Friday, March 3, 2017

My latest adventures



beach art


So my eldest turned 14 - wow how did that happen. The next weekend while the youngest was at Soccer trials Jakob and I went for an hour and half walk to the beach and back. Even though it is summer it was cool. Jakob picked handfuls of tiny tiny stones and threw them specifically to make artistic patterns in the sand. We then took photos to analyse whether it looked good or not

The beach always has driftwood houses built. This one was well past high tide and survived well. If the weather was icky it would be the place to retreat to.

The walk goes past about 25 plum trees. A couple still had some very ripe plums on them to snack on the way.
Post operation I have now been permission to get back in the pool. So am doing a couple of mornings at aquasize and then some family length swimming time.
Turning these two chairs into a hallway bench seat is well in progress. Loving it so far, just need to finish.


There has been a lot of travel for work to catch up on the time out from the operations and so a bit of stitching has occurred on a few flights. Sometime I have been too tired on the way home, to do anything.

I wanted to get into running and was managing to get started when my calf muscles pinged a couple of times. Not good. Now I can do these things my body is letting me know that it is a bit old!!
A walk on a hot day to our favourite place. Two days after the walk a huge fire raged and thousand of people were evacuated. The area is now just burnt out.
This was climbing almost to the top of Sugar Loaf. I have not been able to go up for five years. I was so thrilled to be heading back to getting views.
My gorgeous boys.


Monday, February 27, 2017

One quilt leads to another...

In my last post I showed a scrap quilt made of my big bag of strips. Thrilled that the patchwork was finished, I completed a blog post. The next day I found a pile more strips from that same scrap bag that in my sorting I had put elsewhere.
scrap patchwork
So all inspired, I thought I should crack on and get all the scraps used. 
I sewed them as before but into a long oblong that when folded in half created two squares. Then I put the squares right side together,. sewed it as though I was doing half square triangles.  
And I got it wrong!!! I wanted the stripes going the opposite way. 
So a bit of unpicking and some resewing and I ended up with a different pattern.
I had seen this on someone else's blog but can't remember whose. If I find it then I will add the details to this post. 
never ending strip quilt
In the spirit of using every single one of my scrap strips I then sewed the remainder around as borders. It still needs to be a little bit bigger. So as I cut things wrong in the next few months I will add them on to finish the quilt. So another quilt for Hope Homes International. And a finish enough that this can go into the cupboard until later.

Linking to these places and crazy mum quilts.

Saturday, February 11, 2017

Never ending strip quilt - Finished

Finally another patchwork top finished for the Orphans at Hope Homes International. I still have one waiting to be quilted and bound but decided to do some simple sewing instead.  Over my two convalescences I have found it very hard to concentrate on projects etc. So I wanted something that would fill a need but help me to be creative without being taxing. 
I emptied my entire bag of leftover strips. slowly over weeks I put them into piles of their respective widths. Then I chain sewed them together. From there I used the technique that Missouri Star Quilt Company call - The jelly roll race.
It is a very quick assembly, though because I had different sizes I had to put it together in sections rather than one whole. Using a whole bag of leftovers has been great - BUT there are still some leftovers so that might be the beginning of the next quilt!!!

Thrilled to have a finish, it has been great being able to craft without it being taxing. This is a finish for FAL2017 and I link to Crazy Mum Quilts and these places.

2017 FAL

Wednesday, February 1, 2017

An upcycle finish

For a while now I have been upcycling shirts into other clothing. The one I consistently do is to make business shirts into nighties. I choose linen and cotton so they are lovely to wear. This is three shirts into one nightie.
refashion
I actually had it cut out before I went into hospital last time, but did not get it made. My other ones are wearing thin so I had to hop to it.
I started with these three shirts
It has been a good time to sew as the summer weather has been like winter. Colleen and I at the river on a day which was meant to be 26 degrees C but, like all other days, ended up cold and windy.

Linking to Crazy mum quilts and these links as well as being my first 2017 FAL.
2017 FAL

Sunday, January 29, 2017

Cooking from the books - Annabel Langbein

We have a lot of pork mince at the moment as we grew a pig on Aaron's Aunties Farm. So when Aaron gave me Annabel Langbein's latest Celebrate Summer magazine while I was in hospital, I noticed this recipe: Banh Mi Burgers. We love Asian flavours and I had all the ingredients.
I did not want to do burgers so I chose one of her "go free range" options on the page - turn the meat into meatballs.
recipe, Banh Mi Burger
As it was going to be a meal on rice I made a slightly larger quantity of the salad and added some finely shredded cabbage to the veges when marinating them. 
Page49

It made a gorgeous meal which Aaron and I loved. One of the boys like the salad but not the meatballs and the other boy liked the meatballs but not the salad. I would definitely make this again.

Friday, January 27, 2017

Another Maker in the family

Although I encourage both my boys to be doers and makers of things, it is only my youngest who is really interested. This year he has decided to be retro and make his own skateboard. It has taken a huge amount of work. Pattern drafting, template making, sanding, a big mistake with the holes for the second set of trucks.
The back
The front






The pose!!
He has persevered and with a little help from Pop to fix the mistake - WOW. Diligent, persistent and consistent in applying himself. I am so impressed.

Saturday, January 21, 2017

What the Elves made at Christmas

In mid December I posted about how hard the elves and I were working on a present for Aaron. I could only reveal the making - but now that Christmas is over and presents are received. Ta Da... here it is.
coffee mat
Our new leather sofa had such large arms that you want to put your coffee cup and cake plate on it. But we did not want that to happen and we did not want piles of little tables everywhere. So the boys (elves) and I made this. 

The back covered in soft bamboo

The front. A main big piece of wood with smaller on the sides



















I had seen an ad on facebook for something similar at $50. But this was just two pieces of wood from the local hardware shop, stapled gross grain ribbon at the top, middle and bottom and then covered in bamboo batting so the leather would not get scratched.

This fits on any sofa or Lazy boy in our house. A great alternative to cluttering the place with lots of tables.
Stapling the ribbon on
Gluing on the batting


I link to these places and crazy mum quilts.

A gorgeous break in Rarotonga

Woo hoo, A holiday with no kids for 11 days. Bliss, relaxing and warm! BTW it was an early 20th wedding anniversary present to ourselves....