The Internet and blogging are such a double edged sword.  I love the inspiration and connection of blogging and reading blogs, but they can be an amazing time devourer as well as a purchase inducer.

Lately I have been loosing the battle, spending more time reading than making – I think because I am tired and the weather has been cold and dreary.  Admittedly, some of my reading matter is from the library, and not online, but I think it is time for spring weather to get me more motivated.

Here is a purchase that I made for no good reason at all, except that I thought it looked fabulous.  Meet my Happle.  I really have to blame this purchase on Design*Sponge, because if I had not seen it on their site, I would never had “the wanties” for it.

Without bloggy sharing I would never have tried making my own Chai Tea mix either – thanks Suse for the recipe, it is yummy – pop on over to see how to make it, just don’t expect it to last long – it does contain Sweetened Condensed Milk, after all.

These last little acquisitions have nothing to do with the Internet, and everything to do with the generosity of like minded people.  My lovely friend Barbie, from my quilting guild, gave me these pegs last night.

Why?

Just because they are “the best pegs ever, and they are all one colour, so they will all match”.

Thank you Barbie – I have tried them and they are pretty snappy

oh, and the bright orange goes really well with denim……

Today I have been preparing for an important event.  My first baby is turning 10 on Sunday, and celebrating with a sewing party.  I am going to teach the three guests how to back-stitch, and the six kids are going to make these little “hoop faces” I have designed.  They were inspired by these beautiful faces.  The hoops are 4 inches wide.  The finished stitcheries are designed to be displayed in the little hoops when they are finished, (the outside circles are not stitched – they represent the hoops.

I am frantically getting ready, because I have spent the whole week ministering to sick kids, as both Rory and Michaela have had the flu.  I am pretty nervous that Amelia is going to catch it, just in time for her birthday.  Tonight she is off with her best friend’s family to see “Mary Poppins” on stage – the lucky duck.

I am going to be sitting at home tracing off vlisofix initials, for the cushions the kids are also going to design.  They have all chosen a font at school (via a print-out I sent along) and a motif for the appliques to go around it.  On Sunday they will pick which fabrics they would like, cut and place everything on a cushion front.  I will raw edge applique them and give them a finished cushion, some time after the event.  Tonight I am hoping to get my first good night’s sleep of the week.  Apologies if I have not replied to your comments on the past couple of posts – I have been busy holding buckets and providing honey and lemon drinks.

Anyone else out there had a sewing party?  What’s the most successful kids party you have had?

Here is a new-to-me technique for marking your applique background to centre your design.  After you press your block in half to find the centre, sew along it with large stitches, (which are easy to remove later).  For my “Tea in the Garden” Applique, I have marked 2 lines which quarter the square, and two more which cut diagonally from corner to corner.  It is making it much easier to line up the positioning overlay, to position the individual applique pieces.

In the morning I am off to our annual Guild Quilting Retreat, where I am going to sew lots, eat to an elegant sufficiency, have many cups of tea and interesting conversations, and probably sleep very little.  I will show you my sewing progress when I get back, but now I have to go and pack.

I have a lovely friend Danya, whose family has had a very rough year.  Today she is having a significant birthday, so I popped in to surprise her with a little gift.  Every second thing I have made lately is a scarf, so I thought I would play to my strengths, and make her a bespoke one of her own.  Especially as she has just boldly chopped of all her locks, (a look she is rocking) which I thought might make her neck a tad bit cold.

I am rather pleased with how well the scarf looks on her, especially as I have been mildly obsessed with Plum, a colour that does not really suit me.  It suits Danya just fine, especially with her recently revealed silver hair – Lovely.

Danya has many online friends who are familiar with the way she manipulates the English Language and creates a unique written “voice” of her own.  Awesomesauce is one of her words, which I would not even attempt in person, as it doesn’t roll off my tongue very convincingly.  I thought I would get away with it online though – have an Awesomesauce Birthday Danya – you deserve it.

After pre-washing all my fat quarters, yesterday I prepared them for cutting, by adding a new step.  I decided to lightly starch each piece, in the hopes that this will help the accuracy of my pieced star blocks.  I have done lots and lots of Maths, while designing this quilt (My Tea in the Garden Quilt) and have worked out all the cuts and fabric requirements.  All that was left was to actually start cutting.

This is where my multitasking genius comes in.  I managed to play about an hours worth of Go Fish, with Miss Michaela, while cutting.  She was perched on a stool at the end of the cutting table.

Now I would not normally recommend this type of multitasking, but because my maths had all been done, and I had actually drawn out all the cuts per fat quarter (with colour diagrams representing each different piece of fabric) I didn’t have to concentrate quite as hard.  I was able to keep us both happy at the same time. Win-Win.

And then my clever girl arranged an Elephant with the scraps.

Do you wield sharp objects with your small people close at hand, or do you think I’m crazy?

OK, the yarn made me do it.  It tied me up in it’s loveliness.  It seduced me with the spectrum of “me” colours.  It blinded me so much that I barely noticed the price per ball.

I was that gauche woman in the corner (yes I was actually in the corner) at the Dayleford Craft Experience, who was knitting when everyone else (and I do mean everyone else) was sewing!  The crazy thing is that I am not really a knitter – I’m an occasional scarf-only lady.  I visited Purl Palace the night before, and I got the wanties, aaaaannnnd there was champagne on offer.  It tipped me over the edge, and I found myself the owner of some sparkly needles (number 7’s) and divine Noro Yarn.  Silk Garden Chunky, in colour 6, for those that are interested.  45% silk, 45% kid mohair and 10% lambs wool.

Luckily Melly knows me – so she was not offended.  Jodie and I had met before, so she excused me, and all my sewing NOTYQ Guild friends were too happy to care.  I just hope Anette didn’t take it the wrong way.  All the designer’s things were super lovely, but I was just enchanted by the yarn.  In my defense, I did buy it from Zoe – one of the organisers, and Merrilyn seemed to friendly to be cross.  Everyone at out table agreed – it was the best organsied sewing day out, and the venue was wonderful, food=yummy and lighting=perfect – topped off by fantastic, massive smarties on every table.

I did end up buying just a little pile (or two) of fabrics on Saturday, as we visited 5 patchwork shops in the region (two in Gisborne, One in Kynton and two in Daylesford).  The two purple fabrics above are old favourites that I bought last year, and have since used up.

This floral (above) is another old favorite I have just used up.  When I bought it last year, I was tempted to buy enough to make a skirt – so this year I did.  It is going to have chocolate brown trim.

I found some more fabrics that tone in with the Amy Butler floral, that will be going in my quilt.

Tomorrow I will show you the test blocks I sewed up, that I am hoping to use in my design.  Have you let loose with any fabric, or yarn purchases lately, like me?

I have slowly been working on my cushion front, which now has a completed leaf – just one more to go.

I have decided that I need to do a little unpicking before I continue though.  The lovely, bright, fresh purple segment you see there is not quite right.  The colour is a little too light, and lacks contrast with the “grout” so the leaf looses some of it’s crisp outline.  I am really in love with this fabric, but will have to use it elsewhere.  I have been auditioning deeper, jewel-toned scraps to replace it with.

I worked on this cushion at Sew It Together, which was weeks ago – I feel quite remiss not to have shared my wrap up with you.

This is the little name tag I whipped up the night before.  I was pretty pleased with it, and I managed to follow the aqua and red theme for the event (despite my stash being light-on in the aqua department – I have lots more duck-egg and peacock blues).

Here is the amazing haul of stuff from the generous sponsors of Sew It Together.

A Thea and Sami wire coat hanger cover kit,an Ernst and Pebble pattern from Jodie of Ricrac, a customised Moleskin from Cass, a Lark green journal, Chez Moi “Swanky” fabric prize from the Oz Material Girls, bamboo needles from Craft Junk, covered button sampler pack from Jackobindi, a fabric sampler pack from the Oz Material Girls, and a Retromummy little hexagon sampler pack to make a hexie flower.  Phew, what an amazing haul.  Thank you so much to the wonderful sponsors, I will be sure to blog more about you as I use your things to make other things.

Here is a closer look at the pack of “Swanky” fabric (designed by Chez Moi, whose collections I really love).  I was lucky enough to have my name called early, to pick a prize, and my eye was drawn straight to this.  The colours blend like water colours, which is how I believe this line started it’s life.  Each piece is a couple of inches smaller than a fat quarter.  This is crying out to be a lap quilt in the family room – the kids curl up with quilts most mornings, while the house gradually warms up, after the heating is turned back on.  Thanks so much Oz Material Girls!

One reason it has taken me ages to share pictures of my loot is because the weather here in Melbourne has been very grey.  This morning it started foggy, but when the fog lifted, we finally saw the sun.

The cooler weather has had me turn to my very basic knitting again.  Another scarf made with Bamboozle yarn – 70% bamboo, 30% cotton = 100% soft!  This one is for Amelia.  Speaking of Amelia, she did super well at the ABBA concert!  We were not allowed to take photos, but one of the staff members was given permission, and I am waiting to get a copy before I share my highlights of the day.

What is the weather in your area inspiring you to create?

There have been lots of stressful things that I don’t want to blog about, getting in the way of the things that I do want to blog about lately*.  I started this post almost a week ago, which is lucky in a way, because it has been too dark to take photos for days, and the ones below were at least taken in the sunshine.

These books are two recent acquisitions that I am pretty happy about.

All of blog land has been onto the Alabama Stitch Book for ages, but I just jumped on board – some of the projects in this book are honestly inspirational (a pretty overused word usually).  I was very keen to get it, to learn how to recycle old t-shirts into something beautiful, like the skirt above.  This was mainly to stop the conflict between my inner de-clutterer and my inner green-re-user.

Tile Quilt Revival is a timely purchase.  It echoes where I was already going with the cushion design I have been working on for some time.  I really like the idea of the background showing through, like grout, in between tiles.  The photo above is of some of the unusual historic quilts in the book that utilize this technique.  There are not many examples of these kinds of quilts out there, but they really “speak to me”, perhaps more than the modern quilts in the book do.

I have not learned anything new, technique-wise, from the book, but it is nice to add it to my bookshelf for inspiration.  You can see here my progress with the cushion-front.  I am taking it to Sew It Together (Crafty-Bloggers Convention in Melbourne) tomorrow, as it is the perfect project to sew and chat with – which is why I love needle-turn applique, even though it is time consuming.  I hope to have more to show you next time, unless I chat so much that I end up with no sewing to show for it.

If you are going tomorrow, please say Hi to me, I will be the one in the made-at-the-last-minute-name-tag, with the pegs on it.

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*Don’t worry Mum and Dad if you are reading this on your holiday on the other side of the world – there is nothing you don’t know already know about that I am hiding from you.

Mothers’ Day has felt more like a festival weekend, as I started it on Friday with a trip to the Stitches and Craft show on  my own.  What you see here is the haul.  The printed Aunty Cookie tote, and the Anna Maria Horner voile (Little Folks Baby Bouquet Dusk and the Little Folks Diamond Mine Pomegranate – 30cm of each – the larger folded pieces in the bottom right of the photo) were from Kelani Fabrics.  Cathy was working on the Kelani stand, so I had a little chat with her, and Lara who happened by.  I also said a shy hello to Auntie Cookie (Shannon) herself, before finalising my purchases!  I could have done much more damage at that stall if I stayed.

The road signs fabric (top left) is from the Amitie stall, the Make it Perfect pattern is from the Earthgirl Fabrics stall and the charming little fat quarter (Birch Forest in Robin’s Egg – bottom right) is from the girls at Ink and Spindle – I could not avoid bringing some of their loveliness home!

So here is the first thing I made with stuff from the show – a scarf using Anna Maria Horner’s Little Folks Diamond Mine in Pomegranate (which is the red patterned fabric) .  It went perfectly with a slightly wider piece of voile that I had bought previously from Spotlight.  I would have bought more of this floral fabric, but 1/2m was all that was left on the roll.  I simply bagged the two fabrics together, even though the floral was wider that the Diamond mine, and top stitched the join.  I like the effect with the “stripe” down the middle.

I am pretty pleased with the result (apologies for the overexposed shot – even Photoshop couldn’t redeem it) and may have to wear it to “Sew It Together” next weekend, which has a red and aqua theme.

I think I am going to make a similar scarf with the other piece of Little Folks Voile (Baby Bouquet Dusk, another floral).  It will go nicely with a piece of cotton/linen blend fabric I have in a coral pink – it is kind of shot – The warp is pink and the weft is a butter colour.

I hope you had a lovely Mother’s day where ever you were.

Here is the beautiful card that Tania sent me, with my winning ticket to the Stitches and Craft show.  It was so lovely to receive real mail, with handwriting and a textured envelope and all.  Inside was one of Tania’s Goccoed cards – you can certainly tell that she is a graphic designer – such a spare design, so well balanced and beautiful.  I am off to the show for the day on Friday – say Hi if you see me!

In the background there is a paper handbag that I learnt to make last Friday night.  A group of us usually get together for a video and a chat (and sometimes both at the same time) once a month, but this month we got crafty.  The lovely Barbara taught 4 giggling, bubbly-sipping students how to create these little wonders.

As predicted by Barbara, I came home and spent the next day teaching the kids with some kindergarten squares we had lying around (the kinder squares are really too light, but easier for little hands to fold).  We still have to make 2 handles, but the kids were pretty pleased with themselves. BTW – the pink, spotty was from Barbara for Easter, filled with lovely chocs, and the Green one with the Star button was her sample she made – I am not that good yet.

I have since bought three pieces of double sided scrap-booking paper, to make a stronger one with each of the kids, but I am drawing a line in the sand – I am not going to take up any form of scrap-booking, or start buying loads of paper!

This is really the only type of paper I need.  These are sketches and Illustrator drawings inspired by the cushion in the previous post.  I am pleased with my design to a point – but that is the problem – the points.  I would like to make this motif up as a needle turn applique, and some of the points are too sharp.  The design I have come up with would work as a raw-edge fusible applique, but I am going to have to keep reworking it, if I want to needle turn it.  Watch this space.

What do you like to do with paper?