I GOT IT FROM MY GRANDMA...

My Mum always tells me that when I was little, I was the best dressed kid at pre-school.  This was all thanks to my Grandma, who used to make lots of my clothes.   As I look back at some of the pictures, I realise just how amazing she was.  They were always lovely and far too nice to be covered in paint, but Mum feared that if I didn't wear them there, I wouldn't get to wear them at all and all that effort would be wasted.





Me in outfits made by my Grandma.  The kangaroo dress is so similar to my Picture This! range and I only found this photo tonight!



My Mum is very arty and creative, she has also tried her hand at sewing.  She told me that she hates it, but I suspect there was a time that she didn't given that I do remember a few of the outfits she made including a pair of Cabbage Patch Kids shorts.  Definitely OOAK (one of a kind) and so unique and different to what anyone else had for sure (not sure if that is a good or bad thing)!




Me in outfits made by my Mum



I make clothes for my daughter, Holly now and am very proud to see her wear them to kindy.  I really don't care if they are covered in dirt and paint as at this age, you need to get as much wear out of them as possible before they grow out of them.  I have to say, I think it would be hard for her to get covered in dirt or paint, because they cover her in bibs so that she doesn't mess up her clothes and fight over who gets to carry her around and cuddle her, I don't think she has ever been on the floor!   



Holly in outfits made by me



I did a little Home Ec at school and really enjoyed the sewing bit (less so the cooking bit, although I like making sweets)!  There is one little outfit that sticks in my mind, which included making a little girls dress with an applique of a sailing boat.  I remember how proud I was of that outfit and wish I still had it.  It probably wasn't that good and I am sure that I remember it being so much better than it actually was!

I can't tell you how many times I think of my Grandma when I sew and how much I would love her to be here so that she could see some of my creations. 

Miss you Grandma xxx



My favourite 'Holly' outfit





WHAT'S IN A NAME...

When it came to creating a page name, I came up with KG Designs (my intials, and I thought the play on names with 'cagey' would be cute), it would also still be flexible enough that I could use it to load birthday invitations and other things that I had been dabbling with. 


However, since my son, Jesse was my initial inspiration and the reason I got started sewing, he needed to be in the name.  Before he was born, we called him BOO! after Boo from Monster's Inc. (one of my husband, Aaron's favourite movies), I think I wanted to refer to the baby as peanut, but I lost that battle... thought it would be better to let my husband win that battle, rather than the war after the baby was born!! 




Jesse was blowing raspberries all over us and always had funky 'product' in his hair, so I incorporated a cheeky looking monkey with spikey hair into the logo.  We call it party hair now and he rarely leaves the house without his 'parpy hair'.

When I found out I was pregnant with our second baby, I went and got a bunch of ruffle bum patterns and put them away (I think I even got them before I was pregnant).  This baby had absolutely no choice but to be a girl, I was SO confident that she would be.  Our little princess, Holly was born in September last year.  We secretly knew that she was a girl and that we were calling her Holly, as Aaron caved at 20 weeks and let me run back up to the doctor who did the scan to find out the sex (even though we had no intention of finding out)!  I made some pretty linen in blues and purples since she was moving into Jesse's blue room and they were safely hidden away in the cupboard.  Man, had I come a long way since Jesse's linen. 

My love for making little girl clothes was born from my first pair of ruffles.

IN THE BEGINNING...

A few years ago, I got a bonus from work and I decided that I needed a sewing machine.  I went to look at them and came home with one.... done!  I purchased a few patterns and made myself some clothing.  Some of them are very dodgy and I wouldn't be seen dead in them now.  For the most part, my sewing machine sat in the corner of the lounge room on the floor with its lid on. 

When my son, Jesse was born, I thought that he needed some cot linen and when I looked at the ones in the shop, there was nothing that I quite liked or was willing to pay so much for given the short amount of time he would need it.  Back then, I had no idea about cutting mats or rulers or rotary cutters... I used the grouting on our floor tiles as guides for cutting the fabric!  When I looked at lettering, there was none big enough for what I wanted, so I printed out a font I liked as a template, then cut it out and made my own.  I didn't even know there was such a thing as that papery stuff that you use for applique!  I enjoyed it so much, I made a few more, just for fun. 

When Christmas came around, I thought I would make Santa sacks as a little surprise present for our mother's group boys.  They would receive it on the day we exchanged our 'secret Santa' presents and it would be a backpack style so they could fill it up and put it on their backs to take their presents home.  I used ZAC as the guinea pig, because his name was the shortest.... Sorry, Zac, I would do that so much better now!  I ended up making 27 sacks that year.  I thought all the kids I knew needed a sack.  Gee, I was pretty good at it by the end of it even if there were a few dodgies along the way.

I loaded a few pics up onto a Facebook 'Fan' page, mostly just for my own viewing pleasure.  I had no intention of starting a business or anything, I just thought it would be a good place to keep them.  Some random person from a place I had never heard of became a fan and I remember thinking, what's with that??? 

I have come a long way in a short time and feel like I get better every day.  I love doing BOO!  It would be lovely to do it full time, but there are too many bills to pay!  For now, I just survive on a lot less sleep than I ever used to or thought I could. I love bright, bold colours, and tend to stay away from pastels and florals since they are not really my thing.  I do my best not to 'copy' anyone and try to make things that I haven't seen elsewhere, so hopefully what you see is something unique that is not being done by the masses.  My tastes are evolving and I get more adventurous with my colours and fabrics every day and hopefully get a bit smarter about how I do things along the way.  To anyone who follows me or has been kind enough to purchase something, I am so grateful that you do, it feeds my little addiction and lets me go and create more loveliness!

 
It is interesting when I look back at the notes I took from visiting a fortune teller when I lived in Dublin around 5 years ago. 

"You are a creative person and should be

doing something more creative,

you will be working for yourself in around 5 years"

Everything else that she has told me on the list has pretty much come true, maybe there is something to all this hocus pocus... we will just have to wait and see!