JenMeister

In memory of Ian

2012-01-23T20:00:00.000+11:00

This portrait was made in memory of Ian, one year on.

I completed it in November 2010, using Dudecraft's excellent tutorial.

Christmas in New Zealand

2012-01-01T21:12:00.003+11:00

A lot has happened since I last posted. I graduated, for starters! After graduating, I headed to New Zealand for a holiday (my older sister bought a house there), before returning to Australia for work. A year later and I am back in New Zealand, once again for a Christmas holiday.

My younger sister and I made a gingerbread house, as is tradition...

Only this time, it featured banana-wielding ninjas, among other details....

You could, in fact, call it a ninja bread house! Badoom boom ching!

It's been lovely to kick back after a very full-on year. I have been crafting, just not blogging. I hope to share some of my creative work from 2011 in the coming months.

In the meantime, I got up to a little crafting here!

My older sister and I bought a sewing machine for her house last year, and I calculate it has made about 80 Morsbags. To liven things up, I decided to make a little pincushion-in-a-basket. I picked up the cute basket from Trade Aid and the fabric is left over from making Morsbags.

I winged the pattern and ended up having to make the insert smaller. Let's just say that it's a good thing that the basket is curved and you can't see the edges where I brought it in!

Also, it was fun stuffing the cushion with scraps of fabric (I had no filling), but it does mean that there's a bit of resistance when it comes to pushing in the pins. I'm sure it makes for an efficient pin bluntener if nothing else!

I'll leave you with a picture of some of the decorations up in my room here in New Zealand. On the left, the 2012 Frankie Calendar (a Chrissie present) and on the right, a tea towel I picked up from a local op-shop. I'm loving greys and greens at the moment.

Happy new year, everyone!

Intricate stencil work

2010-09-13T16:10:00.004+10:00

So... my crafting hiatus didn't last very long. Ahem.

This is not my artwork. A friend of mine gave it to me after I complimented him on it many years ago. Now a special event of his is coming up, and yesterday was the 9th International Morsbagging Sunday, so I decided to print some Morsbags with his design on them.

I painstakingly traced the design onto freezer paper and cut it out (nothing like a looming deadline to make such tasks seem attractive). Doing the leaves and the basket was extremely fiddly.

Seeing the freezer paper ironed on the bag briefly made me consider screenpainting the design in white rather than black!

This was the first print. I made two, because I wanted to make the most out of all that cutting! As you can see, it's the inverse of the original artwork. It was simple because, as you can see from a couple of photos back, it was made from a single cut-out.

Here is the second, more fiddly bag. For this one, I ironed down all the remaining cut-out pieces one by one.

I had originally planned to add some of the finer details (flowers, petals, hair...) with embroidery thread after painting the bags, but I've decided that they look good as they are, and the threads would probably just snag on the inside of the bag anyway.

The labels went on the back, as there was no real place for them on the front.

Here's a little visual reminder of why you need to place some newspaper (or my favourite - cereal boxes) under fabric that you're screen-painting so that the ink doesn't seep through.

For the presentation, I rolled them up and tied them together with a simple tie I made from the same linen I used for the bags.

The linen was picked up for next to nothing at my local op-shop and was so beautifully soft and easy to work with, that I fear I will not want to sew nor print on anything but the best!

Everything has been packed away again, so hopefully I can get some uni work done now. Although when I went to bed last night, my mind was racing with ideas for doll joints and projects using them... uh oh!

My creative space

2010-09-07T09:00:00.000+10:00

My desk is my creative hub. It is the only space I have for work and play. A mix of uni work, personal work and crafting.

The lovely decorations on my wall are from Bobberdilly (the cat), Deadpan Alley (the two portraits), Tollipop (the wee girl), Cathy Cullis (the illustration on the far left) and Sycamore Press (the pencil stubs).

For the next month or so, I'll be concentrating on the work side of things. I've packed away my sewing machine, boxed up my fabric stash, brought out all my books, set up my computer, and will be concentrating on finishing my honours thesis. It's due on October 25... wish me luck!

Australian native flower-press

2010-08-31T19:00:00.000+10:00

I had some flowers fading fast, so I decided it was time to do some flower-pressing!

I love the design & colours of this flower-press, which is from my childhood. It still has bits of paper & cardboard from back in the day wedged inside it...

After a few weeks, I could wait no longer and prised open the press.

Results as expected! The white flower wasn't very pretty, but the jonquils turned out really well.

Unsure as to what I actually wanted to do with the flowers, I whipped this up. You can spin the wheel for different early-morning remarks!

Stencilled morsbags using the handle in the design

2010-08-28T16:12:00.006+10:00

I was prepared for the 8th International Morsbagging Sunday, organised by I bag you, and had 26 kits cut and and ready to be sewn.

Here are the finished bags! The material is from 4 single sheets from my childhood. There wasn't quite enough for them all to have matching handles, so I decided that some of them would get one black handle which would then work into a design. Much like the red lemur bag!

Next came the planning stage. This involved lots of quick sketches to get some inspiration. I ended up with 17 bags to stencil! So far, I've managed...

A snake bag...

A hanging monkey bag (with one skinny ankle)....

A power cord bag (with sparks - first time I've used colour fabric paint)...

An umbrella bag...

A cat bag (I used a photo to design this one, hence its realism)...

And last but not least, a fatty fatty boombah bag. As you can see, realistic anatomy is not my strong point, unless copied from a photo!

There's a bit of go-go-gadget arm action happening there. And some cankles. And boy is that ape one fatty boombah. No more bananas for you!

Six down, eleven to go... If you have any ideas, please share!

Toy Society Drop: No llores, Lorretta #2 (with added lightning!)

2010-08-22T19:25:00.010+10:00

Since I made the ¡no llores, Lorretta! pattern available, I thought I'd better test it. The first time I made the toy I didn't really use a pattern.

I had different colours of felt to work with, so it came out a little differently. Still pretty cute, I reckon.

After making the toy, I made a few adjustments to the pattern for next time (the right hand was a little wonky, redid the cloud bumps between the arms...). Looking at the pictures now, I probably should have also trimmed the dark felt a bit more so it didn't show up on the happy side!

I decided to leave her for someone to find, as a Toy Society Drop (#1332).

I left Lorretta attached to a tree near one of Lake Burley Griffin's walking tracks (Canberra, Australia) around midday.

Related post: Free toy pattern: Lorretta

Free toy pattern: Lorretta

2010-08-18T10:00:00.014+10:00

UPDATE: Pattern updated 09/10/10

UPDATE: Alternate "retro" version of pattern added 09/10/10
Please scroll down for details.

You may recall I did a Toy Society Drop (#1179) earlier this year called No llores, Lorretta!

This was the toy in question:

I've finally gotten around to making a pattern for it, which I am releasing under an attribution, share-alike creative commons license, which means you are allowed to modify and redistribute the pattern, as long as you do so under the same license and give credit.

UPDATE: After realising that toys made from the original pattern posted here look quite different to the ones in the photos above, I made a second pattern which matched the first toy better. I'm calling it the "retro" version. I also added a lightning bolt to the original pattern.
The files below have been updated, and the old version is still available too.

Original pattern v2.0:

Retro pattern:

If you want to edit the pattern directly in Inkscape or an equivalent program, here are the original design files:

Original pattern v2.0:

Retro pattern:

Lorretta comes in shy of 15cm (~6") but the pattern can be easily scaled to any size. The construction is very basic, hence the lack of tutorial. I used running stitch in matching colours to sew the face to the cloud and running stitch in black (for contrast) to sew the two main pieces together. I started with the arms and used a chopstick to stuff in small amounts of polyfill as I went.

Mary Corbet has a fantastic video library of stitches including running stitch and blanket stitch.

I hope you enjoy the pattern, it's fun to do a little hand sewing from time to time!

Leather book sleeve

2010-08-14T13:37:00.004+10:00

I first saw a pattern for a book sleeve in Zakka Sewing. I'd been waiting for a special occasion to make one, as unfortunately books here come in every size and shape, making such a sleeve unlikely to be reusable for other books.

(Spot the cathy cullis doll in the pic above!)

I was tossing up which fabric to use for it when I remembered that the recipient of this gift had been given some thin leather that had been cut out from the back of the couch of a loved one. It had special meaning for him. Leather is not a material I've worked with before, or plan to work with again.

It didn't need any lining, but I was keen to use this green fabric that I'd saved from the ends of a pillowcase, the rest of which was made into a Morsbag.

Unfortunately I didn't think it through very well and the fabric was threadbare and the leather had a mind of its own. Let's just say that turning it inside out and poking out the corners was a little nerve-wracking.

I used some old packaging to make a little clear pocket on the front.

I also had some beautiful woven ribbon that I'd picked up from my local op-shop which I used to embellish the book and make a bookmark.

I guess I can always whip up some blank books in that size to fit inside the sleeve for future gifts!

If you'd like to make your own journal cover, there are some great resources here:

Jumping on the breadwagon

2010-08-08T08:08:00.001+10:00

I think I may be late to the "Artisan bread in 5 minutes a day" party.... The master recipe is available free online, so go forth and experiment if you haven't already!

Reversible cycling cap

2010-08-01T13:11:00.022+10:00

UPDATE: Pattern updated 02/10/10
Please scroll down for details.

This reversible cycling cap was intended ad a gift, and as you can see it's a bit big for me! I scored the tweed material for next to nothing at my local op-shop, and the plastic in the brim (which allows it to flick upward like a traditional cycling cap) came from a display folder's cover. No that is not a real fingerstache tattoo, and the brooch is from Dog Daisy.

I got the idea from Panda Face's original pattern on flickr, which has some interesting comments and links to photos. Dude craft's video tutorial and PDF pattern were also a great help. The pattern is for a non-reversible cap and his brim is more like a baseball-cap. Unlike Panda Face's pattern, which needs some adjusting to get the proportions right, Dude Craft's is correctly proportioned and ready to print. It helped me create my own pattern using the more traditional brim as per Panda Face's pattern.

With their permission, I am releasing the pattern under an attribution, share-alike creative commons license, which means you are allowed to modify and redistribute the pattern as long as you do so under the same license and give credit.

UPDATE: After feedback from the recipient, I have modified the pattern to make the brim a little skinnier and the hat a little shorter. The files below have been updated, and the old versions are still available too. I have also removed the non-commercial clause from the creative commons license.

This pattern makes a cap with roughly a 62cm (24.4") circumference.

If you want to edit the pattern directly in Inkscape or an equivalent program, here is the original design file:

One day I plan to write up a proper tutorial on how to make the cap reversible and adjust the pattern size for different heads.

The basic idea is that you cut out 8 cap pieces and 2 brim pieces. You sew up the middle seam of each cap piece, then sew the cap pieces together in pairs. Next, grab two double cap pieces and join them. Check size against your head, adjust seams in as necessary. Repeat with the two remaining double cap pieces.

Next, take the two brim pieces and sew them together. Insert the plastic piece, sew around the edge of the brim (through the plastic) to keep in it place and sew the opening shut. Finally, put the two cap pieces together (right sides facing) and sandwich the brim piece between the two. Sew around the edge, leaving an opening at the back through which you then pull the cap right-side-out.

Fold under the sides of the opening and put some elastic in if you like. To finish it off, top-stitch all the way around the bottom of the cap, thus closing the opening and making sure both sides of the cap sit correctly.

Bearded man ATC

2010-07-28T19:49:00.001+10:00

My honours thesis is due in under three months, so expect a lot of procrastination crafting!

This afternoon, in between readings on survey-based experimental research via the web, I whipped up a Frankie Magazine ATC for a Send Something letter. Isn't the picture of the bearded guy awesome? It's made by the lovely lady over at the handmade romance blog.

I definitely need to carve a rubber stamp for the back of ATCs... could be a bit fiddly though!

Stamp carving with Brown Owls

2010-07-25T17:36:00.007+10:00

I hadn't been to a Brown Owls meeting in such a long time, so it was great to be back and crafting with other people again.

This month's activity was stamp carving, and there are some great tutorials listed for it if you're interested. I'd been a little disheartened by my attempt to carve lino, but carving erasers was a much nicer experience!

It's nice to be able to give it a go, ink it, and then make adjustments. For instance, I had to get rid of a bit in the corner of the robo-postbox one. Also, don't forget to reverse things like writing if you are drawing directly on to the stamp... that's how I ended up with an exclamation mark before the envelope!

These are the sketches I worked from... and I'd love to think up some more. These will be great for stamping envelopes with. Check out the meet's stamping round-up for some great inspiration!

Vegan snickerdoodles

2010-07-23T17:10:00.001+10:00

These are just delicious. Crunchy on the outside and a touch chewy on the inside. The perfect pick-me-up! I got the recipe from Vegan Yum Yum's book, the same one I got the apple strudel recipe from. Having a vegan housemate is certainly a good excuse to do some fun baking...

The recipe is over on the Vegan Yum Yum blog and for you aussies, I used nuttelex for the margarine and Ogran's "No egg".

Constance bunny from tollipop

2010-07-16T14:13:00.006+10:00

Just the other day, I had the surreal experience of visiting tollipop and seeing my name staring back at me... I'd won the Constance bunny giveaway!

Here's Constance bunny, next to Clementine. I do hope that cup of tea is for me. There are so many lovely prints & originals available from the tollipop etsy shop.

It's so cute, I immediately wanted to make a little stuffed Constance bunny toy. I sketched a quick design or two, and we'll see if I find the time/energy to whip it up!

If you're quick, there's another tollipop giveway going at the moment! So head on over if you'd like a wee original for yourself. Especially if you like bunnies and icecream...

The envelope project

2010-07-12T00:20:00.002+10:00

I'm a late comer to the Envelope project over at Meet me at Mike´s. I was motivated to join in the fun after seeing the envelopes that Anna Bartlett and Ingela Parrhenius sent in. The idea is that the decorated envelopes will be displayed in Pip's shop, and then one participant will be drawn at random and will receive the contents of all the envelopes. You can see the full set of photos over at flickr. If you want to join in, make sure your envelope arrives before the 2nd of August!

Here's a sneak peak of the contents of my envelope. On the left is a sweet gocco print of a bowerbird from Stellar Baby. On the right are two bookmarks - one is from a Colombian book shop (it says "reading is the key") and the other is from New Caledonia.

Send some sparks of fun through the postal system!

Cute as a button.... cuff-link!

2010-07-06T19:26:00.004+10:00

I am not posting because I've found a great new tutorial, nor do I have something something I've made to share with you... It's just that these cuff-links make me happy! I bought this shirt from an op-shop recently and didn't realise until I got home that it required cuff-links.

Fortuitous, then, that I dropped by Shop handmade for some retail therapy, and found these cuties by Lilypad Designs.

Birds and bears on bags, oh my!

2010-06-27T08:44:00.011+10:00

Spurred on by the 6th International Morsbagging Sunday and a request to donate bags for a "rubbish and bag free" primary school fête in Melbourne, I whipped up 11 Morsbags last Sunday. Two of these were stencilled...

This bag was decidedly plain and brown, so I decided it needed jazzing up with some birds sitting around on a wire. Which I made into a branch on the spur of the moment by branching one end and making the second one a little curvy.

Of course, once finished, I realised it looked a little silly. Talk about the world's strongest, skinniest branch!

Also, I recommend properly ironing down the freezer paper stencil and always painting away from the edges. Otherwise you end up with blobs like those you can see in the close-up above. But remember... it's a branch! Saved!

Shared under an cc-by-nc license

{source: Dr Case}

The inspiration for this stencil came from the above picture, snapped by Justin Case in Barcelona. I have a lot of my own pictures of street art that I've taken around the world which I also love to draw inspiration from.

The next Morsbag was cute on its own, made from a thrifted cushion cover. The polka-dots reminded me of snow flakes, so I decided a polar bear would be a nice addition.

Even though I've bought coloured screen painting ink, I still end up working predominantly in black and white.

And just to finish up, here's a picture of a stencilled Morsbag I made a little while ago from an old sheet. I have a lot more of this fabric, and I hope each one will each have a stencilled picture to distract people from the pattern!

Modified hand-me-down

2010-06-23T23:24:00.003+10:00

Before ............................. After

Inspired by New Dress A Day, I modified this hand-me-down into something more suited to my style. Excuse the awful mirror shots! I obviously need to rope a friend into taking photos (or modelling) for me.

First thing I did was get rid of the floaty skirty bit and hem it. I have one shirt like that already and it always sits a bit awkwardly on me.

Next I removed the straps because the shirt was a few sizes too small and the sides were up in my armpits. Instead of cutting and hemming the front, I just folded it down and secured it with some tiny stitches. It stays up, but I have enough material left over to make some straps later, if I choose.

Hurry up, Summer!

1950s Cheerleading costume

2010-05-26T22:15:00.004+10:00

That, my friends, is what happens when you try to take an action shot of yourself using the 10-second timer on a cheap camera balanced on a cereal box, on a chair, with no natural light left in the day.

Recently, a friend hosted a murder mystery party. It was good fun because I could reminisce about the ones I went to when I was at school... and because dress-ups are always fun!

I was told my character was a 1950s cheerleader. A quick google image search revealed that the 1950s cheerleading outfits were pretty chaste! Of course I left making the costume to the day of the party, so I had to work fast, with materials I already had!

I had a bunch of plain green fabric, so I whipped up a really simple skirt using Gosgrain's fabulous 20-minute skirt tutorial. It turned out too long (my fault!), but I was too lazy to hem it up as the bottom of the skirt was the selvedge... best idea ever!

I chose one of my white shirts to wear, and traced an R onto a sheet of cheap green acrylic felt. I cut it out and stuck it on with double-sided sticky tape which easily lasted the night and didn't leave any marks on my shirt!

For the pom-poms, I just tore long thin strips of green and white fabric. For each one, I took a bunch of strips, doubled them over and tied the middle off with an elastic band, leaving enough room for a finger to loop through it.

It was a fun night, though I must confess I didn't guess the murderer...

I'm looking forward to making a more flattering skirt with the tutorial soon!

How now, brown... sheet!

2010-05-23T10:32:00.003+10:00

I had an old brown sheet to cut up, but was struggling a bit to think of ways to make the bags pretty. It needed a stencilled design on it! Since my last foray into freezer paper stencilling, I have acquired more screen-painting ink colours! I now have black, white, blue, red and yellow.

White seemed perfect... and I was totally lazy and ended up using my laptop's screen as a lightbox, zooming in on the design and placing the freezer paper directly on the screen, tracing over the picture lightly.

Stencil: "Cypress Tree" by Lynell Harlow, available from www.stencilwithstyle.com/lgcatalog2.htm

Sometimes a Morsbag sets itself apart from the rest, and needs to be sent to someone rather than bundled off to the op-shop. This one made its way to Anna Bartlett, a blogfriend who wrote a lovely post about it.

The remaining brown bags had scraps of the blue/brown fabric attached to them.

Unfortunately, due to the length of the scraps & some interesting pinning, the result was less than picture-perfect. Adds to the charm, I'm sure... but next time I may place the stripe off-center, down one side!

Update on the Cheryl Lavon Memorial Quilt

2010-05-20T17:29:00.002+10:00

{source - crochet.junkie}

Just a quick update on the progress of the quilt being made by swap-bot members to be donated to the American Cancer Association in memory of Cheryl Lavon. Crochet.junkie has pieced together all the blocks into a quilt top. You can see details of each block in the Cheryl Lavon Memory Group.

I'm looking forward to seeing how it turns out after quilting!

First attempt at a quilt block: dancing dragonfly

Dragonfly... or coconut tree?

365 days. 365 items of clothing. 365 dollars.

2010-05-13T13:43:00.002+10:00

{source: Marisa}

I've been following Marisa's "New dress a day" adventure for several months now, and I love the daily dose of inspiration. Her challenge is 365 days. 365 items of clothing. 365 dollars.

So here’s the deal friends, I’m going to be spending the entire year without doing an ounce of traditional clothing shopping.
Instead, the only shopping that I’ll be able to do is that of pieces that have been used and worn already. So long to mall trips and hello to sifting through piles of vintage pieces at flea markets and at neighborhood garage sales. Each day for the entire year, I’m going to introduce a new piece into my existing wardrobe that I’ve found from these places. On top of this, I’m giving myself a budget of $1 a day.

{source: Marisa}

Don't you just love the great before & after shots?

{source: Marisa}

I love that the alterations are simple. The majority of her work involves fixing holes, removing shoulder pads, bringing up hemlines, bringing down necklines, and bringing in the sides. Things that none of us should be afraid of!

{source: Marisa}

What did Marisa make of this dress? Click through to find out!

I've been meaning to interview Marisa, but it's taken me too long, and several other people have beaten me to the punch. If you're wanting to find out more about the project, such as when Marisa learned to sew, what she plans to do with the finished garments, how long the pieces take, etc., then head over to the following sites:

There was only one unanswered question left burning in my mind... What on earth was she going to do with all the left over shoulder pads?

{source: Marisa}

Marisa's reply?

Ooh, good burning question...well, when the pads fill up in that large jar, I'm going to have a little guessing contest with the readers which a few fun prizes will be given out. I've actually had people email me things that they've either done or have heard others do with old pads, so I think I'll be trying a few of those out. I've gotten everything from quilts to jackets to angels, so there will be lots of options.

I trawled the internet looking for ideas, and here's what I uncovered:

Anybody else have ideas for repurposing old shoulder pads?

Toy Society Drop: No llores, Lorretta!

2010-05-12T00:23:00.011+10:00

I wasn't in the best frame of mind when I got home from work. So I decided to make a toy for a Toy Society Drop (#1179).

Flicking through my sketch book, I found this illustration, inspired by Llorie the bipolar cloud in the plush-o-rama book.

I didn't trace the sketch or anything, I just winged it... hence the clover-shaped hands! The cheeks & tear were an afterthought. It was therapeutic hand-stitching and stuffing the toy. And trying to do a drop-off without getting spotted is always exciting!

I left Lorretta attached to a tree outside the old bus depot markets (Canberra, Australia) around 5pm. When I passed by the tree again around 9pm she was still hanging there..!

Related post: Free toy pattern: Lorretta

Morsbag winner & discussion on plastic bags

2010-05-03T22:00:00.005+10:00

I decided to be a little silly when it came to drawing the winner for the blue/brown Morsbag (pictured above). I felt like adding a human element!

First I chose three pink pencils and and labelled them 1-3.

Then, I randomised the entrants, thus associating each one with a pencil.

Last but not least, when my sister came around I asked her to pick a pencil (without explaining why). Then I got her to answer the same question I asked the contestants.

She picked #3, so congratulations darkpurplemoon! The parcel is on the way.

Thanks to all who entered! To finish off, I'd like to discuss the answers I received to the question

What is the single biggest obstacle to your living without plastic bags?

Lack of time! I confess I use disposable nappies (for my babies - it's not a weird sort of confession), and I dispose of them in plastic bags. But I always try to remember my ecobags for the shopping! (Anna Bartlett)

It is so hard to get things without plastic when you work full time. I am investigating getting things delivered from the local organic delivery service, but I grow a lot of my veg and I don't want to get things I already have. Our local farmers market is on a wednesday and friday. Er, yeah. Thanks for that! (darkpurplemoon)

I started sewing morsbags in October 2007 and since then I've drastically reduced the use of plastic bags. The main problem for me at the moment is how to dispose garbage. Depending on the garbage sometimes it might be difficult without a plastic bag... but I'm working on it! ;o) (I bag you)

I would miss being able to wrap dodgy containers with liquid - in case they spill/condense (My sister)

I agree with Anna & I bag you that garbage always seems to involve plastic bags... wrapping certain waste, lining bins... We always decline bags and we manage to cut down on the number of bags we use by trying to avoid excess packaging & composting vegetable scraps, but we line our bins nonetheless (our plastic bag stash will run out one day...), and some things just come packaged in certain sizes... as darkpurplemoon pointed out, farmers markets can be hard to get to on a busy schedule. I also agree with my sister. I bring my lunch in a cotton bag so condensation doesn't bother me, but spills do... I keep meaning to make some nice, plastic-lined, washable lunch bags!

50 Morsbags = a giveaway!

2010-04-28T19:37:00.007+10:00

Morsbags has a fun tool you can use to visualise where pods are around the world, and how many bags they've made. Can you see Canberra up the top there, on the right? 51 bags! Since my friend made one, that means that I have made & distributed 50 bags in the last 8 months or so.

Here are some of the bags I made in my last batch (you guessed it - a rise in Uni work means a rise in crafty procrastination).

One of the things I love about using found or re-purposed fabrics is that you end up using materials that you might not have otherwise.

For instance, I found myself working with an interesting pink fabric, which I teamed with an '80s print, both salvaged from my local op-shop.

I also managed to use some leftover material from another Morsbag I made (from an old floral pillowcase) for some handles. So satisfying!

For this blue/brown number, I recycled some old brown sheets into handles to go with the cute print I found at - you guessed it - my local op-shop!

For your chance to win the blue/brown Morsbag (#50!), simply leave a comment below answering the following question:

What is the single biggest obstacle to your living without plastic bags?

Comments will close at noon on Sunday the 2nd of May (GMT+10) and a winner will be drawn at random the next day.

Send some sparks of fun through the postal system!

2010-04-01T15:46:00.003+11:00

Next time you send a letter, pause and consider the envelope.

If you haven't made the envelope yourself out of recycled pages, consider jazzing it up with a few scribbles or cut-outs... it makes receiving mail that much more fun! No doubt for the people delivering the mail as well...

These two envelopes were made for a penpal swap I hosted on swap-bot. The first was made with scrapbooking paper, and the second one is a drawn patchwork of vintage fabric.

I was inspired to start doing it more often after receiving a lovely map envelope from Communikate and many a hand-decorated envelope from bobberdilly (along with mail art & other drawings). If you have a moment, check out his blog - it is chocabloc full of amazing drawings.

In fact, this envelope was not just based on, it is pretty much a reproduction of one of the lovely pictures he sent me.

And this is an envelope I sent him... You can't tell from this scan, but the front of the envelope had just the face & the sea snail. And when you flip it over, you see that the face is attached to the body of a fish!

It's been fun, and I'm glad he's encouraged me to draw again (and not just copy other drawings & make collages). In turn, I encourage you all to decorate that next letter, or slip in a quick drawing you've done! Go forth and sending some sparks of fun through the postal system!

(Psst...If you're stuck on who to send to, or want to send out a drawing anonymously, don't forget about sendsomething.net)

A gold monocle and a seedy moustache

2010-03-29T12:04:00.002+11:00

Meet Sir Reginald Walter, the most eligible bachelor in the dotee world, created for The Bachelor Dotee swap on swap-bot. He has a seedy moustache and a gold monocle! His hankie coordinates with his stripey blue tie! He has a slick part in his full head of hair! He looks a bit like the Monopoly man! He is refined and wordly! And he brought flowers... I'm sure you can see why he drives all the dotee girls wild.

Unlike Dotee Dad USB, where I cut around the countour of the head, here I decided to have a background. I think it worked well. As an added bonus, I used up some cute scraps and a cute button I acquired from the local op-shop.

Once again, I felt compelled to have the back of the dotee mirror the front.

It took several hours to make, and I did the felt in layers. The final dimensions were: 4" tall, 2" tail, 2.5" hanger. Because of the small size, I didn't use real buttons, but instead worked the gold thread into french knots.

I sketched the dotee while having a coffee at my favourite local café. I set up a blank template & was happy enough with the first sketch to go with it. Sir Reginald Walter may have lost the walking stick, but he remained pretty true to the sketch!

Dragonfly... or coconut tree?

2010-03-21T23:16:00.011+11:00

After my unsuccessful attempt at traditional piecing for the the dancing dragonfly block, I gave paper piecing a go.

I used trusty Inkscape again, this time to lay out the pieces for each quarter block. The program allowed me to print a very precise paper-piecing template.

Sue Beever has great instructions on paper piecing in her Dancing Dragonfly Quilts book. I followed them, but noticed a few things things:

For pieces where the pattern wasn't symmetrical (so for the trapeze parts in the image above, and both "wing" sections), the mirror image of the piece was needed. So to get it to come right, I used the reverse side of the printed paper (where luckily I could still see the lines quite well).
Sue called for running paper through the sewing machine, and trimming it with a rotary cutter. I've been so good with not using my sharp tools with paper that I cringed a little as I did it. I should really keep a separate "paper needle" for the sewing machine, and get a spare blade for my Olfa rotary cutter... but I had a deadline and didn't want to take any chances, so I just gritted my teeth and went ahead with it.
The seam allowance of two joined bits of fabric both end up being on the same side. So you can't "iron the seams open" in the same way (except for the seams where I joined the four quarters of the block). Unfortunately I didn't take a picture of the back of the block... but you get the idea. I also found that it made the joined pieces sit together differently to the ironed-open seam pieces... One side is slightly raised compared to the other (the side where the seam allowance is tucked under...)

On the whole, I found this method to be very easy and accurate. I got a nice 12.5" square pumped out in a matter of hours (I was pretty pedantic, carefully ironing before adding each new piece and having to unpick a bunch of seams I wasn't happy with or that were a result of my placing the fabric the wrong way around). I can't imagine making enough blocks to make an entire quilt!

Anyway, I'm really happy with the way the block turned out, and how the colours make you hesitate... Is it a dragonfly... or a coconut tree?

I'm really looking forward to seeing what the other swap participants come up with, and of course the final quilt!

Incoming: bachelor dotee

2010-03-15T19:05:00.004+11:00

It's always a thrill to get a package in the mail. Today was no exception... in fact the thrill was doubled because this package came all the way from Belarus!

He was created for The Bachelor Dotee swap on swap-bot. I love the look on his face... and he looks like he's all set for St Patrick's day!

Doesn't he have the most dashing of hats?

Lovely quilt used in the background courtesy of Geta :)

Thank you, LoyIvir, he's a cutie.

Related post: A gold monocle and a seedy moustache (Bachelor dotee I sent)

First attempt at a quilt block: dancing dragonfly

2010-03-14T16:56:00.002+11:00

I signed up for the Cheryl Lavon Donation Swap on swap-bot. The idea is for participants to contribute quilt blocks to a quilt which will be donated to the American Cancer Association, in memory of Cheryl. I have never made a quilt block before, but that didn't stop me. Swap-bot is a wonderful excuse to try new things.

I headed to my local library, and found Sue Beever's Dancing Dragonfly Quilts on the shelf (all of the "standard" how-to books had been checked out). I was rather struck by the dragonfly motif and decided I'd give it a go.

Luckily the book has lovely piecing instructions for a beginner like me (although a "beginner like me should" probably have tried something like a traditional 9-piece block for her first go). I'm tempted to buy this book sometime in the future, there are so many lovely photos in it!

Next I headed to Lincraft to pick out some fabrics. I had only a very vague notion of things like quilt colour wheels and appropriate motif sizes. So I ended up grabbing the first four FQ of fabric in earthy tones that tickled my fancy (two green, two brown; three dark, one light) just as I was being shooed out of the shop as it was closing time.

After browsing through the book, I decided I'd try block variation #3, and that I'd give traditional piecing a shot.

Next, I played around with colours in Inkscape and I settled on this layout. I like how it kind of looks like a coconut tree! In retrospect it would have been a good idea to play with colours before buying the fabric. But I wasn't that organised.

Inkscape would be a great program for designing quilt blocks, I may do so one day. (I'm getting a bit ahead of myself here!)

Now, being an impatient newbie, I was sure to run into a few stumbling blocks along the way. First of all I was confused about the size of the block. The book had dimensions for making a 12" block, but the swap requirements said a 12½" block was needed. It took me a bit to realise that they were one and the same - depending on whether you include the ¼" seam allowance around the sides of the block in the size!

The next headache was wrapping my head around the cutting sizes for a traditionally pieced block. The author said that "seam allowances vary with the piece's shape", which confused me as I thought the seam allowance was always ¼". I eventually worked out she was talking about adding an allowance to the length of each the side of the block, not about the distance between the block's finished size and the edge you cut along.

Once I worked these measurement issues out, I decided I want to start cutting RIGHT away, even though I hadn't ironed the material (the ruler squashes it flat!), and couldn't find my rotary cutter (but I have scissors and a disappearing ink pen!). Did I mention being an impatient newbie?

I used my A4 cutting board & 14"x4½" quilting ruler to measure out the pieces and used the angles in the ruler to double-check I had cut out the pieces correctly.

However, I was so busy concentrating on this that I managed to make a different kind of mistake: I cut out three triangles instead of two triangles and two trapezoids... it's obvious that I'm thinking like someone who does layered images, not flat ones! Appliqué, much? I salvaged what I could of the fabric by cutting one of the trapezoids out of the useless triangle.

Finally, I had all my pieces cut out. I gave in and ironed them.

And then I started looking at them, and trying to figure out how they would fit together properly....

Before realising that I needed to take into account the seam allowance... which changes the measurements quite a lot for angled cuts (which I don't usually have anything to do with... I tend to deal with rectangles or curves....)

My machine doesn't seem to do a ¼" seam very easily, so I just marked the seam with my disappearing pen...

... and followed the stitch line with the groove on my sewing foot.

All finished!

Here's a shot of the back! I did as instructed and ironed each seam open before adding the next bit of fabric.

Only one problem... it turned out to be wonky & the wrong size. The seam at the bottom was the worst offender, changing by ¼" from side to side. The right-hand side seam was simply ¼" too short.

I have since trimmed it down to a near-perfect 6" square. I'll think of something to do with it...

Not to be discouraged, I'll be trying again soon, using a different method. Probably the paper-piecing one outlined in the book. And I'll be ironing all my fabrics well before-hand.

At least this was only a quarter of the finished block, so I don't feel like I've lost too much time on this one!

Another tiny dotee (made for Cheryl)
Dragonfly... or coconut tree? (Finished block)

Cycling 65km for a cause!

2010-03-10T18:00:00.016+11:00

I've lived in a few different places in Canberra, but I've always commuted by bicycle (or bus for those lazy, sick or rainy days). The photo above was from my daily commute from Cook when I used to live there. I love the signs (especially the top one). This stretch of road was always exciting for the tunnels, hairpin turns (see the mirror just before the tunnel entrance?), and dive-bombing magpies.

Canberra has a great bicycle network, with a mix of on-road cycling lanes and shared (pedestrian/cyclist) off-road paths.

This year, I'm straying from the well-beaten track (to and from Uni). I'll be tackling a nice hilly 65km ride on my trusty commuter bike, organised by the Amy Gillett foundation.

Check out the route: http://www.bikely.com/maps/bike-path/AGF-Canberra-Ride-2010-64km
Check out the hills: http://www.cyclingprofiles.com.au/HTM/Recreational/REC_AGFCAN201064.htm

If you would like to sponsor me for the ride, please visit
https://www.registernow.com.au/agf/Donate.aspx?F=292
Donations over $2 are fully tax deductible (in Australia)

All money raised will go to supporting the Amy Gillett Foundation’s road safety initiatives:

The Amy Gillett Foundation's primary objective is to reduce the incidence of injury and death caused by the interaction between cyclists and motorists. In doing so, we hope to promote a safe and harmonious relationship of shared respect between the two groups.

Regardless of whether or not you choose to donate, please keep an eye out for cyclists on the roads wherever you live!

Thanks for reading, I'll be back to the regular crafty posts soon.

Everything tastes better wrapped in puff pastry!

2010-03-07T23:01:00.001+11:00

I recently picked up Vegan Yum Yum's book after spotting it at a local book-store. That very night, I tried a creamy pasta recipe. The next night, I tried the apple strudel.

It was amazing. The recipe was simple, and the result was divine. I hadn't cooked with puff pastry in ages... The experience reminded me of the first time I tried deep fried goat's cheese. I was in heaven. Other types of cheeses were tried. For a while I was coating everything in eggs and breadcrumbs and frying it.

My boyfriend even rolled up chicken curry and rice leftovers into little balls to batter and fry. Oh yes.

The other night, I made a simple rice and veg sauce dinner. I was also craving puff pastry. So I spread out a layer of rice on a sheet of puff pastry, then a layer of sauce, rolled it up and baked it.

It was amazing, if a little funny looking. It's true... everything tastes better wrapped in puff pastry!

Padded external hard drive organiser

2010-02-23T15:24:00.002+11:00

My little sister just turned 21. She likes to write stories. She also just lost her primary USB, with data on it which she didn't have saved anywhere else (partly because she had run out of space on her laptop).

From there, the idea for her present blossomed (and then reached fruition very quickly.... ahh, deadlines!)

First of all, I bought her a 320GB external hard drive. I promptly decided that she needed a pretty case to keep it & the cable in, and a pen & pad for spontaneous writing.... I was happy to finally have a project to use my Little Red Riding Hood FQ from Kokka.

I was inspired by all the handy organising rolls I had seen floating around. Here are some links to such tutorials, in no particular order, in case you want to make your own:

I didn't end up using any of them in particular... I just winged it. First of all I played around with some fabric & pins, sketching possible layouts at the same time.

I decided I wanted the hard drive & accessories to sit neatly in a row, whereas I wanted the book to be able to be opened without needing to take it out. I guesstimated some dimensions for all the pieces I'd need.

As I would only have one shot at the cutting & assembling, I took the unprecedented step (for me!) of testing my pattern with some scrap material first (in this case an old sheet). I cut and pinned and uhmed and ahhed and finally adjusted the final pattern piece sizes.

As you can see, I decided to have a huge top flap to stop the hard drive from falling out. I also decided to sew in a layer of bamboo batting to protect it a little bit form bumps and scratches.

My original design had a thin strip of fabric running through the spirals of the book and clipping at the top - this would stop the book from moving around too much. In the end though, the pocket was tight enough that it wasn't necessary.

I had planned to have the roll close using a pair of cute wooden buttons. Two disastrous button-hole attempts later, and I gave up on that idea. Hello, velcro!

Luckily I'd made the closing strap extra long, and I simply trimmed it back after each attempt, folded under the new raw edge and sewed it shut again. Velcro is far easier to use anyway... though it's not as pretty having the extra sew line for it showing on the strap.

Also, sewing the second piece of velcro onto the main part (behind the pocket where the external drive is) was pretty difficult as I'd already sewn everything up. It had to be done mostly by hand.

My sister loved it, and I wouldn't mind having something similar myself. Why is my hard drive roaming around somewhere, getting scratched & losing its cable? Why don't I ever make things for myself? I seem to get most creative when creating for others. And now that I've "done" the external drive case, I'm sure I'll be looking to try something new for my next project....

Elegant Morsbag

2010-02-22T15:24:00.004+11:00

I know I have been posting rather a lot of Morsbags recently, but I just wanted to share this one. It was a gift for a friend's birthday.

For some reason, the fabric & colours remind me of the sort of charming photos that appear on Tiny Happy (or so I'd like to think - check out the link if you haven't already, it's very inspiring).

The fabric is lovely and mildly stretchy. My sister brought it back from Nepal, along with a bunch of other off-cuts left over from clothes she had made for her over there.

Happy Valentine's day to 15 strangers

2010-02-14T11:00:00.005+11:00

The Morsbags crew coordinated a mass handout for Valentine's day. I decided to participate, seeing it as a good excuse to put a dent into the pile fabric I've been acquiring from the local op-shop. And I work so much better to deadlines!

I churned out a whopping 15 bags, which I posted into random letterboxes around my area late last night with a little note saying "Happy Valentine's day" & explaining what Morsbags are. Admittedly, the plan is flawed... who checks their mail on a Sunday?

Here are the bags, neatly stacked up on my desk... which is looking deceptively clean! Note my new pincushion from Ivory Blush Roses & lovely painting from DeadpanAlley... yay!

I spend a lot of time at this desk, with Uni work spread out everywhere one day, and then my trusty sewing machine out the next. As you can imagine, I spend a lot of time unpacking things and packing them back up. I look forward to the day when I might have a dedicated sliver of space for arty crafty activities!

So does my housemate, I'm sure, as from time to time our living room becomes an extension of my workshop. (Note the lovely retro red pincushion I bought from Ginpins...)

Most of the bags I made were from old pillow cases, but I made a few more from tea-towels.

I ended up making another bag from a horse tea towel, extending it with the same fabric I used for Eugene's body! The handles were sourced from a pillowcase.

The other tea-towel bag features Australian wattle and is "extended" at the top rather than the bottom. This one will actually be sent to someone overseas (via sendsomething) rather than put into a local letterbox.

I wish you all a lovely Sunday, whatever you have planned!

Magazine Collage ATCs

2010-02-11T16:48:00.003+11:00

Hot on the heels of my junk mail collages, I participated in a Magazine Collage ATC Swap over on swap-bot.

I spent a while poring over old Frankie Magazines to find inspiration, which wasn't hard because it's full of cute and quirky backgrounds, drawings, photos & articles :)

The process went something like this:

Rip out magazine pages with interesting pics
Carefully cut out around individual pics with an exacto knife & cut out various background prints
Spend an hour or so rearranging all the little pieces around on a blank ATC until happy with the arangement
Desperately try and glue all the pieces down whilst keeping them in place
Look at all the bits and pieces which didn't make the cut... and repeat steps 3&4

As you can see in the pics above, I actually cut out an ATC-sized piece from the magazine's cover to use as the 'blank' canvas.

And we all know I'm a sucker for coordination, so the card & envelope also had to be made from Frankie magazine cut-outs!

Related post: Tutorial: envelopes from recycled paper

Pin cushion from Ivory Blush Roses

2010-02-08T20:52:00.004+11:00

JenMeister

In memory of Ian

Christmas in New Zealand

Intricate stencil work

My creative space

Australian native flower-press

Stencilled morsbags using the handle in the design

Toy Society Drop: No llores, Lorretta #2 (with added lightning!)

Free toy pattern: Lorretta

Leather book sleeve

Jumping on the breadwagon

Reversible cycling cap

Bearded man ATC

Stamp carving with Brown Owls

Vegan snickerdoodles

Constance bunny from tollipop

The envelope project

Cute as a button.... cuff-link!

Birds and bears on bags, oh my!

Modified hand-me-down

1950s Cheerleading costume

How now, brown... sheet!

Update on the Cheryl Lavon Memorial Quilt

365 days. 365 items of clothing. 365 dollars.

Toy Society Drop: No llores, Lorretta!

Morsbag winner & discussion on plastic bags

50 Morsbags = a giveaway!

Send some sparks of fun through the postal system!

A gold monocle and a seedy moustache

Dragonfly... or coconut tree?

Incoming: bachelor dotee

First attempt at a quilt block: dancing dragonfly

Cycling 65km for a cause!

Everything tastes better wrapped in puff pastry!

Padded external hard drive organiser

Elegant Morsbag

Happy Valentine's day to 15 strangers

Magazine Collage ATCs

Pin cushion from Ivory Blush Roses

Dhal with a twist

Red lemur bag!

Toy Society Drop: Zing the polite cat

Junk mail collages

Anatomy of a veggie Christmas

A zebra and some boats

Vegan truffles

Christmas Dotees

The Cunning Cupcake Caper

Morsbags from tea towels

The dreadlocks are finished

Eugene wants a hug!

My local op-shop and recycling resources in Australia

Udderly lovely cow for Mirabel

Crafting with... hair?

Cathy Cullis: September

Shiny Happy Art

Modified buttercup bag

Curious Little Oyster pout balm

English paper piecing with the Brown Owls

Rotary cutter madness

New padded shoulder strap for the tea towel tote

Recycling old pillowcases into Morsbags

From tea towel to tote!

Morsbags

Knee-deep in zippers

Geta's Shadow Trapunto Quilt

Matching zipper pouch and pocket tissue holder

From "singlet style" to "reversible" tote bag

Freezer paper stencils with Brown Owls

Roast pumpkin, spinach and fetta lasagna

Felt monkey phone case

Shopping bag keep-safe

Wool felt camel from Sew Soft Toys

Tutorial: envelopes from recycled paper

Toy Society Drop: Greggles

Giving old drawer bottoms new life with potato stamps

Matryoshka nesting dolls (squeebles!)

Victorian Bushfire Appeal

Sheep dotee

Dotee Dad USB