Birthday bunting

 I quite enjoyed making this Christmas bunting and mentioned that I would like to make birthday bunting and I finally did, with the help of my mum.

Originally my thought was that I could just cut some stencils and paint the letters on, but mum said she could do the letters on her fancy embroidery machine.

The fabric is all from Spotlight with the triangles being poplin with a white cotton drill for the backing, and the trim is another poplin. The font I chose for the embroidery letters is Jared.

It was quite the process in the end and would have been far easier to buy a printed panel like the Christmas one was, but this is special and one of a kind. And just like the tablecloth I shared last week, I hope that it will be used for many birthdays to come!

Rainbow tablecloth

 I decided for Lily's party this year that I would make a bright rainbow tablecloth instead of buying yet another one of those plastic "reusable" ones, that haven't actually survived their first use.

I nearly didn't finish it, turns out I don't like slippery satin. It's impossible to cut straight and equally impossible to press the hems. While I did roll the whole lot up and throw it in a box, I ended up getting it out and finishing it. The worst part of it all was that I was hoping I would enjoy sewing satin because it was supposed to be my practice run for sewing a dress with it... obviously not happening anytime soon!

The rainbow satin is from Spotlight and the trim is from Temu. Here's hoping it will suit many birthday party themes over the years, and save us from needing anymore of those "reusable tablecloths".

Watermelons

 Whenever I go to Bunnings I obviously look at the plants, and I found a multipack of melons - honeydew, rockmelon and watermelon. We ended up growing them on a trellis made of fencing wire and conduit. Which was fine until the watermelons started getting big and heavy!

We successfully harvested these two once the caterpillars destroyed the leaves and started to munch on the watermelon skins - at least they didn't make it inside like they did with the honeydews and the only rockmelon. Luckily the chickens like bug infested fruit so they didn't go to waste.

I'll definitely grow watermelons again since Lily loves them (as do the chickens) but it won't be up the trellis again. And these were too big for our little family so something like Sugarbaby might be a better size.

I always find it funny how excited I get when I harvest something from our garden, but it's nothing compared to watching the excitement of a three year old when it comes to harvesting and eating the produce from our garden - or produce that my mum or our neighbours have shared from their gardens!

Bottle tree planted

 Exciting news, Ray got the post hole digger out so I could plant this bottle tree! Well exciting for me, especially after planting my blueberry in what is the hardest ground I've found so far.

This lucky tree even got a rock edge from the fire pit I've been disassembling. The mulberry tree that you can see in the background, just behind the trampoline hasn't been too happy so it will need to be moved, but I'll wait for it to go dormant in winter. Things just do not grow very fast here, the weather and the soil aren't ideal.

Fingers crossed it will be happy in this spot and will give some shade when it's bigger, I feel like everything I plant here is an experiment!

Leilani dresses

 For Lily's birthday this year we are doing a chicken theme, so I got some gorgeous fabric and the Leilani pattern from Vintage Little Lady.

The first one I made in the simpler version as a trial run in this cute bunny fabric from Audrey's.

I did find sewing the elastic back awkward so when I did the chicken dress, I left the elastic out until after attaching the skirt at the back. I just sewed the back panel in place between the channels for the elastic. After I had gathered and attached the skirt at the back only, then I added the elastic and topstitched the sides down. Then continued gathering and attaching the front and sides of the skirt.

This was the first time I have used pom pom trim and it ended up being a pain trying to use the zipper foot. But I found using this clear foot along with poking the pom poms under the foot using my seam ripper worked best at getting it to stay put!

Now that the dress is finished I better get started on everything else for her party!