On the move

Bags are packed

Little shoes are waiting to be filled

Taxi ordered

Passports ready


Let's see what kind of eastern European crafting adventures I find...


See you soon

My name

My name spelled out in tinny little buttons, accompanied by blue and aqua love hearts and a spool of blue thread. What for? Sew it Together of course. A super original name tag idea from Beck at Dandelion. The little spool of thread really blew me away.

It arrived in my mail box right at a super busy moment for me the week before last. I was so super busy when it arrived that I actually opened the envelope in my car and paid the price for that action when something small slipped out and fell down under the hand brake between the seats. With much finger stretching and bending (and of course they get more sweaty and slippery as the moments tick by) I extracted another little badge that was a red plastic C with a brooch back, and there was a lovely teddy bear card.

I was feeling quite bad about the impending arrival of this name tag for Sew it Together. I can no longer attend and I knew there was someone out there making me a name badge. I decided just to let it be, I reasoned that if I had just finished creating and sewing a name tag and was about to put it in the post and got word that it wasn't needed anymore I would have felt worse than if I had at least sent it and then got an apology for the situation.

Thanks Beck, its really sweet and I appreciated your effort and wonderful creativity. Its too good not to share.

Perfectly pink pincushion

I am finally getting around to show off the pincushion I received as part of Kate's pincushion swap. A package was waiting for me when I got home from Melbourne on Thursday night, and for a moment I was curious because it seemed too hard and bulky to be a small, soft pincushion like item.

Inside the postage bag were these three things.

A pincushion indeed! Its beautifully soft and pink, with felt and embroidery and a cool little bobble trim. Its absolutely me! So very very happy for this to have arrived for my sewing table.

Also a little matryoshka brooch. This is so cute and will look great on my black jacket.

And a box of chocolates! Not to overshadow my delight over the pincushion itself, but receiving this box of sweetness made me sigh with relief - I had had a long day, packing, getting to airport, flight, taxi ride home - and now there was something to indulge in with a cup of tea once dinner, bathtime and bedtime were finally completed. I was a happy camper on the couch that evening I can tell you.

So who sent me this wonderful package? There was nothing but a "hello" written on the postage bag and an unreadable signature. I had half a mind that I had seen a blog post somewhere with this particular pincushion, but it was too hard to track down that way. So I went to the pincushion swap Flickr page and tracked the creator down. It was from Amanda, from Mandamade. Thanks heaps Amanda.

Alphabet Tuesday: F is for Fish

I am in Melbourne and was just driving home from a friend's house late at night and remembered the small fact that today was Tuesday. Fear not! I did not forget! Today's letter is F (brought to you at 11:30pm).

F has lately been cursing me in the form of flu, fever, (f)phlegm and feeling fuggly. I could have stayed in Brisbane on my lonesome but I booked to come to Melbourne for a good dose of family and friends - which both start with F you will notice, smart reader. I am slowly getting better with the help of sleeping, reading good Swedish crime (ploughing my way through the third Larsson installment for those in the know) and hot lemon drinks.

Not been eating any fish though, just enjoying the simplicity of this little fellow in green.

Next week I will not be able to post Alphabet Tuesday as I will be en route to Dubai. You will just have to wait in suspense until the following week, it involves blue food, don't miss it!

My Creative Space: have sewing will travel

My creative space this week has been all about travelling. Suddenly I see all sorts of crafting opportunities from wash bags to shoe storage, from camera cases to travel sewing kits.

I saw a most fantastic camera case on one of my daily Etsy Finds emails, I experimented in replicating it to some extent, kind of worked, kind of didn't. I'll show it to you later.

I really can't go away without taking a little bit of sewing with me, really I can't. So I have just made this travel sewing pouch. Its a little fold up number with two felt pieces for pins and needles and two pockets for other little bits of equipment.

My scissors are quite sharp on the tip so I sewed a little felt pouch for them to sit in. A little bit of embroidery taken from the fabric pattern makes it look fancier than it really is.

There you go, sewing and travel all wrapped up.

For more creative spaces head on over to Kootoyoo.

Alphabet Tuesday: E is for Eskimo

Putting together all the pieces for this little eskimo certainly did take time. He has felt trim for his hood and clothes, and felt shoes and gloves, just so he stays warm. This has to be one of the most detailed pictures on the whole alphabet chart, although the sailor for the letter S is going to be tricky - thats fourteen letters away though.

She'll be apples

Lets just start this story with the fact that my husband does not eat cooked apples. So even though I would like to have a bit of apple pie or the likes every now and then, we don't. Now that he is away I really had the urge to make a cooked apple dish, I mean you have got to take your chances when they arise, don't you think? After ten years together you can imagine the state of apple depravity I am in.

In my childhood our family had a dessert we cooked called German Apple Cake. I have no idea about its authenticness in the German department, I have a suspicion that its called that just because the apples, sultanas and spices make it slightly related to strudel.

I knew which cookbook it was likely to be in, I turned to the back to start looking in the index and there, in my Grandma's handwriting it said this:

Talk about a family recipe. Thanks Grandma, you're lovely. This recipe has all the good stuff in it (not the whole block of butter though, don't worry).

If you want to make your own, its super simple, here is ze protokoll:

German Apple Cake

Cake

125g butter

90g sugar

1 cup plain or SR flour*

1 egg

Filling

3 cooking apples

2 tablespoons sultanas

1 tablespoon raw sugar

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

juice of 1 lemon

Cake: Melt butter in a large saucepan, add sugar and stir until it is beginning to dissolve. Add flour and stir well, beat in egg. Grease an 18cm cake tin (glass pyrex dish works well) and using fingers spread a little more than half the cake mixture over the bottom.

Filling: Peel, core and slice apples, place half of these in layers over the cake mixture. Mix together sultanas, sugar and spices and sprinkle over apple slices. Cover with the rest of apple and sprinkle with lemon juice. Spread remaining cake mixture on top, in spoonfuls.

Cook in moderate oven for 45 mins.

Mmm. Buttery, sweet, cakey, and best of all, apples. The small and I are eating it with custard, ice-cream is good too.

*Obviously SR flour will make a fluffy cake, plain flour will make a dense slice like version.

Letters come in the mail

I have found iron on letters for my alphabet wall hanging. A lovely Etsy seller called Once Upon a Design has a range of very nice iron-on appliques in her shop and she is able to custom make me a whole alphabet in lower case in black fabric. I ordered a few letters to see how they looked and I am happy with them so the rest of the alphabet will be on its way from Florida very soon.

My Creative Space: Ready

Right now I really should be stopping with the sewing. I have an interstate trip in under a week and an overseas trip in just over two weeks. Still, I spend my time sewing, I'm a bit addicted you could say.

My girly outfit for overseas wedding is sorted after a little frantic purse sewing and a ridiculously good bargain at the Easter sales. With a good bit of my tongue in my cheek I will say that I am now ready for my trip overseas.

I took a nice picture for you, I omitted the fact that unglamorous items such as Kleenex wipes and kiddy muesli bars are just as likely to be stashed away in here.

Now, where is that suitcase and the rest of my luggage? Still in the cupboards, of course. Ready? Oh no.

For more Creative Space pop on over to Kootoyoo.

I have never ever

I have never ever cut a doily in half.

I have never ever made a zippered pouch.

I have never ever made a clutch purse.

Last night I tried all three at once. No practicing here, I don't have time for pussyfooting around. There is a wedding to go to and I need a big enough purse to accommodate "stuff" for me and the small one, contents are not allowed to fall out mid-frivolities, and I need a wrist strap so I have all ten fingers available for kid wrangling.

So I got to and cut straight into the doily, handsewed it to black cotton, measured, cut and interfaced exterior fabric, measured and cut lining, sewed it together (zipper shmipper btw), forgot clutch strap.

Tonight's job is to turn it back on itself and insert clutch strap, then re-inforce, clip, turn and sew lining closed.

I have never ever taken a doily with me to a formal occasion before. I am loving how this looks so far, but I have been having a confidence crisis and wondering if the other wedding guests might be pointing and laughing at my doily purse, different culture and mindset and all. It seems there are first times for everything lately.

Alphabet Tuesday: D is for Duck

Good morning! Hope you had a great Easter break. We did - we stayed at home and enjoyed each other's company. There was baking, and bookcase making, and egg dying, a little chocolate eating, and finally bag packing and kissing as my husband left for overseas. I am now in unfamiliar territory with my blog because the best camera in the house has gone with him! I have a little point and shoot number here that I haven't used in years so I will see how that goes over the coming weeks. The laptop with the pictures of our egg dying adventures has also gone travelling - wish I had been more organised and transfered them to my computer, now I have to wait a few days for them to be emailed back to me.

Anyway, Alphabet Tuesday is brought to you today by the letter D. A nice simple grey duck - quack, quack.

Fox's Lane pincushion swap

I am all done with my pincushion for the swap organised by Kate.

My swap recipient likes to garden and likes to bake which are two easy categories in which to find ample inspiration to make a pincushion they would like. I went down the garden path (figuratively speaking) and made them this sunflower pincushion, complete with resident ladybird.

Its a little wonky around the edges but I have never made anything like this before so maybe I am missing a little bit of technique that comes with practice. Lets just say it adds to its "rustic charm".

I am pleased with the result though, its happy, and gardeny, and I hope its liked where its going.

My Creative Space: its all in the fingers

This week, a few discoveries have been made.

I discovered you can use dental floss as sewing thread. It leaves your fingers with a fresh minty smell... Its "essential" in more ways than one it seems. I wonder if Oral B know about this?



I also discovered that while a glass jar full of buttons looks great on the shelf, its a real right pain to try and fish out the exact button you want. Its kind of like trying to get that bit of eggshell that you accidently cracked into your cake mix - it just kind of pushes around ahead of your fingers and you can never actually grasp it. I now consider myself superhuman because I got out two buttons exactly the same from this jar.


I discovered with horror that its not a good idea to leave this jar open on the edge of a surface accessable to three year old fingers. Oh my gosh, just imagine! The thought was like realising something was burning on the stove, I jumped across the room and clamped down that lid. Not so superhuman afterall.

Finally, I am the only person in this house who knows where the Easter Bunny has hidden all the eggs and my fingers can't seem to keep from helping themselves. Shhhh. I suspect my cover is blown now.

For more Creative Space pop on over to Kootoyoo!