Gifts

We made quite a few gifts this Christmas, but remembered to take very few photos. This is one I have been working on today. It incorporates special designer fabric made by grandson and granddaughter, as well as Kaffe Fassett. I am thrilled to have finished this bag and will send it off to Adelaide after new years day. (Yes, it's tardy!) My goal for today is to clear off my sewing desk and tidy my sewing room a little so that I can begin 2013 the best way possible!

2012, the reflective post.

Normally I have my goals for the new year all worked out by December 31st. Not this year. All of a sudden December is finishing and I'm not ready for January, which pretty much sums up my 2012 I think. It all happened well before I was ready for it. Over and over! (Every month!) I'd like 2013 to be different, but it's not looking good so far.

one of the new quilts I finished

one of the WIP quilts I finished

 I managed to finish two quilts that I started in 2012, and four WIP quilts. Halfway to my goal for the year. Twice as many quilt finishes as 2011 though so not too bad. It's hard to feel too disappointed when there has been improvement. I did blog much more in 2012 too which met my goal in regard to blogging. I'm not sure where my goals for 2013 will take me. I'm sure I will be posting surprise every month that the previous month is over (time flies!). I have a project in the upcoming January Homespun magazine which I am looking forward to seeing in print! Stay tuned for the 2013 goals.

Another Merry Christmas Post!

the tree this morning

 As I wait for our Christmas lunch to finish cooking I have been checking out blogs. (I love having a computer near the kitchen!) So many good wishes and Merry Christmas' in the blogosphere today. I hope you are all having a wonderful day wherever you are. We are spending the day in Melbourne with five of our eight. We are missing the other three and their families, but we're having a good day. We started the day by having the Elders over for breakfast. Pancakes with ice cream. (Christmas day really is all about food!) Then we opened our presents and laughed a lot. Now we are in the prepare Christmas lunch and play games phase. Next will be the overfed and play games phase. I am looking forward to the jigsaw phase which will take place this evening!

Meanwhile, have a look at the gingerbread mansion that we built this week for a large family to devour!  It required four Ikea flat pack gingerbread houses and lots of imagination.

from the front

the outhouse, complete with toilet, deck and picnic set to the right

a closer view, with the pond complete with shark in the backyard.

Merry Christmas!!!

I'm busy sewing!

 I am busy sewing secret things. Well, a few secret things. I have been busy doing lots of other things too. There seems to be so much to do at this time of the year. My Bradley and I have even been Christmas shopping once. (And it's not even Christmas Eve yet!) There's still more to be done. (You can't buy all your perishables too early!) My Lily15 came home from her holiday in Adelaide and brought her sister Molly20 with her. Hooray! More offspring to be Christmassy with!

I have been baking. Lots of gingerbread. Gingerbread biscuits and a gingerbread white chocolate slice which I made last year. It's very popular and whilst I have been to the shops to buy a new supply of moose to go with this slice (check out the link!) no moose have made it to the slice yet. It has been gifted and eaten without a moose in sight!

Loz of Granny Loz fame had a birthday and sent me a present. (How does that work?) It was a Christmas present (I obviously have patience issues!) and included all sorts of goodies from her recent trip away. Thank you Loz! (I have so many ideas for all that fabric!!!)

 And we have been opening a door a day on Sophie26's Star Wars LEGO advent calendar. Not many doors left now. I had better get back to that sewing!

Christmas Lights

the lights from the side

the light in our window

This week we have been putting up our Christmas lights. This year we even have some strung through trees and bushes. Sophie is also keen to get some lights in our windows upstairs. We saw some lovely lights in Ikea, but they were too big for our windows. So she decided to make some herself. The lovely star you see is the result. Tomorrow we will work on some more lights to go in the windows! I am busy sewing Christmas presents and will continue on with that tomorrow too. Can't wait to finish them and wrap them!

Oven Mitt Tutorial

Whilst at my local Ikea I saw some pot holders in the Christmas section that were marked down. I was tempted to get some, but I'm a bit too accident prone to be able to use pot holders. I really need oven mitts if I don't want to get burnt! (This is still no guarantee, but let's not go there!) I keep promising myself that I will make some oven mitts to replace my worse-for-wear ones, but never quite get there. So my Bradley suggested that I get some pot holders "for now". I picked a pair up (they come in packs of two) and started to walk off. Then I had a brilliant idea about how I could turn the two pot holders into an oven mitt and grabbed another pair so that I would have a pair of oven mitts. So here's the idea.

Start with your two pot holders. You need to unpick some of the binding on one of the pot holders. I chose the pot holder with the tags on it, to get rid of them!

Unpick the binding along two sides almost to the corners. My pot holder had a hanging loop which I unpicked. It gave my binding some more length.

Then cut off the corner of the pot holder. (Note, if you are doing two oven mitts like I did make sure to measure the second cut off with the first cut off. I point this out only because I didn't and I used the quilted grid which was not the same on the second pot holder. All good though, cause I repaired the cut and tried again!)

Next sew the cut edge of the pot holder together. (Like my repair? This photo shows the second oven mitt.) This makes it easier to replace the binding later.

Sew the binding on one side and trim.

Then sew the binding across the cut piece. . .

. . . and around the next corner. Trim the end and fold the binding under and sew it to finish the binding end off.

Da da! The finished piece!

Place the finished piece on top of the other pot holder, pin and sew around the edges.

I sewed on the left side of the binding as shown here so that I wasn't sewing through too many thick layers.

Now you can put your hand in it!

The finished products! I'm off to bake!

Blog posts and Ikea (some of my favourite things!)

split 9 patch I was working on earlier in the year

This whole blogging thing is just so worth while. I am getting a little bit panicky about my handmade Christmas and thought I would check last year's blog to see how I went then. Yep. I'm all good still! And I discovered that I was sick this time last year too. So much for me thinking that was weird. Turns out it's completely par for the course! So now I feel just fine, thanks to the fact that I blogged this time last year.

Tape and things.

The Ikea trip was mostly for their flat pack gingerbread houses. We were running out, so needed a top up! (We are giving them as Christmas gifts to friends and neighbours here in Melbourne this year.) Of course, I did manage to pick up a couple of extra things. Red and white tape (spotty, checky and stripey!), red, white and green cards and red lights. I *love* red and white things! So much Christmas Ikea goodness. It's getting exciting!

Sick of being sick? Make gingerbread houses!

That was our motto today. Asher was too sick to participate, but Sophie and Maxim managed to produce two beautiful houses whilst only eating a portion of the decorations! It was easy because the houses were flat-pack houses from Ikea and the icing takes just a few minutes to make. So pretty and such a delicious smell. And therapeutic! They both felt much better once they finished. As for the sewing, I'm not sure I even remember where my sewing room is at the moment.

To market, to market...

Last night was the market in Adelaide that I sent my bunting to. Most will be coming back here to Melbourne to decorate my house, but one string of bunting sold. Here's some photos of my kids' stall.

So pretty! Meanwhile I am still sick and even sick of being sick now. Back to bed I think!

More Bunting

Six strings of bunting finished now!

Yes, I managed to finish three more strings of bunting today, and that's about it. I am doing a cold (now that it's summer here!) and I've felt a bit sorry for myself today. Sore throat, dripping nose, and a cough. I'm hoping to feel better tomorrow though because I'm pretty sure I caught this from my Bradley. He was sick one day (even napping in the afternoon, which isn't like him) and well the next. So I hope I'm just like him! Tomorrow there will be more bunting hopefully.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

...at our house. We managed to get not one, but two Christmas trees up last week. I know! Two trees are just crazy, but we had a big space in our entry just screaming out for a Christmas tree and the kids all voted that they didn't want to sit in the entry to open their presents this year, so I got an extra tree.

Usually we have our Christmas tree up well before this, but I think I am on a go-slow this year. Must go sew something to put under it!

December...(and a market)

 It is December! Today I made a little bit of Christmas bunting. White and gold. I think it's very sweet. It is destined for Adelaide and the market my kids have a stall at next Saturday. Hopefully I will finish some more bunting for their stall too.

Picklesticks (my Jess) will have softies, upcycled books, and other gorgeous things. There will be dreamcatchers, jewelery and my bunting. And my Joe will be there with his reconditioned rotary telephones that you can actually use on current telephone lines if you are looking to get your retro on.

The market (It's called Christmas At Our Place!) is at the Charles Sturt Civic Centre, 72 Woodville Road Woodville , from 4pm till 9pm. There will be food available and entertainment as well as the market, so if you are looking for a night out next Saturday night (December 8) check it out!

I keep saying...

... that I don't like half square triangles. And then I sew some more. I chose some fabric for my Mum's gift today. A piece that my grandson and granddaughter had drawn and some Kaffe Fassett. How could I go wrong? My Mum loves those grandchildren of mine and Kaffe Fassett. It has to be a winner. I'm still not sure what I am making, but I started cutting this afternoon and sewing this evening. Maxim18 wondered how I could cut when I had no clue what I was making. I wasn't sure how to answer him. All I knew was that I was making half square triangles, which have since turned into zig zags. Anyway, it's too late now to make any sort of decision I think. Thanks to everyone for your suggestions. I am grateful for all your thoughts, and I'm still pondering them! Off to bed I think.

tonight's efforts

Lost Mojo

Losing your mojo right before a handmade Christmas is a bit of a disaster. Ok. Completely disastrous actually. This is what I am doing today. Getting a Birthday gift together for my Mum. (She doesn't have the internet at her house, so I'm safe-ish showing you this. Just as long as she doesn't pop to the library or visit a kindly relative!)

My Mum loves pretty tins, so I thought this one was a winner. And today I am sitting here looking at it, trying to decide what to put in it! It did come with shortbread, but since Mum has celiac disease (no wheat products allowed) I ditched the shortbread and was thinking I would sew a little pretty something and put it in the tin. So far I've got nothing! Suggestions welcome!

It's a little quiet here at my house...

I know Rose will never believe it, but it's quiet here at my house. I think she had forgotten how noisy a house is when there are more than two people living there. I think all the noise and excitement while she and Molly were here was entirely due to their visit. They are both home now, enjoying their own spaces. (Never a truer word was spoken than when Dorothy said, "There's no place like home.")

One...

Two...

Three!

So quiet! Not even any of this kind of noise that we had three weeks ago. I might get back to the sewing table now!