opshops and buttons

this weekend has involved a nice bit of opshopping. love it. i found lots of fun things, and was proud of my restraint a couple of times. but mainly i wanted to talk to you about this...

 

see i bought these great pants that someone had thrown out, just because they were missing a button. so this afternoon, out came one of the jars from my button collection. spilled all over the bed and poured though, until i found the perfect one. 

love it!

quilting

this quilting thing really seems to be taking hold. after the success i have been having with the quilt i am making for my new nephew-on-the-way, i thought i'd have another go at a simpler quilt.

basically the idea stems comes from the fact that my friend has wooden floors and wanted something a bit soft to be able put her bub down on. a floor quilt. i whipped this one up in an less than two hours. using two pillowcases and some of an old quilted dressing gown as the wadding. i am pretty happy with the outcome:

i learnt a lot about machine quilting in this (given i had no idea before i started, it was easy to learn a lot) and in retrospect i think doing the quilting in a mix of brown thread / yellow bobbin would have added to the finished look. (truth be told, i did think of it at the time, but was too lazy to run upstairs to get the brown thread and don't actually own any yellow). the next one i make however, will have feature colour machine quilting. and i am thinking i will possibly make it a little bigger (this one was limited by the scrap of dressing gown i had).

oh dear, see i used the term "the next one"... it seems like i'm planning it already. i tell you what if i get addicted to quilting i'm going to blame gina (check out her fabulous green quilt, and this one here the one that started me on this whole quilting venture). i really don't know if my life can fit in another addiction or another obsession...

my creative space

i'm tired tonight. work has been really crazy recently, i'm only two days into my working week, and i have already done an extra half a day, and i can't see it calming down anytime soon. so i really don't have much in the way of words, but i still did want to share a few pics of what's been going on in my creative space over the last week. lots of creating...

 sewing the binding on this project
 

 making some mini grannies for this project

 

and a brand new project! i got a jug cover pattern book for my birthday, and so i popped out to spotlight to get some proper crochet cotton and a mini crochet hook. and it's good fun, but the only problem is that i can't talk and follow patterns, so this is a no-one else around kinda project. 

how are your creative space projects going?

the (late) last owl

i somehow forgot to post this poor little guy. so it's a bit late, but here 'tis, all done!.

and while we are on my brithday..

i thought i'd show you this. it's what my mum posted down to me for my birthday:

ok, it's not that she got confused between celebrating my birthday and celebrating Jesus' birthday. she just gave me some of the christmas decorations that i made as a kid. and that is pretty precious. the fact mum has kept them all these years is pretty amazing. and its pretty special that after keeping them for so long she has shared these ones with me. 

they evoke so many memories - not so much of the making them, but of christmas and of the decorating the tree every year. and they also remind me that i have been into this making stuff pretty much all my life. and there's something kinda nice in that.

have you always been making stuff too?

more excitment!

i won a giveaway! from the very lovely catherine over at pencils and pins. they arrived in the post this week, on my birthday would you believe! i find it pretty amazing to get such a fabulous birthday present from someone i've never actually met. i'm not going to gush about blogging and friendship and stuff (i'm not really the gushing kind), but i will say it's really quite amazing to be connected with such a great group of women, who make stuff, all over the world. 

and quite exciting to win a giveaway!

these little guys were the original giveaway prize

and because it was my birthday, she also stuck in some fabulous vintage sheeting,which will go great in my collection, and a cute little hanky. such fun prints. 

thanks catherine!

gluten free excitment

eeek! i'm so excited! check this out:

it's pizza dough. and look at this:

see it's not just any pizza dough, but this baby is gluten free! i've been making gluten free pizza dough for awhile now, and each time it has turned out somewhere in between cake batter and a very wet scone dough. sticky, impossible to roll. i had to coat my hands in flour and press it out into shape. but last night - it made a ball. and rolled out beautifully and even draped properly. 

all thanks to my new find. i heard about this ages ago, but had no idea where to get it. after talking with sandrine, i actually decided to see if i could find some, and in the end found it at the supermarket!

after demanding admiration for my dough far and wide, i did eventually make the dough into pizza. mmm gluten free pizza goodness...

 

crafternoon goodness!

ahh, what a saturday we had. unexpected sunshine. good food and a crafternoon.

 




there was great food (easy peasy chocolate cake, fabulous and melt in your mouth macaroons and blue cheese scones) 




 

 

 
i was working on making a quilted sandwich for my next quilt project

there was drawing and painting going on, but mostly i wanted to show you this: sculpture by my lovely friend. (sorry some of the pics are blue-ish - i forgot to turn the filter off)

 she was sculpting it out of this weird aerated concrete stuff, and it was so much fun!

 

i couldn't believe how great it looked by the end of the crafternoon. the finished product is going to be fabulous!

an october challenge

so, i'm not actually doing blogtoberfest. (despite the fact that i have posted pretty much every day this week). 

no, i've signed up for the salvo's nothing new challenge. it means that i am going to not buy anything new for the whole of october. given my everpresent love of op-shops, i didn't think it would actually be too hard for me to do (is that dodgy, signing up for a challenge cos you think it will be easy?), and it's been a good reminder of the fact that really, i already have a lot of stuff, and actually i don't need to buy anything new. 

my only problems so far have been presents for others. the first one was easy, my friend who recently got married wasn't keen on getting "stuff" that they wouldn't be able to fit into their place, so a bottle of my burnt fig jam was very well received. but i've got a someone else's birthday coming up, and the best plan for a present - you know, when you come up with the PERFECT present idea and can't wait to get it and give it to them cos you know they will love it... the problem is that i have to buy it new. its not something you find in op-shops. and there aren't any second hand ones available.

i have a dilemma. do i buy it new and break my pledge? or do i hold off and wait until november and thus give them the present late (which kinda feels like poor taste, given i am holding off for my benefit and they lose out a little)? and given that i am going to buy it in november, does it matter if i buy it in october, despite my buy nothing new pledge?

what would you do?    

my creative space

is still full of owls...

i thought i'd be done by now. i really should have been done by now. but due to badly thought out cutting out. (read as forgot to add decent amount of seam allowance) i've had to hand stich these buddies up. 

i've come to the conclusion i HATE hand sewing. well, HATE is a bit strong. but i certainly don't love it, and i've come to the realisation that an embroidery hoop would make a big difference (of course, i don't actually have one), so the slow slow slow hand sewing does continue. hopefully, this last owl will be finished soon. 

at least they will be finished by the time the show "owl in spotlight" goes up at la mama theatre in carlton next week. its going to be a great show and is for all ages - if you are in melbourne, you should check it out. 

and check out all the creative spaces this week...

its all about the food this week...

and after my gluten free cooking boasting last night, tonight its all about the gluten.

orrechiette with multicoloured broccolini. 

good pasta, with home grown* broccolini, a bit of chilli and a handful of parmesan. easy and so so good... and so full of gluten. good thing that in our house its only about having less gluten, rather than having to be totally gluten free!

*i must confess, not grown by me but in someone else's garden