Matching Pegs

…where she stops, nobody knows!

This is still mostly made of old clothes, but I caved in and used some scraps of fabric for the second-most recent colour, the mid-blue.  I really wanted that colour, and the bit of blue fabric I had was very scrappy – a strange shape that I cut into lots of different sized strips.  It was scrap-chicken, as I only just made it around.  It contributed a whole lot of thready edges too, because it does not curl up like the stretch fabric.  You can read more about my rug and the Rag-Rug-Along here and here.

I wonder if you can guess what colour I am using next?

Can you guess which one is mine ?

OK – so that was pretty obvious.  Luke has made wands for the kids, (including an extra friend) who are going through a Harry Potter phase.  I was also a lucky recipient of a tool that is going to work magic – a hand made needle for rag-rug making.

The needle is made of a piece of fallen Hakea branch, that has been hand-carved, sanded and oiled, just for me.

I have been planning on re-purposing some old clothes – turning them into rag-rugs for ages.  I can’t stand throwing out (as in, putting them in the bin) old, worn or stained clothes, that are too yucky to send to the salvos (thrift store).  I started stockpiling them ages ago, they are mainly old t-shirts, but the stripy fabric above is cut from one leg of some old pyjama pants.

I just cut the fabric in a spiral, all the way up the leg, so that it ended up all in a strip 1″ wide.  It curls up on itself, but sadly the more vibrant colour ended up on the inside of the curl.

The rug I am making is actually called a “toothbrush rug” because the needles for this method were often made of old toothbrushes that had the bristle-end cut off, and filed to a point.  The fabric is threaded through the hole that the toothbrushes used to have on the end (presumable to hang them up).

The rug is made with two separate strips of 1″ wide fabric, and the stitch is basically a version of buttonhole stitch, where one strip goes in through your previously worked knots, under the other strip and  back through its own loop.  When a strip is running out, you simply join another by looping them through small slits cut in the ends of them, it is rather ingenious.  You can have a look at the series of tutorials that I used, which start here.

Just be aware that the tutorials make no mentions of making “increases” as you go around, and as the comments discuss, you will need to make “increases”, if you give this a go.  That’s why my baby-rug has that safety-pin in it.  It marks the beginning of a new circle, and I am changing the ratio of ordinary stitches to “increases” each time I go around.  I’m winging it, but it seems to be working OK.

It seems to be coming along fairly quickly – it almost takes longer to cut up the old clothes, than it does to knot them back together.  I can blame starting a new project on the wonderful Jodie, who gave me the nudge I needed to turn stockpiling into useful re-purposing.  She proposed a rag-a-long, and it seems that I am joining in!

Anyone else?

We are very proud of Amelia, who received her new Blue Belt on Tuesday evening, after her grading last Saturday.  She has shown great discipline in learning her patterns and moves (Taekwondo).

She didn’t even seem to be particularly stressed by the panel of 6 judges, and the crowd of about 150 people watching as she went through her paces with the other kids in her group, (that’s her on the right).

Blue was certainly on her mind this week.

This is the little scene that I found on my cutting table the other day.  You can be sure that there is a whole story that goes along with this set up – probably involving a broken arm for teddy, if the bandage is any indication.  Amelia makes good use of my fabric scraps and all the little creatures that I have made – especially my two Monster Chefs – to create little stories.  It amuses her for whole hours at a time.  I am so in awe of her imagination, I hope she never grows out of it.

and all the Christmas bunting is up.

The Angel is presiding over the kitchen,

and all the ornaments are on the tree.  Now I just have to hang the wreath on the front door, and finish the Christmas baking and present sewing.  The carols and Christmas songs are on high rotation, and I am officially in the mood for Christmas.

The Tooth Fairy lives at our house.  She is delightful, mischievous, and awfully cute.

She performed in the Christmas concert.

I don’t really understand what the Tooth Fairy is doing in a Christmas Concert, but it doesn’t really matter.

She was born to be on the stage.

Back in October, I whipped up this cushion as a birthday gift for my sister Alison, whose birthday is early in November.  I used scraps from the quilt that Mum and I made her last year.  Amelia (Daughter number one) used the remaining scraps to start piecing a bag.  The two projects were so similar, that I surreptitiously used a picture of the cushion in the post about Amelia’s sewing efforts.  I have been waiting for ages to share a picture of the whole cushion here, because until today, I had not managed to catch up with Alison to give it to her.

I completed the cushion with an invisible zip along one of the short sides, and the cushion insert is a lovely feather and down one from IKEA – plump and squishy.

The cushion is so bright, and in such a different palette, to that of the decor in my house, that I found it quite a challenge to photograph.  I eventually found a few props that went with it quite well (see the photo at the top of the post).  The geraniums are two different types from my garden – both grown from cuttings, so I have no idea what they are called.  The canvas is an abstract painting that I add layers to occasionally.  This photo (directly above) is one I took with some Lego that happened to be on display at the time.  In the background are parts of Amelia’s “Medieval Market Village” and in the foreground are two of the mini-figures we have collected, who I thought went well with the oriental Koi on the cushion.  I didn’t think that photo was quite what I was trying to achieve, but it did make me smile.

Do you work hard to get your “props” right for photography?

I am lucky enough to be an Aunty to 13 nieces and nephews.  Early next year, there will be two more.  One of these will be different to all the others though, because this will be the first niece or nephew to be born on my side of the family.  My twin brother Julian, and his partner Liz are expecting a baby in March.  I thought it was high time I started sewing!

I purchased some cotton gauze (which also gets called muslin here – a name that means different things in different countries) to make into light-weight baby wraps, (for a summer baby) being careful to chose colours that I thought were fairly gender neutral.

In order to cut them “square” I decided to “true up” by pulling a thread out.  In one corner, the thread started at the top of the cut that the store had made, but by the time it reached the other corner, it was much further down, as you can see in the photo above.  Once I had pulled the thread as a guide, I cut along the line.  I did this for the two sides that didn’t have selvages.

Now that I had perfectly straight, true-to-grain edges, I spray-starched them for easier sewing.  All that was left was to iron over the edges twice (1/4″ each time) and finish them with a fancy stitch.  I used a variegated pastel thread on the yellow gauze and a kingfisher-blue thread on the aqua gauze.

Now I am off to plan some baby quilts…

What do you usually sew for baby gifts?

I’ve been waiting quite a while for this baby to bloom, tending it carefully.  My Mother has quite the touch with orchids, some of which were her Mother’s, so I was pretty relieved when this one, which she gave into my care, started to flower.

It usually lives on my kitchen windowsill, where, unsurprisingly, the flowers have grown to face out the window.  I can’t just turn the pot, because in all the other directions, it sticks out to much to fit on the sill, so occasionally I am going to put the pot on my table where the blooms can face me.

For the past two days we have had a pair of very special avian visitors in our garden, Yellow-Tailed Black-Cockatoos.

In all my 37 years as a resident of the North-East-Melbourne-suburbs, I have never had one of these in my garden, so I was pretty excited.  It is tricky to tell from the shot, but these birds are really big, much bigger than the Sulphur-Crested Cockatoos, or Corellas that we are used to.

This one is definitely a male, as indicated by the pink ring around his eye and the darker beak, and I believe (although I didn’t get as close) that the first one pictured is a female (white beak and no pink-ring around her eye).

The male was very busy, noisily eating the seed pods on our Hakea tree, while the female diligently kept a lookout.

It is visitors like these that make me feel so lucky to live in an area of the suburbs that still has quite a lot of native trees.  They really did make my day.

What fauna do you welcome to your garden?

It is time again to get cracking on the end-of-school-year gifts for the teachers.

I have been tweaking an old favourite, my “Thank-you for the Teacher” embroidery.  Amelia has done a little of the embroidery of “herself” (in the glasses).

This year I took one of the “random kids” out of the design, and added Miss Michaela (in the hair ribbons).  She is pretty happy with it.

Rory requested a little tweaking to his hairstyle.  The one in the hoop is last year’s design (which is for Amelia’s teacher – I started it months ago).  The one below is the updated version.  I have a feeling that the embroideries for Rory and Michaela’s teachers will be only partially completed – perhaps just the hair, eyes, accessories and words.  Otherwise I can’t see myself finishing in time.

Are you, or your kids making anything by hand for the teachers this year?

For the last few months Amelia has been using a lot of her spare time to knit, and now her work has come to fruition.  This is the wonderful Teddy that she knitted by herself under the guidance of her class teacher at school, who hosts a knitting club.

I, for one, am terribly impressed.  I happen to think it looks more like a Kitty, but that just adds to it’s charm.

Rory has also been busy, at school, making this dragon.  He designed, painted and stuffed it, and his Art teacher sewed it up for him on her sewing machine.

I think it goes really well in his room.

I have actually been making things too, but they fall into the “secret squirrel” category, due to our proximity to Christmas.  Hopefully I can show you one or two things soon.

What have your kids been making lately?