W.I.P Wednesday - a dress and a sling

I seem to go in fits and spurts with making things. Until recently all my crafting time was being spent knitting, but about a week or so ago my focus shifted to sewing. I recently received the most amazing package, by post, from a very old friend of my Mums. This wonderful friend is a seamstress on the island of Guernsey, and she packaged up and posted over a large quantity of material she had left over from various jobs.

I can't even begin to describe how exciting unravelling that parcel was. It really is no exaggeration to say it was like all Christmases come at once.

And in amongst the treasure trove of fabrics there was a length of an Anna French fabric called Merry-go-round. I can't say in all honesty that I was blown away by it on first inspection, but looking at it, it did seem perfect for one thing and one thing only.

And so it became this dress. You see? The perfect thing for a fabric called Merry-go-round. This dress was a birthday present for our friends daughter on her fifth birthday (see 'Birthday in the Woods).

Clearly not done with sewing for this week, I then decided at about 9.30 last night (always the wrong time to start a new project) that I really needed to make a sling!

To be fair, the need is real. We leave for France on Saturday to stay with my Mum for a week, and we are flying SO budget that we really can't take the backpack with us as it would count as a separate piece of luggage and cost us more than it's worth to get it there. And if anyone has ever tried to navigate a street market in the Dordogne with a push chair, they will know why that is not an option. We do have a fantastic wrap around carrier but it is slightly stretchy which was brilliant up to about 1, but now just means that the weight of him causes so much bounce it quickly becomes very uncomfortable.

So I decided to make myself a Mei-tai carrier out of yet more of the fab fabric.

I finished it this morning, and both Fred and I are chuffed to bits with it. The fabric is an upholstery sort of weight cotton, and the pattern is roughly the Frankenkozy pattern which I really liked as it uses thicker straps more like a wrap around sling to distribute the weight more evenly.

I think we look rather fetching in our new 'strolling around a French market in the early morning sunshine looking for our new wall clock' sling.