I'm sewing...

Well, cutting out at the moment really. 

But I'm doing it ALL BY MYSELF.

With no one else around at all.

Woohoo!

Hubby and his brother have taken themselves and the boys off to the Melbourne Grand Prix for the afternoon.

I get a whole 5 hours to myself!

So I am making upon request....

A Great White Shark.

Well two of them of course, how could I POSSIBLY make something for only ONE of my boys?

Ahh, the peace and quiet.

 I can feel my batteries charging.

Oh la la la, it's luverly!

Spring is in full swing

We had some hail yesterday, real live freezing cold hail. Good 'ole Melbourne, throwing her best spring weather at us.



Yes, our minuscule backyard has fake grass as well as hail, you can probably tell what hubby's turned it into, do the golf balls give it away?

When I first arrived in Australia (following my hunky snowboarding Aussie boyfriend, now hubby, oh how long ago THAT seems!) I was under the mistaken impression that Australia was HOT.

All of it.

But that's not the case as I soon found out, seeing as I arrived at the very beginning of spring.
A spring that was one of the coldest, wettest I can remember, it nearly chased me back across the Tasman.
But seeing as we have the same weather across the Tasman, the lure of aforementioned hunky snowboarding boyfriend was enough to keep me here. (Oh lucky Australia, you get to keep me!)

Now here I am ensconced in domesticity..

training the next generation of food critics...

the next Booker Prize winners...

the next animal rights activists...



and squeezing in a bit of sewing in between.

I made this little lady one evening after hand drafting the oh so complicated pattern. She is now stuffed and awaiting a baby for her pocket, before she wings her way to somewhere...

Ahh, domesticity, I love you! Usually.

See what I got!

One of my younger sisters, The Slightly Mad Quilt Lady, has sent me a piece of gorgeousness for my birthday.

Have a look.....

It's a beautifully made felted wool sweater bag. Fully lined, with fabric handles and a rosette of flowers and leaves artfully sewn on the front.

It is fabulous, I couldn't stop smiling when I opened it up, it's just yummy on so many levels!
Useful, recycled, beautiful, unusual....sheesh, it makes me feel like I really need to pull my finger out and get stuck into some projects. Which I do, of course.

Quietly putting aside the fact that I am behind on family birthdays by more than one or two months...


Get thee to they sewing machine!

Are you a chook lover?

I fell across Clucky when I was online today, located at Melly and Me...

How cute is that???
Not sure if my sewing talents stretch to Clucky, but I have a chook loving, softie making sis who will fall in love with this feathered friend for sure! Miss Lottie, I'm looking at you!

Homemade pillowcase gift - lovely!

My youngest sister, The Slightly Mad Quilt Lady, has sent my boys some very creative birthday gifts.

A personalised pillowcase each, made from strips of different fabric on one side, and on the other side all one fabric with their name machine sewn on (I know there is a proper term for this technique but I can't remember what it is). And a length of feather wool sewn across one end too.

I'm not sure that was such a great explanation, but you can probably see what I mean by checking out this picture:

Needless to say, they are a huge hit! The boys love them and are sleeping on them right now. The lil fella at 15 months has only very recently gained a pillow in his cot, so now he has his very first pillowcase and is pleased as punch.

A fabulous idea for a crafty, personalised, useful, thrifty gift that is non-plastic.
Ticks all the boxes, I think.

Thanks, Auntie Lottie!!

How to carry your baby.......or your dog

A day or so ago, H asked for a pram to push his toy dog Missy around in. 
Not wanting to add to the plastic load in our house, I reminded him how I used to transport his younger brother in a mei tai.  

Now days it's usually (well, occasionally really) a ring sling or a wrap or much more likely just Mr 15 months barreling along under his own steam but back when he was a little tacker the mei tai came in pretty handy.

So after I steered H in the right direction with dog carrying, I then had to produce...

I managed to whip this one up pretty quickly on my machine, with two squares of fabric turned and top stitched, and four lengths of wide ribbon sewn on in the appropriate places.



Cute, huh?

His choice of fabric and ribbon, in case you think my taste is odd, hehe...

And please excuse the detritus in the background, you know all those "my creative space" posts that are doing the blog rounds? 
Well, that's mine...you can see one box of fabric on the bottom right there, next to it is another and tucked in the corner under the table is my sewing machine.

On top of the table is my thread collection, sewing basket, a mindstorms lego kit, various computer parts, and whatever other projects hubby and kids are working on.

Oh, and another box of fabric under my desk too.

Yes, we are looking round for a bigger house.

Fasting than a speeding bullet.....

I FINALLY finished Superman, he's turned out okay but not really anything spectacular. I think his face is too big for his super heroic body, and despite H's request for Superman to have hair like his ie, NOT black, I think he could use a bit of a makeover.
Some hair dye would definitely give him more impact, and the googly eyes are not doing it for me, I think I will take them off and embroider him some replacements.

And his cape needs a bit more more oomph, a bit of flowy action wouldn't go amiss, after all it's meant to gracefully stream after him as he soars through the skies.

But the recipient of Superman was gratifyingly delighted and I'm thinking about making a series of the little guys, the ones that go IN the pockets, as these little fellas seem to be seeing a lot of action.

Hmm, a bit more thinking required here, before I get my master pattern all worked out......

Kids minkee shoulder bag

I happen to have a largish piece of lavender minkee sitting on the top of my fabric box, that I came across in one of my rummages through Spotlight's remnant bin. I didn't actually have a use for it in mind, but it had such a lovely feel that I was sure some use would present itself.

Well my four year old discovered it and beseeched me to make him a bag out of it.
He currently has no hang ups about pink colours being for girls only, though I'm sure that won't be long coming. Someone at daycare imparted the knowledge that purple is a girls only colour, so I counteracted that by saying it's a kings colour.

What about queens mummy, is purple a queen's colour? Um, I better look that one up.......this child has me running to the font of all knowledge, ie the internet, all too often these days...

So here's the little bag I whipped up...complete with lining even.

It's currently holding 2 dinosaurs, 5 matchbox style cars, one 4 wheeled motorcycle, a collection of small stretchy rubber animals, a container of mutating ooze that came with a ninja turtle, a spiderman figurine and the spiderman mask that goes with his spidey dress ups.

Whew, my handbag has nothing on that lot!

Superman update

What, not finished him yet? Yes yes, I know, H's 4th birthday was back in April. I hadn't finished him by the night before, all that hand applique was sooo fiddly! In hindsight, I should perhaps have looked for a sew on superman S patch to put on his belly. Instead I painstakingly copied the shapes off the pc, outlined them onto the felt, snipped it out and hand stitched the red onto the yellow. For baby superman I did get lazy and bought a regular S shape.

I still need to do his cape and I forgot to sew a yellow strip along the top of his pocket, but hey, H won't mind I'm sure. H hasn't asked after him because we managed to fuel his current obsession on his birthday by buying some him some transformers. That boy is transformer mad. However, Superman will be finished in the near future, my big sis is coming for a flying visit so she might motivate mine butt. Hopefully.

This is the sis of quilt fame. And this one is hers too.

Fabric yoyos - very cute

Need a use for all those little scraps of beautiful fabric that you just can't bare to throw out? Make a yoyo. Or several of them. Or a hundred of them! These little guys are very cute and can be used to embellish just about anything. I made some that I used as decorations on our first ever Christmas tree.....I meant to make a hundred but only got up to ten or so. Oh well, should get to work on them soon so I have enough for this year's tree.

To make mine I used this tutorial by Heather Bailey.

These are mine....not all of them, for some reason whenever I get them out the kids love to carry them round the house....






Make some, and feel free to share, I'd love to see them!

Life after Thermomix

Well, now that I can tear myself away from my newest family member....the Thermomix.....I've finally made a start on Superman. Ok, not too much of a start, but I have cut out the pieces.

Here you can see his body and pocket, and the model, although if you recall, H wants his superman to have blonde hair the same as his. Now, the pocket is the substitute for his jocks being on the outside, ummmmmm, he won't have feet so no boots, and he'll need a yellow belt round the middle somewhere. Maybe as an edging to his pocket?

And here's his face and that of baby superman...

Ok, I haven't really got very far have I ?? I did cut out the baby body too, that's floating round somewhere. Now the challenge is to find somewhere to set up my sewing machine. 

The table I usually use is currently strewn with a dismantled computer, as Hubby is trying to fix his Mum's machine, also a large box of mindstorms lego and, go figure, a plunger. 
Currently my children's favourite toy. 

Who'd a thought that??

Fabulously Fun Felt Food

I've been meaning to make a collection of felt food for the kids for a while now. H enjoys playing with a friend's play food collection but their food is made entirely of plastic, which is not what I want. I like the idea of fabric food, it seems much more....organic, perhaps? Ok, that's probably not completely correct, unless you use organic fabric but you get my drift.

Well, I found someone who has already done the felt food thing and posted extensive instructions on how to do do it. Here is one of the pictures from her tutorial, just to make you drool...

 Doesn't it look realistic?

And here is the tutorial on how she did it all, along with more pictures of the finished products. 

Now I just need to find a few more hours in each day!

Another quilt - Textures of Tom Price

This is the wall quilt I mentioned a little while back, that my eldest sister sent me after I happened to admire it while staying with her. It is called Textures of Tom Price and has been part of an art exhibition, as well as featuring in a calendar of said art exhibition. Now, it didn't photograph all that well in it's entirety, so I have photographed each panel separately. Each panel has a short description written on the back.

Cascading waterfalls....tranquil pools

Towering storm clouds...

Raucous cockatoos...

(The storm clouds sit above the cockatoos, and both sit beside the cascading waterfalls)


Gum leaves crunching...( sits under both of the above)

Sinuous layers of rock...( sits under the gum leaves)

This beautiful piece is awaiting a white wall to hang it on in my yet to be bought new home.

We went house hunting on Saturday, but didn't really come up with anything though. We are being a bit fussy, and my hubby and I disagree a little on how much actual space we need, so I think this is going to take a while. Oh well, I'm sure the perfect place for us is out there somewhere, just begging me to come and hang my growing fabric art collection on it...

Progress

I managed to hit Spotlight today and picked up some bits of wool felt for Superman, as well as red and blue satin for the rest of him. Nothing much in the remnant bin today, although there was a clearance table with rolls for $3 per metre. So I grabbed a few metres...here is a sneaky peak...




I'm planning to use these fabrics for one of my ongoing projects, cloth bags for Christmas, so I can completely do away with paper wrap. I whipped up some last year and they were a hit, easy to make and...here's the greenie in me... recyclable of course.



They looked beautiful under the tree, and no huge mess of paper to fit in the recycling bin. No mess of bits on the floor, no fuss, no sticky tape to run out of, no scissors that you can never find: my husband is now a convert and H loved them too...good for keeping toy soldiers in!

Batman to the rescue!

Little guy is down for a sleep, H is in daycare today, this is my one day a week I can get a little bit of uninterrupted time to myself. So what do I do with it? Haha, give Batman a photo session of course!

Here is the little fella..



Looking, ahem, well loved, next time I will make sure to use wool felt, as this acrylic stuff is pilling up badly. Also, his pocket doesn't quite come up high enough for my aesthetic sense.
He is made with satin type fabric and felt, with his Batman symbol painstakingly hand appliquéd onto his belly. And Baby Batman, as H calls him, is always along for the ride.

So Superman will be done with blue body, red pocket, yellow belt and red cape, and H has requested he have hair like his own, blonde. Ok, so we'll have a blonde Superman, and baby, also with cape, groan, as per H's request. Now I need to hit Spotlight for some fabric, I'm in between two very large Spotlights, lucky me, as I love to have a rummage in the remnant bin.

Often find all sorts of fabric goodness in there!

Phew, done for today

Today was a busy one, just finished up in the kitchen and it's after 10pm. I was having a baking session, rolling out gingerbread cookies and little cheesy crackers for kiddie snacks. Fiddly but satisfying, the bikkie tins are now full, awaiting the next assault of "I'm huuuuuungry!" A fairly constant refrain around here.

But I do wonder, when will I get back to my sewing machine? By the time I'm done in the evening, all I'm good for is sitting in front of the pc for a short while. My eldest, H, has requested a Superman babushka style doll for his birthday, complete with baby Superman in the front pocket. I made him a Batman one for Christmas, which was very well received, so had grand plans to expand the range. Well, a range of one, haha....no wait, I did do one for my niece when she turned one last year. I made a fairly simple little lady, complete with serene face, and baby tucked into her pocket. Just need to find my motivation to start said project.

And a bit of house hunting today, we saw a promising one, my sewing room may yet become a reality......

I'm feeling a little 'mummy guilt' this evening too, it's been TOO busy, running round madly all day, not spending enough playing time with the kiddies. I will try to assuage the guilt tomorrow...

Sister, sister, sister dear

I received this from my youngest sister a couple of days ago, it's a journal cover she made



Just gorgeous, the choice of fabrics, the textures, the different coloured thread, the decorative stitching. Obviously handmade and all the better for it. Apparently her husband thinks it's fabulous.........if only because she's using up some of her enormous stash of scraps.



My sis....this sis anyway, I have 2 others.......is a quilter and I am sooo not, hence I am in awe of any kind of quilty, appliqued type work. Ooooh, that reminds me, my eldest sister who is a quilter also, sent me back home with a beautiful piece after I visited her in Tom Price, WA. Must put up a picture of that soon, it's definitely drool worthy.


Sisters, they keep me sane in my sometimes insane little world of two small boys, sleepless nights, constant questions, endless laundry, and house hunting...groan...Dragging two under 4's to open-for-inspections all weekend is to be avoided whenever possible!

Cloth, anybody?

I whipped up these cloth butt wipes for a friend, double sided flannel, turned and top stitched. Made from odds and ends of flannelette I have left over from making blankets for my little ones, how cute are these for wiping tiny tushes? Very satisfying project.

Well, here I am...

My own blog, hmmm.

A place for all my sewing and crafting confessions and maybe the odd smidge of cookery. Perhaps my frugal ideas and greenie leanings will find a home here too…