Crab Claw

Things are going to be a bit sore and painful around here for the next few days.

Had a little bit of a slip and burnt three of my fingers on the wood fire.

A lot of pain, buckets of cold water, burnaid and bandages on, I'm starting to feel better today.

Finding it a little difficult to do things with one hand and I'm not exactly the best patient either.

Whoever knew it was so difficult to thread a needle with one hand?!

Fingers on my good hand crossed that I heal quickly and are back sewing in no time!


Ps. Am writing this in my PJs on the couch. Waiting for The Boy to come home and help me shower and thread some needles. 
Such a glamorous life! 

{Sunday Snippets}

A nice relaxing Sunday after heaps of excitement and a late night last night.

Joining in with Tinniegirl

Northern Craft Bonanza

On Wednesday NCB had our fortnightly crafting session at Stuzzi in Northcote.

Five of us girls braved the cold, and missed the last episode of Offspring (Not looking at anyone....).

Mel, Nicole, Lou, Tracey and I grabbed a table by the fire, ordered some drinks and dessert and pulled out our crafts.

Nicole was making some kind of medieval weapon, 

Oops, I mean knitting a glove with three double pointed needles.

Lou started her forth knitting project, and first scarf.

She even managed to pick out her own mistakes but did have to get Tracey to fix them for her. 

Tracey was crocheting a gorgeous green beanie and got an inch within finishing it before she ran out of wool.

Fingers crossed she can jig it a bit and get it finished at home. 

Mel was feeling a bit stabby and did a little bit of wool felting.

Cute little macaroons Mel had made at home. 

She made two tiny little toadstools and a little hill to put them on on the night. 

Nicole managed to finish knitting one glove for a girlfriend.

I think her girlfriend may be going Micheal Jackson one glove style for a while.

And I managed to add some more embroidery to my blanket but never took any photos of it or myself!

You will just have to trust me that I was there.

Join us on the 3rd of August for the next NCB.

When she realised she had too much time on her hands....

Inspired an embroidery I had seen on another blog I decided last night to start something new...

Almost 24 hours later I am finished.

Yes, I'm not exactly sure what possessed me but I have embroidery a badminton racquet.  

And I love it!

So does Babushka, although I'm not sure how she is going to play with it when she has no hands (but don't tell her that!).

My Creative Space...

Today is all about choices...

Should I do my wool embroidery,

Should I finish cutting out this quilt,

Should I try and make myself a skirt without Bec's help,

Should I finish quilting this quilt,

Should I layout this quilt and start finally sewing it together, 

Or should I just stay in bed all day snuggled under this quilt?

Edit. Have just realised I lent The Boy's mum my machine to do a free motion quilting classes with. I guess my choice has been made for me, stay in bed it is!

The home of Our Creative Space

Craft Camp Quilt

I managed to finish a whole quilt top while at Sewjourn last weekend.

I absolutely love this quilt.

The fabric is Minny Muu 3 from Lecien and the quilt pattern is Hidden Stars from Layer Cake, Jelly Roll and Charm Quilts by Pam & Nicky Lintott

I love that it looks like a solid colour quilt until you get up close and can see the tiny little prints on the fabrics. (You may have to click on the picture in order to see the prints)

I am going to quilt this myself with diagonal lines across the quilt.

Just have to find some equally cute fabric to put on the back!

I am now up to date with blogging about finished quilts, oh except the other one I started at quilt camp and the one I have started cutting and the next one I have planned and...

Animation Friday

Picture to gif

Someone enjoyed my Pumpkin Soup a little too much on the weekend!

If you want to enjoy yourself just as much, here is the recipe:

Pumpkin Vichyssoise


750g pumpkin
2 large onions (or leeks)
250g potatoes
3 chicken stock cubes
1L water
1 cup cream
1 tpsn brown sugar
1 tpsn cumin
1/2 tpsn nutmeg
salt, pepper


Peel pumpkin, cut into small pieces and place into a large saucepan. Add peeled and sliced onions (or leeks), peeled and chopped potatoes, crumbled stock cubes and water. Bring to the boil, reduce heat; simmer uncovered, 25 minutes or until the vegetables are very soft and tender. Puree in blender or food processor. Return puree to saucepan add cream and season with salt and pepper. Bring to the boil, stirring, then reduce heat and simmer for a further 5 minutes.


Serves 6 

My Creative Space...

It's all about the quilts over here again today.

I started this quilt at craft camp and maybe should have read the whole pattern before starting!

I have so far sewn two of the 2.5" jelly roll strips together with a plain cream and ironed then cut them,

Then sewed these bits into nine patch blocks,

And then ironed and cut them up again!

I am just starting to sew them all together again for the last time(no more cutting but a bit more ironing!)

I also decided I would use the whole jelly roll instead of the half the the pattern recommended. So now I am drowning in 3 1/4 blocks.

Wish me lucky as I'm going to need it to get this one finished.

What a Hottie

This is the "Hottie" I made for the The Hottie Challenge. 

The challenge aims to raise funds for the Margaret Pratt Foundation. The challenge was to make a hot water bottle cover usable or otherwise to be sold to raise money for the foundation

A little about the foundation as taken from the The Hottie Challenge Exhibition Flickr page; "The Margaret Pratt Foundation Heart Lung Transplant Trust is a registered charity whose aim is to encourage, develop and maintain Australia’s world class expertise in the field of organ transplantation by supporting research that addresses the problems faced by children and adults after heart and lung transplant.The aim of the research must be to improve the outcomes for heart and lung transplant recipients."

I decided after a lot of umming and ahhhing that there would be nothing better than snuggling down at night with a patchwork hottie (except maybe with Johnny Depp).

You can go see my hottie for yourself at Open Door, and vote for your favourite or check out a lot of the hottie goodness on the flickr group page.

A huge Thank You to Ms Curlypops for organising the mail out of our kits and taking of finished hotties into Open Draw. Also for taking these beautiful pictures of my Hottie as I didn't get time before I had to hand it over to her. 

Oops, how did he get here...What a Hottie!

The "I must stop sewing quilts and write and show pictures of them before making more" post

I started and finished this quilt in the last couple of weeks.

I got the inspiration over here, or more like I loved it so much I had to copy it for myself!

The fabric is Sherbet Pips and the pattern is Corner Store from the Material 

Obsession book.

I added two extra rows on the left and right side to make it a bit bigger and now it sits perfectly on my queen sized bed.

I used the girl on the swing fabric from the range on the back.

I'm almost liking the back as much as the front and won't be surprised if I end up with it on the bed upside down! 

The binding is the scarf print in grey and matches in with the sashing I put around the center blocks.

I had it professional quilted with swirls and feathers all over it.

The Boy has decided that this is his favourite quilt that I have made (apart from the one I made him) and is quite happy to sleep under it!

Craft Camp

I just had a fantastic three days away with Mel, Bec and Liesl. 

We stayed at the gorgeous Sewjourn in Lancefield and ate 

(pumpkin soup with yummy bread from Baker's delight)

and sewed,

had some fun with "invisible" zippers

  

Had a romantic candlelit  path down to the studio as the security lights were not working. 

We thought of this on the second night. 

The first night I may have almost walked into the cactus patch in the dark!

 Ate some more. Very yummy roast pork and vegies for dinner cooked by Liesl.

I also made sticky date pudding but we may have ate it all before I took a picture (oops!)

The Girls enjoying dinner and drinks.

Some more sewing.

Tried to eat more (wool felted macaroon, because we just didn't have enough food!)

Basted quilts,

tried to lay down on the job,

cut it back,

and pinned it all over.

Had fun with long pieces of sting piecing. 

I swapped Bec and sewed her and my blocks while she ironed all our blocks.

Cooked and ate some more,

Liesl made some very moreish donuts, 

and then dipped them in chocolate icing!

   

Almost untouched platter of fruit...

self timed photo,

Lots and lots of sewing happening in the studio,

Mel hogging 1/2 of the table space!

Yep, we had four machines, two overlockers and two irons between just four of us!

It just got too much for some people

All of our finished and half finished projects,

One quilt finished, one in the planning stage, one top and skirt finished, one bag and four purses made, one quilt basted and another basted quilt and binded (with a little help ;P), one macaroon, one cutre little pair o almost finished pants, and a lot of quilt blocks made.

Cute purses made with tiny little strips leftover from quilt by Bec. 

Bag also by Bec and top and skirt by Liesl (love the FMF flower on the bag, may need to pinch Bec's scraps)

Macaroons felted by Mel and purses by Bec

Cute red cord pants by Liesl with phantom boy wearing them

More pictures of the macaroons, don't you just want a whole plate full of them!

And a very happy and relaxed me in front of the quilt I made on the weekend. (More photos and better post on the quilt coming up later).

I had the best weekend and can't wait until our hopefully 4(!) day weekend next year!