No more commuting

Well, I've done it.

Today was my last day of work in the city. 

I've been back at work for around 10 weeks I think, after maternity leave and our home life has just been descending further and further into chaos. 

Hubby and I made the decision that I'd give it up for now, but keep both kids in daycare one day a week. 

In exchange for one whole free day every week....oh bliss!.... I've offered to take on all the housework (small house!), but I know I'll fit in lots more time for sewing, crafting and cooking, woohoo! 

Right, must get to work on superman soon.

Green fruit and vegetable bags

In my effort to be greener and consume less plastic, I put together these simple bags for putting the fruit and veggies in when I'm at the market. They're made of muslin, simply because that was the lightest weight fabric I had in my fabric stash. For longterm use they might need to be made of something stronger but for now they're holding up well. They are about 30cm square.

They are very simple to make:

• Cut a long rectangle of fabric, and hem one of the long sides with about a 2cm hem.
  

• Pin the fabric together so the hem is on the outside.

• Sew up the 2 unhemmed sides, but stop short of sewing over the hem, the ends of the hem need to be left open.

• Thread a decently wide ribbon through the hem and tie the ends, to act as a drawstring
  

Ta da! Green and frugal, if you can use materials you already have. I just need to make a few more, and remember them whenever I go to the market...

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!

From my local craft market

For some reason last Sunday I was feeling generous and decided to give my husband a sleep in morning. Now that's generous because Sunday is actually MY sleep in morning. So to keep the house quiet enough that he could actually sleep, I took the boys off to the local craft market that is held on the second Sunday of every month in the carpark of my local shopping arena.

Amongst the usual findings at this sort of market, I picked up this little piece for my eldest sister's birthday.

It's a little wee felted purse, with some fringing, beading and shell tags sewn on. I'm sure she'll enjoy it, being artsy crafty herself, and if not, one of her girls will swipe it, quick as a wink. There were some beautiful felted shoulder bags too, and I came across an elderly lady selling the sweetest knitted possum puppets. Unfortunately it was her last market, although I have her address for future orders, as I know they'll make lovely Christmas gifts come that time of year.

Gee, thinking about Christmas already...............oh well, no time like the present to start being organised!

Earn points online for giftcards and more...

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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!