Slicing

After a lovely breakfast out on Sunday morning the family inevitably ended up in Avid Reader bookshop down in West End.  While my husband did the required reading to the little one in the kids book section (I can no longer get comfortable down on the floor to do that!) I had no other excuse not to wander off to the craft section and see what was new.

I ended up browsing through the new sewing book by Nicole Mallalieu - You Sew Girl!  A host of great projects and lovely photos were between the covers of this lovely book, and also a great section about sewing techniques and equipment.  Call me a nerd but I really like reading about those kind of things in sewing books (not all of them include them though) as I always learn something new or see how I do things the same or different to other sewers.  Nicole was writing about how much she used her rotary cutter to cut out patterns.  This had never occured to me before, I'm a bit scared of the good old rotary cutter, I do all my cutting with scissors.  I do have a cutter though and have used it for limited straight line cutting a few times.  I really thought of it as a quilting tool, not a dressmaking tool.

So this week I tried it out - using plenty of pressure on the cutter and pressing directly down as recommended by Nicole in her book I attempted cutting out the curved shapes of a softie pattern.  And it worked, it worked really well.  An exciting revelation in my sewing room, faster and smoother than using scissors, and only a little bit scary.  Although I have to find a surface to use it that is not down on the floor because as I mentioned already, I've got a problem with the floor at the moment!

My creative space: Production line

This week has been all about baking and hardly at all about sewing.  My husband's birthday necessitated a chocolate mud cake early in the week.  Then some batches of muffins and a fruit loaf later I was up to a double batch of chocolate chip cookies today.

Why?  Baking for the Red Hill Kindergarten Fair this weekend. 

After lunch the little man and I set up a cookie production line.



Yummy, buttery, sugary batter...

Teaspoonfuls ready for baking



Ten minutes later - warm, buttery, chocolatey goodness...

That's what fifty chocolate chip cookies look like in a pile.



All packaged up ready for sale.



But don't worry, the double batch means there is plenty left over for the family.  I'm not going to all that effort just to give them all away!

Recipe was straight off the packet of chocolate chips:

125g butter

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup castor sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

1 egg

1 1/2 cups SR flour

3/4 cup choc chips

Cream butter and sugars until light and fluffy. 

Add vanilla essence and egg, mix well. 

Add flour until all combined, lastly add chocolate chips.

Drop teaspoonfuls onto baking paper lined trays, leaving space for spreading. 

Bake in moderate oven for 10-15 minutes. 

Place on wire rack to cool.

Makes approx. 30

Sharing over here today!

Friday shop update

I've finally had time to add two more garments to the shop. 

The apple top has been a few weeks in the making (sooo many other things to do!), the wrap dress I made some time ago and just decided to list it.  Both are size 2, actually my most popular size funnily enough.  I've been battling non-stop windy weather and dull winter lighting in an effort just to take the photos - this shop caper can be time consuming! 



Red apple reversible cross back top - size 2

Vintage fabric reverse of apple cross back top - size 2



Garden party wrap dress - size 2



Garden party wrap dress - size 2

Blanket stitch

I've discovered a new passion lately - making baby blankets.

It all started when I made one for the silent auction for the kindergarten fair.  I really enjoyed the evenings sitting and stitching the binding by hand in front of the heater and the television (knitters and crocheters I'm sure you can relate). 

 I was really sorry to give it away in the end, I love those fabrics (more Denyse Schmidt fabric love over here, and here).

So I got to and made another.  I had the patchwork top in my stash (made from a doona cover I had as a kid) and teamed it with pink flanelette and white binding (keeping it on the shelf at the moment in case I want to own something pink in 8 weeks).

Right now I'm on blanket number three.  I attacked some vintage sheets, hopefully a more uni-sex yellow and blue combination.  I'm making my way through the sewing of the binding - I even took it along to swimming lessons this morning...crafting in public...gasp!

Playing along with creative spaces today.

Found

One crocheted rainbow granny square blanket.

Soft and snuggly.

Perfect baby size.

Perfect lap size.

Just showing it off so you can admire it too!

Coconut ice

I've just completed my first custom order for my shop.  I had a request to make a dress like this:

...but in a size six and with no doily feature.

I had the same main fabric to work with, but none left of the darker pink of the sleeves, so I went for white and pink florals on the sleeves and a white hem ruffle instead.

After talking baking for the kindergarten fair with the kindy mums in the morning all I could think about when sewing this pink and white creation was...coconut ice.  Strange, I've never even made coconut ice!  Its kind of appropriate though as this dress and another will be shortly winging their way to mid-summer in the UK.

Painting progress

A lovely day spent outdoors today - both painting and sewing. 

The red paint is as fabulous as expected, two coats on and I think one more tomorrow will complete the job.  I really wanted to use a roller for a smooth finish but the one I had was just rolling really unevenly and leaving fluff everywhere so I gave up and used a brush instead.

In between coats of paint I had a little go at making a cover for my change mat.  The patterned vinyl on it is hideous with a capital H.  I don't know why I didn't cover it last time it was in use!  I made some very dodgy calculations, cut my fabric too small, had to add on a couple of strips of extra fabric to make it big enough again and then after all that its still a very tight fit.  I plan to make two more so I'll have to re-think my maths.

It was too nice of a day to get myself in a twist about these little things.  I just enjoyed being outside in the gorgeous winter sun.



Swapping pins for paintbrushes

Hello there!  I've been busy getting a bit nesty over here at Maika.  So busy I kind of dropped the ball on blogging for over a week while my headspace was crammed full of other thoughts and ideas.  I've been spending too much time on Etsy and Ebay, handstitching binding on baby blankets, thinking about sprucing up five year old baby equipment by sewing pram liners and change mat covers, getting increasingly pre-occupied by my own aches and pains and the increasing effort to get through the day to day, what's to come in about eight weeks as this pregnancy draws to an end....as I said, too many thoughts.

My project of the moment is a spot of furniture rejuvenation.  I've been washing down, taping edges, undercoating with primer...

...and I am super excited to start using this cherry red paint tomorrow.  The colour spot on the tin doesn't do it justice, cherry red is not the right description, its a fabulous bright red.  No pinks or blues around here at the moment.  At the moment, anyway.

More than $9 worth

Recently I took my little guy for a trip on the train to the BrisStyle Indie Twilight Markets in the Brisbane city square.  It was a great way for us to fill a Friday afternoon and early evening.  The colourful pavement lights, the statues in the city square and the train ride home in the dark were a big hit with the four year old and of course I got to check out the lovely crafty offerings.

We only made one purchase - a soft cube kit from Voodoo Rabbit.  My boy was very excited about it as there was a little tinkly rattle ball to sew inside, the fabric to make the cube had cute drawings, and seemingly a story...but I quickly noticed that the story was not in a language I recognised at all. 

I had a stab at it, maybe Turkish, I asked? No, the lady at the stall revealed it was Hungarian text on fabric printed in Japan.  I bravely promised my boy that his Dad would be able to work out the translation for him.

The cube kit sat in the sewing room for a few weeks and we got it put together over the weekend.  We bought stuffing, little fingers pushed in volumes of the stuff to fill the cube, in went the little rattle ball (this was a very exciting bit) and eventually when all was ready I sewed the opening closed.

And the story?  Not one to resist a linguistic challenge my husband has worked it all out.  Its not really a story, more some statements about the pictures - things like "Hello Elephant, what are you doing?", "Balancing on the ball!", "How clever!".

This soft cube has been belted all over the house, tossed, caught, thrown in faces, almost knocked glassware off the bench...all this entertainment for the three of us for $9 was a real bargain.

Slow stitching

Its getting harder.  Getting on the floor to cut out fabric, or leaning over a table, standing at the ironing board - I'm getting tireder, slower and more awkward.

So I'm glad this weekend of sitting around doing a lovely lot of meditative hand stitching.  I'm sewing the bias binding around the edge of a baby blanket.  The blanket is not even for my own use but I am loving the look so much that I think I will make myself one exactly the same, and whip up a few more from materials in my stash.  I'm starting to daydream a lot about what a room for our new little baby is going to need and look like.  Stitching and daydreaming, too good. With about 4m of hand sewing for each blanket making a few of them will keep me out of mischief and happily ensconced on the couch of the evenings. 

I was going to get a picture up of me wearing my lovely new maternity skirt this weekend but today my man is sick and my boy is recovering from sick so I've not had much time for anything but housework and Lego.  Maybe I'll get a chance to snap myself with the self-timer during the week.  But for now the little Mr and I have to take a trip out to find something yummy for our dinner tonight.

Hope everyone had a great weekend.