered i had a whole lot of fluffy fabric in a variety of shades and off we went home to make one.

She has a great sense of style and chose the purple fluffy and aqua vintage zip!!! very cool.One pencil case made in about half an hour and one happy wee girl, yay

Quilt in a day!!!

So a good friend had a wee baby boy and i knew i wanted to make her something really nice. I had got some super cute fabric with mice and cherrys on it and decided I would create something using that.

So I decided to make a rag quilt and wow how quick and easy are these babies!!!! I was so stoked with how it turned out and think this will def be my top pick for new baby pressies.

The whole thing took prob about 5 hours, which is not too bad.

The thing with rag quilts that make them look all snugly and nice is the great fluffy edges. I washed this one twice to get the edges fluffing up, but the more it gets washed the better it will look!

The back of the quilt

Heart with the babys initials

Heart with my initials and date, don't you just love blanket stitch!!!

A close up of the nice fluffy seams