Lazy Sunday

I did some baking with Eloise today.

I told her she could lick the bowl. Of course, she took me literally. What was I thinking?

We just had a day of pottering and catching up on jobs. It was a lovely feeling pegging out the laundry this morning and realising that about half of my childrens' clothes were handmade. I haven't made any more additions to their wardrobe this weekend but I think I've done my fair share of hours to be allowed say that I've completed the Elsie Marley challenge. It's been great fun seeing what everyone else has been making and finding gorgeous new blogs to follow.

The one crafty thing I have done this weekend is this little bit of embroidery.

I have cheated a great deal by personalising a doily but I think it is lovely nonetheless. I really want to turn it into a lavender bag but it has to be posted to Australia and I'm not convinced it will get through customs. I think I will play it safe and make a little zippered purse. It's for my lovely Nan. She had a mini stroke on Thursday. Thankfully she is okay but it has given everyone a dreadful fright. When the paramedics asked her if she could remember her name, she thought for a long time and said "Nan". A touching moment out of a very scarey day. She is so important, not just to our family but to so many people all over the world that I am keeping my fingers doubly crossed that the mini stroke isn't a precursor to a big one. She is an incredible, fun loving, bright and gorgeous woman. This photo was taken at a family birthday party a few years ago. She was racing the 30 year olds down the driveway on a moonhopper (and still managing to look totally glam and gorgeous!

Isn't she amazing?

My beautiful daughters took themselves off yesterday and made her the most gorgeous get well cards without it being suggested. I would love to show you a photo of the cards but I can't find them at the moment (the kids have set the lounge up as some sort of nursery and there are prams and dolls everywhere!). Hopefully, we'll find them later so we can get them in the post with her little purse tomorrow.

On a completely different note, there's a very cool giveaway over on Every Spare Minute. I'd say please don't enter but I know you are going to. The fabric is too gorgeous to pass up a chance on winning.

Giveaway and poster

The poster I designed for the March 7th Devonport Craft Market is finally finished and has been uploaded onto the blog. I have absolutely no graphic design skills whatsoever but I can take a photograph, so I went for a collage approach. I'm quite pleased with it.

The fantail is embroidered onto a teatowel which I am going to give away to one of you lovely people along with one of my tape measure brooches. The teatowel isn't quite perfect as I originally embroidered the name of the market on the towel and then unpicked it because I didn't like it. If you look closely, you can see where it was but its still perfectly useable or you could turn it into something else.

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If you want to go into the draw for the giveaway,all you have to do is to start following my blog (click on the "follow" button in the right hand column); if you aren't already a follower and leave a comment answering the following question:

"What is your favourite New Zealand native bird and why?"

I will pick the winner's name from a hat on Tuesday 2nd March.

Sneaky peek

I'm doing the Devonport Craft Market poster this month. Here's a sneaky peek. There's a little fine tuning to do and it will be ready for download. I will be running a giveaway on my blog related to the poster. Watch this space.

It's horribly muggy today and we are suffering inside with the all the window and doors shut up. Our poor cat Kipper has been in a fight and has a nasty eye injury as a result. He's on home detention for two days and let me tell you he is NOT happy. Just look at this grumpy face.

Leaving the house involves a great deal of cunning and speed to avoid Mr Grumpy-Pants escaping. I had to wait for Richard to come home to bring the washing in. I couldn't quite work out how I could get a full basket of washing through the door whist preventing the slippery-as-an-eel Kipper from legging it.

This little piece of gorgeousness was waiting for me by my washing line so all the shenanigans were worth it.

Feeling Green

I had a bit of a stash busting day on Friday. I have all my fabric scraps colour co-ordinated in vegetable racks and I was in a green kind of mood. I grabbed an armful (yes, my scrap bins are pretty full!) and decided to have a go with Alicia Paulson's patchwork technique. These large patches are the result.

I'm not sure what they are going to be yet. Possibly bags. Possibly a big picnic rug (I've got some more green patches to use up). Any suggestions?

I also finished this too-cute-for-words embroidery. I got the pattern from this fab blog. It's going to be a peg bag when I get around to it!

It's been divine weather over the weekend and we've been picnicking at the beach and listening to great music here.

(This is a view of Rangitoto Island from Cheltenham Beach at 6pm. The tide is right out and the girls had a great time picking up beautiful starfish and showing them off before returning them to the sea)

Finally, the girls and my wonderful resident obsessive gardener have been hard at work picking lots of scrummy veggies this morning (and making a little art with them).

All a-flutter

Is it just me or do some of you other crafters out there experience the excited fluttery feeling when you find a new craft blog full of great ideas and inspiration?
I think if I admitted to my non-crafty friends (not to mention my long suffering partner) just how excited I got on finding this blog full of the cutest free vintage embroidery transfers, they might run for the hills!
But just look at how gorgeous these are! I can feel a whole pile of tea towels, pillowcases and aprons coming on!:

Go and visit the Vintage Transfer Finds blog for loads more.

Welcome to the world little man

The embroidery I did the other night is going to a very good new home. It has been transformed into a Plunket book cover for a brand new little man. Congratulations Stephanie, Johnny, Olivia and Flynn! Can't wait to meet him.






To make a book cover like mine, you can follow the following instructions. I always allow a little extra for seam allowances when making book covers as it's always good to have some extra to play with. If you are a very accurate sewer, adjust the measurements to make the seam allowances smaller. Okay, so to make your book cover:

• Open out your book and measure the length and width of it.
• Add a 3cm seam allowance to either end of your width measurement so if your book is 10cm wide, then your fabric needs to be 16cm wide.
• Now add the 3cm seam allowance plus 6cm fold over allowance to each side of your length measurement. So if your long side is 15cm long, the total length would be 15cm + 3cm + 6cm + 3cm + 6cm = 33cm.

• Cut two pieces of fabric in your measurements eg 16cm x33cm. Embroider your outside piece at least 9cm in from the right hand edge.
• When your embroidery is finished, place the two pieces right sides together and stitch a 1.5cm seam allowance all the way around, remembering to leave a 4cm opening for turning.
• Clip the corners and neaten the seams.
• Turn right sides out and making sure that all the corners are sharp (use a pin or needle to tease them out if they aren't), press your cover. Fold in half to find the centre and tuck your book inside.
• Open the book out and fold the edges in about 6cm. Pin them in place and close the book to check that it fits. If its too loose or two tight, adjust the flaps and test again. When you are happy with it, adjust your machine to a longer stitch length and stitch along the top and bottom edges, close to the edge and closing the turning opening as you go.

Voila. Nice and simple and a great gift for a Kiwi baby. You can also do this with a baby book or a photo album.

Stitching fun

All the Christmas decorations were taken down and put away in record time last night. I was really keen to get stuck in to some embroidery. I had a browse on various blogs and Etsy but didn't see anything that grabbed me as a design but I decided to go and get the supplies together anyway, just in case something came to me. On the way down the stairs I spotted my vintage and very bedraggled Lucie Attwell Annual and found some wonderful inspiration in there.

I freehand drew the images I wanted onto the linen using a water soluble pen and then used split stitch to do the outlines. There is a great tutorial on how to do split stitch (and other stitches) here on the Sublime Stitching blog.

It was unbelievably easy and the whole thing took me three hours to do including drawing the design and finding all my colours. It would have taken me about half that time with a needle threader so I will have to invest in one. I was really pleased with the finished result. The colours don't look so great on the computer but they look lovely in reality!

And while we are on the subject of embroidery, I'd really like to send a huge thank you to Heleen at Ruby in the Dust who sent me these wonderful goodies after I won her giveaway over the Christmas break.

I adore the hand embroidered buttons and am planning to use them on a baby cardigan I'm knitting for a friend in America. The stickers are rather lovely too and may well travel to America with the cardigan for the big sister to be. The mirror isn't going anywhere. I love it and it's going straight in my handbag!

Sublime stitching

I've come to the conclusion that Summer crafting needs to be mobile. I haven't quite reached the stage where I'm stitching on the beach yet (book me in for major therapy when that happens) and I've been banned from knitting in the car (too distracting I'm told) but with the kids at home for their Summer break and no chance to escape to my studio, I'm feeling the need for a little portable something to restore my craft nerves. (Really, I'm that addicted. Maybe I should book in for the therapy now).

I love to knit but my wrists just can't take it so I've decided that embroidery is the ideal 'pocket craft' for that crafting on the move. The lovely sublime stitching blog has proven to be very inspiring and confidence building. How can you argue with:

I already have a substantial stash of threads and plenty of calico to play with so time to get stuck in! (Maybe I should take the Christmas decorations down first or they will be up for at least another week).

I've been scanning the wonderful sublime stitching flickr group and I think something small and simple is the place to start.

I'll just take the decorations down first.

Better late than never

Well I never got round to posting those photos of Mum's Christmas table and I had some very good reasons.

1. The sun was shining and there was a pool outside.
2. My Mum is a pretty amazing cook and I was unable to move for substantial periods of time after her wonderful meals.
3. It was Christmas and we were having fun.
4. I was on holiday.
Okay. Excuses over. You are probably completely over anything to do with Christmas by now but I am going to share anyway.

The gold plates are 'chargers' which go under the normal plates and make the whole table look rather gorgeous.

I loved the gold tassles Mum used as napkin rings.

Here's one of my gifts. The fantail was one of my practise pieces from my screen printing course which I couldn't bear to throw away.

Another one of my gifts. The hearts were made by Stephanie of Liberty Lane. She is due to have a baby tomorrow (good luck Steph!) but she will be back with us at the Devonport Craft Market later in the year.

This is what I made my Mum for Christmas. The words around the edge read "I am your Christmas Angel at this special time of year. I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Prosperous New Year". I used some beautiful red raw silk to back the cushion. I adapted the pattern from one in an old issue of Handmade. If any of you are interested in knowing which issue so that you can track it down, let me know and I will look it up.

I'm back home now and ready to get stuck into some serious crafting so watch this space!