FREE Sock monkey tutorial link and FREE girls skirt/top/dress tutorial link

It all started with a monkey...

Back in October 2009 my kids got poorly which left me house bound for a week. Whilst they were sleeping I decided to go on to the MSE website to look for Christmas gift ideas. I stumbled across a lovely thread where people were making gift hampers. It was here that I discovered sock monkeys. In particular one poster called Stardrops (whos blog I am a follower of) created such beautiful sock monkeys that I just had to have a go myself. Ofcourse I had to make one for each child and then I wanted to make them better so made a couple more. Since then, Iv made several for family and friends, none quite as polished as Stardrops but the feeling I got when giving them to people who appreciated the time and effort I made in creating something for them inspired me and it was from there that I begain making other things.

If you would like to make a sock monkey this is the tutorial I used.

I started off with Tilda makes from the sew pretty homestyle and crafting springtime gifts books:





I then began making clothes:





Its called the Lazy days skirt and is from Oliver+S The tutorial for this skirt can be found here.

Alternativly There is a skirt called the twirly skirt, which has a tie at the waist and rather then using ribbon, it uses contrasting fabric. It can be found here.



I took apart my daughter old dress to create the pattern for this swing top and dress, but Iv recently come across another free tutorial for one very similar here.






So there we are! Over the next few days Ill be adding various blogs and compiling a list of various projects I have lined up as well as a list of online fabric shops that Iv discovered and recommend.