All packaged and ready

Yes, after my big sewing production line on the weekend I now have 8 sets of sewing accessories all packaged and ready to go. I love the colours of the material and have tried to match the colour of the snips to the material.

So each package has 1. Scissor keeper - which is a material lanyard with clip and a pair of the amazing sharp, super useful snips. 2. Finger pin cushion - this slides onto the finger of your choice and means you have pins available. I find this really useful. I thought they would just get in the way but I have not found that to be the case.

For details on how you can purchase them from me click -  here.

Some lucky people at this weekends retreat with the Material Girls will get them as spot prizes.

Production Line Sewing

I am watching delayed coverage of the Crusaders and hope to have almost 8 sets of my sewing accessories finished by then.

I have everything lined up and am sewing the finger pin cushions and stuffing them while play is on. During the ads I anticipate dashing to the sewing machine to stitch bits together. I have promised a few of these sets as spot prizes for next weekend. I have three days sewing at Living Springs with a bunch of other women. I am also looking at these as Xmas presents for those near and dear who are into crafts.

7 Pirates were in my house

Yes I kid you not, there were definitely 7 pirates on my back lawn this afternoon.
Eli had his birthday party for turning 7 (which happens next weekend) and there were 7 boys invited to a pirate party.

They all participated in two treasure hunts with secret messages to be revealed (ie the clues were written in white crayon on white paper, so they had to find the clue, bring it back and "paint" it with water that had food colouring. This reveals the message for the next clue). First hunt was a practise run all around our section. This achieved a pirate monocular. The second hunt was so extensive that some of the boys ran out of puff and walked for the last two clues. It was in the Kaiapoi Domain- which we are lucky to live by the edge of. The result was a cutlass so they became real pirates.

Big sword fights on the lawn and lots of food followed. With a treasure chest cake. All good fun and the only injury was Eli who poked himself in the eye!!!. I am now having a cup of tea - whew.

Upcycling - 100% eco Patchwork quilt

There are so many quilts out there that are "scrap" quilts but you still need to buy a lot of material, batting, backing etc to complete it. So I decided to buck the trend and make a true scrap quilt. All from left over bits, recycled bits, others rubbish.
Today I spent the time making the basics of the quilt sandwich. So I made the top - out of three bits of sheeting, the backing was also made this way. These bits of sheeting were sheets purchased from the Op Shop for $3 or under, I made them into duvet covers for the boys. But the bits were left over. So I sewed them together in strips until they were big enough for a lap quilt. Then I used all the leftover scraps of batting from other projects. This took five pieces sewn together.


The picture is me putting the quilt sandwich together. So there is a scrap top, scrap batting and a scrap backing. You can see all the seams on the photo but I am hoping that at the end this will not show through. I tried using basting spray for the first time (instead of pins), it took a lot more spray than I thought and it was not as successful as I hoped. May have to revert to the pinning effort.

Anyway - I am going to use bits that I pick up from the various quilt gatherings I go to. I hate seeing waste and at a lot of places I have picked up quite large quantities of material from the bins. Generally I use those bits to make quilts for the orphanage in El Dorat So it will be stitched as a raw edge piecing and will be interesting to see how it turns out. I will keep you posted.

A school award

Congratulations to Eli. Today in Assembly he received his "growing with excellence" award. This is based on the schools values and they have to consistently portray all the values to get the award. Only two children in his class achieved this last term. So big mana to him.
He had to show Arohanui, Community, Responsibility, Respect, Opportunity and Quality.

Well done Eli.

Dinner for the New Mum and Dad

My spare time today was spent organising dinner for my lovely sister and brother in laws - Jess and Stephen. They have Alex home from hospital now for 7 or 8 nights. We are all finally disease and bug and flu free so we made dinner. Eli was really excited to finally meet Alex as he had been too sick the last couple of visits.
I remember people making meals for me and how amazing it was to have. So I tried to make enough for tomorrow lunch as well. Little Mieke loves my jam and spiced apple cake. As those are both diary free I made some for her.
So dinner was cucumber salad with Lime and olive oil dressing, meatballs in lots of lovely slow cooked tomato, rice and then apple cake for dessert. Then a loaf of homemade bread and a jar of jam. With a carafe of Feijoachello for when the new mum is feeling she needs a bit of something at night.
Earlier in the afternoon Jess told Mieke that I was coming with dinner tonight. Mieke's only comment was "Karen, Cake". Then when I walked in the door she lifted her hands up to be picked up and asked for cake!!! Is that good or bad that auntie is known for making cake??

Where there is a Schulz there is smoke

You know the saying - "Where there is smoke there is fire". Well today disproved that. Smoke does not equal fire when Aaron is building it in spite of heavy rain. We were on our way back from a night in Hanmer Springs (breaking our journey home from Motueka). It rained in Hanmer but Aaron was sure it would not rain on his fire at lunch time.

When we were with my parents my Dad made me a really awesome tool. It is for cooking things over an open flame. Instead of bread or crumpets etc falling off your fork he made a square thingy that nothing falls out of. I have not taken a photo but it is very
ingenious. Anyway we were keen to try it. So at the Balmoral reserve just out of Culverden Aaron set a fire going.

I retreated as it starting pouring with rain (as I had very rightly pointed out to Aaron that it would). Smoke was everywhere. The boys were playing in a tyre swing in the trees oblivious to the rain, but they too came to my hidyhole. So we waited out the rain quite snugly whilst Aaron got soaked insisting his fire would be fine. Eventually it all cleared up and we had a great fire, wee walk and then hot toasted bread with butter and jam for lunch over the embers.