2010 Sewing Challenge - September

I'm so happy to report that I actually completed this month's sewing challenge for the 2010 Sewing Challenge
In fact, dare I boast, I finished 2 bags, both projects that were bought at the Sydney Craft and Quilt show in August. Here is my "Spice of Life" bag by Monica Poole.

I didn't want to buy any more fabric, so this is made with fabrics I already had in the stash. I didn't quite have enough of the polka dot, however not to worry - homespun did the trick again. How can you go wrong with so many colours to choose from? 
A while ago I bought a variety of colours and lengths of 'make your own zipper' with matching coloured zipper pulls (for my wallet making craze - oh dear), so I didn't even have to buy one, just work out how to use it!


The thing I love the most is the tubular frame. I feel like Mary Poppins with her carpet bag. It makes a very satisfying 'snap' as it shuts. This bag is a great size and it's going to get well used this summer.


I've already boasted blogged about the mug bag here.

thanks for taking a peek over the fence...

Fall into Fall Quilt Bloggers Giveaway

I've signed up for this giveaway blog hop. If you'd like to join in and want to sign up you will need to get a wriggle on as it closes on Wednesday evening in the US.

I will be posting a giveaway on my blog on Friday 1 October and I will draw a winner  on Friday 15 October. Look for the giveaway post on Friday.


Luckily there are school holidays so I have time to plan this and to play along.

Quite Quietly Quilting

I haven't been around here for a bit because I've been doing stuff...quite a variety of stuff..
Just a few...

 

photos...        I love the way this bag goes together.

to...        and I even had a go at meander quilting...I like!

look...               almost finished.........

 

at...  the complete kit. Bought at the Sydney show and totally DONE!

(thats Ok blogger - don't centre this photo if you don't want to!!!!!)

A few Prints Charming offcuts turning into a scrappy table topper. Todays project is to finish this off with a dark brown border and layer it ready for some embroidery quilting "a la prints charming".

The ripple crochet that I really wasn't going to start, but found myself with some time on my hands in a place that was quite impractical to take my sewing machine.

May I recommend that you don't mindlessly chain your beginning row sitting in the doctor's waiting room stopping only when your daughters name is called.

I accidentally have 24 repeats of 14 (+3) - a whopping 339 chains - oopsie! It's wider than a queen size bed! yikes!

In case you can't tell...I did get a new camera...

thanks for taking a peek over the fence...

Wasting time with FavIcons or more aptly the Dummies Guide to FavIcons

Do you know what a FavIcon is? 
I do now and I also have one!
See the "q" up on the tab and if you are using mozilla or IE you will see the same "q" on the address bar (it doesn't show on the address bar in chrome - but I *think* I can live with that). I can also see the icon on Safari *doing the happy dance*

I used this tutorial here and here to get me going.

STEP 1: So the first step is to make your 16 X 16 pixel icon.
Basically I made my 'q' in PaintShopPro - a nifty if somewhat basic and simple program, but it asked me straight away what size I wanted my new file to be - 16 pixels by 16 pixels which, in my ignorance, I wouldn't have known how to do with out bothering the in-house IT expert.
Added text, coloured it orange. Save it as a .jpeg file (those choices appear in a drop down box just below where you need to name your saved file). Use any drawing or graphics program that you own, but I only know how to use PaintShopPro - cause I do simple really well!
STEP 2: Then I went onto the steps in the tutorial up to their point 3. This will require you to go to the website of IconJ and follow the neat little steps there too. Apparently if you have your own website you can put it on there yourself (but if you have your own website then you already know much more than I do!)
STEP 3: Only do this if you are happy to play around with the html of your blog. You should download a copy of your blog to re-upload if you make a complete hash of the code.
Use the tutorial's instructions for point 4 if you use the old blogger.
This is where I came unstuck because I use the new template of blogger.
It took some trial and error to work out where to put the two lines of code.
So if you use the new blogger go to the DESIGN tab and Edit HTML *see previous warning*
It still has to go under the place that has the command < head > however, it must go a few lines further down. You need to paste your code twice into the HTML just ABOVE the lines of code that read:

< title >< data:blog.pageTitle/ >< /title > 

IMPORTANT NOTE: I HAVE PUT spaces BETWEEN THE THESE ARROWHEAD CHARACTERS "<" AND THE WORDS. DO NOT PUT IN ANY SPACES. The reason I put in the spaces is so that the line will show in this post, otherwise blogger thinks I am writing HTML and I am sorry blogger but that is the joke of the century!!! I just copy and paste and look like I know what I'm doing!
STEP 4: After you have pasted it in TWICE you need to find one of the parts that say

 "shortcut icon" (it will be there twice because you pasted it in twice - didn't you?)

You need to delete one instance of the word shortcut so that the word icon is right up against those inverted comma marks "icon" just like that back there.

I can hear you asking why? Well the reason (she says sounding knowledgable but parroting something she read) is one line of code puts your little icon on the tab of the browser and the other puts it on the line of the address bar (I have no idea which is used for which, but it works - well except for Google chrome which only puts it on the tab - hey google chrome what's with that anyway?- I wan't to look at my handiwork especially in the address bar).

The picture below is a screenshot to show what my html page looks like after I've pasted in the code that I got from the hosting site...

Click on the shot to get a larger view. The highlighted code is what I pasted in TWICE!

So there you have it. Hope I've made it easy for you to do it too.

You should go and thank Oikology 101 because this was never going to happen without her tutorial

Hmmmm...I might go and see if I can make my 'q' a little less fuzzy now...*time waster alert*

*The only thing I wonder about is if the hosting site goes I may lose the icon, but I guess the same applies if you use different blog backgrounds etc so I won't lose any sleep over that thought.

thanks for taking a peek over the fence...

Playing with Crochet on International Crochet Day...

The ongoing saga of Minky with the thorn in her hand...On Friday the poor love had to have an operation to clean out a rather lumpy and infected area on the side of her hand near her little finger. 
She had to have a general anaesthetic and was in the operating theatre for about three quarters of an hour.
As I sat in the waiting area, I used the time to learn to 'ripple' or 'chevron' crochet.
Here is my little effort.

I'm quite excited and can see a larger blanket with lots of wool scraps being used. This should help to clean out my overflowing wool 'cupboard' (ok, 3 plastic bags on the floor of the sewing room...)...musn't. start. a. new. project...aargghhh...!

I had to make a scarf for myself after this one for the The Birthday Girl. I've only got to weave in the ends, so I can veg out in front of the TV tonight and do that!

I don't know about your monitor, but the colours here look so dead, when in fact they are the nicest variety of greens, tans, a bit of bluey-greens and a touch shimmer.
Sadly the Canon that I was used to using was 'hurt' when MATH was in New Zealand. I find the older camera harder to use and don't get the pics that I like. Even he agrees and uttered the magic words "If the other can't be fixed we should get you a new camera'... YES!

Oh and by the way, the first thing the surgeon said when he came to see me was " I don't know how the ultrasound missed this" as he handed me the thorn that has been embedded in her poor hand for the last 6 weeks - DESPITE me being adamant that there was something in there (I saw her hand before it swelled up, and could see the entry point of both thorns -ha - but what would I know!).
I was made to feel like an over-reacting hysteric when I kept insisting it was in there, and told that it was probably just a small piece and would be 'ejected' from the hand naturally as the body reacted to a foreign object!

Both thorns were approx the size of a 5cent piece, this pic shows the first one that came out on the day she hurt her hand. The one from the operation is slightly shorter, but much 'fatter'.

So, after two emergency dept visits, three hand clinic visits, a visit to the GP and a trip to surgery, the child is on the mend.

The moral of the story is:  Ultrasounds DON"T pick up everything and Mother probably does know what she's talking about.

Oh and today is (apparently) International Crochet Day, which was the original point of this post. I don't know who nominates these days, but I think I like them.
I missed "embroider in public day" which, I think I read somewhere, was September 3.
I look forward to International Quilting Day...
International Sewing Day...
International Knitting Day...
International Crafting Day...
At this rate I could have a day a month and justify to my family why I should craft a lot more than I do at present!

thanks for taking a peek over the fence...

Here Comes the Sun - Shine On Me.

Spring has arrived in the form of this:

metres of rainbow bunting 

in the most gorgeous fabrics ever made

and a sunny little pack of these

I am totally in love with this bunting.

It is even more gorgeous than the picture.
To thank those involved I have to use my floweriest language:

Thank you to the bestest, cleverest, winter-banishing crafter that ever there was

Angie at 3redbuttons.blogspot.com

Thank you too, to the incomparable and radiant Here Comes the Sun Swap Organiser 

Vic at punkysmamma.blogspot.com

Now to plant those glorious sunflower seeds.


thanks for taking a peek over the fence...

Short Attention Span Sunday

The MATH was sitting watching a DVD and enjoying the quiet time that was his due this Fathers Day (even though he spent 10 days in New Zealand last week and I still have 9 days owing to me...).
I had made some progress on the washing and cleaning and thought I might try and whittle away at the mound of square-in-a-square blocks that were needing finishing.
So into the sewing room. It's pretty messy. It's pretty distracting.
There are the offcuts from the denim quilt.
There are the scraps from the paisley quilt.
There are the little left over bits of wadding.
All carefully saved for when I get time..


And you know what, I just didn't want to finish the squares...I couldn't believe it either...I wanted to do something else, not get on with what was suddenly some very annoying and fiddly and not-finshing-fast-enough squares, and bothered by what-possessed-me-to-do-such-a-yucky-block thoughts...I found something else to do.
I found short attention span Sunday:

I took the denim scraps,

the paisley scraps, the wadding scraps, a hair elastic and 

a button...

Clare's idea 

and altered the pattern from here

and came up with this.

And since it's short attention span Sunday, I've moved on to something else even more captivating, and this is the best photo of the rotten lot I took.

thanks for taki...

Look at moi, look at moi, look at moiiiii....

Now you can look at moi whenever you want to...
See what the combination of a lovely morning out meeting my Prints Charming (Marisew I'm going to get as much mileage as I can from that!), and a rainy afternoon can do...

I made a blog button.

It's on the right hand side bar, with the code underneath. That's there to copy so it can be on your blog too. LOL
All I did was google "make a blog button" and there it was, easy as easy can be. Though in the end, the two I found to be the easiest to follow are Jenieshell's to make the button and Mommybits to make the code box.


I really should be quilting, cause I have been know to whinge about not having enough sewing time, but sometimes playing on the computer is almost as rewarding.

thanks for taking a peek over the fence...

My Creative Space

Today I am going to get a move on with the pile of square-in-a-square blocks for the paisley quilt.

The...

never... 

ending...

piles...

For more never ending creative types, head on over here.

thanks for taking a peek over the fence...