Black and White Quilt done.

Last night I worked on quilting and binding another quilt for Hope Homes International. The quilt was made from a pile of blocks given to me and other black and white material. Thanks heaps Julie.

I was a bit worried that it looked quite adult so I fished through all the donated material and found the soft cuddly flannelette. A dramatic contrast to the quilt top but it makes it a lot more child friendly.

The quilted verse

On the blue borders I quilted "Your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path", a favourite verse of ours.

The bright backing

I link to these places 

and finish it up friday with Amanda- Jean

Shirt Apron - How to

A while ago I posted the beginning of my Xmas present making and it was for a shirt Apron. This is a apron made from a recycled business man's shirt. I now am the proud owner of a Pierre Cardin apron!!

When I made it a lot of people were looking for a tutorial. So two weeks ago when I was on my quilting retreat with the Material Girls, I made the last four shirt apron's. I took some photos and what follows is my tutorial for how I make them.

First start with the shirts you want to turn into Aprons. I only use 100% cotton as I know how it reacts and it is easy to clean. Find some bindings or ribbon that you can use for ties and to bind two seams. Also get any other decoration etc you may want.

Cut the side seams from the bottom of the shirt to the armhole. Cut along the stitching on the edge that is the back of the shirt. You want the stitched and neatened seam to remain along the side of the apron so that you do not have to do anything more to finish that area.

Cut from the bottom of the armhole to the seam on the shoulder. Draw and cut a straight line to the collar.

Once cut it should look like this. Do the other armhole.

Cut the shirt back and yolk off the collar from one side to the other. Again cutting just under all the seaming for the collar so that you do not need to do anything more to finish this area.

Your shirt should now look like this. If it had an amazing label like Pierre Cardin etc then I remove that from the collar or shirt yolk and restitch it somewhere obvious on the front. 

Use the sleeve of the shirt to make a pocket. This is the shape I tend to use. If it is a short sleeved shirt you can use the cuff of the sleeve for the top of the pocket. If not then cut your shape and turn the top down and stitch in place. Add any trims you want and stitch them in place. Fold under the sides and bottom and iron down flat.

Put the pocket onto the left front of the apron and pin in place. Stitch the pocket on - I tend to do a double row as it secures it well and looks smart.

Bind the edge of the shirt where the sleeve was removed. Bind from the collar down to the side seam. You can use Bias binding, or fold under and use ribbon or make some binding from the back of the shirt.

Add ribbon or binding or whatever you have to the side as ties. Make sure they are a good long length for tying around.

et Voila - you posh finished shirt Apron (you can see on this one that I also put ric rac on the breast pocket. But the world is your oyster when it come to embellishing.

Do let me know if you make any. I link to these places.

Sorting all the notices

Now a lovely organised wall

Oh my goodness. How many notices do children get? Some for sports team, some for swimming, some for activities and school trips, some for special sports days, some for activities occurring during the term, some for reading suggestions and on it goes.......

This was held on by blue tack

This was sitting on the floor!

I have notices in a big muddle, stick them to the bottom of the calendar, put some on a very wonky clip and piles on the fridge door. But not any longer!!

I covered three clipboards with scrapbooking paper and then used 3M picture hangers to put them on the wall. Labelled - Family, Jakob, Eli.

Before I did that I used decal paper that is blackboard to cover the section of the wall for notes and shopping. I really want to blackboard paint it but Aaron was not keen. So the decal paper works well but is removable if Aaron really does not like it. If it gets his seal of approval then I can blackboard paint this at a later stage.


All this is happening as I want a tidy kitchen area. I have things all over the show as EQC finally paid us out and I have plastering happening in the kitchen, lounge, laundry, hall and bedroom. Soon I will be very busy painting!!!!

I link to these places

Pracrastination - 1 1/2 years...... time to fix 3 minutes!

Can you believe it. I have been trying to finish jobs. Not only crafty ones but around the house, outside, in the garden etc. I never used to be a procrastinator but now I am. (some of that is I would rather spend the time with Aaron or the boys or doing crafting).

So today I stopped procrastinating on three things;

Procrastination - at least 1.5 years, frustration - HUGE, fix 3 minutes

Oh my goodness, this is the wheel to my laundry basket. Every time I have used the laundry basket, for at least the last 1.5 years but possibly more, I have had to reattach the bolt the holds the frame together before I could use it. Then yesterday the wheel fell off too. So today I fixed them both. Think of all that time wasted putting the bolt in every time.

Procrastination 6 months, fix 10 minutes

This is the wiring for the wisteria. I have two white wisteria climbing up the deck roof. In Autumn I put in the screws and wired up the other side of the roof for that wisteria but ran out of hooks. I did buy more pretty soon but NEVER finished the job. A small job and no problem, but I had to get things from the garage to do it and I was just too plain lazy!!

Procrastination 4 months, fix 1 minute, Frustration - daily

My father made me this very comfortable kneeler to use when gardening. I love it as our paths around the garden are river stones and this is soooooo comfortable. The handle came off. I put it on the deck, two months later I put it in the garage. Only now have I found longer screws and put them in - guess what? I also did it to the other handle as it was looking wobbly and another 4 month procrastination is just not right!!!

I link to these places.

Trying to challenge myself

While away on my quilting retreat last weekend at Living Springs, I had these quilt to finish off quilting and binding.

Because they are all charity quilts I do want to do them quickly, so I end up in a rut and either stitching in the ditch or resorting to my standby of stipple.

By the time I got to the third quilt I decided to try something new. A random flower that had been very well explained in a blog I follow. I have been trying to find it - I thought it was at Cluck Cluck Sew but can't locate the blog post. (if you know it please let me know so that I can link back).

Anyway I decided to do that on what was otherwise a plain strip quilt. It did not take too long for the quilt pattern to be looking consistent, so I completed some single flowers and some doubles.

Yay now that is three more quilts completely finished.

I link to these places

double flower

Single flower

I should have finished ... but instead I started

Well I was away on my quilting retreat. Blissful five days. Ahhh......

I should have finished heaps of things. I did finish some but then got fed up with doing what I should do and not doing what I wanted to do.

So I started

A paper pieced really large star. I am thrilled with it. I got the idea from someone who blogged about an absolutely enormous star that completed made a huge quilt. This will have to have a lot of piecing around it. So you will see it over the next wee while as I go about finishing it.(Did I say that finish word??? Wow remarkable)

A new quilt for our bed. I was trying to make it "manly" so Aaron would be happy sleeping under it and so far he does not like it!!

A million half square triangles to iron and trim!!!

I link to these places

a baking holiday

Well these holidays I have been concentrating on keeping the kids in the new routine of them both baking once a week and helping with making an evening meal.

Jakob has made white and milk chocolate cookies

I made meringues - all the time thinking of Kerryn

Eli made tan square

We had old fashioned doughnuts for afternoon tea one day

I have just finished the birthday cake

With the leftover eggs and the
abundance of lemons I made - Lemon curd

I link to these places

Boys Basketball Birthday Cake

The basketball cake

I have done it!!! Wow this is a lot of firsts for me. First time I have made buttercream icing. First time that I have used piping and chocolate for decoration and first time that I have tried to make a modern fondant cake.

I had gone to a cupcake icing class at the Make Cafe and loved it. But the buttercream icing was already made and it helped me feel confident with fondant for little things. But this was a big thing.

The cake vs the real ball

My friend Steff has been so incredibly helpful and if it was not for her I do not know how it would have turned out. She gave me a recipe for the icing and let me use her food colouring gels. Also gave me instruction on how to make the orange look dark enough for the right basketball colour. Also little tips on making grooves for the chocolate stripes. She gave me the confidence to go ahead and I have to say that it was heaps easier than I expected.

It is not perfect but I am thrilled!!

I have previously made cakes but just with normal icing or following my Mother-in-laws system of royal icing etc. So there has been aeroplane cakes, treasure chest cakes, lego cakes.

I link to these places.

Mayhem

What do you get when you advertise a Lego collection and show? A - thousands of kids!! Lots of noise. Queues out the door to the carpark. Amazing!! Jakob was in a state of bliss as this was his one event that he wanted to attend at kidsfest. We spent 3.5 hours there and I am sure he would have spent longer if he could.

What Jakob made in the play area

The gun and silencer that Eli made

The play pit

Some of the amazing collections

Elves I am sure

Thankfully the boys have spent a lot of time outdoors too. They have climbed everything they could find these holidays.

A sch

A chicken prison and a hut

Funny title huh. But I cannot think of any other way of describing my chicken run at the moment. Today has been the fifth time in about 6 weeks that I have put more work into the chook enclosure to try and keep the sparrows out.

We have never had any problem with sparrows but somehow this winter we have flocks of them and up to 60 sparrows in the chicken run getting their food. Not only is that expensive for us but I am worried about any disease they may pass as that many sparrows make a lot of poo!!!

They are horrendous pests. But so far today after all my hammering I have only seen two sparrows in the chook run. My work is not pretty!!! I have chicken netting over large netting with ties here and there and bird netting all over the top. So I wait to see how effective this has been........

While I was busy working on the chook run the boys spent ages making a "motel" on the deck. In the motel they had an infirmary and one bear had a sore head (ha ha ha) and the other a sore leg, all fixed with the ties from dressing gowns.

Now that the outside time is over I am sitting here eating scrummy old fashioned doughnuts.

the motel

The infirmary portion of the motel

The kitchen and second bedroom

My mothers doughnut recipe

I link to these places

A fantastic walk

We were lucky enough to be able to accompany Aaron on a work trip in the first week of the holidays. Destination Nelson.

One of the main reasons for going was to see my parents in Motueka. My mother has been very unwell over the last six months and it was great to see her getting better.

Eli had a cold so we did not want him going near my mother. The answer to that was to spend the day outside. So we walked around the estuary at Port Motueka. A gorgeous walk and really interesting. Just a slight deviation from the circuit is the lovely Toad Hall - a favourite eating spot for us. Fantastic for kids with all the outdoor play area.

We had a great day and nearly five hours outdoors walking, eating and exploring.

The first one up a tree.

The first find. A bird nest up the tree

Grandparents and grandchildren

My father makes amazing walking sticks

Another find on the path - a caterpillar (magpie butterfly) 

The very pregnant pigs just lay in the sun

Spoonbills

A pose from the boys.