Craft book month @ Craft Buds

This month is Craft Book month at Craft Buds and there has already been a blog hop where numerous bloggers have shared a project from their favourite craft book.

 

A book which I have been using quite a lot this year has been the Zakka Style book, which is a compilation of varied craft projects. There is a wonderful variety of projects in this book, ranging from fairly easy to quite difficult so there is really something for everyone.

One of my favourites was the Delightful linen bag designed by Mette Robl and I chose to use some of the new Umbrella Prints "Elephants Love Water" fabrics for my bag, along with some matching aqua linen.. 

I participated in the Zakka-style sew-along where each week one of the 24 projects was featured and only managed to get about half of the 24 projects done, but I would love to go back sometime and do the ones I have missed.

Linking up with Craft buds.
Kirsten.

DS Mini Quilt- String Star

I have finished sewing the binding on the mini quilt for the DS swap so it is ready to post off to my partner. I just did echo quilting in white around the star and in the white octagon running through the middle.

I used a tutorial from Corey at Little Miss Shabby for the String Star for this block and in order to get the white strips to line up, the middle is quite a bit off which is really frustrating. I tried unpicking and resewing the seams but my block was starting to fall apart so I have just had to sew it all back up again and hope for the best.

I have used fabrics from a number of Denyse Schmidt ranges for this mini - Picnic and Fairgrounds,  Winding Roads, Salty Aire, (Sugar Creek in the US) Aunt Edna, Daisy Mae and also some Flea Market Fancy.
Kirsten.

WIP Wednesday - String Star

I have finished the string star block that I am using for the DS mini quilt swap and it was certainly quite a challenging block to make.

I have seen quite a few of these lovely string star blocks popping up around blogland recently and they are all really beautiful when made from scrappy strips but I have chosen to do a rainbow effect which I hope my partner will like.

Linking to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.

Kirsten.

Tuesday at the Table - Chocolate Brownie

It is school holidays here and my daughter has been trying out a few of the recipe she does in Food Technology at school.  This is a similar recipe to one that I made at high school and is one of our favourites:)

Chocolate Brownie slice
INGREDIENTS:
2 cups Self-raising flour
6 tablespoons of cocoa
1 1/2 cups coconut
180g butter/margarine
3 eggs
1 packet of chocolate bits

METHOD:
Mix dry ingredients together.
Melt butter, and beat egg well. Add to dry ingredients.
Mix in well then add in chocolate bits.
Press into a flat lined tin, and cook at around 180 deg C for half an hour.
Let cool and dust with icing sugar before cutting into squares.

Linking to Tuesday at the Table with Debbie at A Quilter's Table.

Off to enjoy a piece of this slice with a coffee........

Kirsten.

Swooning on a Sunday

Although it is school holidays here for the next 2 weeks, my sons had to get up early to go to softball training this morning and as my husband hadn't returned home yet from celebrating his teams Rugby Union grand final win yesterday, I thought I would do a bit of sewing whilst I had the chance.

I had all of the pieces for my block cut out so it didn't take too long to sew the rows together. Here are the six blocks I have done so far:

Off to do a bit of quiet handstitching now as hubby is trying to sleep off the effects of last night:)
Linking to Sew Modern Monday at Canoe Ridge Creations, and to Fabric Tuesday at Quiltstory (buttons in sidebar).
Kirsten.

X-factor pillow received - Circle squared

Earlier this week  I received a parcel from Lisa (Incorgiable2) all the way from Canada, which contained an amazing pillow from the X-Factor pillow swap.

This pillow is called "Circle-Squared" and Lisa has used some tiny squares of pretty green, aqua and blue-grey fabrics in the centre patchworked piece.

It is quilted it in a grid pattern which really compliments the whole design. I love the texty print and dotty binding too. 

And the cute typewriters that are on the back remind me of my school days doing typing in class - a subject I took little knowing how handy it would come in now that we use keyboards all the time! I used to type up school/uni assignments on a typewriter just like these ones with a bottle of liquid paper at my side to correct typos. 

These are my swap pillows all on our bed - they really do look fabulous together I think!

Kirsten. 

WIP Wednesday - DUDQS

I am still in the process of quilting the mini for the Down Under Doll Quilt Swap (DUDQS) and realised that I hadn't posted a pic of the mini quilt top. 

I have used the Retro Flower pattern from The Sometimes Crafter for this - a variation on the drunkards path block which is really quite versatile. I used some template plastic which I found at Spotlight to cut out my templates for the fabric. It was my first time sewing curves but wasn't as tricky as I thought it would be. 

I also made a trip to the Post office the other day to send off a bunch of parcels that have been packaged up ready to send for a while now.

Linking to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.
Kirsten.

Tuesday at the Table

Both of my sons, as well as my husband play sport so that means travelling to various locations on the North Coast for their games. Last Friday night we went over to Lennox Head for my sons rugby semi-final and as they needed to be there an hour early for warm ups, we decided to find somewhere nice to go for dinner. 

picture source

We remembered that there was a Mexican restaurant not far from the fields so that was an easy choice - the town where we live had a great Mexican place (which is where we had our first date over 20 years ago) but it has closed down and we really miss it. We both chose the Chimichangas for dinner - beef and chicken so we could swap and have one of each. They came with side dishes of beans, rice and honey salad, and I think I liked the beef one more.

Afterwards we bought a refreshing lemon gelato from one of the ice cream shops and walked back to the fields to watch our sons rugby game.

My husband plays for the team in the red and black (green is Lennox Head) and they have made it to the finals this weekend - so we will all be going to watch him on Saturday afternoon. He recently played his 100th game for this team so maybe then he can hang up his footy boots for good:)

Linking to Tuesday at the Table with Debbie at A Quilter's Table.

Kirsten.

Sunday Stash

A few weeks ago a I received a lovely email telling me to get on over to Spoonflower where you were able to order a FQ of one of their fabrics for free and were only required to pay postage costs!! I browsed through Spoonflower and found a gorgeous fabric by one of my favourite designers: Valentina Ramos.

This fabric is called "Eli" - can you see the cute elephant hiding in there? When I got an new mobile phone at Christmas, I bought one of Valentinas iphone 4 covers which I really love, which was also of an elephant.

And I would also like to wish my daughter a very happy 17th birthday for this week too. With all 3 children's birthdays in 10 days it is a fairly busy time of the year at our house

.I managed to convince them to get a photo together under the Yesterday-Today- Tomorrow tree which I try to do at this time each year. 
Kirsten.

Modern Quilted Pillow Swap - round 2

I participated in the first round of this swap, and I really liked the idea of just making a pillow with no one in particular in mind as it is a great way to try out new ideas, or even just making something for fun.

So this was the pillow I made for the second round - a scrappy spiderweb pillow using some  scraps of some of my favourite fabrics.

I have done a spiderweb design before but this one is much more colourful, and I even did a bit of handstitching in some pretty blue perle thread which is something I am trying to do more of.

This pillow is now in transit to its new home where it will hopefully be enjoyed, and I am still stalking the posite for my pillow:) The second round was great as no-one got a pillow below their 5th choice! The swap has now been renamed "X-factor pillows", and the 3rd round is on now with a theme of "triangles" although it can be of any design - pillows are due by 6th October.
Linking to Sew Modern Monday at Canoe Ridge Creations, and to Fabric Tuesday at Quiltstory (buttons in left sidebar).
Kirsten.

WIP Wednesday

I have finally had a chance to make a start on the mini quilt for the DSQ swap. This is all have done so far so I need to get a move on - I am using a tutorial from here.

I have also signed up for another swap - the Mouthy Stitches swap on flickr. 

Linking to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.

 

Kirsten.

Zakka sew-along: Happy Garland Hoop

This would definitely have to be the easiest project in the Zakka book, and also one of the cutest too.

I think these hoops would make great gifts too as they could be used for a number of things - I am using mine to hold a small photo of my kids taken a few years ago.

Mum gave me these little coloured wooden pegs a few months ago and I kept them with this project in mind. Linking to LR Stitched, and also to Fabric Tuesday at Quiltstory

Kirsten.

Just 3 for September

September means the start of Spring here in Australia, and it is already warming up. The Just 3 projects which I did in August were:
1. Make a start on the mini quilt for the DUDQS
2. Swoon 5
3.Lets Get Acquainted blog hop post/tutorial
And I also finished the Colourful Grannies sewing machine cover that I started back in July.

Now, my Just 3 for September are:
1. DUDQS - I have sewn the mini quilt and am going to try a bit of handquilting so I can post it off in early October.

2.DS mini quilt swap - our partners have been assigned for this swap now so I would like to get started on making a mini. This is the inspiration mosaic I posted for the swap.

1. Chicopee quilt, 2. Cosmos Pillow, 3. mini quilt, 4. flickr.com/photos/74067014@N00/7798072774/, 5. chicopee sliced, 6. Vintage Sewing Machine and Notions - Sew Out Loud QAL #5, 7. Modern Medallion Quilt Center, 8. Spool Pillow Top, 9. NY Beauty Pillow Swap, 10. pillow swap from twinfibers, jessica, 11. George the Elephant, 12. My 241 Tote Bag, 13. All done!, 14. The Maisy Quilt, 15. A Pattern, A Freebie, and A Giveaway!, 16. kaleidoscope pillow

3.Swoon quilt - still plodding away at this but I am in no real rush to finish it as winter is over now here in Australia, so I have plenty of time to get it done before next winter.

Linking to just 3 with Tracey, and to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced (buttons in left sidebar).

Kirsten.

Tuesday at The Table

Last weekend we celebrated our twin sons 14th birthdays so my daughter decorated a cake for each of them. This cake was the one for the first born (at 2.32 pm) Flynn, who likes green,

 And this one for the second born (at 2.45 pm ) Conor: 

Hard to believe my two boys (who are both taller than me) are growing up so much..

Linking to Tuesday at the Table with Debbie at A Quilter's Table. Kirsten.